USA
»	Book Review: The Islamophobia Industry
»	Broward Schools Being Asked to Close on 2 Muslim Holidays
»	Diversity May be Fatal, Says New Government Health Study
»	Facebook Censors Navy Seals to Protect Obama on Benghazi-Gate
»	Jon Snow: Did America Bring This on Itself?
»	Muslims and the Republican Vote
	Europe and the EU
»	Are Europe’s Ash Trees Finished?
»	France: Yasser Arafat’s Body to be Exhumed After Eight Years as His Wife Calls for Murder Investigation
»	Hungary ‘To Offer Wealthy Foreigners Citizenship in Return for Investment’
»	Italian Senate Debates Outlawing Negationism on Anniversary of WWII Roman Deportations
»	Sweden: Woman Admits to Killing Her Infant With Koran
»	Traces of Explosives Found on Wreckage of Jet That Crashed in Russia Two Years Ago, Killing Polish President
»	UK: Blind Woman Dumped Miles From Home by Cabbie Who ‘Laughed at Her Because She Couldn’t Make Out Any Local Landmarks’
»	UK: Footballer Was Kicked to Floor in Post-City Central League Match Gang Attack in Gorton
»	UK: Islamophobia Awareness Month — Launch Nov 2
»	UK: Killer Who Kicked Random Victim to Death Checked His Pulse to See if He Was Still Alive Before Finishing Him Off
»	UK: Millfield Mosque Opponents Call for Peace
»	UK: Only a Free Market in Religion Will Save Anglicanism
»	UK: Shocking Moment Pram-Pushing Mother, 26, Repeatedly Stamps on Innocent Man’s Head in Racist Attack in Front of Her Two Children
»	UK: Ten Years Too Late, It’s Good Riddance to Wind Farms — One of the Most Dangerous Delusions of Our Age
»	UK: Woman Sexually Assaulted by Teenage Boy in Rochdale Subway
	Balkans
»	Bosnia: Veiled Muslim Mayor ‘Amra Babic’ A First for Bosnia, Possibly Europe
	North Africa
»	One Dead in Tunisia Clashes Between Police, Militants
	South Asia
»	Australian Troops Face Probes Into Civilian Killings in Afghanistan
»	India: New Minority Minister Favours Quota for Backward Muslims
»	Two British Soldiers Shot Dead in Afghanistan
	Far East
»	China Thinktank Urges End of One-Child Policy
	Australia — Pacific
»	All Australian Schoolchildren Will be Made to Learn Asian Languages to Take Advantage of Region’s Economic Boom
»	Muslims Are in Grave Strife
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Israel “Far Worse Than Apartheid South Africa” Says ANC Chair as Pretoria Conference Backs Boycott
	Latin America
»	Hezbollah Presence Growing in Mexico
	Culture Wars
»	Rome Provincial Council Calls to Ban Websites Promoting Jew Hatred
	General
»	Christians Persecuted Throughout the World

Book Review: The Islamophobia Industry

Book Review: The Islamophobia Industry, How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims (Nathan Lean)

by Alex Kane

Ahmed Sharif was a 44-year-old Muslim Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York City. It was August 24, 2010, a time that marked the height of vitriolic protests against a planned Islamic center to be located in lower Manhattan, a few blocks away from the site of Ground Zero. Sharif picked up 21-year-old Michael Enright for an early evening ride. Everything was going smoothly until Enright, three blocks away from his stop, yelled at Sharif, “this is a checkpoint, *************, and I have to bring you down.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Broward Schools Being Asked to Close on 2 Muslim Holidays

Broward County public schools are being asked to close for two Islamic holidays a year under a controversial proposal before the district’s Diversity Committee.

The request, from the Florida chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, would make Broward the first in Florida and one of only a few districts in the country to add Muslim holidays into its calendar. Broward and Palm Beach County schools generally close on major Christian and Jewish holidays.

The Islamic holidays requested, which fall on different days depending on the year, are Eid al-Fitr — the end of Ramadan — and Eid-al Adha, which marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

“This is about inclusive diversity, and the Muslim community has too long been excluded,” said Roland Foulkes, chairman of the Diversity Committee, which will debate the proposal tonight. “This is long overdue, and we need to move beyond the lip service of diversity in the community and reflect the full diversity of everyone.”

But some school district officials worry it could open the floodgates for more requests, as well as complaints from groups with anti-Islamic views. Religious freedom experts also say the district could be in legal trouble if it closes school for the sole purpose to allow students to celebrate a religious holiday.

CAIR Florida this week urged its parents to show up at tonight’s meeting, set for 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the K..C. Wright administrative building, 600 SE Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale. The advisory committee would then decide whether to recommend it to the School Board, which makes the final decision. Foulkes said he will personally recommend it to the School Board, even if the committee votes it down.

Ghazala Salam, community relations director for CAIR Florida, said the group is starting its push with Broward County because that’s where it’s based. Palm Beach County schools have received no similar requests, district spokesman Nat Harrington said.

Opponents also plan to attend Thursday’s meeting, including members of the Tea Party of Fort Lauderdale.

“It’s another step toward the Islamization of our children,” group founder Danita Kilcullen said. “This is a Judeo-Christian nation.”

Superintendent Robert Runcie, who hadn’t seen the request, said the district tries to be sensitive and respectful to the needs of different groups. State law already requires students be able to take off religious holidays without penalty.

“We make accommodations, but we may not be able to close the district,” Runcie said. “If we do that for everybody and every cause out there, even though they’re all valid, we would literally have a problem squeezing in the number of instructional days we need.”

The traditional school year is 180 days, although the state gives some wiggle room, depending on how many hours are in each school day.

While the district counts religious holidays as excused absences, Muslim parents say individual teachers and administrators aren’t always sensitive to families’ needs.

“There may be test schedules. Sometimes FCAT falls in the time of the religious holidays,” Salam said. “So it really puts a lot of stress on students. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Do they stay out for the religious holiday if they have an exam or a new lesson?”

The Ramadan holiday, Eid al-Fitr, falls during the summer break until at least 2019. Eid-al-Adha was celebrated last Friday and coincidentally was on the same day as a teacher workday in Broward and a hurricane day in Palm Beach County. It will be Oct. 16 next year.

“We have a large community of Muslims, and if there is a feeling that they should have the same options as other religious groups, we should give them an ear and support that,” Foulkes said.

School districts don’t track students by religious affiliation. Salam said parent surveys have indicated there about 15,000 to 18,000 Muslim children in Broward County schools — about 6 to 7 percent of the student population. She didn’t have estimates for Palm Beach County. CAIR estimates the Islamic population in the three large South Florida counties at more than 100,000.

David Barkey, religious freedom counsel with the Florida chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said the reason for closing schools must be secular, not religious.

“If it’s going to be disruptive logistically because a significant number of students and teachers are going to be absent, you can close,” Barkey said.

So, it make sense that the school system in Dearborn, Mich., where a third of the population is Muslim, closes for Islamic holidays, Barkey said. Cambridge, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and Barrington, R.I., have also added Muslim holidays to their calendars in recent years.

Barkey said he was unaware of any specific threshold needed to justify closing.

In Florida, the Hillsborough County School District dropped all religious holidays from its calendar after its effort to include Muslim holidays resulted in a firestorm of complaints. This year’s calendar lists Good Friday as a teacher work day, while the Jewish holidays are regular school days.

Broward School Board Chairwoman Ann Murray said she would have no problem honoring the request for the Muslim holidays.

“At one time Jewish holidays weren’t recognized. Then we recognized Martin Luther King because of an interest in the community. I keep pushing for St. Patrick’s Day, but no one’s paying attention to me,” she said. “When we have an interest in the community, we should respect their holidays as we respect the others.”

— Hat tip: ST

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Diversity May be Fatal, Says New Government Health Study

Diversity may be killing older African-Americans and Hispanics, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in the America Journal of Public Health, which shows that people suffer less cancer and heart disease when they live among their racial or ethnic peers.

“Living in an ethnically dense neighborhood is beneficial when it comes to heart disease and cancer,” said Kimberly Alvarez, a co-author of the new study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Alvarez’s phrase, “ethnically dense,” describes a community in which at least 50 percent of people are from the same ethnic group.

Many progressive groups advocate the use of government to increase diversity in housing, education, health care and other sectors.

Alvarez’s study reviewed the health records of 2,367 Mexican-Americans and 2,790 African-Americans older than 65, and concluded they lived longer if they inhabited a community mostly populated by their group.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Facebook Censors Navy Seals to Protect Obama on Benghazi-Gate

Over the weekend, Facebook took down a message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) which highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

I spoke with Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc — the media company that handles SOS postings and media production. Ward was the one who personally put the Navy SEAL meme up, and the one who received the warning from Facebook and an eventual 24 hour suspension from Facebook because Ward put the meme back up after Facebook told him to take it down.

Here’s what Ward told me:…

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Jon Snow: Did America Bring This on Itself?

by Brendan O’Neill

Jon Snow might be the permanently right-on deliverer of news to the liberal set, but yesterday he veered into Christian fundamentalist territory by suggesting that it’s possible America brought Hurricane Sandy upon itself. He mused: “Has what is still the most energy-consuming country in the world brought this on itself to any extent? Is America — responsible for 25 per cent of all global carbon emissions, where the mother and father of the biggest vehicles are standard public usage — suffering from the effects of climate change to which she, and we, have contributed?”

Here, Snow is putting himself in the same company as Christian televangelist Pat Robertson (who wondered if Hurricane Katrina was God’s payback for America’s liberal abortion policy) and Christian preacher John McTernan (who suggested Hurricane Sandy was God’s punishment of America for its permissive attitude towards homosexuality). The only difference is that Snow is asking if Mother Nature, rather than God, is punishing America, and if she is doing so because America is too big and industrious and greedy (all those people driving around in the “biggest vehicles”) rather than because it has loads of gays. Yet the implication of his musings is the same as Pat Robertson’s over Katrina: America, being morally rotten, had it coming.

— Hat tip: JP

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Muslims and the Republican Vote

by Shiraz Maher

Will American Muslims swing the US Presidential election? It seems highly unlikely, if not improbable, but that’s the line being pushed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a not uncontroversial lobby group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. A poll released by the group last week found that 68 per cent of American Muslims intend to vote for Obama. By contrast, only 7 per cent are committed to voting for Romney in next week’s election. That represents more than treble the number who voted for McCain in 2008 (when just 2.2 per cent of Muslims voted Republican) while the Democrat share of Muslim votes is down from just under 90 per cent in 2008…

— Hat tip: JP

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Are Europe’s Ash Trees Finished?

A fungus deadly to ash trees has just reached Britain and Ireland, after emerging 20 years ago in Poland. Already it has devastated ash trees in mainland Europe, sweeping through more than 20 countries powerless to prevent its spread.

How did this fungus develop? And what, if anything, can be done to stop it in countries like the UK, where ashes account for around a fifth of all trees? By the sound of it, the outlook is not good. New Scientist investigates.

Just how many ash trees have been killed?

Although there are no official figures, ash trees have effectively been wiped out in Poland, where the disease first made its appearance in 1992. In Lithuania, 99 per cent of the ashes are gone; in Denmark, 90 per cent. Elsewhere, the impact has been mixed, with some but not all ashes succumbing.

Can it be stopped?

Apparently not. Most countries where it has taken hold simply gave up. Part of the problem is that the fungus does not spread from infected trees themselves, but from infected leaves shed in the autumn. The fungus grows on the leaves and leaf stalks as they decay, then produces copious spores in summer which spread to uninfected ash trees, completing the life cycle.

“There’s very little you can do,” says Ottmar Holdenrieder of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who in 2010 helped uncover the fungus’s complete life cycle. “It’s a waste of time to chop down trees.” The infective material is all on the forest floor and cannot be removed or eradicated with fungicides without destroying countless other forms of forest life.

“My gut feeling is that the whole of Europe will have to live with the disease in the long term,” says Holdenrieder. “Ash tree populations will be reduced to less than 10 per cent what they were originally.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France: Yasser Arafat’s Body to be Exhumed After Eight Years as His Wife Calls for Murder Investigation

French officials will exhume former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s remains next month in a bid to discover if he was murdered.

A team of medical and forensic experts will arrive in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 24 to carry out the gruesome operation.

The exhumation comes after Arafat’s widow Suha asked judges in France this summer to launch a murder probe into her husband’s death.

— Hat tip: JD

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Hungary ‘To Offer Wealthy Foreigners Citizenship in Return for Investment’

Hungary is planning to offer citizenship to any foreigner who buys at least £200,000 of its government’s bonds.

Legislation would grant residency and ultimately a Hungarian passport… allowing the holder to live and work anywhere in the European Union.

The move, backed by the ruling party, is aimed at wealthy investors, especially from China.

— Hat tip: JD

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Italian Senate Debates Outlawing Negationism on Anniversary of WWII Roman Deportations

ROME (EJP) —- An Italian Senate Committee debated modifying the law on Holocaust negationism to enable the courts to imprison anyone found guilty of denying the Holocaust to up to three years in jail.

The debate coincided with the 59th anniversary of the rounding up of Rome’s Jewish community, and was witnessed by representatives of Rome’s Jewish community, including Riccardo Pacifici, President of the Hebrew Congregation of Rome and Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni.

Proposing the bill, Senator Silvana Amati declared herself “excited and satisfied” at the initiative which has attracted support from across the political spectrum. Fellow senator Lucio Malan added that Holocaust denial is not only a crime of opinions, but also has the potential to promote incitement. Senate President Renato Schifani said that legislation of this kind was essential in defending the memory and reality of the Holocaust, at a time when many survivors are no longer around to tell their accounts.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Sweden: Woman Admits to Killing Her Infant With Koran

A woman who confessed to suffocating her 5-month-old child with the family’s copy of the Koran is on trial in western Sweden, with her defense team arguing she had a psychotic breakdown, possibly due to postpartum depression.

“I didn’t want to kill him, I wanted to save him,” the 28-year-old woman said during a hearing on Tuesday at the Halmstad District Court, according to the Aftonbladet newspaper.

The incident occurred in late July, when the woman met her husband at his workplace, where she told him she wasn’t feeling well.

“I told her that we couldn’t speak there, and that we could discuss it at home,” the husband said in court, according to the Expressen paper.

“At the same time, I suggested she could read passages from the Koran for support, as we’re both Muslims.”

However, when he arrived home the father found his child dead with 39 wounds to its body, the majority of which were caused by the holy book.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Traces of Explosives Found on Wreckage of Jet That Crashed in Russia Two Years Ago, Killing Polish President

Polish investigators have found traces of explosives on the wreckage of a government jet that crashed in Russia two years ago, killing Poland’s president and 95 others, Polish media claimed today.

Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper said prosecutors and explosive experts who examined the remains of the plane in Russia found signs of TNT and nitroglycerin on the wings and in the cabin, including on 30 seats.

Traces of explosives were also found in the area where the Tu-154 crashed during its approach to a small airport near the Russian city of Smolensk on April 10, 2010, the daily reported.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Blind Woman Dumped Miles From Home by Cabbie Who ‘Laughed at Her Because She Couldn’t Make Out Any Local Landmarks’

She told reporters; “He was really abusive — he was making fun and mocking me.

“He said ‘you should be able to point things out, you should know where you are — it is your fault you can’t see’.

“Then he dumped me by a petrol station in Downham instead of Bromley — it was very frightening.”

Michael Ellis, speaking for Sure Cars, says the incident was a misunderstanding and that Miss Medgett had been reimbursed for the trip.

Mr Ellis added: “The whole situation has been resolved satisfactorily. “Miscommunication is the only conclusion that can be drawn.

“There are three sides to every story, her story, the driver’s story and the truth.”

He went on to say the driver was satisfied that he had dropped Ms Medgett at the correct destination and speculated that ‘language barrier issues’ may have been at the root of the misunderstanding.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Footballer Was Kicked to Floor in Post-City Central League Match Gang Attack in Gorton

A footballer’s claims he was headbutted to the floor and kicked and punched by opponents following a match have sparked a police investigation.

The 23-year-old was savagely attacked in a school car park after the six-a-side clash in the City Central League — set up to make the sport more inclusive for those from ethnic minorities and troubled backgrounds.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Islamophobia Awareness Month — Launch Nov 2

Islamophobia awareness month launch, with Imran Kahn, Steve Hart, Myriam François-Cerrah, Luthfur Rahman, Sahar Alfaifi, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Lindsey German, Sabby Dhalu, Dr Daud Abdullah, Dr Fasal Hanjra, and Hamja Ahsan.

Friday 2 November 2012 — 6pm

London Muslim Center

46-92 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1JX

Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred is reaching worrying heights in Britain and across Europe. This ugly phenomena gained currency in part due to the popular thesis developed by Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington that argued about an impending clash of civilisations between Islam and the West. Today, racists and fascists groups like the English Defence League are pushing this thesis of hatred, creating a climate of fear and suspicion against Muslims. Islamophobic prejudice is prevalent in the mainstream; on display in political life, in the media and in the attitudes of the police and the courts.

To deconstruct and challenge some of the stereotypes about Islam and Muslims, prominent British organisations and campaigners are launching the Islamophobia Awareness Month (I AM), to take place throughout November 2012. The month-long campaign will see activities and projects throughout the UK and Europe.

For further details please visit the Islamophobia awareness month Facebook page.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Killer Who Kicked Random Victim to Death Checked His Pulse to See if He Was Still Alive Before Finishing Him Off

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A killer who stopped to take the pulse of his victim before kicking him to death, has been jailed for life.

Gavin Mills, 26, stopped to check if unconscious Jerzy Dubiniec, 60, was still alive then continued his frenzied attack.

Hard-working grandfather Mr Dubiniec was kicked so hard he had shoe marks all over his clothes and chest.

A court heard Mills was high on cocaine and alcohol when he carried out the random attack on baker Mr Dubiniec who was on his way home from work.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Millfield Mosque Opponents Call for Peace

Residents opposed to a mosque in Sunderland have accused far right groups and counter-demonstrators of bringing violence into their area.

Earlier this month, police arrested 13 people when the English Defence League and anti-facist groups clashed at the site in St Mark’s Road in Millfield. The Northern Patriotic Front is planning a rally on 17 November saying it wants to give locals a “voice”. But residents said the protest rallies were bringing fear to the area…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Only a Free Market in Religion Will Save Anglicanism

by Ed West

As Rowan Williams retires as Archbishop of Canterbury Martin Bashir in the Mail pays tribute to his work:

His has been a miserable tenure marked by the sharpest theological divisions within the worldwide Anglican Church, the deepest entrenchment and animosity between evangelical and liberal clergy and, worst of all, the most foggy and frustrating presentation of the Christian faith we’ve probably ever heard from such a senior cleric.

While acknowledging it’s a difficult job, Bashir criticises Dr Williams for failing to articulate the case for marriage, for getting too involved in politics, and for wanting to discuss anything but Christianity. Rowan has had his moments, but I can guarantee that in 10 years’ time, when the next poor man to take this position retires, a similar article will appear saying what a terrible job he’s done and how he’s failed to keep the whole mess together. In the meantime Dr Williams, like George Carey, may well start making sense and speaking up as a genuine Christian leader.

The problem with the Church of England is not just that it’s a broad church, encompassing some very, very liberal Christians and some very, very conservative ones, or that it’s led by people so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. Its real problem is establishment, which makes it less the nation’s conscience and more a dinosaur national industry, kept dysfunctional by state subsidies…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Shocking Moment Pram-Pushing Mother, 26, Repeatedly Stamps on Innocent Man’s Head in Racist Attack in Front of Her Two Children

[WARNING: Disturbing content.]

This is the shocking moment a drunk mother stamped on a stranger’s head in front of her two children as she launched a racist attack.

Amanda Lowe, 26, was caught on CCTV as she assaulted Khuram Nisar after calling him a ‘f****** Paki’ and ‘terrorist’.

But despite the shocking violence, she walked free from Manchester Crown Court on Friday.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Ten Years Too Late, It’s Good Riddance to Wind Farms — One of the Most Dangerous Delusions of Our Age

The significance of yesterday’s shock announcement by our Energy Minister John Hayes that the Government plans to put a firm limit on the building of any more onshore windfarms is hard to exaggerate.

On the face of it, this promises to be the beginning of an end to one of the greatest and most dangerous political delusions of our time.

For years now, the plan to cover hundreds of square miles of the British countryside with ever more wind turbines has been the centrepiece of Britain’s energy policy — and one supported by all three major political parties.

[…]

What made this even more piquant was the fact that Mr Hayes chose to drop this bombshell just hours before attending a conference in Glasgow staged by RenewableUK, the professional lobby group for Britain’s wind industry.

These are the very people who for years have been making fortunes out of the greatest public subsidy bonanza of modern times. Now Mr Hayes is to stop their gravy train in its tracks.

It will give them the biggest shock of their professional lives.

[…]

Indeed, the amount of power they generate is so derisory that, even now, when we have built 3,500 turbines, the average amount of power we get from all of them combined is no more than what we get from a single medium-size, gas-fired power station, built at only fraction of the cost.

[…]

The only way the industry managed to fool politicians into accepting this crazy deal was by subterfuge — referring to turbines only in terms of their ‘capacity’ (i.e. what they could produce if the wind was blowing at optimum speeds 24 hours of every day). The truth is that their average actual output is barely a quarter of that figure.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Woman Sexually Assaulted by Teenage Boy in Rochdale Subway

A woman was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy in a Rochdale subway after being followed from the bus station.

The victim, 21, entered the subway at Manchester Road, which lead to a nearby Asda supermarket at about 11.20pm on Thursday October 25.

While in the subway the offender, believed to be a teenage boy, approached the woman and sexually assaulted her

The victim fought with her attacker and managed to kick him causing him to run off.

He is described as an Asian teenager, possibly as young as 14, about 5ft 2in tall, of medium to small build and wearing dark clothing.

Detective Constable Russ Clarke said: “This was a horrific and violent attack which has left the victim feeling badly shaken up.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Bosnia: Veiled Muslim Mayor ‘Amra Babic’ A First for Bosnia, Possibly Europe

Bosnia’s first veiled mayor began her duties this week, after an election which saw her becoming the first hijab-clad mayor in the country, and possibly in Europe. Amra Babic, who served as a regional finance minister before running for mayor, will now run the Bosnian town of Visoko, in an electoral win she describes as a “victory of tolerance” amid government debates elsewhere in Europe over laws to ban the Muslim veil. “It’s a victory of tolerance,” Babic, a wartime widow told the Associated Press last week. “We have sent a message out from Visoko. A message of tolerance, democracy and equality.”

[…]

[JP note: More a warning than a message: Islam on the move.]

— Hat tip: JP

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One Dead in Tunisia Clashes Between Police, Militants

TUNIS (Reuters) — One person was killed when police opened fire during clashes with hardline Salafi Muslims in the Tunisian capital Tunis on Tuesday,â€(r)â€(r) ‬‬a security source said in the latest sign of religious tensions in the home of the “Arab Spring”. “One Salafi was killed after security forces fired when Salafists attacked a police station,” a security source said…

— Hat tip: JP

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Australian Troops Face Probes Into Civilian Killings in Afghanistan

AUSTRALIAN special forces in Afghanistan are under investigation for killing two civilians they say were actually combatants playing an active role in hostilities against them.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said these were allegations only and did not automatically imply any wrongdoing by Australian troops. Updating parliament on the Afghanistan mission, he said the Australian Defence Force (ADF) received allegations about security operations from local non-government organisations, tribal elders and Afghan security forces.

Such allegations are first examined to assess whether they related to Australian activities. Some don’t. If they do, defence may then conduct an internal inquiry. Mr Smith said the ADF had received 21 allegations this year, with Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Ash Power concluding that in 11 cases, Australian troops appropriately applied rules of engagement. Four remain under initial consideration…

— Hat tip: JP

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India: New Minority Minister Favours Quota for Backward Muslims

New Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan strongly favours reservation for backward Muslims as well as for Dalits among Christians and Muslims notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s observation on the sub-quota issue. The minister also intends to carry forward reforms in the administration of Wakfs across the country and bring a revised bill for this in the Winter Session of Parliament…

— Hat tip: JP

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Two British Soldiers Shot Dead in Afghanistan

Two British soldiers have been shot dead at a checkpoint in Afghanistan by a man wearing a local police uniform, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The soldiers were both from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles. They were killed in Nahr-e Saraj in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Tuesday. Their families have been informed. At least 11 of the 43 British dead in Afghanistan this year have been killed by Afghans they served alongside. This compares to one in 2011, three in 2010 and five in 2009…

— Hat tip: JP

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China Thinktank Urges End of One-Child Policy

Foundation close to central leadership urges end to birth limits policy across China by 2015, with experts saying reform is ‘inevitable’

A Chinese government thinktank is urging the country’s leaders to start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.

Some demographers view the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation as a bold move by a body close to the central leadership. Others warn that the gradual approach, if implemented, would still be insufficient to help correct the problems that China’s strict birth limits have created.

Xie Meng, a press affairs official with the foundation, said the final version of the report would be released “in a week or two”. But Chinese state media have been given advance copies. The official Xinhua News Agency said the foundation recommends a two-child policy in some provinces from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It proposes all birth limits be dropped by 2020, Xinhua reported.

“China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth,” Xinhua said, citing the report.

But it remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take up the recommendations. China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission had no immediate comment on the report on Tuesday.

Known to many as the one-child policy, China’s actual rules are more complicated. The government limits most urban couples to one child, and allows two children for rural families if their first-born is a girl. There are numerous other exceptions as well, including looser rules for minority families and a two-child limit for parents who are themselves both singletons.

Cai Yong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said the report holds extra weight because the thinktank is under the State Council, China’s cabinet. He said he found it remarkable that state-backed demographers were willing to publicly propose such a detailed schedule and plan on how to get rid of China’s birth limits.

“That tells us at least that policy change is inevitable, it’s coming,” said Cai, who was not involved in the drafting of the report but knows many of the experts who were. Cai is currently a visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. “It’s coming, but we cannot predict when exactly it will come.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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All Australian Schoolchildren Will be Made to Learn Asian Languages to Take Advantage of Region’s Economic Boom

All Australian children will learn an Asian language after Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched a visionary plan to help the country exploit the region’s ‘unstoppable’ economic growth.

In a move to ensure Australia are prepared for the ‘Asian Century’, Ms Gillard wants to improve links with the continent by committing to 25 ambitious goals over the next 13 years.

All schoolchildren in the country will choose one of four ‘priority’ languages to learn at school — Indonesian, Japanese, Hindi and Chinese.

— Hat tip: JD

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Muslims Are in Grave Strife

FACING overcrowded public graveyards and expensive burial plots, Sydney’s Muslim community has launched a search for its own cemetery.

An Islamic funeral service in Mt Druitt that provides low-cost burials for Muslims is looking to buy up to 16ha in the city’s west. Shahzeb Janaaza Services says a shortage of plots and high charges mean poor Muslims are being squeezed out of Rookwood and Riverstone cemeteries. “Riverstone only has about two months left and Rookwood up to five months,” funeral director Osman Iqbal said. “There are 450 Muslims passing away every year in NSW and not every family can afford private, expensive funeral services. Regardless, there needs to be respect for the dead.”Islam requires bodies to be ritually washed, shrouded and buried without caskets within 24 hours of death.Shahzeb has launched an appeal to raise money from the community for the cemetery project and has a target of $4 million…

— Hat tip: JP

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Israel “Far Worse Than Apartheid South Africa” Says ANC Chair as Pretoria Conference Backs Boycott

Activists in South Africa have welcomed a decision by the African National Congress (ANC) International Solidarity Conference to support the Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

The ANC, South Africa’s ruling party, led the decades-long struggle against apartheid.

BDS South Africa said in a press release distributed via email:

There was widespread support from international delegates for the adoption and support of the Palestinian BDS call. However, there was one objection from a delegate from Germany who argued that Israel cannot be compared to Apartheid South Africa and thus an all-out boycott of Israel is “ill-informed.” The ANC Chairperson, Baleka Mbete, strongly responded saying that she has been to Palestine herself and that the Israeli regime is not only comparable but “far worse than Apartheid South Africa.” Ms Mbete received a resounding round of applause from delegates for articulating this position.

Mbete, the National Chairperson of the ANC, was Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa from 2008-2009 and is a former Speaker of the National Assembly.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Hezbollah Presence Growing in Mexico

North Carolina Representative Sue Myrick (R) has been very vocal in warning of a Hezbollah presence in Mexico, and in urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to step up surveillance of terrorists there. She joins a host of concerned Americans who are worried about the porosity of the nation’s southern border — and continually cautions that border issues aren’t just about immigrants seeking a better life, but about easy access that terrorists have to America.

In June, 2010, she penned a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano requesting the establishment of a task force to “engage US and Mexican law enforcement and border patrol officials about Hezbollah’s presence, activities and connection to gangs and drug cartels.”

Indeed, a year later, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, in October, 2011, released a report concluding that Hezbollah “is using the Western Hemisphere as a staging ground, fundraising center, and operation base to wage asymmetric warfare against the United States.” Entitled The Mounting Hezbollah Threat in Latin America,the report also pointed out that “evidence indicates Hezbollah is sharing its terrorist experiences and techniques with Mexican drug cartels along the US border.”

And just two weeks ago, Mansour Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen holding both Iranian and U.S. passports, pled guilty in New York for plotting to pay a Los Zetas cartel (also a DEA informant) hitman to assassinate a Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. Fox News reported, “‘A little more than a year after his arrest, Mansour Arbabsiar has admitted to his role in a deadly plot approved by members of the Iranian military to assassinate a sitting foreign ambassador on U.S. soil,’ Attorney General Eric Holder said in a press release.”

Fox News also reported that in the fall of 2010 the Tucson Police Department cited the arrest of Jameel Nasar, who attempted to establish a Hezbollah network in Mexico and in South America. And during the previous year — after Jamal Yousef was arrested in New York City — it was learned that weapons stolen from Iran by Yousef’s cousin, an alleged Hezbollah member, were stored in Mexico.

But even after Myrick’s letter to Napolitano, the Secretary said there was no need for a task force, as current intelligence resources were adequate. Napolitano also claimed in 2011 that, “The border is better now than it has ever been.”

However, Borderland Beat reported on September 10, 2012 of the arrest of a suspected American Hezbollah supporter in Merida, in the Yucatan peninsula. Rafic Mohammad Labboun Allaboun is an imam from the Shiite Association Bay Area mosque in San Jose, California, and was arrested with two others, from Belize, suspected of being part of an Islamic terror cell operating in central America and the Yucatan. The report added that Merida has a large Lebanese and Syrian population.

— Hat tip: RE

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Rome Provincial Council Calls to Ban Websites Promoting Jew Hatred

ROME (JTA) — Rome’s provincial council is calling for websites that promote racism and anti-Semitism to be blocked and such online hatred criminalized.

The council on Monday unanimously passed a motion voicing solidarity with Rome local official Carla Di Veroli and with the Rome Jewish community in general following anti-Semitic attacks on Di Veroli that appeared last week on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront.

Di Veroli, who is Jewish, has long been an anti-fascist and minority rights activist.

The motion also commits provincial officials to “assume every appropriate initiative” to urge the relevant authorities and institutions to block websites that “spread ideas that instigate racial hatred, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia.” It pushed for a law to brand online hate spread on websites as a criminal act.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Christians Persecuted Throughout the World

Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith.

Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression. Only two days ago, a suicide bomber crashed a jeep laden with explosives into a packed Catholic church in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100. The tragedy bore the imprint of numerous similar attacks by Boko Haram (which roughly translates as “Western education is sinful”), an exceptionally bloodthirsty militant group.

Other notable trouble spots include Egypt, where 600,000 Copts — more than the entire population of Manchester — have emigrated since the 1980s in the face of harassment or outright oppression.

Why is such a huge scourge chronically under-reported in the West?

— Hat tip: Kitman

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	Financial Crisis
»	Italy: Monti Plays Down Plan to Create Super Commissioner
»	Spain and Italy Oppose EU ‘Super Commissioner’ Idea
	USA
»	80,000 Pounds of Walnuts Stolen
»	At Least 17 Dead, Millions Without Power in Sandy’s Aftermath
»	Chuck Norris: Barack Obama, Master of Spin
»	Disney Buying ‘Star Wars’ Maker for $4 Billion
»	Do You Believe in America?
»	Exposing Black Liberation Theology
»	NASA’s Huge New SLS Rocket Could Power Missions Far Beyond Mars
»	NYU Terrorism Class Asks Students to Plot Terrorist Attack
»	Sandy Shuts Down New York’s Power Grid and Subway
»	The Press and the Race Card Gambit
»	Thousands of Muslims Gather in Prayer at Angel Stadium
»	Time to Out Sinister Valerie Jarrett
	Canada
»	Evidence of Viking Outpost Found in Canada
»	New Find Reveals Viking Presence in Canadian Arctic
	Europe and the EU
»	Al-Qaeda’s Strategy of a “Thousand Cuts”
»	Berlusconi Risks Isolation After Threatening Monti Govt
»	France: Muslims Treat Paris to Pastry Protest on Eid
»	German Police: Sorry for Racial Profiling on ID Checks
»	Germany: Poor Boar Injures Four in Berlin
»	Greek Orthodox Bishop Hits Out at Turkish Soap Fans
»	Italy: Last Year’s Election in Molise Region Rejected by Courts
»	MP Says ‘Noisy Foreign Weddings’ Unwelcome in France
»	President Napolitano Ratifies India-Italy Prisoner Accord
»	Report: Traces of Explosives on Crashed Polish Presidential Plane
»	Scotland: ‘We Want to Remain Within the EU’
»	Sweden: SAS Shares Halted After Media Speculation
»	UK: Public Trust in BBC Falls Below 50% After Savile
	Balkans
»	Clinton Joins European Diplomats on Tour Urging Peace in Balkans
	North Africa
»	Islamism’s Unity
»	Muslims Attack Coptic Christians in Egypt After Mass
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Big Oil Underwrites Anti-Israel Conference
	Middle East
»	Emirates: No More Adolescent Brides
»	German Turks ‘Send a Billion Euros to Turkey’
»	Turkey: Tear Gas, Water Cannon Against Opposition March
	South Asia
»	Mystical Islam ‘A Threat to the Taliban’
	Far East
»	North Korea: ‘World’s Worst Airline’ Launches Online Booking
	Australia — Pacific
»	Bail Refused for Taxi Driver Accused of Raping Two Passengers in His Cab
»	Gillard: Australia Must Embrace ‘Asian Century’
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	8 Killed in Nigerian Church Bombing
	Immigration
»	Cocaine-Dealing Dad Can Stay in UK
»	Over 5 Mln Regularized Immigrants in Italy, +43 Thousand
»	Smugglers Charge Iraqi Refugees Up to $16,000 to Enter Italy
	Culture Wars
»	Forget Abortion! NPR Promotes the ‘Rights’ And ‘Souls’ of Plants
»	MSNBC Now Actively Telling Viewers How to Vote on Gay Marriage
»	Three Dirty Words: Tolerance, Diversity, And Welcoming

Italy: Monti Plays Down Plan to Create Super Commissioner

New official with veto powers over national budgets a ‘myth’

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — Premier Mario Monti on Monday played down reports of a European plan to create a new “super commissioner” with veto powers over national budgets, calling it something of a “myth”.

The European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs already has powers greater than the competition commissioner, said Monti, citing an observation made by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi again came out in favour of the new oversight official on Sunday.

Monti made his comments at a press conference in Madrid after a bilateral summit with Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain and Italy Oppose EU ‘Super Commissioner’ Idea

Spain and Italy voiced their opposition on Monday towards Germany’s proposal to empower an EU commissioner to police national budgets and impose fines on those with large deficits, reports the Guardian. “This is an idea, that considered on its own, I personally don’t like,” said Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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80,000 Pounds of Walnuts Stolen

Walnuts valued at $300,000

Authorities are investigating the theft of more than 80,000 pounds of walnuts from Northern California valued at about $300,000. The Tehama County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a freight brokerage firm on Friday reporting that a truckload of walnuts never arrived in Miami as they were supposed to.

Authorities believe the culprit is the same person who also picked up another load of walnuts days earlier from Los Molinos. Those walnuts were intended for Texas, but also disappeared.

Deputies tell the Record Searchlight of Redding (http://bit.ly/S8mOY9) the man who picked those walnuts up was not the person hired for the job. They have not identified the suspect although they do have a suspect description.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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At Least 17 Dead, Millions Without Power in Sandy’s Aftermath

As Superstorm Sandy churned slowly inland, millions along the U.S. East Coast awoke Tuesday without power or mass transit, and huge swaths of New York City were unusually dark and abandoned. At least 17 people were killed in seven states.

The storm that made landfall in New Jersey on Monday evening with 80 mph sustained winds cut power to more than 6 million homes and businesses from the Carolinas to Ohio and put the presidential campaign on hold one week before Election Day.

New York was among the hardest hit, with its financial heart closed for a second day and seawater cascading into the still-gaping construction pit at the World Trade Center. The storm caused the worst damage in the 108-year history of New York’s extensive subway system, according to Joseph Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“This will be one for the record books,” said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at Consolidated Edison, which had more than 670,000 customers without power in and around New York City.

Trading at the New York Stock Exchange was canceled again Tuesday — the first time the exchange suspended operations for two consecutive days due to weather since a blizzard in 1888.

President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in New York and Long Island, making federal funding available to residents of the area. The damage is “almost incalculable,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said as he spoke with TV networks Tuesday morning.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Chuck Norris: Barack Obama, Master of Spin

Obama can spin a fact, and even though it’s wrong or untrue, we almost believe it. Then he sends his minions out to spin the same fact, hoping that if we hear it enough times, we finally will believe it. The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is a prime example. Even though Obama knew — from the moment of the assault — that it was a terrorist attack, he didn’t let the American people know. We recently learned a drone was recording the attack in real time, and our president was watching from the Situation Room. It is clear that he chose to deceive the American people deliberately, saying it was a mob protest and blaming it on a video that nobody had seen.

— Hat tip: JD

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Disney Buying ‘Star Wars’ Maker for $4 Billion

(FOXNEWS) — Disney is paying $4.05 billion to buy Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company behind “Star Wars,” from its chairman and founder, George Lucas. It’s also making a seventh movie in the “Star Wars” series called “Episode 7,” set for release in 2015, with plans to follow it with Episodes 8 and 9 and then one new movie every two or three years.

The Walt Disney Co. announced the blockbuster agreement to make the purchase in cash and stock Tuesday. The deal includes Lucasfilm’s prized high-tech production companies, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, as well as rights to the “Indiana Jones” franchise.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement that the acquisition is a great fit and will help preserve and grow the “Star Wars” franchise.

— Hat tip: JD

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Do You Believe in America?

Ask the average U.S. citizen if he or she believes in America and they’ll almost always answer “yes.” The proper follow-up question is which America do they believe in because there are two different Americas that our Presidential candidates want us to believe.

Barack Obama has a campaign slogan that proclaims “Betting on America” and Mitt Romney has one that declares “Believe in America.”

They can’t be campaigning for the same America because each one has an entirely different political philosophy and direction for our Nation’s future.

Barack Obama wants us to believe in his unilateral plan to “Fundamentally transform America” and Mitt Romney wants us to believe in his bilateral plan to “Restore the promise of America.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Exposing Black Liberation Theology

There are many who contribute to black liberation theology, but the person who is the most influential is James Cone. Also, Dr. Jeremiah Wright is a well publicized proponent.

James Cone has written many books on liberation theology. He grew up in Bearden, Arkansas where extreme discrimination existed. His bad experiences became the cornerstone of his false beliefs.

Cone believes like Karl Barth, that the Bible is fallible and not the Word of God. As a result, he promotes black liberation theology without relying on the Bible.

He believes black theology is directly linked to black power. As a result, he believes blacks need liberated from white oppression. Also, blacks need deliverance from the oppressors like Israel’s deliverance from the corrupt Egyptians.

— Hat tip: JD

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NASA’s Huge New SLS Rocket Could Power Missions Far Beyond Mars

NASA is contemplating space journeys far beyond a near-Earth asteroid, the moon or Mars for its new heavy-lift rocket in development. The Space Launch System (SLS), as it is called, could instead visit the moon of Pluto or return samples from other outer planets.

An unmanned flyby mission to Pluto’s Charon, sample return missions to Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s Titan, or a sample-gathering flight through Jupiter’s atmosphere or the ice water jets of Saturn’s Enceladus — all are said to be possible with the 286,000-pound (130,000 kilograms) launch capabilities of the Space Launch System.

The first launch of SLS is planned for 2017, but it will not have an upper stage and will be able to put only 154,000 pounds (70,000 kg) into low-Earth orbit. Beginning in 2022, however, the rocket is expected to have more powerful boosters and an upper stage to give it an ability to deliver 286,000 pounds to Earth orbit.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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NYU Terrorism Class Asks Students to Plot Terrorist Attack

It’s Terrorism 101.

A New York University class on transnational terrorism is requiring students to “hypothetically plan a terrorist attack” — and shocked cops say the outrageous lesson plan is an insult to the officers killed on Sept. 11.

The controversial course, taught by former Navy criminal investigator Marie-Helen Maras, asks the pupils to “step into [a terrorist’s] shoes” and write a 10- to 15-page paper on their battle plan.

“Some of the most notorious terrorists, including Anwar al-Awlaki, got their start on American campuses. It looks like after the CIA killed al-Awlaki, NYU is helping to produce successors,” said an outraged law-enforcement expert on terrorism.

— Hat tip: JD

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Sandy Shuts Down New York’s Power Grid and Subway

As of Tuesday morning, about 600,000 people on Long Island, New York, are without power. The winds from hurricane Sandy peaked at 145 kph (90 mph), knocking down trees, which knocked down utility poles and power lines.

But that’s not the main problem. Short-circuiting and overheating caused transformers to explode all over Long Island.

Dick Knadle is an electrical engineering consultant in Dix Hills in central Long Island. “As I was walking around last night,” he says, “I could see flashes on the horizon every 60 seconds from the transformers exploding all over Long Island.”

On Rockaway Peninsula on the shore of Queens, one such explosion started a fire that burned down more than 80 terrace homes. Thankfully, residents had been evacuated.

Knadle estimates that repairing damage to the electrical infrastructure will take weeks. “The damage to power distribution systems just in my community is vast,” he says.

In addition, he says that cellphone base stations in some neighbourhoods will soon be down. Some cellular towers are equipped with backup generators, but others might have a backup battery that will only last for around six hours.

Then there is the New York City subway. Its pumping system is designed to remove the 50,000 cubic metres of seawater that threaten to enter the tunnels daily because they are situated below sea level. Continuous pumping keeps the tunnels from flooding, but the hurricane’s extra dose of water will damage this system. Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) chairman Joseph Lhota calls it the worst disaster in the subway’s 108-year history.

The flooding itself is unlikely to cause structural problems, says Nick Buenfeld, a civil engineer at Imperial College London, as tunnels are designed to withstand the weight of the ground above. “If you fill the tunnel with water you are pressing back against the external pressure,” he says. “You could argue structurally it is in a better state when it is full of water than when it is empty.”

More problematic will be the effect on the electrical systems within the tunnels. “The salt water damages pumping equipment,” says Knadle. “The damage will be compounded by the fact that there is no power to operate the pumping equipment right now.”

Even with extra pumps, the MTA says it will take up to four days to empty the flooded tunnels. After that, engineers will have to enter the tunnels and repair damaged electrical signals.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Press and the Race Card Gambit

Subjugation and manipulation of black Americans has been the left’s single most successful endeavor.

Early in the election cycle, I indicated my belief that the Obama campaign itself would likely leave the race-baiting to its surrogates, rather than directly engaging in same. Bearing in mind that there’s still time left to prove me wrong, my supposition has pretty much held up thus far. The relish with which said surrogates have flung the race card about has not only surpassed the 2008 election cycle, but has included some of the most craven, despicable — and now desperate — race-based rhetoric I’ve heard in decades.

The National Urban League has commenced airing a series of advertisements disguised as PSAs “as part of its broad, civic engagement campaign to ‘Occupy the Vote’ and repeal unnecessary barriers to voting.” Featuring black celebrities such as Angela Bassett, Eric Benet, and Kim Coles, one of the television spots makes furtive allusions to shadowy figures conspiring to deny blacks the right to vote. This is a reference to recent efforts to combat voter fraud, which have been met with charges of racially-based voter suppression by the Democrat Party, for reasons that should be obvious by now. The ad closes with none other than notorious poverty pimp Rev. Al Sharpton admonishing viewers to vote. “Black” people are never mentioned, of course, but the message is quite evident, as is who they should be voting for.

— Hat tip: JD

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Thousands of Muslims Gather in Prayer at Angel Stadium

As the sun burned in the soft blue sky, thousands of Muslims poured into Angel Stadium early Friday and filled the morning with the sounds of prayer as they celebrated Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar.

“Eid Mubarak,” men and women said in greeting, wishing blessings for the day. Youngsters skipped school, elders from across Southern California glowed with the spirit of the season — in culmination of the annual pilgrimage, called Hajj, a tribute to Prophet Abraham’s life and legacy.

More than 20,000 Muslims gathered at the baseball stadium in a historic event organized by leaders of three mosques — the Islamic Center of Irvine, the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim and the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove. The three mosques are members of the Islamic Shura Council.

“It brings a different flavor when you’re outdoors in the cool breeze and bright sunshine,” said Shakeel Syed, who heads the Islamic Shura Council.

“In past years,” he said, “people went to individual mosques, but this year — luckily or unluckily — the Angels are not in the playoffs, so the stadium was available.”

Rather than sit in the stands or the bleachers, worshippers walked on the stadium grass, fanning across the baseball diamond.

“The excitement of being in a place that’s generally not accessible to most of us is amazing,” Syed added. “Here, you’re able to see the entire crowd, unlike at a mosque. It lifts up the spirit.”

The words “Eid Ul-Adha” glowed in neon under the Toyota and Metro PCS logos on the Jumbotron screen. It rotated with other Arabic terms, ads touting Quran and Saturday school, and a flashing “Vote on 11/6.” Melodic chants rang in the air.

“I felt a sense of unity. I couldn’t believe there was that many people,” said Tarek Soubra, a junior at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove. He missed calculus class, along with Spanish 3 to attend the service, which included a 15-minute sermon.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Time to Out Sinister Valerie Jarrett

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, demand the outing of President Barack Obama’s Iranian-born, chief advisor Valerie Jarrett.

Three times Stevens and his staff were denied help to save their lives on the day of their death.

While the courageous serving America were denied help, private citizen Valerie Jarrett seems to have a 24-hour, around-the-clock security detail, with five or six Secret Service agents at her disposal at home and abroad. (former Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell, Breitbart News interview. )

— Hat tip: JD

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Evidence of Viking Outpost Found in Canada

Sharpeners may be smoking guns in quest for New World’s second Viking site.

For the past 50 years-since the discovery of a thousand-year-old Viking way station in Newfoundland-archaeologists and amateur historians have combed North America’s east coast searching for traces of Viking visitors.

It has been a long, fruitless quest, littered with bizarre claims and embarrassing failures. But at a conference in Canada earlier this month, archaeologist Patricia Sutherland announced new evidence that points strongly to the discovery of the second Viking outpost ever discovered in the Americas.

While digging in the ruins of a centuries-old building on Baffin Island, far above the Arctic Circle, a team led by Sutherland, adjunct professor of archaeology at Memorial University in Newfoundland and a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, found some very intriguing whetstones. Wear grooves in the blade-sharpening tools bear traces of copper alloys such as bronze-materials known to have been made by Viking metalsmiths but unknown among the Arctic’s native inhabitants.

Taken together with her earlier discoveries, Sutherland’s new findings further strengthen the case for a Viking camp on Baffin Island. “While her evidence was compelling before, I find it convincing now,” said James Tuck, professor emeritus of archaeology, also at Memorial University.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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New Find Reveals Viking Presence in Canadian Arctic

A Canadian archeologist searching for traces of Viking encampments along the country’s northeastern Arctic coast has found tantalizing new evidence to bolster the case that Norse seafarers from Greenland — hundreds of years after their ancestors abandoned the famous L’Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundland around 1,000 A.D. — were trading goods and even inhabiting sites on Baffin Island and in other areas occupied by the Dorset people, an artistically advanced culture that would mysteriously vanish by 1,400 A.D.

Using a high-resolution, chemical-detection technique called spectroscopy on tool-sharpening stones unearthed at several 700-yearold Arctic sites, researchers led by Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Patricia Sutherland have found microscopic bits of brass, bronze and smelted iron — metals known only from European sources during the medieval era.

The findings are profiled this week in a National Geographic feature that hits newsstands on Thursday.

About 20 whetstones that might have been used to sharpen knives, swords and other metal tools and implements have been recovered from four Arctic sites known to have been occupied in ancient times: Avayalik Island in northernmost Labrador, and three sites on Baffin Is-land — Tanfield Valley and Willows Island in the southeast near Iqaluit, and one on the island’s northwest tip.

Painstaking, high-resolution scans of the wear grooves in the whetstones yielded the telltale metal traces linking the sites where they were found to the Norse, Sutherland told Postmedia News.

“We were particularly interested in metals that the Norse would have been using. And we do have that evidence now,” she said, adding that the discovery means Norse travellers were either present at the sites themselves or that aboriginal peoples in the area traded with the Norse to acquire the sharpening stones.

“Neither the Dorset nor ancient Inuit smelted iron,” she noted.

Sutherland believes the Norse encountered and probably traded with the Dorset, ancient aboriginals who were later overrun — sometime before 1,400 A.D. — by the eastward-migrating Thule ancestors of modern Inuit.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Al-Qaeda’s Strategy of a “Thousand Cuts”

by Soeren Kern

Spanish police have arrested six members of an al-Qaeda cell in Barcelona that was dedicated to providing a related terrorist cell in Germany with large numbers of stolen passports.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said the police action, dubbed Operation Comet, was carried out on October 13 in Barcelona and the nearby town of Vilanova del Camí, and entailed police raids on at least four homes of Muslim immigrants involved in the network. Police found large numbers of stolen passports and identity papers issued in many different countries.

Those arrested were from Algeria, Belgium and Morocco, and all were carrying stolen passports that included their own photos attached to the personal data of dozens of individuals from several different countries.

One of those arrested was intercepted at the main airport in Barcelona as he was about to board a flight to Greece; he had more than 100 stolen passports in his possession.

Some of Barcelona’s tourist areas, especially those in the downtown areas, are known for having gangs of North African pickpockets who prey on foreigners. On any given day, tourists can be seen standing in lines in front of local police stations waiting to file police reports about stolen passports and other personal possessions. Spanish police believe many of the passports stolen in Spain end up in the hands of al-Qaeda operatives in Europe, among other places.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Berlusconi Risks Isolation After Threatening Monti Govt

Ex-premier sparks turmoil following fraud conviction

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — Silvio Berlusconi risks becoming increasingly isolated politically after he threatened to bring down Premier Mario Monti’s emergency government at the weekend following a fraud conviction on Friday.

The ex-premier said the conviction had forced him to stay in front-line politics, after he suggested last week he was retiring, in order to push through justice reforms, although he stressed that he had not changed his mind about not running for a fourth term in elections next year.

Berlusconi said there was a “dictatorship of magistrates” after being given a four-year sentence for tax fraud on the trading of film rights by his Mediaset media empire and being banned from public office for five years.

He will not have to serve three years of the sentence if the ruling is upheld because of a 2006 amnesty law.

The 76-year-old media magnate also criticised Monti on Saturday, days after saying his unelected administration of non-political technocrats was doing a good job at tackling the economic crisis despite some mistakes.

His comments were blasted by the the centre-left Democratic Party and the centrist UDC, both of which support Monti’s administration in parliament, as Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party has done since the financial crisis forced the ex-premier to resign last year.

But tellingly, they were also given a cool reception from some parts of the PdL.

Fabrizio Cicchitto, House whip for the PdL, expressed concern that Italy’s borrowing costs would rise if there were moves to bring down the government because the ensuing political instability would hit investor confidence.

There is even speculation that the PdL could split if Berlusconi follows through on his threat and tries to bring down the government.

Several senior PdL figures, including party Secretary Angelino Alfano, Cicchitto and former foreign minister Franco Frattini, are said to be willing to break away and support the Monti government in parliament to stop it falling.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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France: Muslims Treat Paris to Pastry Protest on Eid

Muslim rights activists distributed chocolate croissants at a Paris mosque at the start of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, after a French MP’s controversial comment that thugs snatched children’s pastries during Ramadan.

In an amusing response to a conservative French politician’s incendiary comment that thugs snatched children’s pastries during the holy month of Ramadan, a French Muslim rights group distributed chocolate croissants outside the Paris Grande Mosque on Friday, the start of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.

The chocolate croissants — called “Copé” after French politician Jean-Francois Copé — were made with the same ingredients as the classic “pain au chocolat”- but baked in the shape of a crescent, according to Muslim rights activists.

Earlier this month, Copé sparked a controversy when he claimed that Muslim thugs were enforcing the Ramadan fast in some neighbourhoods. “I can understand the exasperation of some of our compatriots when there are some neighbourhoods where a mother or father will come home from work in the evening to learn their son has had his pain au chocolat snatched out of his hand by thugs, telling him it is forbidden to eat during Ramadan,” said Copé at the time.

About 2,000 “Copés” were distributed Friday, according to Abderrahmane Dahmane, head of the Council of Democratic French Muslims, Paris-based Muslim rights group.

Speaking to FRANCE 24 outside the Grande Mosque, Dahmane — who was also a former aide to ex-President Nicolas Sarkozky — called the protest “a great anti-Copé success”. The chocolate croissant stunt, he claimed, was “an overall victory against the racism and stigmatisation (of Muslims).”

Copé, who is running to replace Sarkozy as head of the conservative UMP party, has been criticised for his increasingly inflammatory rhetoric concerning Islam. Following what was dubbed “pastry-gate” in the press, the French Council for the Muslim Faith filed a lawsuit against Copé for defamation, citing “severe damage” to the community.

Friday’s protest came amid signs of a hardening attitude towards Muslims in France, which is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community. An opinion poll published Thursday found six out of ten French people believe the influence of Islam in France is “too big” and 43 percent saw the religion as a “threat” to national identity.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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German Police: Sorry for Racial Profiling on ID Checks

The German police have apologised for targeting a black German for spot ID checks on the basis of his skin colour — after a judge said it was illegal to do so, contradicting an earlier court ruling.

Tahir Della, from the Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) welcomed the ruling. “We have been fighting for years for public recognition of this practice. Police checks of this kind are no one-off. “They are the everyday experience of many black people and people of colour in Germany. They are put under suspicion and criminalised by this police practice. We hope that this verdict will serve as a basic political signal.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Germany: Poor Boar Injures Four in Berlin

A 120-kilo (265-pound) wild boar attacked and injured four people on Monday in Berlin, the German capital’s police force said. Examination of its body showed it had a broken leg.

The boar bit a 74-year-old man on the back and leg, knocked a 74-year-old woman to the ground and bit a 24-year-old woman on the legs before she took refuge in a parked car, police said in a statement. The three were taken to hospital.

The fourth person to be injured was a police officer who had been sent to the residential neighbourhood of Charlottenburg to investigate, after passers-by reported the presence of the boar, police said.

The animal attacked the officer and bit him in the leg before he used his police-issue gun to kill it.

Marc Franusch, spokesman for the Berlin Foresters, told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper the boar had a broken front leg, probably sustained when hit by a car.

“It could have been scared by dogs or people out of its resting place under a hedge, and was carrying a painful injury,” said Franusch. He said it was possible that the frightened animal had panicked and reacted aggressively.

There are thought to be around 4,000 wild boars in the capital, mostly living in the woods and similar areas. Such attacks are extremely rare.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greek Orthodox Bishop Hits Out at Turkish Soap Fans

Greeks are glued to the series

A Greek orthodox Bishop has unleashed thunderous criticism on Greek fans of Turkish TV soap operas, according to local reports.

“Nobody must watch Muhtesem Yilzil (a Turkish soap opera called ‘The Magnificent Century’),” he said. “Watching Turkish soaps is tantamount to telling them we’ve surrendered”. Greeks, like viewers in the Balkans and Middle East where the series have long been broadcast, have found the allure of Turkish soap operas difficult to resist. In Athens viewers are glued to tearjerkers like “Suleiman the Magnificent” and “Sila”.

But Bishop Anthimos is not alone. Greece’s showbiz community are fed up of Turkish soaps too. “Sila in the morning. Sila in the afternoon. Sila 24 hours a day. We can’t take anymore,” complained TV actress Nikoleta Karra.

But Sila’s premise, which hinges on the romantic escapades of a ‘modern girl’, is the perfect escapism for austerity hit Greeks, many of whom are reluctant to give up their soap addiction. Social networking sites are abuzz with chatter about “Greeks addicted to Turkish soaps” and “Turk serials on Greek telly.” Turkish producers of the soap are loathe to renounce the newfound Greek trend, particularly within the political context of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic nationalist government. Hot on the heels of the Turkish-Greek co-production ‘Yabanci Damat’ (The Foreign Groom) which charts the highs and lows of a Turkish-Greek love story, comes The Last Balkan Summer. Set in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro the action takes place during the Ottoman wars. Another, ‘The Marvelous Journey’ is a cultural-gastronomic adventure between the two Aegean coasts.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Last Year’s Election in Molise Region Rejected by Courts

Elections in southern region must be held again

(ANSA) — Campobasso, October 29 — Results from the 2011 elections in Italy’s southern region of Molise have been cancelled and new elections ordered, authorities announced Monday.

The Council of State, Italy’s highest administrative court, upheld a ruling earlier this year by Molise’s Regional Administrative Court (TAR).

It had invalidated the region’s centre-right government’s win in October 2011.

Defeated centre-left candidate Paolo Frattura alleged irregularities in that vote count.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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MP Says ‘Noisy Foreign Weddings’ Unwelcome in France

A French MP criticised “noisy foreign weddings” on Monday, slamming outdoor “Turkish and north African” celebrations as a danger to traffic. Philippe Meunier advised those “who don’t understand that, to return to the country of their ancestors”.

An opposition MP from France’s UMP party said Monday that “noisy” weddings held by “Turkish and North African communities” were unwelcome in France, claiming they hinder traffic circulation.

“Here, we are in France!” MP for Rhône, Philippe Meunier, said in a statement released on Monday. “If these people don’t understand that, I advise them to return to the country of their ancestors to live according to their traditions that aren’t ours,” he added.

Meunier said an increasing number of wedding celebrations caused traffic problems on major roads in Rhône — a region in the southeast of France which borders Italy. “It is very dangerous for motorists and motorcyclists,” he said.

Meunier said he had been alerted to the reportedly disruptive celebrations by the police and local residents.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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President Napolitano Ratifies India-Italy Prisoner Accord

May soon pertain to anti-pirate marines in fishermen deaths

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — The agreement between Italian and Indian governments on the transfer of convicted persons was ratified by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, the website of the president’s office announced on Monday.

The agreement, which permits convicts of each country to serve their sentences in their countries of origin, was reached in Rome on August 10.

The agreement may affect two Italian anti-pirate marines facing trial in India for the alleged killing two fishermen last February off the coast of India.

The two men, Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, are awaiting trial by an Indian court.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Report: Traces of Explosives on Crashed Polish Presidential Plane

Polish daily Rzeczpospolita Tuesday reported that Polish investigators have found traces of explosives on the government airplane that crashed 2010 in Russia, killing Poland’s president and 95 others. The investigators found no third party evidence and haven’t ruled out that the traces could have come from unexploded bombs from WWII.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Scotland: ‘We Want to Remain Within the EU’

The people of Scotland go to the polls in 2014 to decide whether the country should remain part of the United Kingdom. But if Scotland were to become independent, what role would they play in Europe?

DW: What are the chances that an independent Scotland would still be a member of the European Union?

Alyn Smith: This has never been done before. But the EU is a pragmatic organization. And the people who deal with enlargement in the European Commission have dealt with the fall of the Berlin Wall; they’ve dealt with the collapse of communism, the collapse of Yugoslavia; they’ve dealt with bigger stuff than Scotland making a democratic decision. We are part of the EU right now, we are represented in the European Parliament, we are all European citizens, and we want to remain within the EU.

Would Scotland go the whole way and join the eurozone?

That’s an aspiration. The policy of the National Party is that we do see Scotland’s future in the euro at some point. That needs to be done at the right time, at the right exchange rate, and the people of Scotland would need to say ‘yes’ in the referendum. Now, all three of those criteria, we are light years away from at the moment, because sterling is so much in flux against the euro, the euro is so much in flux anyway, and the EU is evolving, so we want to see us join at the right time… We’re not there yet, so as a holding pattern we stay with sterling for as long as it suits us.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Sweden: SAS Shares Halted After Media Speculation

Shares in Scandinavian airline SAS were suspended on Tuesday morning following media reports about the company’s strained finances, according to the Stockholm stock exchange.

The suspension was announced after talks between the Stockholm stock exchange and the Financial Supervision Authority (Finansinspektionen).

“We never comment in detail about individual companies or suspensions of trading. But we will say that we have put a stop to trading in SAS shares until further notice, after consulting with the Financial Supervision Authority,” explained Carl Norell, spokesman for the Stockholm stock exchange, to the TT news agency.

“The background is the information that has swirled in the media about the company’s financial situation.”

“It is to ensure fair trading, that is to say that the whole market has access to the same information. Now we expect clarification from the company in the form of a press conference. And we predict this information will come out during the day,” he said.

SAS has suffered weakening finances since a 2009 investment of 11 billion kronor ($1.64 billion) from the owners, mostly consisting of the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish states.

Despite Sweden investing 2.4 billion kronor in 2009, its current share is valued at 425 million kronor.

Last week, rumours circulated about an SAS crisis and an impending savings programme, with staff forced to reapply for their jobs but with lower wages.

According to the Dagens Industri newspaper (DI), SAS owners held a crisis meeting last Thursday.

Meanwhile, SAS is yet to comment on the information, but has stated that a press statement will be released later in the day, according to a text message sent to TT by Sture Stölen, head of SAS investor relations.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: Public Trust in BBC Falls Below 50% After Savile

Almost half of licence fee payers no longer trust the BBC in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, according to a poll for one of its own networks.

A survey commissioned by Radio Five Live revealed the public’s faith in the broadcaster has plunged, with 47 per cent admitting they did not believe it was ‘trustworthy’.

Just 45 per cent said they felt it was trustworthy, while the remaining eight per cent did not give an opinion.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Clinton Joins European Diplomats on Tour Urging Peace in Balkans

The top American and European diplomats are on a joint diplomatic tour of the Balkans, urging rival ethnic groups and governments in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo to settle their differences for the good of their nations.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was talking Tuesday with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. They are then meeting together with Bosnia’s three presidents before traveling to Belgrade for similar talks with Serbian leaders. Clinton and Ashton will see Kosovo’s leaders on Wednesday.

Clinton and Ashton are expected to support each Balkan nation’s efforts to join the EU and NATO.

But they will demand reforms on market and democratic issues as well as the rule of law and greater respect for minorities.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Islamism’s Unity

A Sept. 14 attack on the U.S. embassy in Tunis left 4 dead, 49 injured, several buildings looted and burnt out, and the black Salafi flag flying above the embassy grounds. In response, the ruling “moderate” Islamist party of Tunisia, Ennahda, forthrightly condemned the incident; Minister of the Interior Ali Larayedh recognized that the government “failed to protect the embassy and we should offer our apologies to the Americans.” Ennahda’s leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, more vehemently condemned the Salafis as a “danger” to freedom and security in Tunisia and called on a fight against them through every legal means.

These statements reassured Americans that if long-bearded and burqa’ed crazies want to kill them, moderate-sounding Islamists in ties and hijabs are civilized, law-abiding allies. That in turn fits a policy going back to 1992 of fighting violent Islamists while cooperating with non-violent ones. Thus did American troops execute Osama bin Laden while American presidents helped Islamists reach power in Turkey and in Egypt.

— Hat tip: JD

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Muslims Attack Coptic Christians in Egypt After Mass

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) — Yesterday Muslim Salafis assaulted Christians after Sunday mass, angry that Christians from neighboring villages who have no churches attend mass in the village of Tala, el Fashn, in the Beni Suef Governorate. The pastor of St Georges Church Father Cheroubim Chehab could not go out of church for hours after mass.

Eyewitnesses reported that as Christians left the church, they found a huge mob of mostly young Salafi Muslims waiting for them, armed with batons. The assault lead to 5 Copts being hospitalized after suffering broken limbs, and the torching of two cars which transported the congregation from the other villages.

The pastor of the church contacted the police, asking for help, however, they appeared hours later, only after Dr. Naguib Gabriel, head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization, complained to the ministry of interior against el Fashn police and told them that no forces appeared in the village, and gave the names of six of the perpetrators and asked whether the police in el Fashn are afraid to arrest them. “I want the whole world to know,” he said, “that a priest and his congregation are presently held captives in their church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church.”

Cheroubim said that he looked from the roof of the church and the mob, from Tala and neighboring villages, was huge. “80% had beards.” He said that he stayed inside the church as he “wanted no friction with the Muslims nor with the angry Copts, who wanted me to take other steps.”

Later in the afternoon high officials from the security and police departments in Beni Suef arrived to the village for a reconciliation meeting, and while they were preparing for the meeting, Muslims went into Coptic homes and attacked the inhabitants. Five were hospitalized.

The problem started between the two parties nearly three months ago during Ramadan, when Salafist youths stopped Copts from neighboring villages from attending mass. “We had a meeting with the Muslim elders,” said Rev. Cheroubim, “who told us to wait until after Ramadan when the youth will leave, however, when we wanted a second meeting to solve the matter, we were told to wait until security is better. When security was better Copts from other villages complained that they have been prevented from praying for three months since Ramadan.” He said that only ten men from outside the village came to attend mass, so a large mob of Salafis waited for them after mass. “Muslims from the village held back the village Copts, so that the Salafis were able to beat and terrorize those Copts from outside the village.”

Village Muslims insist that the church is an association and not a church and is for serving the village Christians only, who make up nearly 8% of the inhabitants.

Rev. Cheroubim said that he has been serving in St. George’s church for 5 years and all that time Copts have come from neighboring villages to pray. “It was only during the last 10 days of Ramadan that this started, with complaints about the way the Christian girls are dressed, then it is not a church but an association, then no Copts to come from outside the village, but the main reason is mainly, as one Salafi from the mob was shouting, is that they want to the church closed.”

High officials from Security department arranged for a reconciliation meetings in late afternoon with a group of Muslims and Christians, in which it was agreed that if the is officially licensed then Copts from outside can attend services any time, but if it is an association, then only village Copts will be allowed to attend the services. A penalty clause was included in which any part that attacks the other will pay 500,000 Egyptian pounds. Compensation for damages to the Coptic side will be paid by the government. No one was arrested.

According to Dr. Gabriel, St. George’s Church was licensed five years ago. Rev. Charobim told Copts-United News the Deputy Security Director told the Christian party during the reconciliation meeting “Thank God for the outcome — in other places people get killed.”

The situation is now calm in the village.

— Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih

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Big Oil Underwrites Anti-Israel Conference

Even more controversial than Freeman, however, was Jeffrey Steinberg, who spoke to this year’s gathering during a panel discussion on “The Palestinian Future.” Steinberg, a close associate of convicted felon and political extremist Lyndon LaRouche, advocated an “American Spring” to change U.S. policy toward the Arab world, including by recognizing Palestine as an independent Arab state with full U.N. membership.

Despite the anti-Israel nature of the event, this year’s AUSPC was sponsored by various American Big Oil companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and U.S. corporations such as Boeing. The government of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states were also major sponsors.

— Hat tip: JD

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Emirates: No More Adolescent Brides

Trends are changing, average woman now marries at an average age

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI- Women living in the Persian Gulf oil monarchies are among the most powerful in terms of rights and progress made. The trend for child-brides has almost disappeared and represents one of the most significant victories of the last 20 years.

When the economy of these monarchies was based on pearl fishing and sheep-farming, child-bride marriages were the norm. Two generations later, this trend has been completely reversed. The latest statistics reveal that Abu Dhabi’s inhabitants now marry after their twentieth birthday — men at an average age of 26,5 , while 25,9 is the average age for women. The changing economic trends of the country acted as the first catalyst for this change. The discovery of oil has seen more investments in facilities and infrastructure as well as in education and in additional empowerment among residents. Precocious and combined marriages that were once forced upon young brides is a widespread trend in developing countries.

According to a recently-published UN report, one third of girls in countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia get married before reaching the legal age. Among the Arab-Muslim countries, Yemen has the largest number of child-brides, with over 40% of women marrying before the eighteenth birthday. The trend for combined marriages also continues in Saudi Arabia, with mature men marrying girls as young as nine and ten years of age. This conservative tradition is being challenged by a growing concern among citizens of Saudi Arabian countries, who have launched various mouvements and initiatives to address the problem of child-brides, as well as by pressure on behalf of international organisations. Even though there are no existing statistics for the UAE, the child-bride trend began to decline, even among the federation’s socially and economically poorer countries, starting from the early nineties. This is mainly thanks to the higher literacy rates among its citizens, with a higher attendance recorded in both secondary and university education, and for the sheikhs adopting a policy of inserting women in all productive spheres, both administrative and political . Nowadays, it’s the women’s father themselves who want an education and career for their daughters before seeing them married.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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German Turks ‘Send a Billion Euros to Turkey’

One in three German Turks send money back to Turkey — on average around €1,300 per person per year, a new study revealed on Tuesday.

The majority of Germans with a Turkish background — 57 percent — have their own income, revealed the study, carried out by Berlin-based research institute Info and published in the Handelsblatt newspaper. Seventeen percent receive social support.

Info director Holger Liljeberg attributed the transactions to Turks’ “very strong” connection to their homeland. The study also found that some 18 percent of German Turks send goods and food to their friends and relatives — at an average value of €250 a year.

Altogether that amounts to around €90 million in goods and a billion euros in money.

Around half of the 1,000 German Turks asked in the survey said they owned property either in Germany or Turkey, while a third had property in Turkey.

“These figures also underscore the desire of many Turks to make provisions should they move back to Turkey one day,” said Liljeberg.

The study also found that the strong connection to Turkey led many to travel there on a regular basis. “On average the Turks in Germany travel to Turkey 1.9 times a year,” said Liljeberg, adding that one in four Turks travel to Turkey three or four times a year.

“The strong family connections guarantee lively traffic between the two countries, and ensure that contacts don’t break,” he said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Turkey: Tear Gas, Water Cannon Against Opposition March

On Republic’s anniversary, Kilicdaroglu hit by tear gas

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 29 — Turkish police on Monday threw tear gas to break up a march organized by 40 different secular opposition movements to mark the founding of the Turkish republic, affecting social democratic MP and Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the process, Turkish news broadcaster NTV reported. In defiance of a government ban for “security reasons” and of massive police presence, thousands gathered in defense “of the nation and the republic” in the old part of Ankara, near the building that housed Turkey’s first parliament, to march to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who in 1923 founded the secular republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The opposition accuses Islamic nationalist Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan of harboring a “secret plan” to Islamize the country, destroying Ataturk’s secular legacy in the founding of modern Turkey.

The police used tear gas and water cannons to try to break up the demonstration. Also on Monday, gendarmes prevented 110 buses loaded with demonstrators from other parts of the country from entering the city, Hurriyet online daily reported.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Mystical Islam ‘A Threat to the Taliban’

The recent attack on a shrine in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Nowshera is proof that the Taliban consider pluralistic Islam a big ideological threat, say experts.

On Sunday, a bomb blast outside the shrine of Kaka Sahib — a 16th century Sunni Muslim saint — in the district Nowshera of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, killed at least three devotees of the saint and wounding 25 people.

“It was a remote-controlled bomb that killed three people at the site,” local police chief Muhammad Hussain told the media. Some Pakistani newspapers have put the death toll higher.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban militants have been known to attack shrines in the region in the past.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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North Korea: ‘World’s Worst Airline’ Launches Online Booking

Air Koryo, the North Korean carrier described as “the world’s worst airline”, has finally moved into the digital age with its first online booking service.

The state-owned airline, which is the only one in the world with just one star according to the ranking service Skytrax, now sells flights from Pyongyang to Beijing and Shenyang in China, and Vladivostok in Russia, on its website.

The website (www.airkoryo.com.kp/en), which launched in August, promises “easier, quicker, reliable booking and ticketing services.”

Early reports seems to suggest the website is unlikely to help the North Korean flag carrier shake its one-star rating, however. Users have already reported slow response speeds, with some searches not offering any availability for flights, while others result in an error message appearing on the screen.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Bail Refused for Taxi Driver Accused of Raping Two Passengers in His Cab

A WOMAN whose cab driver allegedly grabbed her around the throat and kissed her before raping her feared she was going to die like Jill Meagher, a court has heard.

Cab driver Usman Safdar is alleged to have taken advantage of two drunk female passengers in separate incidents seven months apart by engaging them in conversation and then raping them in his taxi.

He touched his second intoxicated victim’s knee, stroked her hair and kissed her hand before grabbing her around the throat and raping her in the back seat, Melbourne Magistrates’ Court was told today.

“The victim was extremely intoxicated and as such (at first) required assistance by an associate to get into the back seat of the taxi,” a tendered police summary said.

“During the journey the accused reached into the rear seat of the taxi and touched the victim on the knee.

The victim called her husband (on her mobile phone) to try and discourage interaction with the accused.”

According to the police summary, tendered during a bail application hearing, the drunk woman moved into the front passenger seat because she felt unwell.

It is alleged Mr Safdar engaged her in conversation and kissed her hand and stroked her hair.

The woman became more frightened when Mr Safdar did not stop at her house, the court heard.

“The accused stopped the taxi in a street two blocks from the victim’s house,” the summary stated.

“The accused grabbed the victim by the throat and kissed her on the lips. The victim panicked as thoughts of the recent incident where Jill Meagher had been murdered entered her mind. The victim was fearful that if she fought she may have a similar fate.”

It was alleged that Mr Safdar, 24, raped the intoxicated woman after she fell backwards between the two front seats on to the rear seat.

“The victim panicked and stated that she froze as the accused removed her jeans,” the summary said.

“After approximately four minutes the accused covered the video camera on the front dash board of the taxi, with a cloth.”

Mr Safdar raped a female passenger in similar circumstances seven months earlier on March 29, it was alleged.

— Hat tip: Salome

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Gillard: Australia Must Embrace ‘Asian Century’

Every Australian child should learn Mandarin, Hindi or other regional language as the nation’s future is tied to the rise of the “Asian Century,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a policy speech on Sunday.

“Whatever else this century brings, it will bring Asia’s return to global leadership, Asia’s rise. This is not only unstoppable, it is gathering pace,” Gillard said in a long-awaited policy white paper entitled, “Australia in The Asian Century.”

The policy outlines 25 objectives Australia must achieve by 2025 to take advantage of Asia’s rise to boost the wealth of Australians.

Chief among the goals are that every child learn an Asian language, in particular Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian or Hindi, and that they leave school having studied Asian culture.

“Children in kindergarten now will graduate from high school with a sound working knowledge of Asia,” Gillard said at the Lowy Institute in Sydney where she unveiled the white paper.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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8 Killed in Nigerian Church Bombing

[WARNING: Disturbing Content]

A suicide bomber drove a Jeep full of explosives into a Catholic church during morning mass in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least eight people and triggering deadly reprisal attacks.

There was no claim of responsibility but Islamist sect Boko Haram has bombed several churches in the past in its fight to create an Islamic state in Nigeria where the 160 million population is evenly split between Christians and Muslims.

The bomber drove the car into the wall of the packed St Rita’s church in the Malali area of Kaduna, a volatile ethnically and religiously mixed city, witnesses said.

— Hat tip: JD

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Cocaine-Dealing Dad Can Stay in UK

A CONVICTED cocaine dealer from Jamaica who has been in Britain illegally for 12 years was yesterday spared deportation because it would breach his human rights.

Rhomaine Mohan’s “lamentable” history made him a candidate for “automatic deportation”, judges said.

But they dashed a Government bid to kick him out after hearing it would “disadvantage” him in a custody battle for one of his three daughters.

Twice-jailed Mohan had already been removed from the UK once but managed to slip back in using a false passport, the Appeal Court heard.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Over 5 Mln Regularized Immigrants in Italy, +43 Thousand

2.5 million employed, but growing unemployment

(ANSAmed) — ROME — Italy’s regularized immigrant quota has exceeded the 5 million mark with 1.3 million of these from the EU, according to a Caritas report.

The estimate, made at the end of 2011 is included in a Caritas-Immigration dossier presented in Rome Tuesday. The report shows that only 43,000 more immigrants came to the country in 2011 compared to 2010. Immigrants are predominantly Christian. The majority choose to live in the north of Italy (63.4%), 23.8% live in the centre, while only 12.8% take up residence in the south.

The percentage of immigrants compared to resident Italians grew 7.5% in 2012 to 8.2% in 2011. The dossier also shows a 2.9% increase in the amount of permessi di soggiorno (permits to stay in Italy) in force in 2011.

According to the dossier the majority of immigrants arrive from Europe (50,8%). Africa follows with 22,1%, Asia 18,8% and America 8,3%.

At nearly a million, Romanians are the most numerous.

Moroccans totaled 506,000, Albanians nearly half a million, and Ukranians 224,000. Albania leads the way for university students, with over 11,000 in the 2011-2012 academic year. Italy welcomes the most amount of Chinese, Filipino, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan immigrants of all EU member states, according to the findings. And around 2.5 million foreigners have jobs in Italy, representing one-tenth of total employment. In 2011 the dossier shows that more immigrants lost their jobs than did Italians (-170,000 compared to -75,000).

At the same time both immigrant unemployment and the unemployment rate rose — 310,000 and 12.1% compared to a 4% average for Italians, respectively.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Smugglers Charge Iraqi Refugees Up to $16,000 to Enter Italy

Police crack down on immigration scam

(ANSA) — Trento, October 29 — Police in northern Italy said Monday they have broken up an illegal immigration ring in which criminals charged thousands of dollars to sneak fleeing Iraqis into Europe. More than 60 suspects were arrested in the joint operation, coordinated by the anti-mafia prosecutor in the northern city of Trento and involving police in Italy, Germany, Greece and Austria.

About 1,500 illegal immigrants, mostly from Iraq and desperate to leave their war-torn homeland, paid about $16,000 US to get into Italy, according to police. Investigators said the ring, comprised of Iraqis, Kurds, and North Africans, earned as much as $12 million by smuggling in men, women and children. Very few of them were reportedly granted political asylum in Italy; most have been sent back to Iraq.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Forget Abortion! NPR Promotes the ‘Rights’ And ‘Souls’ of Plants

As liberal reporters obsess and nearly faint in the waning days of the campaign that conservatives would dare to assert a right to life for a human being conceived in rape, NPR.org offers a better idea: Plants deserve rights. The NPR headline: “Recognizing the Right of Plants to Evolve.”

[…]

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund argues that greenery does have interests — and rights. The Pennsylvania-based nonprofit works with communities around the world to “craft and adopt new laws that change the status of natural communities and ecosystems from being regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing entities.”

— Hat tip: JD

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MSNBC Now Actively Telling Viewers How to Vote on Gay Marriage

It should come as no surprise that MSNBC’s socially liberal anchors are biased in favor of gay marriage — saying it’s an issue of “marriage equality.” But on Friday’s MSNBC Live, anchor Thomas Roberts dropped all pretext of being a neutral journalist by explicitly telling viewers how they should vote on the controversial issue.

Speaking on Friday with Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of the Family Equality Council, openly gay host Thomas Roberts actually told his audience how to vote on ballot questions in the states of Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington. [See video below.

— Hat tip: JD

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Three Dirty Words: Tolerance, Diversity, And Welcoming

There are three dirty words that are being used to subvert traditional morality in Western society: tolerance, diversity and welcoming.

These words are liberally used (no pun intended) in education, by the media, and even by our Churches. In themselves, they seem quite innocuous. To the untrained ear they sound like commendable practices geared toward helping folks who are “different” get along.

The fact of the matter is that these words are being used to lull us into an amoral complacency. They are being used as the vanguard for conditioning unsuspecting minds in the regnant Philosophy of Relativism.

Traditional morality and ethics depends on religion, custom, tradition and a sense of revulsion. Obviously, the three dirty words allow for no such standards or restrictions.

Let’s examine these words and what they imply:

— Hat tip: JD

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	Financial Crisis
»	Draghi Backs Calls for Eurozone ‘Super Commissioner’
»	ECB: Crisis Nations Have Lost Their Sovereignty
»	Greece: Salary Cap for State Firm, Bank Executives
»	Greece: Archbishop Slams EU Stance Toward Athens
»	Greece: Troika Refuses Concessions on Labor Reforms
»	Interest Rates Down in Successful Italian Bond Auction
»	Monti Underlines Progress to Shore Up Euro
»	Northern Italian Companies Vulnerable to Money Laundering
»	Sources Say France, Germany Propose Expert Help for Greece
	USA
»	Frank Gaffney: Obama’s Perfect Storms
»	Media Promotes Frankenstorm, Ignores Obama Benghazi Bombshell
»	Mom and Dad, We’re Blaming You for Obama’s Failures
»	Obama’s October Surprise — Exposed by Benghazi?
»	Obama Accepts ‘Osama Bin Laden’ Donations
»	The Psychological Conditioning of Americans
	Canada
»	Liberal Treason Explained: “The Kindergarden of Eden”
	Europe and the EU
»	Blair Says Europe Needs an Elected President to Stop it Breaking Up (Got Anyone in Mind, Tony?)
»	Google Boss Meets Hollande Amid Media Row
»	Greece: Journalist Arrested Over ‘Lagarde List’ Banks Leak
»	Greek Journalist Arrested for Releasing “Lagarde List” of Swiss Account Holders
»	Greek Finance Officials Among Suspected Tax Evaders
»	Greek Journalist in Court Over Swiss Data Leak
»	Greek Journalist in Court Over ‘Lagarde List’
»	Italy: Cop Fined 32,000 Euros After Skipping Work for Soccer
»	Italy: Alitalia Antitrust Ruling ‘Could Bring Down Prices 30%’
»	Italy: Chair of Lazio Region’s Cabinet Office Investigated
»	Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: The New Face of the French Right
»	Multi-Drug Resistant TB Rises in Eastern Europe
»	Two Seats for Islam Party in Belgian Local Polls
»	UK: Girls of 13 Given Birth Control Jab at School Without Parents’ Knowledge
»	UK: Nigerian Sex Trafficker Used ‘Juju’ Witchcraft Rituals to Terrorise Young Orphans He Raped After Smuggling Them Into Britain
»	UK: Woman Raped in Alley by Stranger on Night Out Was Sexually Assaulted Again by Second Passer-by as She Lay Helpless
	North Africa
»	Egypt’s Coptic Christians Vote for New Pope
»	Tunisia: National Guard Protests Gov’t PR-Salafist Leniency
»	Tunisia: Salafist Extremist Attack Alcohol Sellers
	Middle East
»	Christianity Struggling to Return to Eastern Turkey
»	Turkey and Germany: A Unique Partnership
	Russia
»	Observers Doubt Fairness of Ukraine’s Election
	South Asia
»	Italian Senate Approves Prisoners’ Treaty With India
»	Terzi Presses New Indian FM Over Detained Italian Marines
	Far East
»	Missionaries Rescue Trafficked Koreans in China
»	The Ferrari-Red Communists: China at a Crossroads in Shift From World’s Factory to Industrial Power
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	A Trip Through Hell — Daily Life in Islamist Northern Mali
	Latin America
»	Lawmaker Urges Feds to Monitor Hezbollah in Mexico
	Immigration
»	Greece: Nearly 500 Illegals Held in Crackdown
»	Immigration-Population Factor: Importing Cultural Poverty
»	Italy: Employers Legalize 135,000 Foreign Workers
»	Sweden to Get 50,000 Asylum Seekers in 2013
»	UK: Evil ‘Juju Magic’ People Smuggler Jailed for 20 Years
	Culture Wars
»	‘I Was Born a Boy, Became a Girl, And Now I Want to be a Boy Again’: Britain’s Youngest Sex Swap Patient to Reverse Her Sex Change Treatment

Draghi Backs Calls for Eurozone ‘Super Commissioner’

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, has backed German calls for a super ‘euro-commissioner’ with sweeping powers to intervene in national budgets. “If we want to restore confidence in the eurozone, countries will have to transfer part of their sovereignty to the European level”, he told Der Spiegel.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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ECB: Crisis Nations Have Lost Their Sovereignty

The head of the European Central Bank (ECB) on Sunday threw his weight behind a German scheme to allow the EU to intervene in countries’ budgets and propose changes before they are agreed in parliaments.

The EU should have the power to police and interfere in member states’ national budgets, Mario Draghi told Der Spiegel magazine in an interview due to be published on Monday, saying he “completely supported” the suggestion by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble to give more autonomy to the EU’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner.

“I am certain, if we want to restore confidence in the eurozone, countries will have to transfer part of their sovereignty to the European level,” Draghi told the magazine, demanding a more concerted push for European integration.

“Several governments have not yet understood that they lost their national sovereignty long ago. Because they ran up huge debts in the past, they are now dependent on the goodwill of the financial markets,” Draghi said.

Since the outbreak of the eurozone debt crisis three years ago, the European Union has taken unprecedented measures, including creating a fiscal treaty between them, setting up a huge joint bailout pot and moving towards a banking union next year.

“Governments have taken steps that would have been unthinkable a year ago. That is progress but it is not enough,” Draghi said.

Creating new financial rules in the EU will not be enough to save the currency, said the central bank chief, they must also be rigorously enforced.

Draghi also reiterated his defence of the ECB’s disputed programme of buying the bonds of debt-wracked countries to drive down their borrowing, unpopular with Germans who fear it will cause inflation.

“My family once lost a large part of its savings through inflation. So you can be sure that I champion price stability not just for professional reasons but also for personal reasons,” said the Italian.

EU leaders will gather in Brussels on December 13 and 14 to thrash out a framework for the future running of the 27-nation Union on the basis of a report being drawn up by Draghi and three other senior EU politicians.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greece: Salary Cap for State Firm, Bank Executives

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — Greek government is putting a ceiling on the salaries of governing board members in state corporations and banks. According to a draft law amendment that 60 New Democracy deputies have tabled in Parliament — as Kathimerini online reports -, the salary of the chief executive officers of state corporations should not exceed the salary of the general secretaries of ministries, and the salaries of bank chairmen should not exceed that of the prime minister. The measure will apply automatically to any corporation or bank that the state holds a controlling stake at. In other cases the state’s representative in the board will put the issue up for voting in the corporation’s general meeting, according to the deputies’ proposal that has the government’s backing.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greece: Archbishop Slams EU Stance Toward Athens

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 29 — The Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, Ieronymos, on Saturday spoke out against Europe’s handling of the financial crisis in Greece which, he said, is encroaching on the debt-hit nation’s sovereignty. “We Greeks are experiencing a peculiar war. I feel we are under occupation, our sovereignty is on the wane and we are the victims of all-out usury,” Ieronymos said in an interview with Skai Television on Saturday. Urging Greece’s European peers to respect the country’s history and dignity, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church warned that recent developments “marked a deviation from the roots and principles of the European Union.”

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greece: Troika Refuses Concessions on Labor Reforms

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 29 — Greece’s foreign lenders have refused to make any further concessions on changes to labor laws contested by a junior coalition partner, the country’s finance minister said on Sunday, prolonging an impasse on a crucial austerity package. Athens has been locked in talks with its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders on the austerity package for months, but a final agreement has been held up by the small Democratic Left party’s refusal to back the new wage laws. The party, which says the changes undermine labor rights, has said it will vote against the measures when they are put to a parliamentary vote next week. The party has demanded the troika of European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF lenders allow a national wage agreement to apply to all employees rather than just unionized workers. It also wants the lenders to withdraw a plan to axe the 10% salary hike employees get when they marry. “The troika has not accepted the (party’s) demands,” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told journalists as daily Kathimerini reports.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Interest Rates Down in Successful Italian Bond Auction

Treasury sells eight billion euros worth of six-month BOTs

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — Interest rates dropped significantly on Monday in a successful auction of six-month BOT Italian State bonds.

The Treasury sold all of the eight million euros worth of bonds it put up for auction and the average interest rate fixed was 1.347%, compared to 1.503% at a similar sale last month. The auction was hotly awaited for signs of a possible impact on investor confidence after Silvio Berlusconi threatened to bring down Premier Mario Monti’s emergency government at the weekend.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Monti Underlines Progress to Shore Up Euro

Italian PM calls for appreciation of EU’s ‘miracles’

(ANSA) — Madrid, October 29 — Italian Premier Mario Monti reaffirmed the European Union’s progress on shoring up the euro after a meeting with Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy in Madrid on Monday. “The EU summits in June and October produced important, decisive decisions that gave a strong signal on the determination of the EU to preserve the integrity of the euro,” Monti told reporters after the summit.

“It is easy to criticize the slow pace of European decisions but one must also be aware of the ‘miracles’ (EU countries) are making,” added Monti. “There is perfect synchrony and common analysis of the situation that afflicts the eurozone, as well as the means and instruments for the EU to adopt,” Rajoy said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Northern Italian Companies Vulnerable to Money Laundering

Recession exacerbating danger, anti-mafia prosecutor Grasso says

(ANSA) — Padua, October 26 — Italy’s antimafia prosecutor Piero Grasso warned that northern Italy could be at risk of becoming a money laundering hub as financially struggling companies are in danger of being snapped up by those seeking to recycle funds of dubious origin.

“It is a fact that some (crime syndicates) with extra funds, with liquidity, seek to infiltrate the healthy sectors of the economy with dirty money,” Grasso said speaking at conference in Padua. “From this point of view the north and also the Veneto region are at risk”.

The city of Padua is in the Veneto region. “The risk is that mafia emissaries purchase companies that are suffering financially at rock bottom prices”, he added. “We need to avoid this by keeping our eyes wide open and keeping the spotlight on strange phenomenon”. Grasso went on to add that banks had an essential role in monitoring irregular activities as they were obliged to signal any suspicious activities to the authorities.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sources Say France, Germany Propose Expert Help for Greece

(ANSA) — Berlin, October 25 — International experts and consultants supported by France and Germany could be brought in to help the Greek government, sources said Thursday.

Those two European allies are prepared to help Athens “regain the confidence of investors,” a high-ranking source told ANSA.

Meetings have been ongoing this week to find a solution to Greece’s debt woes and clear the way for billions more in euro aid.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for EU Finance Commissioner Olli Rehn said that “substantial progress has been made in negotiations with the Greek government, but some pending issues remain before we can come to an agreement on the technical level”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Frank Gaffney: Obama’s Perfect Storms

Barack Obama faces not one but two perfect storms. He may actually be grateful for the meteorological one if it predictably helps obscure the political one at least for the next week.

Hurricane Sandy is, of course, a disaster no one would welcome. Untold numbers of Americans are having their lives endangered, or at least severely disrupted, and the potential economic harm is unimaginable at this point.

The president could nonetheless see a silver lining in this horrific “weather event.” For one thing, he gets to posture as the leader of the nation in a terrible time of testing, the doler-out of federal emergency assistance and the great consoler around whom we instinctively rally in such circumstances…

— Hat tip: CSP

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Media Promotes Frankenstorm, Ignores Obama Benghazi Bombshell

For the majority of last week, Hurricane Sandy and the coming “Frankenstorm” dominated the mainstream media. If no one knew any better, it’d appear nothing else even remotely newsworthy happened.

But something else did happen. News broke the attacks in Benghazi that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stephens and three of his staff members on September 11, 2012 were anything but a random, out-of-control protest over some YouTube video.

Fox News was the only mainstream media outlet to report last week that CIA operators were denied help during the Benghazi attack. Urgent requests for military back-up were ignored. In addition, a Navy Seal team stationed at the annex a mile from the attacks reported they were twice told to “stand down” when shots were heard that night.

Fox reported some soldiers ignored the orders and went to evacuate the consulate anyway. Although the building was found on fire and shots were exchanged, requests for backup were again denied.

In the aftermath, unclassified cables between the Obama Administration and Benghazi paint a picture that, at a minimum, proves the Obama camp is lying through their teeth about what they knew about the situation brewing in Benghazi and what they did about it.

An executive brief prepared by Right Side News details the timeline of events that led to what went down in Benghazi. At least a year prior to the September 2012 attacks, officials began alerting the Obama Administration to potential, organized terror threats against U.S. Interests, including Benghazi. Throughout 2012, more and more security was requested at the installation. In March 2012, not only was a request for more security denied, but security was actually cut back. Three more requests in June, July, and one from Ambassador Stephens himself in August 2012, were again denied.

— Hat tip: JD

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Mom and Dad, We’re Blaming You for Obama’s Failures

Voters have short memories and are easily duped by a charming smile, lies, and empty promises. Many voters lack a basic understanding of history, government, and economics.

Only an uninformed or welfare dependent American would vote for a person endorsing the repulsively obscene ad that presents a young woman urging Democrats to carefully pick their candidate in the same way they picked the guy they lost their virginity to.

The Democrat factor of desperation and indoctrination is on full display in the latest ad which uses young children, in chilling lyrics, blaming their parents for the economic failures of the Obama’s administration. The ad takes me back to the communist indoctrination I suffered under the communist regime when the absolute ruler, Ceausescu, and his wife, Elena, forced us to sing in school praises to them as our real father and mother. Our biological parents, we were told, were stupid and needed re-education.

[…]

If you add the lack of basic economics knowledge to the lack of historical facts and American government, you have the perfect Obama voter who is ill-informed, easily manipulated, but has very strong ignorant opinions, mostly based on feelings or the misinformation fed to them on a daily basis by the mainstream media, the aggressive promotional army of the Obama campaign.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama’s October Surprise — Exposed by Benghazi?

Iran, Valarie Jarrett, Nuclear Weapons, Iranian “Red Crescent” team

Barack Obama promised Americans that he is committed to investigate any intelligence and security failures in Libya. To this end, it was announced in the Federal Register on October 4, 2012, that Thomas Pickering would be the chairman of the U.S. State Department’s Accountability Review Board, a commission charged with investigating the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi. But who is Thomas Pickering and why was he selected to head the investigation?

Summoning the ghost of Earl Warren, Pickering appears to be a logical choice to select if one were to have an interest in controlling the public disclosure. Pickering, it appears, has quite a cozy history with Iran as extensively documented by Matthew Vadum in his October 24, 2012 report.

While the magician on stage activated the theatrical fog and diverted everyone’s attention elsewhere, the activities behind the scenes were in full swing. Concurrent with the appointment of Pickering to throttle the outflow of information about Benghazi, Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s Iranian-born Senior Advisor, jetted to the nation of Qatar. Although her activities were concealed by the magician’s accomplice — the dutiful Western media — it was reported by the Asia Times last week that Jarrett met with senior Iranian officials to negotiate a deal pertaining to Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama Accepts ‘Osama Bin Laden’ Donations

WASHINGTON — Using a Pakistani Internet Protocol, or IP address, a disposable credit card and a fake address, “Osama bin Laden” has successfully donated twice to Barack Obama’s presidential re-election campaign.

The “Bin Laden” donations, actually made by WND staff, included a listed occupation of “deceased terror chief” and a stated employer of “al-Qaida.”

“Bin Laden” is currently set up on the official campaign website to contribute more to Obama’s campaign. The name is also registered as a volunteer.

Since the “foreign” contribution was sent, “Bin Laden’s” email address has received several solicitations from Obama’s campaign asking for more donations.

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The Psychological Conditioning of Americans

In the past, I have mentioned that Edward Bernays in PROPAGANDA (1928) said: “Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country…The technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.” And in THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY (1951), Bertrand Russell wrote: “Although this science of mass psychology will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions are generated.”

In 1966, Dr. James McConnell, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, stated: “I teach a course called The Psychology of Influence, and I begin it by stating categorically that the time has come when, if you give me any normal human being and a couple of weeks,…I can change his behavior from what it is not to whatever you want it to be, if it’s physically possible…I can turn him from a Christian into a communist and vice versa…Look, we can do these things. We can control behavior.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Liberal Treason Explained: “The Kindergarden of Eden”

“If they weren’t so dangerous and destructive, one could smile and pat the Modern Liberal on the head and tell him how cute he is and go on about the business of being an adult. But he is dangerous and destructive, with the True Believer’s very purpose being the total destruction of everything that God and science—most obviously Western Civilization—has ever created. …The Modern Liberal will invariably and, in fact, inevitably side with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success.”—Evan Sayet “The Kindergarden of Eden”

“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative… The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion. It is something with which they have been indoctrinated.”—Allan Bloom “The Closing of the American Mind”

[…]

Of all the harmful doctrines promulgated by liberals, perhaps none has been as devastating in its effects as relativism. Put simply, relativism is the belief that there is no such thing as objective truth—truth is relative—one person’s “truth”is no more or less valid than another person’s. Relativism has been incorporated into several insidious offshoots such as moral relativism, cultural relativism, deconstructionism, postmodernism, political correctness, and multiculturalism.

I would be more than happy to slice and dice the concept of relativism like a Cuisinart blender, but time will not allow for it at the moment. Suffice it for now to point out that one of the basal claims of relativism—”there are no absolutes”—is self-refuting. That is, if the axiom is right then it is wrong, for the statement itself is asserting an absolute.

(Sidebar: If you would like to delve into the subject in more depth, let me suggest the paper “Relativism”(available online) by Allen Wood, Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. Dr. Wood is more refined than I in his dialogue with relativists, e.g.: “If relativists say that this isn’t what they mean when they assert a proposition or say they believe it, then they are apparently using the terms “assert” and “believe” in a new and mysterious sense, which they apparently can’t explain. Until they do explain the meanings these words have for them, we can’t be sure what (if anything) they are really saying when their mouths make noises that sound (to us) like assertions of relativism”).

[Comment: Well worth reading the whole article.]

— Hat tip: JD

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Blair Says Europe Needs an Elected President to Stop it Breaking Up (Got Anyone in Mind, Tony?)

Tony Blair today claimed Europe needs a directly-elected President to save it from breaking up.

The former British Prime Minister, who has made clear his desire for another major job in politics, said voters across the continent should elect ‘a big post held by one person’ to reinvigorate enthusiasm for the European project.

[…]

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: ‘This is the man who would sell his country for the bauble of EU office. This a man who cannot be trusted with our or any other country’s future.

‘He hopes that the EU can in some way have one speed while travelling at two. It just isn’t possible. His hopes will be dashed, as I hope will his ambitions.’

— Hat tip: JD

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Google Boss Meets Hollande Amid Media Row

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt was to meet French President François Hollande on Monday amid a revenue row with French, German and Italian media firms who want the Internet giant to pay for content.

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt was to meet French President François Hollande on Monday amid a revenue row with French, German and Italian media firms who want the Internet giant to pay for content.

Google, which receives four billion hits worldwide every month, has warned it will exclude French media sites from its search results if France adopts a bill that forces search engines to pay for linking to its news sites.

Italian and German firms have also joined the demand that the search engine should share some of the advertising revenue from user searches for news in media websites.

France’s Communication and Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti on Monday adopted a combative tone ahead of the meeting.

“This European drive will not allow us to be penniless,” she said on France Inter radio. “We must not think that all the fights against Internet giants are a lost cause.”

Filippetti, who is also due to meet Schmidt, said it “was only normal that big search engines contribute to finance the press.”

A letter sent by Google to several French ministerial offices this month said it “cannot accept” such a move and the company “as a consequence would be required to no longer reference French sites,” according to a copy obtained by AFP.

Google said a law would “threaten (Google’s) very existence”.

Leading French newspaper publishers last month called on the government to adopt legislation imposing a settlement in the long-running dispute with Google, forcing it and other search engines to share some of the advertising revenue.

Their demand follows the German government approving in August draft legislation that would force search engines to pay commissions to German media websites.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greece: Journalist Arrested Over ‘Lagarde List’ Banks Leak

Charged of violating laws relating to the privacy of data

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — Greek investigative journalist Costas Vaxevanis was arrested on Sunday and then quickly released after his magazine Hot Doc published on Saturday a list of more than 2,000 names that it claimed was the infamous “Lagarde list” of Greeks with Swiss bank accounts given to Greece by French authorities in 2010 to be probed for tax evasion. The journalist, as daily Kathimerini reports, is to appear in court at noon on Monday when the date of his trial, on charges of violating laws relating to the privacy of personal data, is to be set. Vaxevanis, who was arrested on charges of violation of privacy, made several postings on his Twitter account before being taken in. “They’re entering my house with a prosecutor now, they’re arresting me. Spread the word.” He described the police surrounding the house of a friend where he was arrested, as “fascist militia.” In an interview uploaded onto the Internet before his arrest, following the announcement that a warrant had been put out, the owner and editor of Hot Doc said he was being unfairly targeted. “Instead of arresting the tax evaders and the ministers who had the list in their hands, they are trying to arrest the truth and freedom of the press,” he said. Greek authorities did not confirm that the list printed on Saturday in Hot Doc was indeed the list of names given to former Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou by Christine Lagarde in the fall of 2010 when she was France’s finance minister. Neither Papaconstantinou nor his successor Evangelos Venizelos, who forwarded the list to authorities earlier this month, have indicated that the list included the names of politicians. But the Hot Doc list of 2,059 names includes at least three politicians, including two conservative former ministers, one of whom is deceased, and a current adviser to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Giorgos Voulgarakis, former minister and today the speaker of parliament from Samaras’s center-right New Democracy Party, was quick to deny the accusations and responded by accusing Hot Doc of slander. and declared via his Twitter account, “Neither my wife nor I have any offshore companies or foreign bank accounts.” According to the magazine, Voulgarakis’ HSBC deposits dating back to 2003 are not on the speaker’s tax declarations. Citing privacy concerns for individuals on the list, Hot Doc said it had redacted exact bank balance figures, but added that some accounts contained as much as 500 million euros. The Hot Doc report did not make specific accusations of money laundering. The publication pointed out that it was legal to own a Swiss bank account, but implied that the Greek government has done little to investigate the matter. A massive social media campaign is now underway asking that all charges against Vaxevanis for his role in the ‘Lagarde list’ leak be dropped.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greek Journalist Arrested for Releasing “Lagarde List” of Swiss Account Holders

A Greek journalist has been arrested for publishing a list of Greeks with deposits in Swiss bank accounts. The names were originally sent to the Greek government by the current head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

Kostas Vaxevanis, the editor of the magazine Hot Doc, announced on his twitter account on Sunday morning that he had been arrested after publishing the list containing 2,000 names.

He also announced that he is due to face court on Monday morning.

Lagarde sent the list to the former Greek finance minister, Giorgios Papakonstantinou, in 2010 when she was still the French finance minister.

The Greek government had tried to keep the list secret since then. […]

— Hat tip: LH

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Greek Finance Officials Among Suspected Tax Evaders

Greek magazine Hot Doc has published the names of 2,059 suspected tax evaders in a move likely to stoke social tension.

The roll call of people who held accounts at the HSBC bank in Geneva includes Stavros Papastavros, an aide to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, and the wife of Georgios Voulgarakis, Samaras’ former minister of culture and public order, as well as officials in the finance ministry, businessmen, doctors, housewives, lawyers, pensioners and students.

Hot Doc redacted the amounts of money held in the accounts, but said some of them contained as much as €500 million.

The journal’s editor, Costas Vaxevanis, was briefly arrested after it went out on Saturday (27 October).

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greek Journalist in Court Over Swiss Data Leak

A Greek investigative journalist appeared in court on Monday charged with breach of privacy after publishing names from an alleged list of Swiss bank accounts that the Athens government has been accused of trying to cover up.

Costas Vaxevanis, a veteran television journalist who is editor of the “Hot Doc” magazine, published the list in its Saturday issue.

It included more than 2,000 names, allegedly from a controversial list of HSBC account holders that was originally leaked by a bank employee and passed to Greece in 2010 by France’s then finance minister Christine Lagarde.

Vaxevanis says he received the information in an anonymous letter whose sender claimed to have received it from a politician.

He faces a maximum three-year jail sentence if convicted.

“Instead of arresting thieves and ministers breaking the law they want to arrest the truth,” Vaxevanis commented on his Twitter account Saturday.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greek Journalist in Court Over ‘Lagarde List’

A Greek journalist has appeared in court after being charged with breach of privacy for the publication of the “Lagarde List.” His trial comes the same day a major Greek newspaper reprinted it in full.

Investigative journalist Costas Vaxevanis appeared in court on Monday, one day after his arrest for publishing a list of Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, which the government is accused of covering up.

Vaxevanis is a well-known television journalist and the editor of Hot Doc magazine, which published the names of Greek citizens with accounts at the bank HSBC.

The list of more than 2,000 names was handed to the Greek authorities by France’s then-finance minister, Christine Lagarde, in 2010, earning it the nickname the “Lagarde List.” She has since become become the head of the International Monetary Fund, one of three lenders in a troika charged with managing Greece’s bailout.

According to police, Vaxevanis was arrested for violating laws regarding personal data. His trial will begin November 1, and he faces a maximum of three years jail time if convicted.

Hot Doc says the list was sent to them anonymously and authorities have not confirmed its authenticity.

“The prosecutor’s office wants to protect tax evaders,” Vaxevanis said outside the courtroom to a small group of supporters. “I am just doing my duty.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Cop Fined 32,000 Euros After Skipping Work for Soccer

Officer called in sick for four years

(ANSA) — Massa Carrara, October 25 — The Italian Audit Court found an ex-policeman guilty of medical fraud on Thursday and ordered him to pay over 30,000 euros in compensation to the State.

Raffaele Moriani, 34, filed medical certificates extempting him from his post on the Imperia police force so that he could play forward on the minor league team U.S. Soccer Forcoli from 2006 to 2010.

Moriani was ordered to pay 32,549.85 euros plus interest and legal fees that also cover “damage to police force’s image”, the court said.

He must also reimburse the salary received during his ‘sick leave’ and compense the doctor who signed his certificate 11,000 euros.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Alitalia Antitrust Ruling ‘Could Bring Down Prices 30%’

Consumer group applauds the opening of slots on Rome-Milan route

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — A ruling by Italy’s antitrust authority that flagship carrier Alitalia must give up its exclusive on the Rome-Milan route could bring ticket prices down by as much as 30%, consumer group Federconsumatori said on Friday.

The ruling to open seven slots on the Rome Fiumicino-Milan Linate route to competitor airline EasyJet was announced on Thursday and overturns an ad hoc legislative decree that amended the suspended antitrust laws in 2008.

“This is an important decision for numerous passengers who, up until yesterday, were unjustly forced into paying higher-than-necessary prices,” Federconsumatori said.

The 2008 legislative decree allowed Alitalia to keep its position in an attempt to salvage its leading position in the Italian market and repay a government bridge loan of 300 million euros to the then almost insolvent carrier.

The airline said last April that it lost 2 million passengers and 50% of its earnings in the space of three years as a result of high-speed rail companies like the Frecciarossa.

The slots apply especially to “peak transit hours in the morning and evening,” the antitrust authority said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Chair of Lazio Region’s Cabinet Office Investigated

Probes continue into alleged funds misappropriation

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — The Chair of Lazio region’s cabinet office Mario Abbruzzese and councillor Isabella Rauti are among those being probed in a wave of recent scandals involving the alleged misappropriation of public funds.

Both are from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party (PdL) and Rauti is the wife of Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno.

Earlier this month Franco Fiorito, the former caucus chief in the Lazio region for the PdL was arrested for allegedly embezzling public money.

At the time of his arrest, Fiorito said that “Abbruzzese was aware of how the funds were being divided up” and helped those doing it.

The political funds scandals also caused the PdL’s Renata Polverini to step down as governor of Lazio late September.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: The New Face of the French Right

At 22, she is France’s youngest ever MP. Her grandfather, Jean-Marie, founded the rightwing Front National and came second in the 2002 presidential race. Her aunt succeeded him as party leader last year. Now Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is the newest face of the party ready to bring its anti-immigrant policies to a younger generation

In June, Maréchal-Le Pen became the youngest MP in modern French history, at the age of 22, after topping the poll in her constituency of Carpentras in the south-eastern region of the Vaucluse, with 49.09% of the vote. And yet the most disconcerting thing about her victory was arguably not her youth but her politics: Maréchal-Le Pen is an MP for the Front National and the newest face of the French far right. Her grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the political party which she now represents, a party which is anti-Europe, anti-globalisation and which believes in stringent immigration controls and national protectionism.

“Integration is no longer possible,” she says. “When you’re the single French person in the middle of 10 Tunisians, the majority will impose their way of life on the minority.”

Blonde, slim and striking, Maréchal-Le Pen talks in a fluent and engaging manner. When we meet in her small, airless office in the headquarters of the Assemblée Nationale in Paris…

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Multi-Drug Resistant TB Rises in Eastern Europe

TB, which cannot be cured with conventional drugs, is spreading in Eastern Europe. So far, strategies to fight the disease have shown little success because it is closely linked to poverty and exclusion.

Two years ago, most addicts in Eastern Europe died from a overdose or committed suicide; today, more and more of them are dying from multi-resistant tuberculosis (TB).

“The leading cause of death for people we treat is TB,” says Daria Ocheret, who has worked with addicts in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius for 10 years. “And most of the time, it is multi-resistant tuberculosis.”

For many people, TB is a disease that was eradicated in the last century. But the fact is the disease has returned and is more dangerous than ever. Multi-drug resistant TB complicates the treatment of patients worldwide.

The past several years has seen the rise of strains that are resistant not only to conventional antibiotics but nearly to all medicines. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 400,000 people are suffering from multi- or extremely-resistant TB.

The former Soviet Union is especially at risk in Europe. Around 80,000 people with resistance to conventional TB medicines live in former Soviet states — a fifth of all cases worldwide, according to the WHO. A total of 15 European countries are considered high-risk, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, and Moldavia as well as the Baltic states.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Two Seats for Islam Party in Belgian Local Polls

It has been hailed as a new era for the Muslim community in Belgium. Two candidates from the fledgling orthodox muslim party Islam have been elected to seats in Anderlecht and Molenbeek in the recent local elections. The party plans to present candidates at regional, national and European elections in 2014.

— Hat tip: LH

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UK: Girls of 13 Given Birth Control Jab at School Without Parents’ Knowledge

Schoolgirls as young as 13 are being given contraceptive injections and implants during lunch-breaks without their parents’ knowledge.

School nurses have given implants or jabs to girls aged between 13 and 16 more than 900 times in the past two years, a survey by The Daily Telegraph has found. Girls aged 13 have been given contraceptive jabs and implants on more than 20 occasions.

A further 7,400 girls aged 15 and under have been given contraceptive injections or implants at family planning clinics.

Under the patient confidentiality rules, nurses are banned from seeking the permission of parents beforehand, or even informing them afterwards, without the pupil’s permission.

— Hat tip: Kitman

[Return to headlines]

UK: Nigerian Sex Trafficker Used ‘Juju’ Witchcraft Rituals to Terrorise Young Orphans He Raped After Smuggling Them Into Britain

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

An ‘evil’ Nigerian people smuggler who used witchcraft rituals to force terrified children to work as sex slaves has been jailed for 20 years.

Osezua Osolase, 42, who lived in Gravesend, Kent, preyed on poverty-stricken Nigerian orphans and tricked them into travelling to the UK with the promise of a better life.

But instead the Nigerian, who has HIV, treated the victims as ‘commodities’ to be used in a form of ‘modern-day slavery’ by attempting to send them on to mainland Europe to be sexually assaulted by gangs.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Woman Raped in Alley by Stranger on Night Out Was Sexually Assaulted Again by Second Passer-by as She Lay Helpless

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A woman who was dragged into an alleyway and raped after a night out was subjected to a second horrifying ordeal by another man as she lay recovering from the attack.

Mustafa Yussuf was the first to prey on the woman as she walked through Manchester city centre on New year’s Eve, marching her into Church Street car park and raping her in a nearby lane.

After the assault the then 20-year-old fled the scene, leaving the woman helpless.

It was then that, instead of assisting her, another man pounced on the woman and raped her.

The distressing details of the double rape emerged as Yussuf, now 21, from Manchester, was jailed for seven years for the attack.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Egypt’s Coptic Christians Vote for New Pope

A council of more than 2,000 Egyptian Coptic Christians will vote for a new leader on Monday. The new pope will be tasked with leading the region’s largest Christian minority through Egypt’s post-revolution era.

The ballot comes after the death of Pope Shenouda III, who headed the church for four decades before his death in March. The new leader will become the 118th head of the Coptic Church.

Whoever is elected to succeed Shenouda will be in charge of leading the region’s largest Christian minority through increased sectarian tension in Egypt’s post-revolution era.

The council — made up of senior clergy, current and former Coptic officials, journalists, local advisers and MPs — will choose between five candidates: three bishops and two monks. The names of the three receiving the highest number of votes will be written on separate pieces of paper and placed into a box on the altar of Saintt Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo.

On November 4, a blindfolded child will select one piece of paper. The new Pope will then be enthroned in a ceremony on November 18.

The five candidates are Bishop Rafael, 54, a medical doctor and current assistant bishop for central Cairo; Bishop Tawadros, 60, of the Nile Delta province of Beheira; Father Rafael Ava Mina, 70; Father Seraphim al-Souriani, 53 and Father Pachomious al-Suriani, 49.

Coptic Christians make up between 6 and 10 percent of Egypt’s total population of 83 million. Many are concerned about persecution resulting from the rise of Islamists in Egypt following the election of Mohamed Morsi. This concern comes despite the new president’s promise to be a leader “for all Egyptians.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Tunisia: National Guard Protests Gov’t PR-Salafist Leniency

Commander Slimane wounded by extremists, in critical condition

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — For three days beginning on Monday, Tunisian National Guardsmen will wear red armbands to protest what they say is the Islamist-led government’s excessive leniency towards Salafist extremists. This follows on the wounding Saturday night of Police Commander Wissam Ben Sliman, who intervened when a group of hardline Salafist Muslims attacked alcohol vendors in their small shops in the Dawar Hicher neighborhood, a poor area on the outskirts of Tunis. Slimane is in hospital in critical condition.

The government does not prosecute Salafist extremists, who frequently act outside the law, using Molotov cocktails and knives, a National Guard union leader said. After their actions, Salafists hide in Ennour and El Khalil mosques, which are off-limits to national security personnel, the union leader said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Tunisia: Salafist Extremist Attack Alcohol Sellers

(ANSAmed) — Rome, 29 October — An alcohol beverages seller was attacked in La Manouba by a group of Salafist extremists, who cut off four of his fingers.

The incident supposedly happened on Saturday night, with attacks culminating with an attack of a National Guard official, who was allegedly hit on the head with a large knife and is in serious conditions, according to the Arab site, Assabah News.

According to the site the alcohol salesman was transferred to the capital’s Charles Nicole hospital. He successively refused to lay charges on his aggressors, stating that he preferred to resolve the matter “his own way”.

Clashes between Salafist Muslims, which are now acting as the “religious police” , and alcohol sellers are continuing in Douar Hicher, according to Security sources.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Christianity Struggling to Return to Eastern Turkey

Turkey is home to one of the oldest Christian populations in the world, the Suriyani, who fled during recent conflict. In the last few years they’ve been returning, but problems with their resettlement are apparent.

For 1,600 years the bell at Mor Gabriel in southeastern Turkey has tolled, calling people to prayer. Everything about the Syriac Orthodox monastery here is ancient.

The ceremonies are conducted in Aramaic, a language spoken at the time of Christ. Known as the second Jerusalem, the monastery is not only considered important for Syriac Christians, but the wider Christian faith. But a ruling by Turkey’s highest court in favor of the Turkish state over the ownership of monastery land has cast a shadow over its future.

Kuriye Kos is the head of the Mor Gabriel foundation that runs the monastery. “After all these court cases anything can happen,” he told DW. “We have other lands, and there we could also face the same thing. We have been living here for thousands of years.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Turkey and Germany: A Unique Partnership

The expansion of economic ties, as well as growing cooperation in the field of foreign policy, have made Turkey and Germany crucial partners. But this new period also presents new challenges for Berlin.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Berlin this week will highlight a new period in exceptionally close but at times uneasy relations between Turkey and Germany.

Erdogan is slated to open a new Turkish embassy complex in Berlin, which will be Ankara’s largest in the world, symbolizing Turkey’s growing activism in international politics, as well as its growing interest in strengthening ties and gaining influence with the Turkish diaspora.

“This building is an expression of the great importance we attach to Germany; importance and value we attribute to our Turkish citizens living here,” said Turkey’s ambassador to Berlin, Huseyin Avni Karslioglu. “We will have a glorious embassy, which our people can be proud of,” he told the Turkish press.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Observers Doubt Fairness of Ukraine’s Election

Ukraine’s ruling party has claimed victory in this weekend’s election. The opposition held its own, including the party of boxing champion Vitali Klitschko. However, there are doubts the election was free and fair.

The parliamentary election in Ukraine on Sunday (28.10.2012) coincided with the clocks being set back an hour for Daylight Saving Time. Where Ukrainian politics are concerned, the country seems to have been set back by 10 years.

“This election is comparable to the national vote in 2002,” Olexandr Chernenko, head of the Committee of Ukrainian Voters NGO, said in a television interview. He pointed out “systematic irregularities” in several constituencies that may have influenced the outcome of the vote.

According to preliminary results, voter turnout was at 58 percent. Official results were still pending Monday morning as ballots are counted manually.

Early results, however, clearly show President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions will be the strongest force in the parliament. On Sunday, several polling institutes interviewed voters at the ballot boxes, and estimated that the ruling party had garnered about a third of the vote.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Italian Senate Approves Prisoners’ Treaty With India

Agreement deals with transfer of prisoners to home country

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Italy’s Senate approved an arrangement Thursday with India that could help to end the stand-off between the two countries over two Italian marines held there.

The agreement deals with the transfer of prisoners to their country of origin and should help solve the dispute involving two marines detained in India since the shooting last February of two Indian fishermen.

Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, both anti-pirate marines, have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between Italy and India since then.

They were granted bail in June, but were ordered to remain in Indian territory until their trial now slated for November 8.

India’s Supreme Court has still not given its ruling on Italy’s petition that it should have jurisdiction over the case because the incident took place on an Italian ship.

The Italian government has stated that, regardless of who has jurisdiction, the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India as they were military personnel working on an anti-piracy mission.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Terzi Presses New Indian FM Over Detained Italian Marines

Latorre and Girone held since February over fishermen shooting

(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — Italian Foreign Minister Guilio Terzi contacted his newly appointed Indian counterpart Salman Khurshid to stress Italy’s wish to bring home two anti-pirate marines held for allegedly killing two local fishermen, the foreign ministry said Monday. India’s Supreme Court has still not given its ruling on Italy’s petition that it should have jurisdiction over the case because the incident took place on an Italian ship.

Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between Italy and India since being detained in February for charges that include the homicide The Italian government believes that, regardless of who has jurisdiction, the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India as they were military personnel working on an anti-piracy mission.

They were granted bail in June, but must remain in Indian territory.

On Sunday, Salman Khurshid was named Indian foreign minister by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who reorganized roughly a third of his cabinet in what was widely seen as a bid to regain electoral support ahead of elections.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Missionaries Rescue Trafficked Koreans in China

A large number of North Koreans in China are women, many of whom are trafficked there and forced to work as sex slaves. Missionaries in South Korea are helping to rescue them.

Hannah fights back tears as she recalls her life as a sex slave. This young woman in her early 30s, who does not want to use her real name, is a North Korean refugee who now lives in Seoul. Like many other female defectors, she was once the victim of Chinese human traffickers.

“The man bribed border guards to let me cross. I thought I could trust him,” Hannah says. “But later he became violent and beat me. He wouldn’t let me leave his home.”

Human rights groups estimate there are tens of thousands of North Koreans secretly residing in China. Women are believed to make up the majority of these escapees because they can be sold into brothels and as wives or concubines to Chinese men. Since they are regarded as “illegal economic migrants” by the Chinese government, they have no legal recourse and remain in the shadows.

While in captivity, Hannah went online and found help via Christian missionaries operating undercover in China. She fled the man’s home when he left the house to run errands.

“I called the missionary and arranged a time and place to meet. He brought me to a shelter and then later to Beijing, where I entered the South Korean embassy,” Hannah said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

The Ferrari-Red Communists: China at a Crossroads in Shift From World’s Factory to Industrial Power

The Chinese are seen as victors in the global financial crisis, and as both a hope and a threat to German industry. Beijing wants to be more than the world’s factory. But the country’s economic engine is showing signs of stalling and it is uncertain what direction it will take in the future.

A visit with Mr. Huang, one of the richest and most controversial men in the People’s Republic of China, is full of surprises. Take, for example, the four pairs of climbing boots lined up like exhibits behind the door to his office. “I was at the South Pole and North Pole, and twice on Mt. Everest with these,” says Huang, pointing proudly to a series of photos that serve as proof of his adventures. There are Buddha statues and various animals in the adjacent rooms, including rhesus monkeys and pygmy rabbits in cages, as well as small sharks swimming in circles in a large aquarium leaning against a wall.

“I love nature,” says Huang Nubo, 56, a businessman with an estimated net worth of at least $1 billion (€772 million). The founder and chairman of the Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, Huang discovered a market niche: He builds resorts with an emphasis on sustainable design. His company benefits from the new wanderlust and “green” consciousness of the affluent Chinese upper and middle classes.

He tells the short version of life story while a Siam cat purrs on his lap. He was orphaned at 13, and in 1960 his father committed suicide after a quarrel with a party secretary. His mother later died of grief. He attended Beijing University, joined the Communist Party to further his career and became an official in the party’s propaganda division. Then he withdrew from politics and founded his company.

“As an entrepreneur, you have more freedom than you do in politics, and you can usually move around more,” says Huang, whose party connections certainly didn’t hurt his growing business. But, as he points out, “Chinese society has developed unevenly, which isn’t good. Too many people are losing out.” This is why Huang gives a substantial portion of his profits to the needy. With charitable donations of about $5 million a year, he is seen as one of the country’s most generous philanthropists.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

A Trip Through Hell — Daily Life in Islamist Northern Mali

For months, an Islamist regime has been terrorizing northern Mali. Hundreds of thousands have already fled the region, and those who have stayed behind are experiencing new forms of cruelty with each passing day. A SPIEGEL reporter documents a two-week journey through a region Europe fears will become the next Somalia. […]

— Hat tip: LH

[Return to headlines]

Lawmaker Urges Feds to Monitor Hezbollah in Mexico

The presidential campaign has featured plenty of talk about terrorism in the Middle East, but one lawmaker is warning that the federal government is ignoring a growing Hezbollah presence in Mexico, with the Lebanese terror group increasingly joining forces with drug cartels.

One report shows hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners living in Mexico, and a small percentage of them may be radicals using routes established by drug networks to sneak into the U.S.

The ties linking Mexico to Islamic terrorism were underscored earlier this year when an alleged Iranian operative plotted to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington using a hired gun on loan from a Mexican drug cartel. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) says the mounting evidence of a Hezbollah presence in Mexico is being ignored by the Department of Homeland Security.

“I don’t have a lot of faith in the Department of Homeland Security,” said Myrick. “They should be looking at these groups in Mexico much more closely.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Nearly 500 Illegals Held in Crackdown

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 29 — The latest police sweep of undocumented immigrants in the Greek capital led to 487 arrests, police said over the weekend. Authorities said nine of the detainees were arrested because they were not in possession of the proper residence papers. Officers said the sweep on Friday included a search of 14 properties, carried out as part of an ongoing crackdown, dubbed Xenios Zeus. According to the police, as daily Kathimerini reported, some 44,734 migrants have been briefly detained since the start of the sweep operation. Of these, 3,505 have been arrested.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Immigration-Population Factor: Importing Cultural Poverty

The United States once enjoyed the most educated and productive civilization in the world. Our citizens enjoyed K-12 education where most students graduated from high school. Twenty percent of graduates continued on through college, master’s programs and ultimately Ph.D.’s. Most others took up trade schools. Millions from around the world clamored to attend our universities. They still do.

However, since we began importing millions of immigrants from the third world from 1965 up to the present, our educational systems plummeted. California, the most immigrant overrun state, fell from the top five educational states in the Union to the bottom five in 2012. California’s crime, corruption, welfare, free breakfasts and lunches for students along with food stamps for families tops the national list.

Heavily Middle Eastern immigrated Detroit, Michigan suffers a 76 percent dropout/flunkout rate from high school students. (Source: Brian Williams, NBC News, June 2010) Cities like Denver, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco and New York suffer 50 to 60 percent flunk out rates. A whopping 7,000 students drop out of high schools across the United States every day, one every 26 seconds. (Source: CNN News)

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Employers Legalize 135,000 Foreign Workers

60% of them families; we’ll go after large-scale abuse, minister

Foreign workers waiting in front of the postal office in Naples to present a request of regularization of their position (archive photo)

(ANSAmed) — ROME — About 135,000 illegal workers were regularized by their Italian employers from September 15-October 15, Italian Minister for International Cooperation Andrea Riccardi made known in a communique on Monday.

“Families have been virtuous on this issue, with over half of the applications, I would say 60%, coming from families. They have proven themselves responsible and wiling to pay the 1,000-euro tax on foreigners,” the minister told Rai Radio 1.

The government has given employers of illegal immigrant workers a grace period of one month, and carried out a campaign to inform them of the chance to regularize their workers.

“I’m very glad,” the minister said. “I knew there were situations of illegality due to ingenuity, perhaps in cases of old people’s care. These were the ones who had to be helped. The real, large-scale illegality, for example in the farming industry, will be prosecuted to the full extent of the new law.

Penalties have been stiffened, and we intend to go after these exploitative employers.” The government in July issued a decree meting out heavy sanctions to employers refusing to document their foreign workers.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Sweden to Get 50,000 Asylum Seekers in 2013

Over 50,000 asylum seekers are expected to come to Sweden next year, according to the latest prognosis from the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket), pushing the country’s capacity past its limits.

Sweden’s capacity for asylum seekers will be stretched with the predicted influx of 54,000 asylum seekers, a figure that hasn’t been so high since the Balkan war in the beginning of the 1990s, which brought 84,000 people.

“This is a very strained situation,” said Migration Minister Tobias Billström to the TT news agency.

Since September this year, 1,250 asylum seekers have arrived in Sweden each week, far more than the Migration Board’s capacity of between 500 and 700.

This means that some asylum seekers are forced to wait while the agency concentrates on prioritizing the cases most likely to be approved, such as single children, refugees from Syria, and families with children.

“The main focus is to find time to take in and register applicants and above all find lodging that meets the need for those coming,” Billström said.

The situation in Syria has resulted in an extremely fast growing number of Syrian refugees arriving in Sweden in a short time.

In the prognosis published in July, the Syrians were the third most populous asylum group. In just two months, it had become the biggest. In September alone, 1,326 Syrian asylum seekers came to Sweden.

Meanwhile, the Migration Board director general Anders Danielsson explained that the influx of asylum seekers means a focus on the housing issue in Sweden.

“That’s the next question. Our mission is to take in people, evaluate their right to asylum, and if they are approved, the next step is the so-called ‘establishing’. At that point, the case is more or less handed over from the Migration Board to the employment agency and the municipalities,” he told TT.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

UK: Evil ‘Juju Magic’ People Smuggler Jailed for 20 Years

Cruel Osezua Osolase, 42, is also HIV positive and raped one of the young girls without wearing protection, a court heard.

The former security guard was found guilty of seven counts of trafficking young girls, rape and sexual activity with a child.

He had shipped the teenage girls from Nigeria to Britain where he groomed them to be sold for sex in Italy and Spain.

The court heard he cast spells using “juju” magic over his three Nigerian victims — now aged 15, 17 and 18 — to stop them running away.

Osolase, who worked at a trendy London fashion shop, found his victims begging on the streets of Nigeria and promised to take them to the UK to get an education.

He then used West African rituals, known as juju magic, to trick the teenagers into believing they would die if they tried to run away.

He was jailed for 20 years at Canterbury Crown Court which heard he took advantage of vulnerable girls whose stories were “tinged with tragedy”.

— Hat tip: Kitman

[Return to headlines]

‘I Was Born a Boy, Became a Girl, And Now I Want to be a Boy Again’: Britain’s Youngest Sex Swap Patient to Reverse Her Sex Change Treatment

Ria Cooper made headlines last year when she became Britain’s youngest sex change patient aged 17, after years of begging her family and the NHS to turn her in to a girl.

But now, having lived as a women for less than a year the 18-year has decided to change back in to a man after suffering huge mental anguish as a woman.

She has cancelled the full sex change operation that was scheduled for January and ceased the female hormone therapy that has seen her develop breasts saying that she has found the changes overwhelming and that they have made her deeply unhappy.

— Hat tip: Kitman

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Greece: Church Faces Cash Woes, Says Archbishop
»	Greece: Athens Eyes Shipping Revenues
»	Italian Church Calls for Tax Cuts for Squeezed Families
»	Schaeuble: It’s Not Sure That Greece Will Stay in the Euro
	USA
»	Analyst Fired in Latest Facebook IPO Scandal
»	Bombshell: “My Sources Tell Me Obama Was in the Room Watching Benghazi Attack” Says Lt. Col Anthony Schaffer & More
»	Is This Election Important?
»	Obama Personifies Cloward-Piven Strategy
»	Sandy and Storm Surge Pose ‘Worst Case Scenario’
»	TV Show to Test Whether Innocent People Can be Turned Into Brainwashed Assassins
»	Will American Voters Politically Hang Obama for Benghazi?
	Canada
»	B.C. Teen Arrested for Photographing Mall Takedown
	Europe and the EU
»	Britain Rejects US Request to Use UK Bases for Armageddon Nuclear Standoff With Iran
»	Ferrari President Defends Italian Navy Flag Decision
»	French Socialists Stall on Foreigners’ Right to Vote
»	Harlem Désir, France’s First Black President?
»	Italy: Away With ‘Political Thieves’, Say Young Industrialists
»	Italy: Easyjet Rome-Milan Decision a ‘Milestone’ For Competition
»	Italy: Scajola Probed in Finmeccanica Graft Case
»	Italy: Online Newspapers Now Obliged to Correct False Information
»	Italy: Monti Says Struggle Against Tax Evasion Just Beginning
»	Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West
»	UK: Lord Patten is the Last Man I’d Choose to Clean up the BBC
»	UK: Police Overwhelmed by 4,000 ‘Petty Squabbles’ On Facebook and Twitter, With Three Arrests a Day for Offensive Messages
»	UK: Pay More Tax to Drive on Motorway: Two-Tier System Could Mean Only Rich Motorists Use Fast Routes With Poorer Drivers Forced on to B-Roads
»	UK: Tory Paedo Cover-Up
»	UK: Teachers Arrested in Child Cruelty Probe: Headmistress Held Over Claims She Beat Children as Young as Five
	Balkans
»	Croatia: Priest Steals 1.3 Million Euros and Runs Away With Girlfriend
	North Africa
»	Al-Qaida Leader Urges Kidnapping of Westerners
»	Benghazi, Libya—Biopsy From a Malignant, Failed Presidency
»	The Jihad and Christopher Stevens, Pt. 3
	Middle East
»	Saudi King Urges UN Action Against Religious Insults
»	Turkey: Capacity Utilization in Manufacturing Industry Down
	Russia
»	A “New Stalinism”: Activist ‘Kidnapped’ In Kiev and Sentenced to Two Months
	Caucasus
»	Taliban’s Newest Recruits Train to Join the Burka Brigade
	South Asia
»	Terrorist’s Family Planning to Sue British Government for Helping to Murder Him in CIA Drone Strike
»	Were British Soldiers Murdered in Afghan Police Revenge Attack? Mod Says Female Medic and Marine Were Not Killed by Friendly Fire
	Far East
»	Chinese Premier Family Threatens Legal Action Over NYT Report
»	Officials in Chinese City Pledge to Halt Chemical Factory Expansion After Protests
»	South Korea Says the North is Preparing a Huge Nuclear Weapons Test
	Latin America
»	Case of Blonde Girl Beggar Rescued From Streets Strikes Nerve in Mexico; Activists See Racism
	Immigration
»	30m Bulgarians and Romanians Are Set to Gain Unrestricted Access to UK as EU Regulations Are Lifted
	Culture Wars
»	Italy: Forza Nuova Hangs Offensive Banner on LGBT Community Center

Greece: Church Faces Cash Woes, Says Archbishop

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 25 — The Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, Ieronymos, said on Wednesday that the Greek Church has suffered as a result of the government’s austerity measures and is not making as much money as some claim.

He also stated that the Church might be obliged to stop paying clerics’ salaries. Speaking on TV100 channel, the archbishop noted that about 300 of the Church’s employees could face dismissal if it is unable to pay their wages in two months’ time, as daily Kathimerini reports.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Athens Eyes Shipping Revenues

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — The new agreement between the Greek government and the country’s creditors provides for the signing of a memorandum of understanding by the former and merchant marine shipowners to secure some 200 million euros in extra state revenues for the period 2013 to 2016 through the payment of cargo tax, as daily Kathimerini reports. The head of the Hellenic Shipowners Association, Theodoros Veniamis, recently stated that Greek shippers understand the severity of Greece’s fiscal woes and are willing to contribute to the national effort via tax revenues that the country needs. The current law provides for Greek-flagged ships to be taxed according to their capacity, while companies with ships under foreign flags are not taxed as their profits come from activities outside Greece. Shipowners have also expressed their intention to strengthen the national register with more ships, provided that the Merchant Marine and Aegean Ministry accelerates the procedures for reducing bureaucracy in registering ships and makes moves to bolster the competitiveness of the Greek flag.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Italian Church Calls for Tax Cuts for Squeezed Families

Not right to ask for more sacrifices, say bishops

(ANSA) — Rome, October 24 — The Catholic Church said on Wednesday that the government should be trying to reduce the tax burden of Italian families rather than squeezing them harder with more austerity.

Premier Mario Monti’s tax hikes and spending cuts have eased the threat of Italy following Greece on the path towards default but they have also deepened the recession the country slipped into last year.

A new budget bill that is going through parliament will see value added tax rise by 1% next year if it is approved, while income tax will be lowered in the two lowest bands and there will be more cuts to health and education.

“It is not right nor sufficient to demand further sacrifices from families who, on the contrary, need policies of support, including those that move in the direction of lightening the tax burden,” the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) said in its message for the 35th national ‘day for life’.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Schaeuble: It’s Not Sure That Greece Will Stay in the Euro

(AGI) Berlin, Oct. 27 — It’s not yet sure that Greece will stay in the Euro. The statement was made by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (CDU) in an interview on the ZDF Public Service TV show “The battle for the Euro” that will be aired next Tuesday. “We want Greece to be able to stay in the euro zone. But Greece has a lot to do”, the Minister affirmed.

According to Schaeuble, “doubts persist as to whether Greece has been able to meet its obligations. These doubts have to be dispelled from now on”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Analyst Fired in Latest Facebook IPO Scandal

Thanks to a blog leak, the Facebook IPO is an even bigger disaster than previously believed.

Financial leviathan Citigroup fired star analyst Mark Mahaney over leaking confidential Facebook IPO research to TechCrunch and private YouTube forecasts to a French financial magazine, Capital. The leaks were flagged by the Massachusetts Securities Division, the state’s financial regulator, which today issued a consent order (.pdf) and fined Citi $2 million for the disclosures.

In falling casualty to the Facebook IPO, Citigroup joins lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, Facebook itself, and the Nasdaq exchange, all of whom have seen their reputations tarnished as a result of the bungled stock debut this past May. Thanks to aggressive pricing, last-minute disclosures, trading failures, and other issues, the Facebook IPO has become a sort of case study on how not to handle a large securities offering.

— Hat tip: JD

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Bombshell: “My Sources Tell Me Obama Was in the Room Watching Benghazi Attack” Says Lt. Col Anthony Schaffer & More

“In the closest factual response to ‘Did Obama watch the Benghazi attack, and was he the bottom line in denying help to our forces on the ground?’ Lt Anthony Schaffer reported a resounding ‘Yes’ to this question on FOX’s ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine’. Lt. Anthony Schaffer reports that ‘his sources on the ground’ report not only was Obama watching the developments in Benghazi, but Obama is the one who would have told Panetta to ‘stand down’ and also—and here is the key, Obama would have also been the one to deny Tyrone Woods’ pleas for help as he courageously made his stand in service to the United States of America.

“We know Woods had ‘laser locked’ the position of the mortars that eventually claimed his life sometime on September 11-12 2012. Its time we hear directly from the President, the American people deserve to know exactly why it is that Obama made the political decision to leave our men alone to fend for themselves—no doubt this was Tyrone Woods last thoughts—’why didn’t they come to help me?’

“Sources who were on the ground in Benghazi during the attack on the US consulate tell Fox News that CIA operatives twice asked for permission to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and his staff, and twice were told to ‘stand down’ — while a later request for military backup was denied.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Is This Election Important?

I would like to address the importance of this November’s general election. I will admit that we have heard the political pundits make that same statement in the last half dozen election but the truth is each election is the most important of our day. We have seen the nation slip to the left little by little for so long believing that America would never fall that we have come to a point where it won’t take much time or executive orders to render the American experience finished.

I personally have seen this nation go from having the Ten Commandments hanging in our school classrooms to arresting our children who are ‘caught’ reading the Bible during study hall. But in Minnesota during teachers conferences the teachers will learn how to teach islam! Read about it here.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama Personifies Cloward-Piven Strategy

Barack Hussein Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. On the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. Barack Hussein Obama was my college classmate.(Columbia University, class of ‘83)

He is a devout Muslim; do not be fooled. Look at his czars… Anti-business anti-American. As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Barack Hussein Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University… they outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.

Add up the clues below. Taken individually they’re alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a Socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival… And can be counted on to always vote for even bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

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Sandy and Storm Surge Pose ‘Worst Case Scenario’

KENSINGTON, Md. (AP) — The projected storm surge from Hurricane Sandy is a “worst case scenario” with devastating waves and tides predicted for the highly populated New York City metro area, government forecasters said Sunday.

The more they observe it, the more the experts worry about the water — which usually kills and does more damage than winds in hurricanes.

In this case, seas will be amped up by giant waves and full-moon-powered high tides. That will combine with drenching rains, triggering inland flooding as the hurricane merges with a winter storm system that will worsen it and hold it in place for days.

Louis Uccellini, environmental prediction chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press that given Sandy’s due east-to-west track into New Jersey, that puts the worst of the storm surge just north in New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey. “Yes, this is the worst case scenario,” he said.

In a measurement of pure kinetic energy, NOAA’s hurricane research division on Sunday ranked the surge and wave “destruction potential” for Sandy — just the hurricane, not the hybrid storm it will eventually become — at 5.8 on a 0 to 6 scale. The damage expected from winds will be far less, experts said. Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters says that surge destruction potential number is a record and it’s due to the storm’s massive size.

“You have a lot of wind acting over a long distance of water for hundreds of miles” and that piles the storm surge up when it finally comes ashore, Masters said. Even though it doesn’t pack much power in maximum wind speed, the tremendous size of Sandy — more than 1,000 miles across with tropical storm force winds — adds to the pummelling power when it comes ashore, he said.

The storm surge energy numbers are bigger than the deadly 2005 Hurricane Katrina, but that can be misleading. Katrina’s destruction was concentrated in a small area, making it much worse, Masters said. Sandy’s storm surge energy is spread over a wider area. Also, Katrina hit a city that is below sea level and had problems with levees.

National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said Hurricane Sandy’s size means some coastal parts of New York and New Jersey may see water rise from 6 to 11 feet from surge and waves. The rest of the coast north of Virginia can expect 4 to 8 feet of surge.

The full moon Monday will add 2 to 3 inches to the storm surge in New York, Masters said.

“If the forecasts hold true in terms of the amount of rainfall and the amount of coastal flooding, that’s going to be what drives up the losses and that’s what’s going to hurt,” said Susan Cutter, director of the hazards and vulnerability research institute at the University of South Carolina.

Cutter said she worries about coastal infrastructure, especially the New York subways, which were shutting down Sunday night.

Klaus Jacob, a Columbia University researcher who has advised the city on coastal risks, said, “We have to prepare to the extent we can, but I’m afraid that from a subway point of view, I think it’s beyond sheer preparations. I do not think that there’s enough emergency measures that will help prevent the subway from flooding.”

Knabb said millions of people may be harmed by inland flooding.

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TV Show to Test Whether Innocent People Can be Turned Into Brainwashed Assassins

A television programme is out to test whether innocent people can be brainwashed in becoming unwitting assassins as in the plot of political thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

In the 1959 novel, a man is brainwashed into becoming an unwitting sleeper assassin as part of a Communist conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government.

The novel and its film adaptations have intrigued many, and related conspiracy theories have long-held that the U.S. government and others have tried to develop techniques to control the minds of individuals.

Scroll down for video

— Hat tip: JD

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Will American Voters Politically Hang Obama for Benghazi?

Yes, Obamanomics are horrific! — No, it’s not just the economy this time stupid. What the Obama administration have done to intentionally destroy the U.S. economy is cause enough for a political hanging of everyone in the Obama administration. The people responsible for driving our nation’s debt up more than 60% in less than four years, while decimating jobs and forcing a record number of Americans onto federal assistance, demands a short rope swinging from the political tree.

• Unemployment still in double digits and worsening
• 80% of college grads cannot find work in chosen profession
• Over 40% of Americans now on federal assistance (an all-time high)
• National debt UP 60% since taking office (over $16 trillion)
• An 84% failure rate on “green” taxpayer investments that most taxpayers opposed
• Average American income DOWN over $4000 per year
• Home values still DOWN more than 30% nationally
• Businesses are closing and investors are leaving America
• Obama has sent more jobs overseas than all of the last five presidents combined
• Cost of gas UP 137%
• Cost of potatoes UP 306%
• Cost of butter and coffee UP more than 150%
• Beef, milk and flour UP more than 100%
• Eggs and rice UP over 70%

And that is the good news… The economic terrorism waged on the American people by the Obama administration is nothing when compared to the national security threat this administration represents.

Benghazi is important not only because we lost four Americans there, an Ambassador, his aide and two SEALS, all of whom died needlessly. It is important because Benghazi is a microcosm into the broader Obama-Clinton foreign policy.

— Hat tip: JD

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B.C. Teen Arrested for Photographing Mall Takedown

A B.C. teen who aspires to be a journalist says his rights were violated when he was set upon by security guards and then arrested by police after photographing an incident at Metrotown shopping mall in Burnaby, B.C.

Jakub Markiewicz, 16, said he was in the mall in September and took a picture of what he thought was a newsworthy event — a man being arrested by security guards.

But Markiewicz said the guards quickly turned on him, demanding he delete the photo, which he couldn’t do because he was shooting on a film camera.

— Hat tip: JD

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Britain Rejects US Request to Use UK Bases for Armageddon Nuclear Standoff With Iran

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law. The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general’s office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

— Hat tip: JD

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Ferrari President Defends Italian Navy Flag Decision

Contribution to dialogue, says Montezemolo

(ANSA) — Maranello, October 26 — Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo on Friday defended the team’s decision to display the Italian Navy flag on its race cars at this weekend’s Indian Grand Prix in solidarity with two Italian marines on trial in India over the shooting deaths of two local fishermen. “We only want to make a small contribution, with great respect for the Indian authorities, so that a solution might be found through dialogue,” he said in the wake of criticism from the Indian government, media and fishing community. Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone are accused of homicide after allegedly mistaking the two Indian fishermen for pirates during an anti-piracy mission off the coast of Kerala in southern India in February. The shooting triggered a diplomatic row between Italy and India.

The Italian government, citing United Nations conventions, says its courts should have jurisdiction over the case and has been pressing for the marines return to Italy. The pair are being held while the Indian Supreme Court considers Italy’s claim for jurisdiction.

Earlier in the day Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone said that sport has nothing to do with “political” matters.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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French Socialists Stall on Foreigners’ Right to Vote

Newly-elected Socialist Party leader Harlem Désir roused the Socialist Party conference in Toulouse on Saturday when he pledged not to forget François Hollande’s election promise to grant foreign residents the right to vote in local elections. “It’s a question of Republican fraternity, equality and dignity,” he said, promising a commitment from his party to fight for the rights of foreigners. But not all of his fellow Socialists seem to be in agreement.

The bill, which has faced decades of opposition from the conservative UMP party, was supposed to have been introduced in time for France’s municipal elections in 2014. But six months into power, the Socialist Party has failed to rally the numbers in parliament necessary to adopt it, with some high-profile Socialists suggesting that it is not a priority.

Former Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry said Sunday that while “it would be with great sadness not to have this law introduced by 2014, the French people need to know that our greatest priority is employment”. […]

— Hat tip: LH

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Harlem Désir, France’s First Black President?

Members of France’s ruling Socialist Party overwhelmingly picked Harlem Désir as party chief during the group’s congress in the southwest city of Toulouse on Thursday. The vote made Désir the first black man to lead a major political party in France, placing him on a political fast track to the French presidency.

The outcome of the vote came as no surprise. Désir, 52, has served as interim party chief ever since Lille city mayor Martine Aubry stepped down in June 2011 to take part in presidential primaries. Aubry resigned from her post last month, all but naming Désir as her successor.

As the new Socialist Party boss, Harlem Désir is the first black politician to lead a major French party. While there is no guarantee the Socialist Party (PS) will also pick Désir as a presidential nominee one day, recent history suggests he can now aspire to the country’s top job.

French President François Hollande was the leader of the PS from 1997 to 2008, and François Mitterrand — the only other Socialist president in recent history — was party chief from 1971 to 1981. […] The son of a black father from the French overseas department of Martinique and a white mother from Alsace, near the German border, Harlem Jean-Philippe Désir was born in Paris in 1959. He rose to national prominence in the 1980s as one of the hip young leaders of the popular backlash against the then-surging far-right National Front. A philosopher by training, the activist Désir would go on to lead prominent racism watchdog SOS Racisme. […] There have also been bumps in Desir’s promising path to power, and if he ever makes a bid for the presidency he will have to answer for past mistakes. In 1998, he was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay more than 4,500 euros for collecting a paycheck for a non-existent job.

He also owed the French treasury around 12,000 euros in traffic fines before Mitterrand granted him an amnesty in 1992.

Désir has also earned criticism for progressively shedding his political convictions and outspoken character to mould himself into an unquestioning subordinate of the party.

He is often further derided for his prepared statements and a lack of sincerity when answering questions by the French press, who bestowed him with the unbecoming “mealy-mouthed” award during a PS gathering in La Rochelle in August.

“You can’t become the first secretary of the Socialist Party without making some sacrifices,” Malek Boutih, another former president of SOS Racisme, told FRANCE 24. “If Désir said everything he thought, he would never be where he is today.” […]

— Hat tip: LH

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Italy: Away With ‘Political Thieves’, Say Young Industrialists

Leader Morelli calls for change, lower taxes

(ANSA) — Capri (Naples), October 26 — Italy’s young entrepreneurs are no longer prepared to tolerate what they see as ignorance and theft among the country’s politicians, Jacopo Morelli, president of industrialists’ association Confindustria’s Young Businessmen said on Friday.

“Away with the thieves, the ignorant and the incapable,” he told a gathering of young industrialists on the island of Capri. “We are disgusted by the idea of public office as a shortcut for getting rich, we rebel against this decay,” continued Morelli, adding that the “parasitic classes” continue to “erode public money even as 2,000 people ae losing their jobs every day”. “We have the right to a change,” he said.

Italy has been hit by a raft of graft scandals in regional governments including Lazio, Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Campania, Molise and Sicily. The young leader also spoke out against the tax burden on businesses, which he said would exceed 68% in 2012. The government “has recognised that Italians are showing a great sense of responsibility by accepting drastic and unpopular measures,” said Morelli. “If this is true, then there is a moral obligation to restore faith in the country immediately by substantially lowering tax pressure on workers and businesses that reinvest,” he concluded.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Easyjet Rome-Milan Decision a ‘Milestone’ For Competition

Carrier looks forward to welcoming passengers on key route

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Low-cost airline EasyJet on Friday hailed a decision by the Italian competition authority AGCM to award it the rights to fly on the key route between Rome and Milan, describing its as a “milestone” for the free market. Until now Italy’s flagship carrier Alitalia has had the monopoly on services between the country’s political capital and its financial and economic centre.

“EasyJet is proud to have obtained the rights to operate on the Milan Linate- Rome-Fiumicino route,” said Italy country director Frances Ouseley.

“This decision represents a milestone for the free market as it favours customers first and foremost,” she continued. “EasyJet has proved again and again that entering a new market means bringing in competition, lowering fares and enabling more people to travel on the route. We look forward to welcoming passengers onboard when we start to operate”.

The decision to award the low-cost carrier rights on the Rome-Milan route comes after ACGM found there to be “a lack of proper competition between rail and air transport” and that Alitalia was running a monopoly.

The authority ordered the Italian flag carrier to give up seven of its slots.

EasyJet has said it will operate five services a day between the two airports from early 2013.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Scajola Probed in Finmeccanica Graft Case

Ex-Berlusconi industry minister linked to Brazil contracts

(ANSA) — Rome, October 23 — Italy’s former industry minister Claudio Scajola was placed under a graft investigation Tuesday for his role in Italian defence giant Finmeccanica’s supply contracts to Brazil. “I reiterate that with respect to my responsibilities as industry minister, I traveled the world always respecting the laws and the rules,” Scajola told Italian television. Earlier in the day a senior manager of the State-controlled defence group was arrested in connection with investigations into the supply of helicopters and weapons to Panama. Former commercial director Paolo Pozzessere, currently Finmeccanica’s senior advisor for relations with Russia, was arrested on suspicion of international corruption in relation to deliveries made by three Finmeccanica subsidiaries, AgustaWestland, Selex and Telespazio, to the Panama government under agreements with the Italian State.

Finmeccanica is 30%-owned by the Italian government. Scajola, who served under ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, is suspected of involvement in corrupt deals involving the supply of naval frigates to Brazil. “I always conducted these duties in the light of day and in official meetings,” he said. “I have never had private encounters. I am at ease and do not understand what there is behind it, but from now on I am available to the magistrates should they want to hear me on the matter”. The investigations come as Finmeccanica and its CEO Giuseppe Orsi find themselves at the centre of controversy over an alleged kickback scheme connected to a 560-million-euro contract involving the sale in 2010 of 12 helicopters by AgustaWestland to the Indian government. Orsi has denied any wrongdoing and said he would only resign his post if asked to do so by the Italian government. The CEO has also denied any wrongdoing in an investigation that began earlier this year into the alleged payment of bribes to political parties.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Online Newspapers Now Obliged to Correct False Information

(AGI) Rome, Oct. 25 — The Mugnai (PDL) Senate amendment to the defamation bill establishes it is not only newspapers that have an obligation to correct misleading information, but also “publishing products distributed electronically, regularly and under a masthead.” In practice, this covers all web publications and not just the online editions of printed newspapers.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Monti Says Struggle Against Tax Evasion Just Beginning

(AGI) Rome, Oct. 24 — Regarding tax evasion, Prime Minister Mario Monti — speaking at the presentation of Bruno Tabacci’s book ‘Pensiero Libero’ — said, “we are still far from reaching our goal”. Monti said that the “policies against tax evasion are a barrier, holding off the erosion of the soil on which the country stands: it’s not just a judicial issue, but something that undermines society from its very roots, that jeopardises the trust between society and state”. However, Monti added, “we are still far from reaching our goal”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West

Jacques Barzun, the distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history and came to see the West as sliding toward decadence, died Thursday night in San Antonio, where he lived. He was 104. […] Mr. Barzun was a man of boundless curiosity, monumental productivity and manifold interests, encompassing both Berlioz and baseball. It was a life of the mind first cultivated more than a century ago in a childhood home outside Paris that became an avant-garde salon.

Mr. Barzun stood beside Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell and Lionel Trilling as among the mid-20th century’s most wide-ranging scholars, all of whom tried to reconcile the achievements of European culture and philosophy with the demands and tastes of American intellectual and cultural life.

He wrote dozens of books across many decades, demonstrating that old age did not necessarily mean intellectual decline. He published his most ambitious and encyclopedic book at the age of 92 (and credited his productivity in part to chronic insomnia). That work, “From Dawn to Decadence,” is an 877-page survey of 500 years of Western culture in which he argued that Western civilization itself had entered a period of decline. […] In his 2000 book, “From Dawn to Decadence,” he argued that one of the great virtues of the West was its character as a “mongrel civilization”: over the course of its development, it was resiliently constructed out of dozens of national cultures.

He traced periods of rise and fall in the Western saga, and contended that another fall was near — one that could cause “the liquidation of 500 years of civilization.” This time the decline would be caused not by scientism and absolutism, he maintained, but by an internal crisis in the civilization itself, which he believed had come to celebrate nihilism and rebellion.

And yet, in the cycles of history, he believed another renewal would come.

“It is only in the shadows,” he wrote, “when some fresh wave, truly original, truly creative, breaks upon the shore, that there will be a rediscovery of the West.”

— Hat tip: LH

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UK: Lord Patten is the Last Man I’d Choose to Clean up the BBC

As the BBC was last week engulfed in what its chairman, Lord Patten, called “a tsunami of filth”, some observers widened out our attention to the peculiar role played at the head of the BBC’s affairs by Lord Patten himself.

Under the headline “Patten personifies everything that’s wrong with the BBC elite”, the Telegraph’s Peter Oborne trenchantly observed how “the BBC in recent years has been colonised and captured by a narrow, greedy, self-interested and self-perpetuating liberal elite, contemptuous of ordinary people and of ordinary morality”. In other words, the unspeakable Savile affair is a symptom of a deeper corruption that has pervaded the BBC for years.

Apart from a desire to award each other grotesquely inflated salaries, one of this elite’s most alarming traits has been the contempt they show for the BBC’s legal duty, under its Charter, to report on the world with “due accuracy and impartiality”. There is an ever-longer list of issues on which the BBC has a clear “party line”, which it pushes with shameless disregard for balance.

A year ago, I published a report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the consequences of a deliberate decision by the BBC’s top brass in 2006 to throw all its prestige into propaganda for climate-change alarmism. Equally blatant, a few years earlier, was a campaign, through its news programmes, for Britain to join the euro — which looks even more deluded now than it did at the time.

The man, above all, with a legal duty to ensure that the BBC meets its Charter obligations is Lord Patten, as chairman of the BBC Trust. Yet on these issues, as on many others, his views and those of the self-important mediocrities making up the BBC hierarchy are indistinguishable.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Police Overwhelmed by 4,000 ‘Petty Squabbles’ On Facebook and Twitter, With Three Arrests a Day for Offensive Messages

Police forces across Britain are being forced to deal with petty squabbles on Facebook, Twitter and other social network sites every day when they could be tackling more serious crimes.

Officers say they are wasting valuable time and resources tackling internet users directing abuse at each other.

In most cases, police simply tell victims to delete their tormentors from their networks, but the Crown Prosecution Service says a ‘few dozen’ more serious incidents have led to court, with the figure growing rapidly in recent months.

New figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday show that at least three arrests are being made every day for sending offensive messages via phones and computers, including people harassing ex-partners by text message and making hoax threats as well as comments on social media.

An officer from Essex who asked not to be named said: ‘I dread to think how many hours are spent on Facebook jobs. If you don’t do at least one a day it’s been a very quiet day.’

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Pay More Tax to Drive on Motorway: Two-Tier System Could Mean Only Rich Motorists Use Fast Routes With Poorer Drivers Forced on to B-Roads

Drivers would pay higher road tax for using motorways under a plan being considered by ministers.

The radical idea is being considered as the Treasury faces a budget shortfall caused by families switching to cars that incur lower road tax.

Two rates of road tax would apply — a lower tier for users of small roads and a higher charge for those driving on motorways and other major routes. Spy cameras would catch any drivers using the trunk roads without having paid up.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Tory Paedo Cover-Up

POLICE probing an underage sex ring at the heart of Maggie Thatcher’s government were warned: “Stop investigating if you want to keep your jobs.”

Officers in London were inquiring into allegations made by a teenage rent boy that a Cabinet minister had been abusing him.

The youth claimed to be one of a number of boys regularly having sex with rich and powerful men in the 1980s — some of whom would fly to the illegal orgies from Europe.

As well as the Cabinet minister — who is still alive — he pointed the finger at judges, European bigwigs and senior civil servants.

He told his story to detectives, who are understood to have received other allegations against the minister.

But a former detective who worked on the case revealed they were suddenly told to halt the probe.

The furious ex-policeman said: “It wasn’t that we ran out of leads but it reached a point where a warning to stop came.

“It was a case of ‘get rid of everything, never say a word to anyone’. It was made very clear to me that to continue asking questions would jeopardise my career.”

The accused top Tory was never arrested and no one was ever charged over the rent-boy ring.

The vulnerable teen who spoke to detectives vanished just weeks after blowing the whistle.

A “network” of boys, including runaways, were used — many of whom were said to have been recruited around the then notorious rent-boy haunt of Leicester Square.

Some of the VIPs were said to have flown in via RAF Northolt on the outskirts of London.

One boy told police wealthy men from Belgium attended the parties, which were described as “high class” and featured top-notch food and booze.

The detective said the whistleblower was petrified about the repercussions.

Last week Labour MP Tom Watson said he had been told of evidence linking another child sex ring to Parliament and Downing Street.

He said case files from 20 years ago involving convicted paedophile Peter Righton contained evidence of links to Number 10.

He said there was “clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”, adding: “One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad.”

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Teachers Arrested in Child Cruelty Probe: Headmistress Held Over Claims She Beat Children as Young as Five

A headmistress and three teachers have been arrested over claims they beat pupils aged just five.

Rally Ikiebe, 49, known as ‘matron’, allegedly slapped, punched and applied Chinese burns to children in her care.

Also accused over the offences, which alledgedly took place at the £8,000-a-year Chrysolyte Independent Christian School in Southwark, South London, are her husband Joseph, 54, Adenike Amee, 33, and Olasumba Baruwa, 48.

— Hat tip: JD

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Croatia: Priest Steals 1.3 Million Euros and Runs Away With Girlfriend

Zagreb, 17 Oct. (AKI) — The Croatian Catholic church on Wednesday found itself mired in a scandal involving a young priest who allegedly stole 1.3 million euros of church funds and ran away with a young girl.

Local media reported that the priest, Sime Nimac, in the Adriatic town of Baska voda sold 40,000 square metres of church property, then withdrew the money from the bank before vanishing.

Nimac, 34, was reported to have absconded with a female banker and his whereabouts were unknown. As police opened an investigation, church officials issued a public apology over the incident, which they ascribed to “the insatiable egoism of an individual”.

But Zagreb daily Jutarnji list said in an editorial on Wednesday that the problem wasn’t just Nimac but also a lack of transparency in the heavily state-subsidised church and its finances.

Media reports said Nimac drove an expensive car, wore designer clothes and was adored by the women of his parish.

“If he did steal the church’s money, it is a cathastrophe in a human and religious sense,” a local resident was quoted as saying.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Al-Qaida Leader Urges Kidnapping of Westerners

The leader of al-Qaida has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners to exchange for imprisoned jihadists. Ayman Al-Zawahri also urged support for Syria’s uprising and called for the implementation of Islamic Shariah law in Egypt. In an undated two-hour videotape posted this week on militant forums, the Egyptian-born jihadist said that abducting nationals of “countries waging wars on Muslims” is the only way to free “our captives, and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman,” the Egyptian cleric serving a life sentence in U.S. prisons for his masterminding of 1993 bombings in New York City.

— Hat tip: JD

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Benghazi, Libya—Biopsy From a Malignant, Failed Presidency

Whatever happened to Barack the world’s smartest leader and incomparable statesman? Those days are gone forever. Instead, it would be impossible to catalog the staggering list of ill-advised, mistaken, foolish, naive and utterly inane decisions by Obama and his administration. So, instead—let us use a single Obama catastrophe, the events of Libya—to critique and symbolize his failed tenure. This is reasonable because every bad Barack habit and evil instinct is represented in this new American disaster.

In the November 2012 presidential election, America is given an opportunity almost no other country suffering under tyranny is offered—the chance to wake-up and toss out a despot before he fatally damages our noble Republic. Let us pray Americans will cast aside sentimentality and act as true patriots and save America from a crafty and utterly immoral, power-mad demagogue. For if Libya is not a wake up call for the average American, we may not be able to stop the implosion. But we must believe we can halt the rot if we act now.

[…]

After much WH disinformation, we now know a great deal of damning information about what actually happened (key video): The fight raged for 7 hours; the WH knew there was no video protest; Ambassador Stevens asked repeatedly for more security, including the day of the attack; the WH had a live feed for 5 hours of the firefight; there was a CIA safe house 1 mile down the road; A nearby US base was 480 miles away—Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Italy; Former Navy SEALS at the nearby (1 mile) CIA annex asked three times if they could help Stevens and were told repeatedly to “stand down”; several agents finally volunteered to aid Stevens and ended up dying; that a Delta Force Team, designated a secret tier-one counter-terrorism team, was at Sigonella, at most 2 hours away; a US Military AC-130h-Specter Gunship was already in Benghazi but not sent to rescue Stevens (gunships mission: “close air support, air interdiction and armed reconnaissance”); that a strike was organized, the terrorists located, but the mission canceled when Barack did not have the nerve to pull the trigger.[urls]

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

The Jihad and Christopher Stevens, Pt. 3

by Diana West

In the last installment, I examined cables written by Christopher Stevens in 2008 (and available courtesy Wikileaks) that seem to capture a significant trend in his thinking, and, perhaps the thinking of others in the US government, which may have helped drive the evolution of the disastrous US “Arab Spring” policy that put Uncle Sam in alliance with al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and other groups driving the spread of sharia (Islamic law).

This trend appears as Stevens learned how to explain — how to rationalize, really — the jihad corridor that eastern Libyans in particular followed to fight Americans in Iraq. While the Washington Post today quite narrowly (ignorantly) tells readers that Derna sent more jihadists to Iraq “during the U.S. occupation [sic] than any other place in Libya,” the larger truth is that eastern Libya, led by Derna and Benghazi, sent more jihadists to kill and maim Americans — whose Iraq “occupation,” by the way, included fighting AQ, preventing Sunni-Shiite civil war and “nation-building” all at the same time — per capita than any place in the world. And, as discussed in Part 2, the citizenry is extremely proud of this ultimate anti-American fact.

The explanation, to Stevens, had little to do with an Islamic culture well-primed to heed the age-old Islamic call to jihad. Citing the poverty, boredom and Al Jazeera (as though poverty, boredom and Al Jazeera would inexorably lead all people everywhere to strap bombs to their bodies and kill Americans while yelling Allahu Akbar), Stevens passed along the rationale of a source who described the men of the region as engaging in “extremism in the name of religion” — never, ever mind the “extremism” of the “religion” itself as reinforced by the pride the local culture took according to these same cables, in such “extremism.”

This pride, however, still bothered Stevens, who wrote: “The most troubling and difficult aspect of [redacted’s] account is the pride that many eastern Libyans … appear to take in the role their native sons have played in the insurgency in Iraq.”

What did Stevens mean by “difficult”? What obstace to what path did he have in mind?…

— Hat tip: Diana West

[Return to headlines]

Saudi King Urges UN Action Against Religious Insults

AFP — Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz on Saturday demanded a UN resolution condemning insults on monotheistic religions after a low-budget film produced in the US sparked deadly protests last month.

“I demand a UN resolution that condemns any country or group that insults religions and prophets,” he said during a meeting at his palace with religious figures and heads of hajj delegations in the Mina valley where pilgrims were performing final rituals of hajj.

“It is our duty and that of every Muslim to protect Islam and defend the prophets.”

A low-budget film produced in the US, Innocence of Muslims, triggered a wave of deadly anti-American violence last month across the Muslim world targeting US symbols ranging from embassies and schools to fast food chains.

Saudi Arabia had threatened to block YouTube in the kingdom if Google did not respond to a request to deny access to the video footage of the film. YouTube then extended its restrictions on the video to Saudi Arabia.

The king also called on Saturday for the “unity of the Islamic nation (and) rejecting division to face the nation’s enemies” as he urged for dialogue among Muslims.

“Dialogue strengthens moderation and ends reasons of conflict and extremism,” he said.

“The interconfessional dialogue centre which we had announced in Mecca does not necessarily mean reaching agreements on the matters of belief, but it aims at reaching solutions to divisions and implementing co-existance among sects,” he added.

The Saudi monarch proposed in August setting up a centre for dialogue between Muslim confessions in Riyadh.

[Return to headlines]

Turkey: Capacity Utilization in Manufacturing Industry Down

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, OCTOBER 23 — Capacity utilization rate in Turkey’s manufacturing industry decreased 2.1 points to 74.9% in October 2012 when compared to same month a year earlier, Anatolia news agency reports. The Turkish Central Bank stated on Tuesday that capacity utilization rate in manufacturing industry was 77% in October 2011. The figure was up by 0.3 point over September 2012.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

A “New Stalinism”: Activist ‘Kidnapped’ In Kiev and Sentenced to Two Months

Leonid Razvozzhaev, a member of the Left Front, the radical movement targeted by authorities after a pro-Kremlin TV broadcast a documentary in which they accused the opposition of planning a coup. Human rights defenders denounce: Stalin-style repression.

Moscow (AsiaNews) — After having fled to Ukraine seeking political asylum, a Russian opposition activist has been arrested in Kiev, brought to Moscow on a private jet and sentenced in the absence of his lawyers to two months in prison on charges of “ organization of mass disorder” intent on overthrowing power in Russia. The operation against Leonid Razvozzhaev, a member of the Left Front (the most radical fringe of the opposition to Vladimir Putin) immediately provoked comparisons to KGB methods, and comes as part of a wider investigation initiated by the authorities against activists at the forefront of anti-government demonstrations last year.

Razvozzhaev had been indicted in absentia for “organizing mass disorder” after the “Anatomy of a protest-2” documentary, broadcast by pro-Kremlin NTV October 5, which portrayed him and his companions engaged in the preparation of a coup in Russia with the help of lenders in Georgia and Great Britain.

The information contained in the controversial film — which uses recordings with hidden cameras — has led authorities to officially open an investigation on 17 October. Konstantin Lebedev, a prominent figure of the Left Front, was sentenced to two months in prison on the same charges of Razvozzhaev, while the leader of the movement, Sergei Udaltsov, was questioned for hours and then released, but with a ban on leaving the country. The incident has triggered a protest of human rights defenders, who immediately spoke of “ Stalin-style repression “ with searches in the middle of the night in the homes of the accused and their relatives.

“Razvozzhaev was taken to court in Moscow Basmanny not by police, but by men in civilian clothes, probably FSB agents” (Russian secret services, heirs to the KGB), a source close to ‘ activist told the online newspaper Gazeta.ru. Ilya Ponomarev, a member of A Just Russia party and who had hired Razvozzhaev as her aide, said that the transfer from Kiev took place on a private jet. The lawyer Violetta Volkova, told the news agency Itar-Tass that the decision on the arrest of his client was taken by judges “behind closed doors”, without even allowing the presence of lawyers.

Officially ended in the federal list of most wanted October 19, Razvozzhaev, according to some colleagues, went to Ukraine to seek asylum, but he did not have time. On social networks and blogs, the case has raised a storm of controversy. Against the Kremlin, that the judicial and legislative bodies apparently engaged in a real “campaign of repression” of dissent, according to parliamentarian Gennady Gudkov, but also against Ukraine, which handed Razvozzhaev back to Moscow. On his Facebook page, the political scientist Gleb Pavlosky writes: “This is bad for Razvozzhaev. Kiev is not a place for refugees. Nadezhda Mandelstam had already advised us not to try the Ukrainian defense.” The reference is to the wife of the poet Osip Mandelstam, a victim of Stalin’s purges.

Meanwhile, the most wanted list in the investigation seems destined to grow. According to the newspaper Kommersant, the investigators are already on the trail of Konstantin Kosyakin, another member of the Left Front. If brought to trial and convicted, the activist faces up to 10 years in prison.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Taliban’s Newest Recruits Train to Join the Burka Brigade

Burkha-clad women are being trained to fight by terrorists in the volatile Russian Republic of Chechnya.

This film, posted online by extremists, shows women in the traditional clothes being taught how to wield Kalashnikov assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles with deadly results.

It is believed the all-female group of fighters was recruited by a group linked to Al-Qaeda that has bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Terrorist’s Family Planning to Sue British Government for Helping to Murder Him in CIA Drone Strike

The family of a high-ranking Al Qaeda planner killed by a CIA drone strike are to sue the British government for helping to murder him.

Rashid Rauf, a fugitive Briton who played a pivotal role in coordinating the airline bomb plot, was reportedly killed in a U.S missile attack on a Taliban safe house in Pakistan’s tribal areas in 2008.

His family is now to launch a legal challenge accusing the Government of being complicit in the murder of one of its own citizens on foreign soil.

British intelligence officers who shared information about him with their US counterparts may be judged to have assisted in his murder, or of committing war crimes.

Rauf, 27, a former baker’s boy from Birmingham, was on a CIA ‘High Value Target’ list because of his alleged role as a chief planner for Al Qaeda attacks on the West.

Intelligence services also believe he was the brains behind the July 7 London tube attacks, and that he masterminded the failed 2006 plot to blow up US airliners flying from Heathrow, using liquid bombs.

A close friend of the family, who have always maintained that Rauf had no links with Al Qaeda, told the Sunday Mercury: ‘They want justice for their son who was killed in murky circumstances that amount to cold-blooded murder.

More…

‘Rashid never had a chance to defend or explain himself. He was accused of some heinous crimes and without any trial, judge or jury he was blown to pieces by a unmanned Predator drone aircraft controlled by a soldier sitting thousands of miles away in the US.

‘The Americans could not have found and killed him without help from British intelligence officers who shared information.

‘The family want answers. They want to see the evidence that Rashid was a dangerous terrorist.’

The British government has consistently refused to say whether or not its signals intelligence agency, the Cheltenham-based GCHQ, passes information in support of the CIA drone operations over Pakistan.

But media reports have quoted sources at GCHQ claiming it has better interception networks than the CIA in south Asia, and that it has shared information about the locations of Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Rauf family have been encouraged to launch their legal challenge after lawyers for a young Pakistani man, whose father was killed by a drone strike, seek to have the sharing of UK locational intelligence declared unlawful.

Noor Khan, 27, is said to live in constant fear of a repeat of the attack in North Waziristan in March last year which killed more than 40 other people.

In a landmark case at the High Court in London last week, Mr Khan launched an application for a judicial review examining the UK’s alleged complicity in the CIA’s drone campaign.

If Khan’s case is successful, judges will be forced to examine whether GCHQ officers can legally share information on the location of individuals if they believe this may be used to target them with drone strikes.

Khan’s barrister Martin Chamberlain told High Court judges that while soldiers who kill as part of an international armed conflict are protected from prosecution, it’s unclear whether the turmoil in Pakistan’s volatile tribal belt constitutes a war.

A spokesman for human rights charity Reprieve said: ‘This anomaly could make the killings unlawful and British officials who shared intelligence leading to those killings would be guilty of accessory to murder.

‘Even if this is held to be a war, the drone strikes could break international humanitarian law by exceeding what ‘proportionate and necessary’ is leaving officers who share intelligence at risk of assisting crimes against humanity or war crimes.’

A spokesman for the Rauf family last night said their legal action would not be intended to convict any individuals of a crime but to seek a declaration by the British civil courts that such intelligence sharing is unlawful.

— Hat tip: Steen

[Return to headlines]

Were British Soldiers Murdered in Afghan Police Revenge Attack? Mod Says Female Medic and Marine Were Not Killed by Friendly Fire

Two British soldiers shot dead last week in Afghanistan may have been the victims of a revenge attack by local police.

Corporal Channing Day, 25, of 3 Medical Regiment and Corporal David O’Connor, 27, of 40 Com-mando, Royal Marines, were previously thought to have been caught up in a so-called ‘friendly fire’ incident.

But after interviewing witnesses and recovering fragments of ammunition, Royal Military Police investigators have ruled out the theory that the pair were shot by British Forces.

Last night a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman confirmed that the deaths were caused by ‘a third party… not UK personnel’.

Military detectives are exploring whether the soldiers were killed after British troops shot dead an Afghan policeman.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Chinese Premier Family Threatens Legal Action Over NYT Report

Lawyers for Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s relatives have threatened to “hold responsible” the New York Times for its report claiming that the family held assets worth $2.7 billion. The lawyers’ statement said the “hidden riches” didn’t exist.

Lawyers for relatives of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao have hit back at an “untrue” New York Times article which alleged the family has accumulated vast wealth, a report said Sunday.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, which printed what it said was a statement from the lawyers, said it was the first time the family of a top Chinese leader has issued a rebuttal of a foreign media report.

Friday’s New York Times (NYT) article came at an especially sensitive time, as the Communist Party strives to clean house before a pivotal handover of power next month.

Detailing a string of deals, the NYT said many relatives of the government’s number two — a self-styled man of the people — had become “extraordinarily wealthy” during his years in office.

Investments by Wen’s son, wife and others spanning the banking, jewellery and telecom sectors were worth at least $2.7 billion according to an analysis of company and regulatory filings from 1992-2012, it said.

Wen’s 90-year-old mother owned a stake valued at $120 million in 2007 in the Ping An insurance giant, according to the US newspaper.

The allegations come as a particular embarrassment for Wen, who is expected to step down as premier next March. He is the standard-bearer of the party’s reformist wing and has campaigned against rampant corruption.

The South China Morning Post reproduced the statement from two lawyers, Bai Tao and Wang Weidong, rejecting aspects of the NYT report. China’s foreign ministry has denounced the article as a smear campaign.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Officials in Chinese City Pledge to Halt Chemical Factory Expansion After Protests

After a weekend of protests by thousands of citizens over pollution fears, a local Chinese government relented Sunday and agreed that a petrochemical factory would not be expanded, only to see the protesters refuse to halt their demonstration.

The standoff in the prosperous city of Ningbo has highlighted the deep mistrust between people and the government in China. Should they continue, the demonstrations would upset an atmosphere of calm that Chinese leaders want for a transfer of power in the Communist Party leadership next month.

The protest in the eastern city, which comes at a sensitive time in China’s political calendar, had swelled over the weekend and led to clashes between citizens and police. The Ningbo city government said in a statement Sunday evening that they and the project’s investor had “resolutely” agreed not to go ahead with the expansion. The factory is a subsidiary of Sinopec, one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the world.

Outside the government offices where crowds of protesters remained, an official tried to read the statement on a loudspeaker but was drowned out by shouts demanding the mayor step down. On the third attempt, the crowd briefly cheered but then turned back to demanding that authorities release protesters being held inside.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

South Korea Says the North is Preparing a Huge Nuclear Weapons Test

North Korea has kept up preparations for a new nuclear test after having carried out previous launches in 2006 and 2009, South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin told a news conference Wednesday.

“In fact, North Korea has been preparing for this for quite a long time,” Kim told a news conference with Pentagon chief Leon Panetta. “And when the time comes for a political decision, it may in fact resort to this third nuclear test,” he said.

Kim endorsed efforts to persuade Pyongyang to resume six-nation talks on halting its drive to build nuclear weapons — the discussions have been frozen since December 2008 — and described the regime under new leader Kim Jong-Un as “quite stable.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Case of Blonde Girl Beggar Rescued From Streets Strikes Nerve in Mexico; Activists See Racism

At a busy intersection, a girl with a high half ponytail looks at you as she begs for coins. There is dirt beneath her fingernails and her pink shirt looks unwashed. The image in the photo could fit thousands of impoverished Mexican children who sell gum or beg for money in the streets, but for one thing: The girl in this picture is blonde.

The flurry of internet attention to the photo, and the quick way officials reacted, has renewed a debate about racism in Mexico, a nation that is proud of its mestizo heritage but where millions of indigenous people live in poverty and passers-by often barely notice the dark-skinned children begging in the street.

It started last week when a Facebook user posted a photo of the girl standing next to a rearview mirror on a Guadalajara street. He apparently suspected she might have been stolen because “her parents are brown,” and said he had already contacted a welfare agency and state prosecutors.

“Let’s spread this photo around,” he wrote.

Tens of thousands shared the photo of the golden-haired, green-eyed girl and dozens commented on it, some thanking him, others complaining the post was racist.

Lino Gonzalez, the spokesman for prosecutors in Jalisco state, where Guadalajara is the capital, said the widespread distribution of the photo was seen as a sort of collective warning, and an investigation was launched.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

30m Bulgarians and Romanians Are Set to Gain Unrestricted Access to UK as EU Regulations Are Lifted

British jobs could be at risk when nearly 30 million Bulgarians and Romanians gain the right to live and work unrestricted in the UK from 2014.

Experts are warning of a ‘significant spike’ of newcomers when limitations on coming to Britain, which have been imposed on the citizens of the two countries by the European Union, are lifted at the end of next year.

They believe the numbers will be higher than those seen after Poland and seven other eastern European countries were given the same rights in 2004 because of the fragile state of economies on the continent.

Home Secretary Theresa May has indicated support for an end to free movement of EU workers — but Britain cannot stop the restrictions being lifted without tearing up the treaty signed with Bulgaria and Romania when they joined the EU in 2007.

The Government has not made official predictions of how many Bulgarians and Romanians will move here and critics say this is because it grossly underestimated the numbers in 2004.

It predicted less than 20,000 would arrive but Office for National Statistics figures show more than 600,000 were working in Britain last year.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Forza Nuova Hangs Offensive Banner on LGBT Community Center

Extremist group against ‘gender bender’ event in Bologna

(ANSA) — Bologna, October 26 — Members from the neo-fascist Forza Nuova (FN) political party claimed responsibilty for an offensive banner hung on the wall outside an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community center in the north-central city of Bologna overnight Thursday.

A sign reading “perversions must be cured” was signed Forza Nuova and the group posted pictures of the banner on their Facebook page.

Exponents of FN said that they were targeting in particular the 10th edition of an educational event focusing on sexual identities sponsored by the city of Bologna and the region of Emilia-Romagna starting Saturday called Gender Bender.

“Municipal councilors and provincial and regional authorities confuse the meaning of the word culture,” the group said on their Facebook page, showing a picture of the banner and calling their operation a “blitz”.

They also condemned the Jewish community and Israeli embassy for supporting the event that they called “offensive to religion and the Catholic Church”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Australia: Banksia Financial Group Collapses
»	Greece: Athens Closes 8 Embassies and 2 Consulates
»	Greece: Coastline in Athens Set for Redevelopment
»	Greece: Samaras: We Won’t Bargain Away Our Freedom
»	Greece: IMF Concedes Athens Will Miss Debt Target
»	IMF’s Epic Plan to Conjure Away Debt and Dethrone Bankers
»	Italian Government Increases Retirement Age for Miners
»	Italy: Teachers Stage Protest, Grade Homework in Milan Shoping Mall
»	Will the Bottom Fall Out? 15 Signs That Layoffs and Job Losses Are Skyrocketing
	USA
»	Amendment Offered to Change Presidential Elections
»	Doctors Fear Government Trap
»	Expert Fights Western Prejudice Against Muslims
»	Gallup Poll: 46% of Americans Say Romney Won the 3 Debates
»	Joe Biden to Father of Former Navy Seal Killed in Benghazi: ‘Did Your Son Always Have Balls the Size of Cue Balls?’
»	Major Banks, Governmental Officials and Their Comrade Capitalists Targets of Spire Law Group, LLP’s Racketeering and Money Laundering Lawsuit Seeking Return of $43 Trillion to the United States Treasury
»	Mosque Parking, Traffic Calculations Questioned
»	Muslims Observe Islamic Holiday of Sacrifice in West Valley City
»	Muslim Brotherhood DC Forum
»	Muslim Group Holds Interfaith Converstaion on Anti-Islam Film
»	New Film Exposes Radical Muslim “Deception”
»	Obama Extends Eid Greetings to Muslim Community
»	Obama Refuses to Answer Repeated Questions on Benghazi
»	Proposed Mosque Draws Ire of Neighbors in Harwood Heights
»	U.S. Veterans Call for Immediate End of Afghan War
	Canada
»	“Suspicious” Fire at a Brampton Coptic Orthodox Church Early This Morning
»	Charlottetown Muslims Celebrate Eid in New Mosque
»	Ottawa-Area Muslims Celebrate Feast of Sacrifice
	Europe and the EU
»	A German Victory for Free Speech
»	Belgium: British ExxonMobil Executive ‘Shot Protecting Wife After Violent Mugging’
»	Bureaucrats of EU and Global Governance
»	Caspar David Friedrich at the Edge of the Imaginable
»	Cyprus: Block 12 Could Have ‘A Lot More’ Gas, Says Expert
»	Danish School Evacuated After Bomb Threat Letter
»	‘Dutch Super Elite’ Implicated in Child Sex Trafficking
»	Former Anti-Semitic EU Parliament Member Now Fights for Israel
»	Ireland: President of Republic [Western Sahara] Received [By] Leader of Sinn Fein
»	Italy: Lazio and Lombardy to Hold Elections Before February
»	Italy: Three Handed Life Sentences for WWII Nazi Massacre in Italy
»	Italy: Alfano Tipped to Succeed Berlusconi, PDL Prepares Primaries
»	Italy: Prosecutors Seek 20-Month Sentence for Puglia Governor
»	Italy: Alitalia to Give Up Seven Milan-Rome Slots
»	Italy: Mussolini’s Granddaughter Confirms Will Run for Premier
»	Italy: Minetti Resigns With Other Councillors From Lombard Assembly
»	Italy: Prodi Reiterates Doubts About Berlusconi Quitting
»	Italy Ex-PM Berlusconi Threatens to Topple Monti Government
»	Mayor Arrested for ‘Rigging Contracts’ In Central Italy
»	Muted Protests Greet Wilders Malmö Visit
»	The EU Was Dreamed Up in French and German. That’s Why the British Have Never Fit in
»	UK: ‘Islam is About Real Love, Not Just Lust’: The Party Girl Who’s Embraced a New Life as a Muslim Convert
»	UK: ‘Evil’ Nigerian People Smuggler Used Witchcraft to Terrify Girls Into Sex Slavery
»	UK: A Fond Farewell to the Dandy
»	UK: British ‘Terror Gang Planned to Buy Five AK47 Guns’
»	UK: EDL Leader Set to Spend Xmas in Jail
»	UK: EDL Moves Protest to Parliament
»	UK: Incest — A Favoured Cause of Old Lefties
»	UK: Kevin Carroll’s Election Campaign
»	UK: Osezua Osolase Used Witchcraft on Trafficked Girls
»	UK: Powerful Anti-Tank Mines Used by British Troops in Afghanistan Are Stolen From Goods Train
»	UK: Pazeer Ahmed Jailed for Murder
»	UK: Respect Activist: Was Hitler the Bad Guy?
»	UK: Victory Rally in Walthamstow Saturday 27 October
»	UK: Walthamstow: Campaigners Celebrate ‘Victory’ Over EDL
	Mediterranean Union
»	Israel Moves to Block Trojan Computer Attack
	North Africa
»	Benghazi: No Other Explanation Fits
»	Clinton Asked for More Security, Obama Said No
»	Egyptian Diplomat Wanted for Trafficking Ugandan Girls
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Most Israeli Jews for Apartheid Regime in Israel
»	Olive Orchard Jihad
»	Panicking Cow Kills Palestinian in Muslim Feast
	Middle East
»	Bosnian Muslim Senad Hadzic Walks to Mecca Via Syria
»	Car Bomb Blast Damages Church in Eastern Syria
»	Deadly Attacks Hit Iraq as Muslims Mark Eid Festival
»	Europe is Turning Away From Turkey — And the Rest of the World
»	Saudi Arabia: Muslim Pilgrims Stone Devil in Symbolic Hajj Rite
»	Turkey Fails to Appeal to Investors, WB Says
	Russia
»	Russian Muslims Swarm Moscow for ‘Feast of Sacrifice’
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan: British Army Medic and Royal Marine Were Not Shot Dead by Own Forces
»	Animal VC for Dog Who Died of a Broken Heart: Theo’s Handler Killed by Taliban
»	Clashes in Indian-Controlled Kashmir After Eid-Ul-Adha Prayers
»	Indonesia: Blind in One Eye, The Orangutan Fighting for Life After Being Shot More Than 100 Times by Palm Oil Plantation Thugs
»	New Delhi Condemns Ferrari Support for Marines at Indian GP
»	Pakistan: Altaf Hussain Felicitates Muslims on Eid
»	Police: Taliban Shoot Dead 5 Civilians Grabbed Off Bus in Eastern Afghanistan
»	Singapore: Sheep for Ritual: Be Prepared for Alternative Arrangements, Says PM
	Far East
»	Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader
»	Chinese Christian Was Tortured for Helping Other Believers
	Australia — Pacific
»	Eid: Sydney’s Muslim Community Leaders Call for Tolerance
»	Video: Sydney Commuters Join Forces to Attack Abusive Passenger and Throw Her From the Train
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Ghana: Muslims Urged to Accept Outcome of the Elections
»	Mujahideen Flock to Mali
»	Republic of Congo to Borrow Over 1.1 Bln USD From China
»	Risks of Boko Haram Attacks in Nigeria
	Immigration
»	Police Hunt for Alleged Bogus Asylum Seeker Accused of Conning His Way Into Job With… The Serious Organised Crime Agency
»	Sardine Can Britain: What Life Will be Like in 2050 When Experts Predict the Population Will Have Exploded to 80million
»	Texas Police Fire at Vehicle Carrying Illegal Immigrants, Kill 2
»	UK: Just 62 Out of 11,000 Foreign Prisoners Have Been Kicked Out Despite Cameron’s Pledge of Crackdown
	Culture Wars
»	France: Pill 100% Free for Girls Aged 15-18, Health Minister
»	Three-Quarters of Teachers Fear Easy Access to Hardcore Porn Through Smartphones and the Web is ‘Damaging’ Pupils
»	UK: Brighton Council Plans to Remove Mr and Mrs Titles From All Documents to Protect City’s Transgender Community From Offence

Australia: Banksia Financial Group Collapses

RETIREES, schools and sporting clubs are in shock and fearful about the fate of their investments following the collapse of Banksia Securities.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said the Federal Opposition was “desperately trying to find out much more on how Banksia was structured”.

Thousands of people hundreds of millions of dollars in losses after the shock collapse of Banksia Financial Group. Receivers McGrathNicol took charge of the non-bank financial firm, based in Kyabram in central Victoria, and froze investments on Thursday after the Banksia board found the company faced insolvency.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Athens Closes 8 Embassies and 2 Consulates

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 23 — At a time when Greece needs the Diaspora more than ever, the Greek government — under pressure to cut expenses by its international lenders — will be closing six embassies and two consulates around the world instead of spreading spending cuts around its diplomatic missions. Embassies set to shut are in Hanoi (Vietnam), Lima (Peru’), Montevideo (Uruguay), Wellington (New Zealand), Khartoum (Sudan) and Harare (Zimbabwe), while the consulates that will be terminated are in Atlanta (Georgia,Usa) and Perth (Australia). The initial list of diplomatic offices to close also included the Greek consulate in Los Angeles, but a last-minute reprieve from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dimitri Avramopoulos, saved it. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is trying to conclude a 13,5 billion euros spending cut and tax hike plan to please the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) that is putting up 250 billion euros in two bailouts. Part of the savings include the elimination of the diplomatic missions in the eight cities, while others around the world will be spared from cuts.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Coastline in Athens Set for Redevelopment

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 24 — A tender will be launched at the beginning of next year for proposals on how to develop Athens’s southern coastline, stretching from Neo Faliro to Sounio, the government announced on Tuesday. Alternate Development Minister Notis Mitarakis met with mayors from seafront areas to discuss the plan on Tuesday. “Our aim is to make use of this asset that belongs to Athenians so it can be of benefit to them,” he said. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has stated several times his intention to develop the 45-kilometer coastline to make it more commercially viable. Daily Kathimerini wrote that the Development Ministry will set up a company that will be responsible for handling the project, which will involve having to clear up any legal issues relating to the various plots of public land along the stretch of coastline. The mayors expressed some reservations about the regeneration plans and made it clear to Mitarakis that one of the conditions under which they might give their backing to the project would be for access to beaches to remain free of charge.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Samaras: We Won’t Bargain Away Our Freedom

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — As a crucial austerity deal with Greece’s foreign creditors hangs in the balance amid objections from the government’s junior coalition partner, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras indicated on Friday that his administration would not sell the debt-wracked country out.

“Greece won’t bargain away its freedom,” Samaras said during a speech in Thessaloniki marking the celebration of the northern port’s liberation from Ottoman rule, as Kathimerini online reports. The premier said the time had come for Greece to look forward and seek all necessary cooperations to ensure “we shake off the shackles of underdevelopment and of excessive debt which is leading us to humiliation.” Samaras also stressed the need for Greeks to have faith in their abilities and to display unity and patriotism as “only division can break us.” “In a few years Greece will be a much better place as long as we remain united and determined and that depends on us,” the premier said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greece: IMF Concedes Athens Will Miss Debt Target

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — Greek debt will be above the target of 120% of GDP in 2020, a preliminary report by the IMF showed late on Thursday, and Athens will need more reforms before emergency credit from international lenders can start flowing again. Excerpts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report were presented to the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) — junior finance ministers and treasury officials who prepare meetings of eurozone finance ministers. “It is clear that Greece is off track and there is no chance they will cut the debt to 120% of GDP in 2020 as envisaged. It will be rather 136%, and this would be under a positive scenario of a primary budget surplus, a return to economic growth, and privatisation,” a euro zone official, who insisted on anonymity, said as reported by daily Kathimerini. “New prior actions will be needed, on top of the existing 89,” the official said, referring to a list of already agreed reforms that need to be in place before any new tranches of eurozone and IMF emergency loans to Greece can be paid. Apart from the debt projections, representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank — known as the troika — have been calculating how much more money Athens will need if it is given until 2016 rather than 2014 to reach a primary surplus of 4.5%, as agreed in February. A primary surplus or deficit is the budget balance before the government services its debt. In Greece’s case, it would mean government tax revenues exceeding spending, meaning Athens is beginning to get on top of its budget-deficit problems. The two extra years would give the fast-contracting Greek economy some welcome respite, allowing it to return to growth sooner and therefore increasing the chances the country would eventually be able to make its debt sustainable. “Additional financing needs for Greece are now seen at around 30 billion euros,” the official said after the EWG meeting.

Estimates from various officials since July varied from 13 billion to 30 billion and on Thursday another official estimated the financing needs at 16-20 billion euros.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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IMF’s Epic Plan to Conjure Away Debt and Dethrone Bankers

One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined.

The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money — roughly 97pc of the money supply — with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

Specifically, it means an assault on “fractional reserve banking”. If lenders are forced to put up 100pc reserve backing for deposits, they lose the exorbitant privilege of creating money out of thin air.

The nation regains sovereign control over the money supply. There are no more banks runs, and fewer boom-bust credit cycles. Accounting legerdemain will do the rest. That at least is the argument.

Some readers may already have seen the IMF study, by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof, which came out in August and has begun to acquire a cult following around the world.

— Hat tip: JD

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Italian Government Increases Retirement Age for Miners

Must be at least 56, not 55

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — The Italian government introduced measures on Friday modifying regulations governing miners’ pensions, including pushing back their retirement ages one year to 56.

The new regulations governing the social contributions necessary for workers in mines and quarries to retire were approved at a cabinet meeting in Rome. Underground workers seeking to request anticipated retirement will need to have paid a minimum of 37 years and two months of social contributions in 2013, and 37 years and three months in 2014.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Teachers Stage Protest, Grade Homework in Milan Shoping Mall

Demonstration opposes cost cuts, longer work week

(ANSA) — Milan, October 26 — A group if Italian teachers staged a protest in Milan on Friday when they sat on the ground in the centre of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping area and passed the time by marking their students’ homework with red pens.

About 100 teachers were protesting against the government raising their work week to 24 hours. Other issues of contention include cost cuts being applied to schools by recently introduced austerity measures, and the lack of security involved in some of the teacher contracts.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is Italy’s oldest shopping center, and is loated inside a four-storey double arcade in the heart of historic Milan.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Will the Bottom Fall Out? 15 Signs That Layoffs and Job Losses Are Skyrocketing

If you still have a good job, you might want to hold on to it very tightly because there are a whole bunch of signs that unemployment in the United States is about to start getting worse again. Over the past several weeks, a substantial number of large corporations have announced disappointing earnings for the third quarter. Many of those large corporations are also loaded up with huge amounts of debt. So what is the solution? Well, the favorite solution on Wall Street these days seems to be to lay off workers. In fact, it is almost turning into a feeding frenzy. Since September 1st, we have seen more job cuts announced than during any other two month period since the start of 2010. These announcements represent future layoffs and job losses which are not even showing up in the unemployment numbers yet. So needless to say, things don’t look very promising for the end of 2012 or for the beginning of 2013. If this race to eliminate jobs becomes a stampede, will we see the bottom fall out of the employment market?

If you are concerned about whether or not you will still have a job 12 months from now, you might find the numbers posted below to be quite alarming. We have not seen layoff announcements come this fast and this furious since the gloomy days of the last recession.

[…]

Some of the biggest names in the business world have announced job cuts in recent weeks. The following are 15 signs that layoffs and job losses are skyrocketing…

1.		Dow Chemical has announced that it will be closing about 20 plants and will be letting about 2,400 workers go.
2.		Colgate-Palmolive has announced that they will be eliminating about 2,300 jobs.
3.		DuPont has announced plans to eliminate about 1,500 jobs.
4.		Ford has announced that it will be eliminating 6,200 jobs and will be reducing production capacity in Europe by 18 percent.
5.		Hewlett-Packard announced last month that they plan to eliminate 29,000 jobs.

— Hat tip: JD

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Amendment Offered to Change Presidential Elections

Democrat’s proposal would give 29 more electoral votes to popular-vote winner

(The Hill) The head of the House Democratic campaign arm this week proposed a constitutional amendment that would give the winner of the popular vote in the presidential race an additional 29 electoral votes.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) did not offer an explanation in the joint resolution filed in the House for why he was proposing to change the way elections in the U.S. are decided.

Under the Constitution, the candidate who wins at least 270 electoral votes wins the presidency, regardless of the popular vote.

[JD Comment: US would cease to be a Republic. Nothing less than a move to make the US a one party state — that party being the Communist Party, oops, I meant Democrat Party.]

— Hat tip: JD

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Doctors Fear Government Trap

To the undecided, the uninformed, the skeptics, and those with their heads in the sand, the Obama administration is counting on you not having this information prior to Election Day. America’s hospitals and emergency room doctors are caught in a vise that spells financial collapse unless they play ball with hard-and-fast government mandates. The choice for hospitals is either government control over patient care or potential bankruptcy. For socialized medicine or Obama’s health care to work, the government requires control of your health by nullifying both hospitals and doctors as decision makers.

A doctor’s warning appeared in The Patriot Post: “Come spend a day with me at any of the four hospitals in two states that I practice at. You will see more government control and threats than you will possibly believe. They set clinical criteria that I do not want applied to any of my family, much less other folks. The government is telling me what I can do and what I must do and then refusing to pay if there is any outcome less than 100% without complication, regardless of the age or condition of the patient.“

[…]

By gouging Medicare of billions of dollars to financially prop up Obamacare, Obama deceptively makes Obamacare appear less costly. There is the crux of the problem. In order to recoup those losses, Medicare now must ramp up fines on hospitals to recover long-term losses.

[…]

Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney vows to reinstate to Medicare the currently estimated $716 billion that Obama misappropriated.

— Hat tip: JD

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Expert Fights Western Prejudice Against Muslims

King’s College London law professor Maleiha Malik seeks to combat misperceptions and prejudices toward Muslims in the western world. Malik, who focuses on the theory and practice of discrimination law, visited Duke Wednesday as part of the Our Shared Future initiative, an exchange program funded by the British Council, said event organizer Kelly Schwehm, who serves as program coordinator for the Middle East Studies Center. The purpose of Malik’s stay in America is to raise awareness about anti-Muslim prejudices in different western countries-specifically England and continental European nations-by broadening understanding about Muslim integration into society. By comparing the discrimination that Muslims in different nations experience, Malik hopes to address the misconception that Muslim communities are all alike.

“As with most forms of racism, anti-Muslim racism tends to play on the politics of fear,” Malik said. “This particular fear is that the Muslim presence in Europe and its outward display of religiosity-through its prayers, its headscarves, even its halal food-are converting the continent into ‘Eurabia,’ no longer the white shining beacon of Christianity that Europe is meant to represent.” Malik called the fear irrational, pointing out that Muslims are a small minority in Europe. For example, in France, Muslims make up less than 10 percent of the population-the highest percentage of any European country. In addition, European Muslims tend to be both economically deprived and geographically dispersed…

— Hat tip: JP

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Gallup Poll: 46% of Americans Say Romney Won the 3 Debates

(AGI) Washington, Oct. 26- According to a Gallup poll revealed on Friday, more Americans (46%) saw Mitt Romney as the overall winner of the three television debates than Barack Obama (44%).

On average, U.S. press agreed that the first debate on October 3 was won by the Republican candidate against an apparently resigned and tired Obama. The other two debates, on October 16 and 22, are widely held to have been won by Obama though through “points” rather than a K.O.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Joe Biden to Father of Former Navy Seal Killed in Benghazi: ‘Did Your Son Always Have Balls the Size of Cue Balls?’

The father of one of the former Navy SEALs killed in the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya says President Barack Obama wouldn’t even look him in the eye and Vice President Joe Biden was disrespectful during the ceremony when his son’s body returned to America. He also says the White House’s story on the attack doesn’t pass the smell test.

Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, called into “The Glenn Beck Program” on TheBlazeTV Thursday and recounted his interactions with the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden at the ceremony for the Libya victims at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He told host Glenn Beck that what they told him, coupled with new reports that indicate the Obama administration knew very good and well, almost immediately, that a terrorist attack was occurring in Benghazi, make him certain that the American people are not getting the whole truth.

Vice President Biden, as he has become known to do, reportedly made a wildly inappropriate comment to the father who had just lost his hero son.

Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”

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Major Banks, Governmental Officials and Their Comrade Capitalists Targets of Spire Law Group, LLP’s Racketeering and Money Laundering Lawsuit Seeking Return of $43 Trillion to the United States Treasury

NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Spire Law Group, LLP’s national home owners’ lawsuit, pending in the venue where the “Banksters” control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) — known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History and identifying $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers — now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the “Banksters” located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests.

In connection with the federal lawsuit now impending in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML) — involving, among other things, a request that the District Court enjoin all mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide, unless and until the entire $43 trillion is repaid to a court-appointed receiver — Plaintiffs now establish the location of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money in a racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals (without limitation): Attorney General Holder acting in his individual capacity, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, the brother in law of Defendant California Attorney General Kamala Harris (both acting in their individual capacities), Jon Corzine (former New Jersey Governor), Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and Bankster), Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary (acting in his individual capacity), Vikram Pandit (recently resigned and disgraced Chai rman of the Board of Citigroup), Valerie Jarrett (a Senior White House Advisor), Anita Dunn (a former “communications director” for the Obama Administration), Robert Bauer (husband of Anita Dunn and Chief Legal Counsel for the Obama Re-election Campaign), as well as the “Banksters” themselves, and their affiliates and conduits. The lawsuit alleges serial violations of the United States Patriot Act, the Policy of Embargo Against Iran and Countries Hostile to the Foreign Policy of the United States, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly known as the RICO statute) and other State and Federal laws.

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Mosque Parking, Traffic Calculations Questioned

Traffic consultant due to return at special Bernards Planning Board meeting on Nov. 28.

A traffic consultant representing the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, which has proposed building a mosque in place of a private home at 124 Church Street in Liberty Corner, on Thursday faced questions about the validity of his calculations on traffic and adequate parking at the facility. The consultant, Henry J. Ney, is scheduled to return at a continuation of the public hearing on the proposed mosque at a special Planning Board meeting set for 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 28. Ney, speaking about a plan that calls for 50 parking spaces to accommodate services and activities within the proposed 4,200-square-foot mosque, said that in conducting his traffic study he at least doubled what would be the anticipated number of vehicles for some activities…

— Hat tip: JP

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Muslims Observe Islamic Holiday of Sacrifice in West Valley City

Event commemorates faithfulness of Abraham

WEST VALLEY CITY — The cold, crisp air outside the Khadeeja mosque early Friday morning was a stark contrast for Dr. Salman Masud, who was standing in the oppressive heat of the Saudi Arabian desert around this time last year. “This is a totally different environment,” the soft-spoken Pakistani said as hundreds of Muslims passed by and removed their shoes and coats before entering the mosque for prayers marking Eid al-Adha, or The Feast of Sacrifice, one of Islam’s holiest days…

— Hat tip: JP

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Muslim Brotherhood DC Forum

by Matthew Taylor

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) hosted a forum in D.C. yesterday on the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the USA. The event corresponded with the Amazon release of IPT’s film, Jihad in America: The Grand Deception. The film, created by Steven Emerson, the man behind the similarly titled 1994 TV documentary Jihad in America, showcases the ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood in America: to subvert the traditional rights and liberties of the Union, and replace them with Sharia. The film documents the covert, bully-boy tactics, and sometimes criminal activity of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. It also shows how lawmen and citizens have hesistated to challenge their subversive activities for fear of being labeled Islamophobic, a fear that well-funded Muslim Brotherhood affiliaties are quick to exploit…

— Hat tip: JP

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Muslim Group Holds Interfaith Converstaion on Anti-Islam Film

The Columbus Chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community recently held an interfaith meeting at its Nasir mosque in Groveport to discuss the Innocence of Muslims film clips that mocked the Islamic prophet Mohammed and sparked riots in Muslim countries last month.

Speakers “denounced the abhorrent movie as well as the violent protests by extremist groups around the world,” said Sohaib Awan of Pickerington, a member of the community.

Those gathered heard a passage from the Quran referring to Mohammed as “mercy for all mankind” and sayings attributed to the prophet, revealing his “noble character” and traits of “simplicity, generosity and mercy,” Awan said in a report on the meeting.

Presentations were given on the life of Mohammed, similarities between Jews, Christians and Muslims; the need to treat one another as equals; and Mohammed’s “response of patience and peace,” not punishment, against those who blasphemed him in life, Awan added.

Among those speaking were embers of the Ahmadiyya community; a Sunni Muslim; the son of a Christian pastor from Pakistan; and a pastor from a Unitarian Church. Worthington Mayor Harvey Minton also attended and spoke on the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, slander and libel.

— Hat tip: JP

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New Film Exposes Radical Muslim “Deception”

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has released a new film exposing the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood inside the United States and how its front groups and sympathizers intimidate the major media and Hollywood.

The Muslim Brotherhood, now in charge of the Egyptian government and making major advances throughout the Middle East, was established in 1928 and is considered by experts to be the parent organization of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Hamas.

Coming just days before the November 6 presidential election, the film, titled “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception,” highlights a problem of subversion in the U.S. that both major political party candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, have not been asked by the media to address.

Investigative Project on Terrorism executive director Steven Emerson, himself the target of death threats because of his work over the course of decades exposing Islamic extremist networks, spoke at a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, October 25th, that was attended by Accuracy in Media. We also reviewed an advance copy of the film.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama Extends Eid Greetings to Muslim Community

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama extended his warm wishes on the eve of Eidul Azha to Muslims in the United States and around the world.

A statement issued by the White House read, “Michelle and I extend our best wishes for a joyful Eidul Azha to Muslims in the United States and around the world. We also congratulate the millions of peaceful pilgrims who are performing the Hajj, including thousands of American Muslims,” it added. The American president said that Muslim communities join members of many faiths to help the disadvantaged. He said that on the occasion of Eidul Azha, Muslim communities continue this practice by distributing food to the needy.

“Such acts of compassion underscore the shared values of the Abrahamic religions and people of all faiths,” he said.

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (APP): President Barack Obama has sent greetings to Muslims around the world on the occasion of Eid-al-Azha and congratulated the pilgrims who performed Hajj this year.”Michelle and I extend our best wishes for a joyful Eid al-Adha to Muslims in the United States and around the world. We also congratulate the millions of peaceful pilgrims who are performing the Hajj, including thousands of American Muslims,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.”Throughout the year, Muslims join members of many faiths in serving those suffering from hunger, disease, and conflict. Muslim communities will continue this practice as they celebrate Eid by distributing food and charity to those in need. “Such acts of compassion underscore the shared values of the Abrahamic religions and people of all faiths. On behalf of the American people, we extend our warmest greetings on this holiday. Eid Mubarak,” he added.

— Hat tip: JP

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Obama Refuses to Answer Repeated Questions on Benghazi

‘Whether the president knew of the cries for help during the terrorist attack’

(The Blaze) President Barack Obama reportedly refused to provide a direct answer to repeated questions on whether requests for help in Benghazi were denied as the attack was underway during an interview with 9News in Denver on Friday.

Kyle Clark, a reporter with 9News, asked the president about the requests for help and whether or not it was fair to make Americans wait for answers on Benghazi until after the election.

“The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” Obama said. “Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do.”

The president went on to say he wants to “gather all the facts” and find out “exactly what happened” and bring justice to the terrorists who attacked the U.S. mission in Libya.

— Hat tip: JD

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Proposed Mosque Draws Ire of Neighbors in Harwood Heights

Milan and Maria Letica have lived in their Harwood Heights apartment for 20 years, but if a mosque moves in next to them, they say they are moving out. “Why doesn’t the village take care of the people who have been here for years?” the Leticas’ son, Branco, said. “So many more people are against this than the village knows.” Branco Letica, who spoke on behalf of his parents because of their limited English, said no one in his parents’ apartment building in the 4700 block of Olcott is pleased with the proposal to turn the old Eisenhower Library building next door into a mosque. He expects many apartment dwellers in the other three buildings butting up to the library property at 4652 Olcott feel the same. “There will be more people coming. There will be issues,” Branco Letica said of a mosque being in the area. “There will be a lot of traffic. There will be more noise.”

John Pikarski, an attorney with 40 years zoning-case experience, said a mosque is a much more conducive use of the property for the nearby neighbors than what the building, zoned industrial, could hold. “Some fairly offensive uses can go in there as a matter of right,” Pikarski said…

— Hat tip: JP

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U.S. Veterans Call for Immediate End of Afghan War

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — U.S. veterans on Friday called for an immediate end of the War in Afghanistan and slashed both U.S. presidential candidates for their identical positions on the war. The appeal came in a strongly worded statement released by Michael Prysner, an Iraq War veteran and co-founder of March Forward, an organization of veterans and service members against war and racism. Now in its 11th year, the longest in U.S. history, the War in Afghanistan has been a failure with more than 2,000 U.S. troops being lost during President Barack Obama’s term alone, Prysner said. He also noted that the American people are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war, which over 60 percent of Americans want to put an end to immediately…

— Hat tip: JP

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“Suspicious” Fire at a Brampton Coptic Orthodox Church Early This Morning

B’nai Brith Canada is expressing concern following a fire at a Brampton Coptic Orthodox Church early this morning that is being treated by police as “suspicious”. Earlier this year a Catholic Church in a nearby area was targeted as well.

Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada issued the following statement:…

— Hat tip: JD

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Charlottetown Muslims Celebrate Eid in New Mosque

Festival comes after mixed year

Muslims are marking Eid al-Adha in Charlottetown’s first purpose-built mosque, which opened in July. There was a ceremony celebrating Eid at the mosque Friday morning, and there will be a feast Saturday. Celebrations for the mosque opening were marred by some nasty incidents: a pig’s head left on the construction site a year ago, and a bottle filled with gasoline with a note reading “Defeat Jihad” left on the doorstep in September…

— Hat tip: JP

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Ottawa-Area Muslims Celebrate Feast of Sacrifice

The low-ceilinged and dimly lit reception area at Bilal Farms in Clarence Creek, near Rockland, was filled Friday morning as men, fresh from morning prayer, gathered and talked, sipping tea from Styrofoam cups while waiting for their numbers to be called. With them, their children, many wearing their best clothes, played with one another, occasionally stopping long enough to help themselves to a Timbit or date, or both. Outside, more men smoked while, under a nearby tree, mothers and their children set out blankets for a picnic of sorts, as they, too, waited for their husbands’ work to be done…

— Hat tip: JP

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A German Victory for Free Speech

by Andrew E. Harrod

In a letter dated October 10, 2012, and received by its addressee four days later, the Marburg, Germany state prosecutor announced a suspension in the prosecution of medical historian Dr. Armin Geus. As discussed in my recent FrontPage Magazine article, Geus had run afoul of German authorities because of his book Die Krankheit des Propheten (The Sickness of the Prophet), in which Geus had argued that Islam’s prophet Muhammad was not divinely led, but rather psychologically disturbed. Despite this victory for free speech with respect to Islam, briefs submitted by Geus’ defense lawyers and a public declaration by a German Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) highlight various long-term issues still seeking ultimate resolution…

The lawyers concluded their brief with ominous analogies to Nazism, so historically important for Germany in particular. “If Germany is supposed to have learned something from National Socialism,” they declared “… then certainly this: A psychologically disturbed violent perpetrator does not become healthy and peaceful in that he has millions of followers. What is valid for Adolf Hitler, is also valid for Muhammad, who, with the ‘Koran’, wrote a violence-glorifying book, which actually does not take second place to Mein Kampf in any repulsiveness: If one may no longer critically analyze and objectively criticize the master, then his disciples will have soon violently conquered the world.”

Despite such gloomy conclusions, a second brief of Geus’ lawyers dated October 10, 2012 seemed positively to relish the prospect of a forthcoming trial…

— Hat tip: JP

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Belgium: British ExxonMobil Executive ‘Shot Protecting Wife After Violent Mugging’

The senior British ExxonMobil executive who was shot dead in the street in Brussels may have been trying to protect his wife after a violent mugging, prosecutors said yesterday.

Nicholas Mockford, 59, was shot four times after leaving an Italian restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek, a Brussels suburb, on October 14. Prosecutors said Mr Mockford appeared to have been killed in a “handbag theft which went wrong”, but some relatives remained sceptical and said they thought he had been murdered in a “professional hit”. After the killing Belgian prosecutors imposed a news blackout which was only lifted yesterday after The Daily Telegraph disclosed details of the oil company worker’s shooting. A friend of the family said they were concerned Belgian police and felt they had “not been looking too hard” for Mr Mockford’s killers and had failed to “manage the investigation effectively”. Mr Mockford and his wife Mary were leaving an Italian restaurant in the suburb Neder-over-Heembeek shortly after 10pm when they were attacked by two men…

— Hat tip: JP

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Bureaucrats of EU and Global Governance

The 27-nation European Union is hanging by a thread like a loose tooth. For months now, we have been warned weekly of impending doom and gloom if the euro is not saved, if Spain, Greece, and Italy are not bailed out by the European Central Bank and if France and Germany do not cooperate and agree to pay even more to the bankrupt southern EU membership who refuses to alter their generous socialist programs expenditures and the way they approach fiscal policy.

The separatist voices in the EU are getting stronger. Catalonia wants independence from its own country; they are tired of paying the lion’s share of Madrid’s lavish expenditures. “When everybody was rich, nobody thought of how much it cost us to be part of Spain. But now everybody sees it,” said Oriol Pujol. This richness, of course, came to Spain in the form of easy money while the economic and construction boom took place before the 2008 housing crash. It seems that the producing citizens have a problem with this globalized economy and governance which depends on spreading the wealth.

[…]

In a recent interview, Oskar Freysinger, Vice President of the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei) stressed that the European Union is imposed on nations by technocrats. In his opinion, the European Union will eventually fail because “citizens are identifying less and less with a bureaucratic anti-democratic and centralized power” like the EU.

When asked, Freysinger emphasized that Switzerland’s adherence to EU would be an organizational, economic, and financial catastrophe. Such a membership would violate the two pillars of the Swiss Constitution, democracy and federalism, causing an increase in the value of the added tax (VAT) alone of 8-20 percent. Switzerland does not wish to be a cash machine to the debts accrued by the bankrupt southern European states.

— Hat tip: JD

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Caspar David Friedrich at the Edge of the Imaginable

by Julian Bell

The six syllables “Caspar David Friedrich” reliably bring to mind a certain strong flavour, a flavour commonly labelled “the Romantic sublime”. You get the full force of that flavour standing before “The Watzmann” in Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie — at five-foot-six wide, one of the artist’s largest canvases. In fact a keen taste of it comes through from the reproduction in Johannes Grave’s magnificently produced new monograph: for even in small scale, the image giddies and chills. Your imagination is, as it were, knocked off its feet by a foreground that falls tumblingly away, while at the same time a rush of angular forms drives it upwards — from cold to glacial, from uninhabited moor to unattainable altitude, from not much of anywhere to a visionary nowhere. The peak provocatively pokes at the canvas edge, as if at the very edge of the imaginable…

— Hat tip: JP

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Cyprus: Block 12 Could Have ‘A Lot More’ Gas, Says Expert

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, OCTOBER 25 — Cyprus’ off-shore Block 12 may carry potentially “a lot more” than the 7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas originally estimated, said Noble Energy’s country manager for Cyprus John Tomich yesterday, as Cyprus Mail reports. Houston-based Noble is the first and so far only company to win an offshore concession in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone, known as block 12, though bids are currently being evaluated by the government for the remaining blocks.

Exploratory drilling conducted by Noble revealed an estimated gross natural gas reserve of 5 to 8 tcf, with a gross mean of 7 Tcf. “We made that nice discovery of 7 tcf but we think there is a lot more potentially there and we will be chasing additional gas fields,” said Tomich, speaking at a press conference to announce Noble’s hosting of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Conference in Nicosia next March. Tomich said the company is right now focusing on the appraisal well to be conducted in the first or second quarter of 2013 depending on rig availability. He said Noble will be also searching for oil beneath the natural gas reservoir, noting however that the probability for oil is “small but not zero”. “Geologically there is no reason why the oil couldn’t be there, it is just a matter of where, how much of it and how deep,” he added.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Danish School Evacuated After Bomb Threat Letter

COPENHAGEN, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — Danish police on Friday evacuated the a business school in its second largest city Aarhus after it received a bomb threat letter earlier the same day.

Some 2,000 students were evacuated from the Aarhus School of Business, as police cleared an area of about 20,000 to 30,000 square meters around the school site. “We got a notification from the school at 10:09 this morning as it had received a letter that containing a bomb threat,” police commissioner Mogens Broendum told Danish public broadcaster DR News…

— Hat tip: JP

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‘Dutch Super Elite’ Implicated in Child Sex Trafficking

WASHINGTON — A high-ranking Dutch official, who’s retiring this week, is being honored for his work. But human rights advocates say Dutch Justice Ministry Secretary-General Joris Demmink doesn’t deserve praise; he deserves prison.

Demmink is being accused of raping two teenage boys, now men, during a visit to Turkey in 1990s. One of them recently shared his story on Capitol Hill.

“I was afraid to say no, and I was very young and very innocent,” one victim testified, describing the emotional scars from childhood.

— Hat tip: JD

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Former Anti-Semitic EU Parliament Member Now Fights for Israel

A leading member of a Hungarian anti-Semitic party, notorious for his provocative comments about Jews has discovered that he is a Jew himself.

Ultra nationalist Csanad Szegedi of the far-right Jobbik Party had accused Jews of ‘buying up’ the country, railed about the ‘Jewishness’ of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols.

That was until it was revealed that his grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz death camp and his grandfather was a forced labour camp veteran.

After weeks of internet rumours, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother’s side were Jews, making him one too under Jewish law even though he does not practice the faith.

Since then, the 30-year-old has been politically exiled from Jobbik with his political career on the brink of collapse.

Under pressure, Szegedi resigned last month from all party positions and gave up his Jobbik membership and last week the party asked him to give up his seat in the European Parliament as well.

Since 2009, he has served in the European Parliament in Brussels as one of the party’s three EU lawmakers, a position he says he wants to keep.

[…]

This week, during the debate in the EU Parliament on allowing the European market to have free access to Israeli pharamaceuticals, the Szegedi — who did not relinquish his post there — had only warm words for the Jewish state:

For decades, Israel has been inside one of the most politically unstable regions of the Earth. Despite all the difficulties on how to build a modern democracy, the Jewish state has demonstrated that there can be freedom and peace for the people, where there are normally dictatorships and hatred. The European Parliament has the strong ethical and moral obligation to support any moves to bring together Israel and the European Union, as part of Europe’s cultural sense of Israel. Israel is a state that continually demonstrates the maturity of respect for human rights, and therefore the EU should beware of whether they interfere in Israel’s internal affairs. We would also like to take this opportunity to wish peace as soon as possible to the people of the Middle East.

The parliament passed the law, whch was another huge setback for the “boycott Israel” crowd. But they also lost a former champion.

— Hat tip: Jedilson Bonfim

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Ireland: President of Republic [Western Sahara] Received [By] Leader of Sinn Fein

Dublin — President of the Republic, Secretary General Polisario Front, Mohamed Abdelaziz was received by the leader of the second largest opposition party in Ireland (Sinn Fein), Gerry Adams, according to sources close to the presidential delegation. President Mohamed Abdelaziz recalled the obstinacy of the Moroccan government, which blocked all efforts of the international community for any solution to the conflict in Western Sahara and its refusal to cooperate with the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ambassador Christopher Ross…

— Hat tip: JP

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Italy: Lazio and Lombardy to Hold Elections Before February

Both regional juntas are awash in political scandals

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — The Italian regions of Lazio and Lombardy, in which the regional juntas have been awash in two separate political funds scandals in recent months, announced on Friday that are set to hold administrative elections between December and February.

The central Lazio region, where the capital city of Rome is located, will hold elections between the end of January and early February, according to sources close to the junta. The exact election dates will be announced towards mid-November.

Instead, the northern Italian Lombardy region, in which the business capital of Milan is located, will hold its next elections “on a Sunday between December 16 and January 27”, according to comments made by regional president Roberto Formigoni to journalists.

Lazio governor Renata Polverini stepped down in September after the regional caucus leader Franco Fiorito was arrested for alleged embezzlement. Lombardy governor Roberto Formigoni is under pressure to resign after the housing commissioner of Milan’s regional government was arrested earlier this month for having allegedly paid organized criminals to secure his elections victory.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Three Handed Life Sentences for WWII Nazi Massacre in Italy

Another three former Nazi officials acquitted

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Three former Nazi officials were handed life sentences on Friday by a military appeals court in Rome for their roles in the deaths of some 400 civilians in the central Italian region of Tuscany during World War II.

The three former German officials of the ‘Hermann Goring’ division, who are now in their 90s, were sentenced to life for their roles in massacres that took place in the Spring of 1944 on the Apennine mountain range in central Italy.

Another three men were acquitted.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Alfano Tipped to Succeed Berlusconi, PDL Prepares Primaries

But some skeptical about ex-premier’s ‘retirement’

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Party Secretary Angelino Alfano is favourite to be the centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party’s candidate in elections next spring after Silvio Berlusconi said he would not stand for a fourth term as Italian premier.

Berlusconi said Wednesday that his party would hold primaries in December to decide who will lead them to the polls.

So far former Veneto governor and minister Giancarlo Galan and Daniela Santanche’, an undersecretary in Berlusconi’s last government, have announced they will run in the primaries and other candidates may well throw their hats into the ring. Alfano is the front-runner though, thanks in no small degree to Berlusconi seemingly making him his anointed heir last year, when the media magnate proclaimed the 41-year-old party secretary.

Up to then Alfano had served as justice minister in Berlusconi’s third administration, which started in 2008 and ran until the financial crisis led to its collapse last November.

He is widely seen as a moderate and someone who is open to dialogue with the opposite side of the political spectrum. This has not always been the case in recent years when the centre left and centre right were often locked in bitter slanging matches that have made cross-party compromise virtually impossible.

Santanche, 51, is a fierce Berlusconi loyalist from the right wing of the PdL.

Her chances of success may be hampered by friction caused by her recent calls for all the senior levels of the PdL to be fired following corruption scandals that have hit the party in the regions of Lazio around Rome and Lombardy around Milan.

Galan is a Padua native who was governor of Veneto from 1995 to 2005 and agriculture minister and then culture minister in Berlusconi’s last government.

He is likely to have strong support in the wealthier northern regions. But Berlusconi said he was stepping down to make way for the younger generation and, at 56, Galan may not fit the bill on this front. Some commentators have spoken of 35-year-old former youth policies minister Giorgia Meloni as a potential candidate as she could represent the face of renovation for the party. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, one of the first PdL members to call for the party to hold primaries, was also seen a possible runner, although he said on Thursday he would not stand because he has a city to manage.

Whoever wins the primaries will have a challenge on his hands to boost the PdL’s fortunes before the next year’s elections, which must be held before May.

The party’s ratings in the polls have been further hit by the corruption scandals after its support was cut by Berlusconi being forced to resign last year with the financial crisis threatening to spiral out of control.

The PdL, the biggest group in parliament at the moment, have slipped to third in the polls behind the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and comedian Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment Five Star movement.

SKEPTICISM

Berlusconi’s decision, which he said he made “for the love of Italy”, received applause from many quarters.

“With the decision he made yesterday, Berlusconi changed tomorrow,” said Alfano.

But some doubted whether the 76-year-old would follow through. “Wait before writing the headlines because you never know,” said two-time Italian premier Romano Prodi, who led centre-left coalitions to victory over Berlusconi in elections in Italy in 1996 and 2006.

Umberto Bossi, a former ally of Berlusconi’s and the ex head of the Northern League, expressed incredulity.

“No, I don’t believe it,” said Bossi. He added that Berlusconi’s announcement was unlikely to lead to the League patching up its alliance with Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party. The League and the PdL broke off their long-standing coalition last year, when Berlusconi decided to support Premier Mario Monti’s emergency technocrat administration after he quit from the helm of government. “We’ve decided to run alone anyway,” said Bossi, who was forced to step down as leader of the pro-devolution League because of a corruption scandal earlier this year.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Prosecutors Seek 20-Month Sentence for Puglia Governor

Vendola accused of abuse of office, illegal favors

(ANSA) — Bari, October 25 — Prosecutors in southern Italy on Thursday said Puglia Governor Nichi Vendola should spend 20 months in prison for alleged corruption and abuse of office.

Vendola, leader of the leftwing Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) party, is suspected of unlawfully appointing a local chief of surgeons, Paolo Sardelli, at Bari’s San Paolo hospital in 2010.

Vendola has denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors requested the same sentence for Lea Cosentino, the former head of the health board in Bari whom Vendola fired in 2010 after she was placed under house arrest during a graft investigation.

Vendola has said the case against him is based solely on testimony from Cosentino.

“She is accusing me due to her strong resentment,” he says.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Alitalia to Give Up Seven Milan-Rome Slots

EasyJet will have access to peak transit times

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Italy’s antitrust authority has ruled that Italy’s flagship carrier Alitalia must give up seven slots on its monopoly Rome-Milan route to competitor EasyJet.

The ruling overturns an ad hoc legislative decree that amended the suspended antitrust laws in 2008, allowing Alitalia an attempt to salvage its leading position in the Italian market and repay a government bridge loan of 300 million euros to the then almost insolvent carrier.

Probes carried out last April by the antitrust authorities that led to the ruling said that there is “a lack of proper competition between rail and air transport” and that Alitalia was running a monopoly.

The airline said that it lost 2 million passengers and 50% of its earnings in the space of three years as a result of high-speed rail companies like the Frecciarossa, effectively confirming the competitive threat.

However, Alitalia’s third-quarter results released Thursday showed a net profit of 27 million euros in contrast to second-quarter losses of 70 million euros and total revenues up 4% to 1.126 billion euros from 1.080 billion earned in the same period in 2011. The slots apply especially to “peak transit hours in the morning and evening,” the antitrust authority said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Mussolini’s Granddaughter Confirms Will Run for Premier

Says will fight for women and children

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, confirmed Friday she would run in primaries to be the centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party’s premier candidate after Silvio Berlusconi said he would not run in next year’s elections.

Mussolini, 50, a former model with a neofascist past, said her platform would be aimed at improving conditions for children and mothers who “live a hellish life” while parliament “doesn’t give much of a hoot about them, by and large”.

The announcement came two days before the anniversary of her grandfather’s 1922 March on Rome which set the stage for his 20-year rule.

PdL Secretary Angelino Alfano, 42, is favourite to pick up the 76-year-old Berlusconi’s mantle in mid-December primaries with the declared aim of keeping the centre left out of power.

The main centre-left force, the Democratic Party (PD), is currently polling around 27% to the PdL’s third-placed 15% with comic Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star anti-establishment movement second with 20%.

Many pundits see PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, as likely to carry on from technocrat Mario Monti who took over from Berlusconi at the height of the euro crisis almost a year ago.

But Bersani is facing a strong challenge in next month’s PD primaries from Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, 37.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Minetti Resigns With Other Councillors From Lombard Assembly

Council to be dissolved ahead of elections after scandals

(ANSA) — Milan, October 26 — Nicole Minetti, Silvio Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist who is accused of pimping for the ex-premier, was among 74 members of the Lombardy regional council to resign on Friday.

The resignations come with the assembly set to be dissolved for early elections after a series of corruption scandals caused Governor Roberto Formigoni’s administration of the region around Milan to collapse.

Minetti is among three people on trial for allegedly procuring an underage prostitute for the ex-premier’s ‘bunga bunga’ parties.

The 27-year-old resisted pressure to step down from the assembly after the sex scandal broke

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Prodi Reiterates Doubts About Berlusconi Quitting

‘We’ll see’ says two-time Italian premier

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Two-time Italian premier Romano Prodi on Friday reiterated his doubts about whether his old rival Silvio Berlusconi has really retired from front-line politics.

Berlusconi ended months of speculation on Wednesday when he said he would not run for a fourth term as premier in elections next spring as the candidate for his centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party.

“There are some ways to retire and there are other ways. I retired,” said Prodi, who stepped out of the political limelight after the collapse of his 2006-2008 administration.

“We’ll see,” he added when asked if he expected surprises from Berlusconi.

Prodi, the former president of the European Commission, led centre-left coalitions to victory over Berlusconi in elections in Italy in 1996 and 2006.

Earlier this month he was appointed as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy for the Sahel.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy Ex-PM Berlusconi Threatens to Topple Monti Government

Italian ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi has threatened to bring down the government of technocrats led by Mario Monti.

Mr Berlusconi said the cabinet was leading Italy into a “spiral of recession” and that his centre-right PDL party would decide in the coming days whether it would end its support.

It is the largest party in parliament and the move could trigger early polls.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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Mayor Arrested for ‘Rigging Contracts’ In Central Italy

Deputy mayor, 10 others behind bars for 12-mln-euro operation

(ANSA) — Viterbo, October 23 — A mayor and deputy mayor of a central Italian town were among a dozen arrests Tuesday probed for fixing tenders worth approximately 12 million euros. The mayor of Graffignano, Adriano Santori and his environment councillor, Luciano Cardoni, are accused of rigging contracts for waste collection, road maintenance and public-building repair, along with 10 other suspects. Another 51 people were placed under investigation for corruption, bid rigging and dereliction of duty. Police were probing the offices of implicated companies in the regions of Umbria, Veneto and Liguria.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Muted Protests Greet Wilders Malmö Visit

While protesters outnumbered those attending a speech by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders in Malmö in southern Sweden on Saturday, the event passed off without incident.

“Our intelligence told us that we should be prepared for trouble,” a Malmö police officer told The Local.

But at the end of the event a colleague assured The Local that the day “had passed without incident with just minor disturbances”.

The frequent critic of Islam was a guest of the anti-Islam Swedish “Freedom of the Press Society” (Tryckfrihetssällskapet) and addressed an audience of approximately 100 people at a venue in Malmö’s western harbour.

Outside a crowd of around 300 gathered to protest at the presence of the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom.

The society’s president Ingrid Carlqvist explained the poor turnout in that the society had received many bogus applications for tickets.

In a heated confrontation, Carlqvist denounced the protesters as “screaming hordes of monkeys” whom she said had revealed her home address, claiming that she had been forced to stay in a Copenhagen hotel as a precaution.

Wilders’ arrival in Malmö was shrouded in secrecy with the location of his speech only revealed on Friday afternoon due to security concerns.

A heavy police presence surrounded the Kockums Fritid centre with officers confirming to The Local that the deployment was similar to that used for dealing with football hooliganism.

Protesters from Stockholm as well as Copenhagen chanting “no to racism and fascism” were joined by a large group of Scandinavian media.

While police confirmed that the demonstrators generally behaved in an orderly manner, several attendees, including some journalists, were pelted with eggs and oranges as they entered the venue.

Carlqvist welcomed Wilders on stage, describing as “one of the bravest freedom fighters in the world” and the 49-year duly spoke for almost an hour.

The Dutch politician told the assembled crowd that he “loved Sweden and its people” and added that “Malmö should not succumb to Islam”.

Wilders was applauded several times during his talk in particular where he defended freedom of speech and cited Winston Churchill as his inspiration.

He received largely sympathetic questions from the audience urging “Swedes to be good patriots” and that “patriotism is not fascism” before departing under armed guard.

The outspoken politician and author, who has received multiple death threats in the past, spent only a few hours in Malmö and left immediately after his speech to catch a flight home from Copenhagen.

The vast majority of protesters had meanwhile left by the time Wilders emerged from the venue with police telling the The Local that the cold weather had persuaded demonstrators to head home.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The EU Was Dreamed Up in French and German. That’s Why the British Have Never Fit in

by Ed West

Nick Clegg apparently speaks Dutch in Cabinet when Herman Van Rompuy turns up — surely reason enough for Cameron to sack him. The Deputy Prime Minister speaks five languages, the others being French, Spanish and German (and English), which must make him the most linguistically gifted Cabinet minister for over 40 years. Clegg is half-Dutch, a quarter Russian and married to a Spaniard, and has spent five years in Brussels — he may go back, in the increasingly unlikely event that Britain remains in the EU. In so many ways he’s representative of the new global ruling class that Christopher Lasch wrote of in his prophetic Revolt of the Elites: “far more cosmopolitan, or at least more restless and migratory, than their predecessors”. In particular Clegg has a particular Euro-elite mindset, increasingly rare in Britain, one of the hallmarks of which is multilingualism…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: ‘Islam is About Real Love, Not Just Lust’: The Party Girl Who’s Embraced a New Life as a Muslim Convert

Her conversion from Ibiza party girl to hijab-wearing Muslim in barely three months may well raise a few eyebrows — and she admits that her friends probably think it’s another one of her fads. But trainee teacher Heather Matthews, 27, says Islam has brought her ‘love and happiness’ that she never found in her old ‘shallow’ lifestyle. Mrs Matthews, a mother of two, converted to the faith four weeks ago — two months after returning from a holiday in Ibiza. And she says that the photographs of the ‘old her’ taken on that trip show all that is wrong with Western images of beauty…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: ‘Evil’ Nigerian People Smuggler Used Witchcraft to Terrify Girls Into Sex Slavery

[WARNING: Disturbing content.]

An ‘evil’ Nigerian people smuggler who used witchcraft rituals to force terrified children to work as sex slaves has been convicted of trafficking and rape.

Young victims were raped, sexually abused and subjected to voodoo-style rituals once in the clutches of the trafficking ring.

[…]

The man responsible, Osezua Osolase, 42, was on the surface a recycling worker living in a terraced house in Gravesend, Kent. But he was in fact the British linchpin of a multi-million pound global child sex trafficking ring that used medieval ‘juju’ black magic to control its victims.

His home was a secret staging post for vulnerable teenage orphans as they were smuggled from Africa to several European countries.

Detectives discovered evidence that at least 28 victims were smuggled in and out of Britain by Osolase over a 14-month period, earning him up to £1.5million.

But the true figure could run into hundreds as the paedophile was overheard by one girl boasting he had been operating for 15 years as he tried to sell her for £60,000.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: A Fond Farewell to the Dandy

by Harry Mount

Well, it’s not quite goodbye — the Dandy will continue online from December; but its golden years as a comic that transfixed the country’s children are gone. In the 50s, circulation hit 2 million; it’s now down to 8,000. There’s a marvellous new show on at the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury, celebrating the Dandy’s 75th anniversary, which also falls in December (the cover of the first issue is pictured above). Not only is the artwork wonderful; there’s also something intensely moving about the unchanging identity of the cartoon characters through the decades. Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat had an extremely strong effect on the national psyche: producing a sort of collective nostalgia and innocence through four generations who shared the same characters.

The Dandy also had a minor role in winning the war. In one wonderful wartime issue in the show, Hitler and Himmler are portrayed as two ludicrous greedy buffoons, desperate for a feed: “Look mine wonderful Addie friend — someone has thrown away der big bully-beef tin without opening it,” says Himmler. “Bully for you, Hermy! It’s going to be bully for me, too!” says Hitler…

[JP note: And bully for Islam too.]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: British ‘Terror Gang Planned to Buy Five AK47 Guns’

A British terror cell allegedly planned to buy five AK47 assault rifles by borrowing £100,000 in loans, a court heard.

The alleged ringleader of a British jihadist group, Irfan Naseer, boasted how he could buy a grenade for £1,500 and a M16 assault rifle. Secretly recorded conversations heard the group saying they could get the weapons from a “gangster” they knew but Naseer he couldn’t go to him because “he knows what I want to do”, Woolwich Crown Court heard. The al-Qaeda inspired gang, from Birmingham, is accused of plotting to use eight suicide bombers to detonate rucksacks packed with explosives in crowded places to cause “mass death” and carnage on the streets of Britain. Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, all unemployed from Birmingham, are the alleged “senior members” and were among 12 people arrested and charged last year. The trio deny between them a total of 12 terror charges including planning a bombing campaign, recruiting others for terrorism and terrorism fundraising…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: EDL Leader Set to Spend Xmas in Jail

The leader of the far-right English Defence League is set to spend Christmas in prison after a judge rejected an application for bail. Stephen Lennon, 29, who also uses the name Tommy Robinson, was arrested at Heathrow Airport on October 20 on suspicion of possessing a false passport. He tried to use a passport in the name of “Andrew McMaster” to enter the United States on September 10 this year, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Court News, 26 October 2012

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: EDL Moves Protest to Parliament

Far-right group English Defence League (EDL) will protest outside Parliament today. The EDL originally planned to demonstrate in Walthamstow, but the MET Police banned all marches there for 30 days. EDL says it’s a movement opposed to Islamic extremism, but critics say it’s racist. Waltham Forest Councillor Chris Robbins says the ban “is a victory for the ordinary residents.” But EDL has told the police it will try to stage more protests there once the ban is lifted.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Incest — A Favoured Cause of Old Lefties

My article last week about the radical Left’s defence of paedophilia in the 1970s provoked all manner of paroxysms from today’s Lefties. How dare I blacken the name of Hattie Harman by pointing out that she became legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) soon after it campaigned for a more relaxed approach to sex with children?

But I had private communications, too, from people who encountered the “libertarian” Left during those years. “In the late Sixties and early Seventies, I worked at a school operated by the Inner London Education Authority,” wrote a retired schoolteacher.

“The teachers there were almost all Marxists or, as they would have said, Maoists. They were supporting an initiative to lower or abolish the age of consent, which they said was just a way for the upper classes to keep the working classes in their place. According to them, children were sexual beings who had a right to express their sexuality. I was one of the few parents on the staff and said that this was just an excuse for dirty old men to abuse children… I was told that I was brainwashed and bourgeois.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Kevin Carroll’s Election Campaign

I mentioned a few days ago that Kevin Carroll, acting Leader of the EDL while his cousin is in custody was also arrested, in his case for not obvious reason. The suspicion is that it is to hamper his campaign as the British Freedom candidate for Bedfordshire in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections on 15th November 2012. Even if you are not a resident of Bedfordshire and thus eligible to vote, out of interest some details of the campaign are here…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Osezua Osolase Used Witchcraft on Trafficked Girls

A man from Kent has been found guilty of trafficking three teenage girls from Nigeria into Europe for prostitution.

Osezua Osolase, 42, of Beaumont Drive, Gravesend, carried out African witchcraft “Juju” rituals on the girls, a jury at Canterbury Crown Court heard.

One of the girls described the Juju ceremony performed on her in Nigeria. During the ritual, samples of blood were extracted from the girl and her head hair and pubic hair were also cut.

She was then told to swear an oath of silence.

“Juju is a well established belief but Osolase corrupted it in a bid to gain control and bend the wills of his victims.”

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Powerful Anti-Tank Mines Used by British Troops in Afghanistan Are Stolen From Goods Train

A shipment of powerful anti-tank mines have been stolen from a goods train [in England].

Thieves are thought to have snatched the mines, used by British troops in Afghanistan, when the train was forced to stop because of a body on the track.

The munitions were discovered missing when the train pulled into a station 90 miles further down the line.

[…]

The theft took place as the mines were being transported from Defence Munitions Longtown, in Cumbria, to Marchwood Military Port near Southampton, which is operated by 17 Port and Maritime Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps.

The train is understood to have been held up for about an hour near Birmingham because of a fatality further down the line at Kidlington, Oxfordshire. The munitions were discovered missing when the train arrived in Didcot, Oxfordshire, at 7.30am.

A source said: ‘A railway worker noticed the sliding door of the wagon was open and shortly afterwards a number of police with a sniffer dog turned up and the wagon was placed in a secured shed.

‘It’s terrifying that this could happen. Who knows who could get their hands on the explosives.’

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Pazeer Ahmed Jailed for Murder

Haroon Bhatti died in hospital after being found at his home in Aberford Road, Wakefield, on 23 January.

Leeds Crown Court heard the boy was covered from head to toe in scars and bruises, had a bite mark and had been burned with cigarettes and an iron.

His father Pazeer Ahmed, 34, was convicted of murder and will serve a minimum of 19 years in jail.

Ahmed had admitted manslaughter, claiming he was suffering emotional problems and an “abnormality of mental function”.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Respect Activist: Was Hitler the Bad Guy?

MP George Galloway has emphasised that his Respect Party “abhors and campaigns against racism” after being alerted to comments by a party officer questioning whether Adolf Hitler was “the bad guy”. Naz Kahn, who last week was being praised on Facebook for her selection as a new woman’s officer for Respect, made the comments on the same site on September 30. Responding to a video called The Palestine you need to know, she said: “It’s such a shame that the history teachers in our school never taught us this but they are the first to start brainwashing us and our children into thinking the bad guy was Hitler. What have the Jews done good in this world??” She later added: “No, I’m not a Nazi, I’m an ordinary British Muslim that had an opinion and put it across. We have worse people than Hitler in this world now.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Victory Rally in Walthamstow Saturday 27 October

The police restriction preventing the EDL from entering Walthamstow is a major victory for our movement. The massive demonstrations planned by UAF, We Are Waltham Forest and Muslim communities, and pressure of our grass roots campaigning, helped to achieve this victory. This has been acknowledged by many including London Assembly Member Jennette Arnold. The EDL is weak and isolated, while our movement grows stronger. This victory must be celebrated!

[…]

[JP note: A hollow victory for evil, a temporary setback for decency and common sense.]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Walthamstow: Campaigners Celebrate ‘Victory’ Over EDL

A MAIN road in Walthamstow has been part closed by police this lunchtime for a rally against the far-right English Defence League (EDL).

An estimated 250 people have turned out for the static protest in Hoe Street, outside the former EMD cinema. Police say the demonstration must end at 2pm when the road will be reopened. The EDL, which claims to be a movement opposed to Islamic extremism but which critics say is racist, wanted to march through the borough today (Saturday October 27). But the government approved a ban on all marches for 30 days earlier this week following police intelligence that there could be violence and disruption.

The Met then also imposed special “conditions” on protesting which prevent the EDL and organisations associated with it from coming to Waltham Forest and holding a static protest. The Guardian witnessed two youths wearing flag of St George badges being escorted away from Walthamstow town centre by police at around 10.30am. But there have otherwise been no signs of potential supporters of the EDL in Walthamstow and the mood is generally calm in the town centre. There is a heavy police presence at train stations in the borough and the police have been stopping cars in areas such as the Bakers Arms on the Walthamstow and Leyton border…

— Hat tip: JP

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Israel Moves to Block Trojan Computer Attack

Israeli police have disconnected their computers from the internet and banned memory sticks, as cyber war engulfs the Middle East.

Israeli police officers have been banned from using memory sticks or disks in their computers and had their equipment disconnected from the internet, in a frantic bid to prevent the injection of a dangerous virus named after the country’s military chief.

The dramatic move last week was no great surprise. It’s just another round in the cyber war which has engulfed the Middle East.

It may be a prelude to a real war between the Jewish state and Iran.

The Israeli police moves to try to shut out the trojan — a hidden malware programme which lurks within benign software and is programmed to destroy equipment or spy — came as a result of an “intelligence tip”.

The trojan was named after Benny Gantz, Israel’s Chief of General Staff

Benny Gantz-55, named after Israel’s top soldier, has not, yet, emerged. It is conceivable that the shutdown of the police facilities came just in time.

It serves as a reminder that cyber weapons are now very much in the vanguard of modern war.

Benny Gantz-55 may have been a prank. It may also have been generated by Iran’s burgeoning cyber warfare centres which have been rapidly expanded since Tehran’s nuclear programme was hit by the Stuxnet virus in 2010.

Most experts agree that that malware was created in a joint programme between the US and Israel. It broke over 1,000 centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, where the West believes Iran is refining uranium to weapons grade.

Since then, cyber war has escalated — but there is no longer anything “virtual” about it. These days, software like Stuxnet is designed to break hardware and disrupt the real world.

This year, communications between Iran’s oil refineries and offshore sites was disrupted.

Banks in Iran and Lebanon have been infected by the W32/Flame-A and Gauss viruses, which are thought to come from the same lab as Stuxnet.

Iran is blamed for a counter attack, singling out long-standing Arab rivals.

Oil company Aramco had 30,000 computers infected by a recent virus

The Shamoon virus shut down 30,000 computers at the Saudi state oil company Aramco and hit the Qatari state-run gas firm RasGas.

Middle Eastern countries suffer tens of thousands of malware attacks every day. As a result they are rushing to recruit the brightest computer experts to fill the ranks of new cyber armies.

In Israel, cyber warriors are celebrated as national heroes. A recent awards ceremony for technological brilliance in the Israeli Defence Forces at the armoured divisions’ headquarters in Latrun, soldier geeks were treated to a rousing pop concert attended by at least 3,500 other service personnel.

Israel’s intelligence minister Dan Merridor summed up why spods — people who spend long periods of time in internet chat rooms — are the new Spartans.

“I think being a small nation we can never rely on quantities, we always need to rely on quality — to be better than our competitors, enemies and adversaries,” he said.

“So even in this world of computers, we need to be at the forefront of the science. I hope that we will be able to be there in order to stop those who want to harm us and to do it better than others. This is a must for us.”

Iran takes a similar view.

“It has been a new front, a new game of war, something which the Iranians up until a couple of years ago were not equipped for or aware of such warfare,” said professor Sadegh Zibakalam at Tehran University.

“But it appears the Iranians have been able to defend themselves very efficiently. The revolutionary guard and various other military institutions in Iran have employed highly talented Iranian graduates, and we have three to four applied science faculties.”

The Gulf states’ small and largely foreign-trained armies are also rushing to catch up…

— Hat tip: Nick

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Benghazi: No Other Explanation Fits

A Mideast “Fast and Furious” emerging within weeks of the election would be devastating.

On October 4 in Canada Free Press, I wrote a column entitled Was Ambassador Stevens’ Death a Hit?, so suspicious did I find the circumstances surrounding the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya at that time. On October 25, I followed up with Obama’s Feet of Clay, in which I discussed the likelihood that President Barack Obama failed to react to the attack despite real-time knowledge of developments in Benghazi because he wished to obscure or bury evidence of the administration’s gun running activities to Libyan and Syrian rebels.

The reason for Obama’s desire to do so, in this scenario, would be twofold. One, because weapons were not only being provided to Libyan and Syrian rebels, but were in fact being provided to jihadists across the Middle East with whom Obama sympathizes, but who are enemies of the US. Two, because Ambassador Christopher Stevens himself may have become a liability for reasons still uncertain (although my first column outlines one possibility). The fact that Stevens’ mission, and that of other US operatives in Libya was a clandestine one has been established; this is certainly a likely reason for Obama to want a lid kept on it. If revealed, obviously this would substantially threaten his re-election chances.

— Hat tip: JD

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Clinton Asked for More Security, Obama Said No

(The Examiner) Last night, it was revealed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had ordered more security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi before it was attacked where four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens were murdered by Al-Qaeda but President Obama denied the request.

The news broke on TheBlazeTV’s “Wilkow!” hosted by Andrew Wilkow, by best-selling author, Ed Klein who said the legal counsel to Clinton had informed him of this information.

Klein also said that those same sources said that former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife [Hillary] to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama losing the election.

— Hat tip: JD

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Egyptian Diplomat Wanted for Trafficking Ugandan Girls

The Uganda government is in a legal and diplomatic dilemma over an Egyptian diplomat it accuses of trafficking in humans. The incident happened in Kampala in June, but the official has since been transferred back to Cairo. The Observer has learnt from various sources that police, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the ministry of Foreign Affairs have been cautious in their approach for fear of causing a diplomatic row. “We would have asked for a waiver [of his immunity] if he was still in the country … As things are now, it is a bit difficult. But my lawyers are studying the case,” said James Mugume, Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Foreign Affairs. “What I heard is that the girl wanted to do kyeyo (odd jobs abroad) and that she applied and even paid for the job. These are complicated cases. You cannot know until you study the law, both local and international,” he said. It is alleged that the diplomat, while serving in Uganda, met two Ugandan girls, and promised them jobs in Cairo, Egypt. However, on arrival in Cairo, the girls, whose identities are still concealed as investigations continue, were instead subjected to slavery…

— Hat tip: JP

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Most Israeli Jews for Apartheid Regime in Israel

Most want to take away voting rights from Israeli Arabs and deny it to Palestinians in case the West Bank is annexed. They also want separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians and the separation of Jewish and Arab children. This “picture is a very, very sick one” for Israel. Perhaps more than racism, it embodies naked power over the defeated.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) — A majority of Israeli Jews would support an apartheid regime in Israel and marginalise Palestinians in case the West Bank was annexed, a survey shows. A majority also explicitly favours discrimination against the state’s Arab citizens. The study by public opinion firm Dialog, which is headed by Tel Aviv Prof Camil Fuchs, was commissioned New Israel Fund’s Yisraela Goldblum Fund based on a sample of 503 interviewees.

Survey results indicate that 59 per cent of Israeli Jews wants preference for Jews over Arabs in public sector employment. Almost half (49 per cent) wants the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 per cent do not want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 per cent do not want their children in the same classes as Arab children.

At least a third of Jews wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and a large majority of 69 per cent objects to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.

A large majority, 74 per cent, is in favour of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. Of these, 24 per cent believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 per cent believe they are “a necessary situation.”

About 47 per cent wants part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 per cent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for keeping some of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Among Jews, 58 per cent already believes Israel practices apartheid against Arabs. Only 31 per cent think such a system is not in force here.

Over a third (38 per cent) of Jews wants Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them, whilst 48 per cent object.

The survey results, published in the daily Haaretz, distinguish among the various communities in Israeli society: secular, observant, religious, ultra-Orthodox and former Soviet immigrants. The ultra-Orthodox, in contrast to those who described themselves as religious or observant, hold the most extreme positions against the Palestinians. An overwhelming majority (83 per cent) of Haredim are in favour of segregated roads and 71 per cent are in favour of transfer.

The ultra-Orthodox are also the most anti-Arab group: 70 per cent of them support legally barring Israeli Arabs from voting, 82 per cent support preferential treatment from the state toward Jews, and 95 per cent are in favour of discrimination against Arabs in job hiring.

Secular Israelis appear to be the least racist: 68 per cent of them would not mind having Arab neighbours in their apartment building, 73 per cent would not mind Arab students in their children’s class and 50 per cent believe Arabs should not be discriminated against in admission to workplaces.

Russian-Israelis are in the middle, showing the highest rate of satisfaction with life in Israel (77 per cent). On average, 69 per cent of Israelis are satisfied with life in Israel.

Some 59 per cent believe apartheid is practiced “in a few” or “many fields” and 11 per cent do not know.

In commenting the results, journalist Gideon Levy said that the picture that emerges shows an Israel that “is a very, very sick” with “Israelis [. . .] openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists.”

Jew leaders contacted by AsiaNews note however that the Israel’s picture is not the most important thing. Facts on the ground count more.

Since Israel’s creation, Arabs inside Israel have suffered discrimination, Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza have had to endure intolerance, and Arab rights and land have been trampled upon.

For these Jews, Israeli policies are not the expression of “ideological racism,” but the result of naked power relations between victors and vanquished.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Olive Orchard Jihad

The jihad against the Jews of Israel is waged by Arab Muslims lobbing rockets from Gaza (at least 80 in the latest barrage launched randomly at civilian targets), by Arab Muslims trying to sneak through checkpoints into Israel with knives up their sleeves or (in just the latest case) 8 pipe-bombs in a backpack, and also by…raiding the olive orchards of Jews in Judea and Samaria, stealing the fruit and cutting down trees, as well as by damaging their own trees and then claiming that the Jews did it (the inflammatory claim that “the Evil Jews are destroying the olive trees of the Pooor Persecuted Palestinians!’ has been a staple of the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim propaganda for decades). Two recent reports on what might be called “olive orchard jihad”…

— Hat tip: JP

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Panicking Cow Kills Palestinian in Muslim Feast

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A panicking cow killed a Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter the beast on Saturday during the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, a Gaza health official said.

Muslims around the world slaughter sheep, cows and goats during the four-day holiday that began Friday to commemorate the sacrifice by their Prophet Ibrahim — known to Christians and Jews as Abraham.

But accidents are common as people frequently buy animals to slaughter at home instead of relying on professional butchers. The festive atmosphere surrounding the site of the slaughtering also tends to make the animals fidgety.

In addition to the death, Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra said that 150 other people were hospitalized in the Gaza Strip with knife wounds or other injuries caused by animals trying to break away.

There were also two similar incidents in Pakistan on Saturday…

— Hat tip: Paul Green

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Bosnian Muslim Senad Hadzic Walks to Mecca Via Syria

A Bosnian Muslim man has walked 5,650km (3,503 miles) to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and says God kept him safe in war-torn Syria.

Senad Hadzic, 47, told the BBC that he spent several hours at the Syrian border haggling to get a visa. Later he had to negotiate his way through numerous checkpoints — some manned by the army, others by rebels. “Some of them even kissed the Koran I was carrying,” he said, adding that he also had a Bible in his backpack…

[JP note: Bully for him.]

— Hat tip: JP

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Car Bomb Blast Damages Church in Eastern Syria

DAMASCUS, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) — A booby-trapped car went off in front of al-Serian Church in Syria’s eastern province of Deir al- Zour on Saturday, causing damages to the church’s facade, the state-run SANA news agency reported. There have been no reports on casualties by the blast, which is the latest in a series of explosions that rocked Syria during the first couple of days of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, which started on Friday…

— Hat tip: JP

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Deadly Attacks Hit Iraq as Muslims Mark Eid Festival

Baghdad (CNN) — A wave of attacks that came as Muslims marked the second day of Eid al-Adha, a major festival, claimed at least 15 lives in the Baghdad area and in the northern Sunni city of Mosul, police officials said Saturday. At least five Shiite pilgrims were killed when a roadside bomb in Taji, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, struck a minibus carrying them to visit Al-Askariya, or the “Golden Mosque.” A dozen more were wounded in the blast. Police said most of those killed and injured were Iranian pilgrims.

A roadside bomb also exploded in an outdoor market in al-Mamel Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 13 others, police officials said. In Mosul, about 380 kilometers north of Baghdad, five people were killed and seven more wounded in four separate attacks in different locations in and around the city, according to police officials. Most of those affected were from minority Shabak sect. The attacks including two shootings and two explosions targeting houses and shops related to the sect.

Baghdad’s Shiite-dominated government has blamed the recent attacks on Sunni insurgents with ties to militant network al Qaeda. Last month, 365 people, including police and soldiers, were killed, making it the deadliest month since August 2010.

— Hat tip: JP

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Europe is Turning Away From Turkey — And the Rest of the World

by Orhan Pamuk

Whatever happened to liberté, égalité, fraternité? Fear of Muslims is putting Europe’s secular tradition at risk

I have spent my entire life at the borders of continental Europe. From the window of my home or office, I’ve looked out over the Bosphorus to see Asia on the other side; and so, in thinking about Europe and modernity, I have always felt, like the rest of the world, just a little bit provincial. Like the many millions who live outside the west, I have had to understand my own identity while observing Europe from afar, and so, in the process of working out my identity, I’ve often wondered what Europe could represent for me and for us all. This is an experience I share with the majority of the world’s population, but because Istanbul, my city, is situated just where Europe begins — or maybe where Europe ends — my thoughts and my resentments have been a little more pressing and constant…

[Reader comment by UndyingCincinnatus on 26 October 2012 at 9:57 pm.]

Fear of Muslims is putting Europe’s secular tradition at risk

You seem to be postulating that this is the fault of those who look at Muslim countries and decide “no thanks”, a position I feel is entirely reasonable. If Muslims want to be accepted into Western civilisation, they should look at why people are so unwilling to accept them, rather than blindly shouting racism.

— Hat tip: JP

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Saudi Arabia: Muslim Pilgrims Stone Devil in Symbolic Hajj Rite

Millions of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia on Friday furiously cast pebbles in a symbolic stoning of the devil, carrying out a final rite of hajj, as Muslims around the world celebrated the start of Islam’s biggest holiday, the Feast of Sacrifice. After stoning three walls symbolizing Satan in a rejection of sin and temptation, male pilgrims changed out of the seamless terrycloth robes of pilgrimage and shaved their heads, as a sign of renewal. Women — and those men who prefer not to undergo a complete shave — had a lock of hair clipped. Though pilgrims will repeat the stoning ritual for at least two more days, they could now call themselves “hajjis,” referring to those who have done the pilgrimage…

— Hat tip: JP

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Turkey Fails to Appeal to Investors, WB Says

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, OCTOBER 25 — Turkey ranks 71st out of 185 countries in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2013 Smarter Regulation for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises’ report, the same position it was in last year. “Turkey managed to maintain its ranking from the year before given that all the other countries in the sampling were able to make as many economic reforms as Turkey.” One major area in which Turkey has made significant reforms is the field of construction permits, where the government has made dealing with construction permits easier by eliminating requirements to build shelters in all nonresidential buildings with a total area of less than 1,500 square meters. The government has also made it cheaper to receive construction permits, and the report estimates it is now four times easier to receive such a permit. “In addition, Turkey made enforcing contracts easier by introducing a new civil procedure law,” read the report, as daily Hurriyet writes.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Russian Muslims Swarm Moscow for ‘Feast of Sacrifice’

Muslims in Russia are celebrating the Feast of Sacrifice, an Islamic holiday dedicated to the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). More than 150,000 prayers are taking place across Moscow at traditional prayer halls, and unconventional spots like golf courses. The main celebration of Eid al-Adha — known as Kurban Bayram in Russia — began at Moscow’s Cathedral Mosque at 8:30am local time. Despite the cold and rainy weather, worshipers gathered outside of mosques in the pre-dawn hours. Since there was limited space in the prayer halls, thousands poured out onto the streets as a mixture of rain and snow fell.

Six sites near mosques and in designated locations were set to host Muslims in the Russian capital. Some 3,000 law enforcement officers were deployed to guard the sites. For security reasons, worshipers were not allowed to bring large bags or packs to the sites. Metal detectors were also set up to scan for potentially dangerous objects or weapons.

The sheer volume of cars and people created kilometer-long traffic jams on streets neighboring the mosques. Thousands of Muscovites had a severe case of road rage, saying they could not get to work or drop children off at school on time because Muslims were marching in the streets to prayers, causing traffic jams. Moscow residents who live near the mosques also said the celebrations seem slightly noisier than in previous years. Public prayers had finished by noon, and the huge crowds dispersed and traffic in Moscow returned to normal levels. Police reported that the celebrations passed peacefully without any major incidents.

Muslim worshipers have also been known to slaughter sacrificial animals for Eid in the streets of Moscow, a practice that has been banned in recent years. Leaders of the Muslim community of Moscow argue that these and other public disturbances are due to an insufficient number of mosques in the city. For a number of years, Islamic leaders have asked city authorities to allow for more mosques to be built — a proposition that even won support from former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. But the move was met with widespread protest, with Muscovites holding a number of demonstrations against the construction of new mosques. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin bowed to public pressure and put the proposal on hold…

— Hat tip: JP

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Afghanistan: British Army Medic and Royal Marine Were Not Shot Dead by Own Forces

A female Army medic and a Royal Marine were not shot dead by British forces during a confused fire fight, investigators concluded, but they could not rule out the possibility they were killed by a rogue Afghan policeman.

Corporal Channing Day, from 3 Medical Regiment, and Corporal David O’Connor, from 40 Commando, were shot dead on foot patrol in Helmand in a shoot out which also killed an Afghan policeman. Two days after their deaths, the Ministry of Defence was still unable to give a clear account of how they died, but said a preliminary investigation had refuted Afghan police claims the Britons had been shot by their own comrades. Cpl Day, 25, from Co Down in Northern Ireland, was only the third British servicewoman to die in the Afghan conflict since 2001 and the killings took the British death toll to 435…

— Hat tip: JP

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Animal VC for Dog Who Died of a Broken Heart: Theo’s Handler Killed by Taliban

An army dog which died of a broken heart hours after his handler was shot dead has been awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Theo, a springer spaniel cross, received the PDSA Dickin Medal for life-saving bravery in Afghanistan.

The 22-month-old dog suffered a fatal seizure when his handler, Lance Corporal Liam Tasker, 26, was shot dead by the Taliban in March 2011.

The pair had uncovered 14 bombs and hoards of weapons in five months in Helmand Province — more than any other dog and handler in the conflict.

— Hat tip: JD

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Clashes in Indian-Controlled Kashmir After Eid-Ul-Adha Prayers

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) — Police fired tear gas and made baton charge Saturday to disperse anti- India demonstrators in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said. The protest broke out outside Eidgah (prayer grounds) in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, after Eid-ul-Adha congregational prayers.

“Clashes broke out after police and paramilitary troopers tried to stop the demonstrators,” said Muddasir Ahmad, a local resident. “Primarily the protests were against the detention of separatist leaders.” Authorities have placed separatist leaders including hardliner Syed Ali Geelani and moderate Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house arrest, fearing their participation in Eid prayers would trigger massive demonstrations. Mirwaiz is also the region’s chief preacher and was supposed to deliver a sermon at Eidgah in old city. The police resistance triggered stone pelting. Youth were seen hurling stones and brick pieces at the contingents of police and India’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)…

— Hat tip: JP

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Indonesia: Blind in One Eye, The Orangutan Fighting for Life After Being Shot More Than 100 Times by Palm Oil Plantation Thugs

An endangered orangutan is fighting for life after being shot more than 100 times with an air rifle in a cruel attack.

The female ape, called Aan,has been blinded in one eye and has sustained other serious wounds to her body after being struck repeatedly by pellets.

She was hit 37 times in the head by the lead slugs, while 67 projectiles penetrated other parts of her body in the shooting, which took place in an oil palm plantation in the Indonesian part of Borneo.

— Hat tip: JD

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New Delhi Condemns Ferrari Support for Marines at Indian GP

F1 team to show Italian Navy flag

(ANSA) — New Delhi, October 26 — The Indian government spoke out on Friday against Ferrari’s decision to display the Italian Navy flag on their race cars at this weekend’s Indian Grand Prix in solidarity with two Italian marines on trial in India over the shooting deaths of two Indian fishermen.

Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone are accused of homicide after allegedly mistaking the fishermen for pirates during an anti-piracy mission off the coast of Kerala in southern india in February. The shooting triggered a diplomatic row between Italy and India.

The Italian government, citing United Nations conventions, says its courts should have jurisdiction over the case and has been pressing for the marines return to Italy.

The pair are being held while the Indian Supreme Court considers Italy’s claim for jurisdiction.

“To use sporting events to promote causes not of a sporting nature is incoherent with the sporting spirit,” the Indian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement. Indian fishermen protested earlier in the day after the cars drived by Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa carried he emblem of the Italian Navy during a practice session at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida.

“We cannot approve of the government turning a blind eye to this act, especially because the two marines are still undergoing trial,” the Secretary of the National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF), T. Peter, told daily newspaper The Hindu.

Peter added that the decision was an affront to the Indian fishing community and to Indian society at large.

Business newspaper Mint asked on its opinion page: “Who are the real victims here? The two military officers who, all things considered, are being given a fair trial, or the two fishermen who were killed?”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Pakistan: Altaf Hussain Felicitates Muslims on Eid

KARACHI: The Chief of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Altaf Hussain has felicitated Muslims living in Pakistan together with those living throughout the world on the auspicious occasion of Eid-ul-Azha. He appealed to the Haq Parast people not to forget the poor and disadvantaged people while celebrating the Eid. Hussain said that Eid-ul-Azha is the Sunnah of Prophet Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) and it gives us the lesson of sacrificing everything for seeking the pleasure and will of Allah. He complimented each and every worker of the MQM on the occasion of Eid and prayed Allah to shower His blessings on the Muslims Ummah. He prayed Almighty Allah for protecting Pakistan from internal and external threats, eliminating religious extremism and fanaticism, establishing peace and tranquillity in the country, and raising an honest leadership in the country. He also prayed Almighty Allah to protect the brave and determined workers of the movement and give success to the just struggle for the rights of the people. He prayed Allah to foil the conspiracies hatched against the movement. Hussain paid glowing tributes to the martyrs and said that their sacrifices would not remain unfruitful. He prayed Allah to give the families of the martyrs and the missing persons the courage and patience to bear their great loss. He also appealed to the Haq Parast people and workers not to forget the families of the martyrs, the missing persons and make every effort to win their hearts. staff report

— Hat tip: JP

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Police: Taliban Shoot Dead 5 Civilians Grabbed Off Bus in Eastern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Police say Taliban militants have pulled five Afghan civilians off a bus in eastern Afghanistan and shot them dead. Ghazni province Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Hussain says the insurgents stopped the bus Friday as it was driving in Andar district on the main road headed south to Kandahar city. He says they pulled out five people and killed them on the spot. Police recovered the bodies Saturday from the roadside…

— Hat tip: JP

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Singapore: Sheep for Ritual: Be Prepared for Alternative Arrangements, Says PM

SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said that Singapore should prepare for the possibility that Australia may, like New Zealand, ban live animal exports completely, as Australian animal welfare groups are pressing strongly for this. Writing on his Facebook page yesterday, he said both he and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim were initially worried that the Korban ritual in Singapore might be affected by Australia’s stringent new regulations on live sheep exports. Fortunately, 16 mosques passed the Australian audits and were able to import 2,500 sheep, which arrived on Thursday morning and were sent to the mosques for yesterday’s Hari Raya Haji ritual…

— Hat tip: JP

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Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader

The mother of China’s prime minister was a schoolteacher in northern China. His father was ordered to tend pigs in one of Mao’s political campaigns. And during childhood, “my family was extremely poor,” the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said in a speech last year.

But now 90, the prime minister’s mother, Yang Zhiyun, not only left poverty behind, she became outright rich, at least on paper, according to corporate and regulatory records. Just one investment in her name, in a large Chinese financial services company, had a value of $120 million five years ago, the records show.

The details of how Ms. Yang, a widow, accumulated such wealth are not known, or even if she was aware of the holdings in her name. But it happened after her son was elevated to China’s ruling elite, first in 1998 as vice prime minister and then five years later as prime minister.

Many relatives of Wen Jiabao, including his son, daughter, younger brother and brother-in-law, have become extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, an investigation by The New York Times shows. A review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that the prime minister’s relatives — some of whom, including his wife, have a knack for aggressive deal making — have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

In many cases, the names of the relatives have been hidden behind layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, work colleagues and business partners. Untangling their financial holdings provides an unusually detailed look at how politically connected people have profited from being at the intersection of government and business as state influence and private wealth converge in China’s fast-growing economy.

Unlike most new businesses in China, the family’s ventures sometimes received financial backing from state-owned companies, including China Mobile, one of the country’s biggest phone operators, the documents show. At other times, the ventures won support from some of Asia’s richest tycoons. The Times found that Mr. Wen’s relatives accumulated shares in banks, jewelers, tourist resorts, telecommunications companies and infrastructure projects, sometimes by using offshore entities.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Chinese Christian Was Tortured for Helping Other Believers

Shi Weihan dangled from a wall inside a Chinese prison, handcuffed to a hook. His interrogators doused him with frigid water and tormented him with electric shocks.

They pried for information: How many Christian books did he give out? What are the names and phone numbers of the pastors he gave them to?

“During that time, the outside world did not know what was happening to me.”

Weihan would not remain anonymous for long. His imprisonment under the Chinese government’s religious crackdown — reported extensively by Baptist Press — would carry him into national publications and be chronicled in detail by the religious freedom monitor ChinaAid.

— Hat tip: JD

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Eid: Sydney’s Muslim Community Leaders Call for Tolerance

Sydney community leaders stressed Islam condemns violence, addressing crowds marking the holy day of Eid Al-Adha — as a report shows many Australians hold negative views towards Muslims.

As a report showed that a quarter of Australians hold negative views towards Muslims, Sydney community leaders stressed Islam condemns violence, addressing crowds marking the holy day of Eid Al-Adha. SBS’s Suheil Damouny reports from Punchbowl Park in Sydney’s south-west where over 1,000 Muslims enjoyed a morning of reflection and festivities.

— Hat tip: JP

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Video: Sydney Commuters Join Forces to Attack Abusive Passenger and Throw Her From the Train

A woman who was filmed swearing and abusing people on a train in Australia, got what she deserved when she was thrown off onto her backside by other passengers.

The triumphant moment when her fellow commuters gang up on her and physically move her off the train was caught on camera and has become a hit on YouTube.

The video shows the young blonde spitting, swearing and hitting Sydney commuters until they finally snap and kick her off the train.

Scroll down for video

— Hat tip: JD

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Ghana: Muslims Urged to Accept Outcome of the Elections

Sheik Tahir Saeed, Deputy Upper East Regional Chief Iman, has enjoined Ghanaians to accept the results of the forthcoming elections and the winner as one ordained by God to lead the country. Sheik Tahir said this when he addressed this year’s Eidh ul Adha celebration in Bolgatanga on Friday where hundreds of Muslims converged to pray to God for the mercies endowed them over the year. He said as the campaigns of the elections peaked up, Ghanaians should be guided by their utterances and not conduct themselves in ways that would compromise the peace the country had enjoyed over the years. He prayed for peaceful elections and asked God for a choice of a President who would steer the affairs of the country.

Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo, Upper East Regional Minister, asked Muslims to stand by the virtues of peaceful coexistence and love for one another as the Holy Quran has instructed. He said it was not enough for Muslims to gather and celebrate Eid but should remember that the Holy Quran was revealed as guide to humanity and applied in all human life and every relationship between human beings. He said the guidance provided by the Holy Quran also prescribed appropriate rules and limits that governed the relationship between parents and children, man and woman, employee and employer and all spheres of life. He asked Muslims, therefore, to avoid activities that would foment troubles in their communities and be proud of the religion they belonged which had always proclaimed complete equality among all races. “I will therefore appeal to all our gentlemen and ladies to stand for peace before, during and after elections and not to allow yourselves to be used to cause trouble in our respectful places and beyond” the Regional Minister added. He also assured Ghanaians of government’s commitment towards ensuring peaceful and transparent elections.

— Hat tip: JP

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Mujahideen Flock to Mali

Nouakchott — From Mali to Morocco, the capacity of Islamist governance is being put to the test.

As Mali braces for military intervention, growing popular discontent over Islamist governance is expanding well beyond the embattled country’s borders. Foreign fighters have begun arriving in Mali, but these are not the long-awaited African military forces come to liberate the country from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the MUJAO and Ansar al-Din. “Hundreds of jihadists, mostly Sudanese and Sahrawis, have arrived as reinforcements to face an offensive by Malian forces and their allies,” AFP quoted a Malian security source as saying on Tuesday (October 22nd). “They are armed and explained that they had come to help their Muslim brothers against the infidels,” a Timbuktu resident said.

Sanad Ould Bouamama, official spokesperson for Ansar al-Din, says, “The arrival of hundreds of young mujahideen from different areas across the Islamic world to support us in our war against the infidels and crusaders is not strange or surprising. The same thing happened in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Iraq,” the Ansar al-Din official tells Magharebia. Ould Bouamama adds, “The war that the world is planning to wage against us is a war against Islam and all that is related to Islam. Its goal is to combat God’s Sharia, and therefore, all mujahideen have to stand by our side.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Republic of Congo to Borrow Over 1.1 Bln USD From China

BRAZZAVILLE, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) — The Republic of Congo will borrow over 1.1 billion U.S. dollars from China to support her 2013 state budget, the country’s Finance Minister Gilbert Ondongo said in a statement published on Friday by a weekly publication, La Semaine Africaine (The African Week)…

— Hat tip: JP

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Risks of Boko Haram Attacks in Nigeria

Boko Haram is likely to escalate attacks during Eid.

Nigeria: severe risk of IED and shooting attacks against Muslims and entertainment spots in the north and Middle Belt

On October 23, Nigeria’s police chief announced the deployment of extra officers across the country, following warning of a attacks by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram during Eid celebrations beginning on October 26. The risk of attacks by Boko Haram is severe around the festive period when large numbers of people visit entertainment spots. The group is likely to target prayer grounds where there are religious leaders who are perceived to support the government against Boko Haram.

Attacks are more likely in prayer grounds or mosques in Maiduguri, the group’s stronghold, and entertainment spots in towns including Abuja, Kaduna and Kano. The risk of attacks in major cities in the south including Lagos, Port Harcourt and Enugu is extremely low. Attacks are likely to be in the form of drive-by shootings against small groups or IED (improvised explosive device) attacks against large public gathering, raising risks of death and injury to bystanders and worshippers.

— Hat tip: JP

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Police Hunt for Alleged Bogus Asylum Seeker Accused of Conning His Way Into Job With… The Serious Organised Crime Agency

Elidon Habilaj, 35, is alleged to have conned his way in to the country’s top police agency in London, dubbed as Britain’s answer to the FBI.

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Sardine Can Britain: What Life Will be Like in 2050 When Experts Predict the Population Will Have Exploded to 80million

The population of Britain will rocket to nearly 80?million by 2050 — an increase of a third — according to an authoritative new projection by the Population Reference Bureau. It’s a chilling prospect and has sparked renewed debate about mass immigration.

Last week, the Economist magazine called the Tories’ attempts to limit immigration their ‘barmiest policy’, and complained Britain ‘has, in effect, installed a “keep out” sign over the white cliffs of Dover’. But is it wrong to want tighter controls over our borders? Here, a leading historian imagines what life could be like 38 years from now?.?.?.

Dawn is breaking over London. As the pale sunlight filters weakly through the smog, the streets are already teeming with grey-suited commuters, trudging in line towards the city’s call centres.

Overhead, the air is thick with the roar of engines, as the endless succession of early-morning flights from Brussels, capital of the United States of Europe, head into Heathrow. Outside the city’s surgeries and hospitals, the queues are already forming, legions of parents waiting anxiously with their pale children, hoping against hope they can get one of the day’s few emergency appointments.

Many have already been awake for hours, having risen while it was still dark to beat the traffic.

It is barely six o’clock, yet already the streets are at a standstill. The lines of cars waiting to use the roadside electric charging points stretch for miles.

But no one seems angry or impatient: merely weary, depressed and downtrodden. After all, this is Britain in 2050, a nation of almost 80?million people, most of them packed into the south-eastern corner of Europe’s most densely populated state.

More from Dominic Sandbrook…

Stopping first-class post would prove we’ve become a second-class nation 18/10/12 .

Red Ed’s One Nation hero was a vacuous, egotistical hypocrite who sent British soldiers to die needlessly in foreign wars. (Remind you of anyone?) 05/10/12 .

Hubris and a man who thinks he can only be judged by God 28/09/12 .

Most PMs are mice, not men. It’s too soon to write Cameron off, but Britain needs to hear him roar 31/08/12 .

How glorious, after years of our national identity being denigrated, to see patriotism rekindled 10/08/12 .

The Batman massacre was the work of a deranged mind. But DOMINIC SANDBROOK argues that the film and a new play in London both warn how the West may be reverting to the dark days of the Thirties 20/07/12 .

Just like the unions 30 years ago, the bankers think they’re above the law. So where’s the politician who will break them? 06/07/12 .

We’ve never been so obsessed with sport, but there’s so much of it on TV that we’ve become a nation of couch potato champions 25/06/12 .

VIEW FULL ARCHIVE .At a time when Britain feels so crowded, many people are amazed to be reminded that as recently as the early 2010s, the population was barely 63?million. In those simple, innocent days, when people still carried mobile telephones and watched television in just two dimensions, we were not yet the most populous country in Europe. Back then, we still lagged behind the Germans.

At the time, some commentators warned that with migrants pushing up the birth rate to one of the highest in Europe, Britain’s population was bound to soar, putting the health, education and transport systems under intolerable pressure.

But no one listened. Indeed, as history teachers tell their astonished pupils today, when the Commons debated the issue in the early autumn of 2012, just 30 MPs bothered to turn up.

So the population continued to swell, especially in the affluent South-East. Every year urban Britain felt a little more cramped, a little more crowded. And today we are living with the consequences.

To fly over our landscape in the autumn of 2050 — if you are one of the lucky minority who can afford the massive fuel duty — is to be reminded how much things have changed.

In great swathes of southern and central England, our green and pleasant land has long since disappeared. A sea of grey spreads out from London all the way to Britain’s Second City, Milton Keynes.

With increasingly strident demands for more housing, the last green-belt restrictions were removed in the early 2030s. Ever since, developers have been enjoying a bonanza, from the vast estates sprawling across the Chiltern hillsides to the luxury retirement communities in the South Downs and the Lake District.

Looking down from your aeroplane window, you can see the jagged lines of Britain’s private motorways carving across the countryside.

Although tolls are the highest in Europe, with drivers charged £100 for the journey from London to Manchester, many have no choice.

Public transport may have been an option in 2012, when most commuters were guaranteed at least a standing space. But getting a rush-hour train these days is like a journey into hell.

With demand at an all-time peak, fares are higher than ever. Commuters pay £500 for a day return from Brighton into London. And with operators putting on more trains to meet the demand, long delays outside major city stations are common.

Few travellers will forget the Didcot disaster in 2047, when signal failures saw two trains collide with terrible consequences. Even the high-speed trains between London and Birmingham are crammed to bursting, the HS2 service having opened in 2036, a mere ten years behind schedule. There is still talk about extending the line to Manchester or Leeds; alas, the money is not there. Other public services are at breaking point.

The NHS has been struggling to cope with demand for three decades — not least because of the increasingly elderly population. There are now almost five million people over 85, many of them needing round-the-clock medical care.

So many people reach the age of 100 that Charles IV — who succeeded his father, William, two years ago — no longer sends out congratulatory messages. You have to be 110 to get a card these days.

And even though the retirement age is now 72, we are borrowing billions to pay for all the pensions. That explains why the doors remain open for immigrants: these days, Britain is simply desperate for their tax money.

Waiting times for non-urgent NHS appointments began rising in the 2020s. These days, you are lucky if a doctor sees you within a month.

There is a cruel irony in the fact that, 40 years ago, rival politicians competed for the One Nation banner. For in health as in so many other areas, Britain now feels like two nations, not one. The super-rich go private; the rest of us wait in line. Such is life in Britain in 2050.

Schools are another example, with many inner-city academies so crowded that headteachers have been allowed to lift the cap on class sizes. In Birmingham and Manchester, classes of more than 50 have become the norm for mainstream subjects such as Mandarin, Atheism and Diversity Studies.

Walk past any school and you will see Portakabin classrooms stacked on top of one another in what was once the playground.

And as for school sport, forget it. The last playing fields were sold off to housing developers in the late 2030s. Little wonder Team GB won just five medals at the Guangzhou Olympics, while England’s footballers have not qualified for the World Cup finals since crashing out in Delhi 12 years ago.

Even going to a football match is now impossible for most people. There are more than 150,000 on the waiting list for season tickets at the Premiership champions, Wolverhampton Wanderers, whose largely African and South American players each earn £2?million a week.

The great irony is that 40 years ago, many people claimed an expanding population would boost employment and economic growth. But with so many jobs moving overseas, those claims have proved a hollow fantasy.

British unemployment hit the six million mark during the worldwide recession of 2042 — which followed the American civil war between the Federalist forces of the East Coast states under President Malia Obama, and the breakaway New Confederacy of the South and West, over the issue of taxes and water rights — and since then it has never fallen below it.

With so many people claiming the dole, benefits now account for more than 15 per cent of GDP. To think the people thought it excessive at seven per cent in 2012. Little wonder wealthy superpowers such as Malaysia, Brazil and the Indian Empire often mock the British as the ‘workshy of the world’.

As a result, successive coalition governments have been forced to raise more revenue through taxes.

The last Green-Labour government, which left office in 2046, raised the top rate of income tax to a whopping 85 per cent, insisting the rich needed to pay more for the pensions of the rest.

Tax avoidance is widespread. Yet it is only part of a wider story of rising crime in an increasingly crowded, fragmented, fractious and alienated society.

In the biggest English cities, such as London, Milton Keynes and Telford, ethnic hatred and gang violence have become endemic.

No wonder the prisons are bursting at the seams. In 2012 our prison population was less than 100,000 — a figure that seems almost incredible today. By 2025, however, it was already 150,000, and last year it reached 261,000.

The Tories first talked about using prison ships in 2010, although for a decade nothing was done. In fact, it was Chuka Umunna’s Labour government that first introduced floating prisons in the 2020s, and today the private security firm G4S operate more than two dozen, most of them in the Channel.

Conditions on the hulks are appalling and many ships have been infiltrated by the rabidly xenophobic Legion of St George, which first gained ground in the 2030s as part of the backlash against rising immigration.

To most decent people, the spectacle of the Legion marching openly through the streets, proudly proclaiming unashamed anti-immigrant prejudice, is almost as disturbing as its insidious online advertising, which kicks in almost as soon as you put on your internet glasses, which provide you with a mini-computer screen in front of your eyes.

Its involvement in last year’s Banbury riots, when five people were killed in clashes between the Legion, the police and anti-racist demonstrators, has probably tainted the organisation beyond repair.

Britain’s spiritual leaders, whether speaking for the Muslim majority or the dwindling Christian remnant, rarely miss a chance to condemn it. Only last week, the nation’s most popular and respected religious figure, the National Imam, denounced the Legion as ‘the unacceptable face of patriotism’.

But even though the group’s political appeal remains severely limited — with just nine per cent of the vote at the last election, it is a long way behind the Tories, the Greens and Labour, and only just ahead of the Lib Dems — it draws on genuine and widespread resentments.

Polls show massive public bitterness at the long queues for housing and hospitals, as well as growing fury at surging food prices, power cuts and water shortages.

In parts of southern England, even walking to the shops has become a battle against seething crowds. The days when you could simply walk into a supermarket without a timed ticket now seem a distant memory.

Barring some calamity — which no one in their right mind would want — Britain’s population seems likely to carry on rising. As scientists eliminate the few remaining incurable cancers, it could be over 100?million by the end of this century.

Back in 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that one day the population surge would have terrible consequences — epidemics, pestilence, plague and famine.

I cannot be the only person to lie awake at night with the terrible thought nagging away at me. What if he was right?

— Hat tip: Steen ||Steen

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Texas Police Fire at Vehicle Carrying Illegal Immigrants, Kill 2

HOUSTON, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) — A police helicopter opened fire at a vehicle crammed with suspected illegal immigrants in Texas Thursday, killing 2 people and injuring another. The incident took place near the Mexican border, about 112 km northwest of the southernmost Texas city of Brownsville, ABC News reported. Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), said a DPS aircraft was called in to help after a state game warden tried and failed to stop the vehicle Thursday afternoon. A sharpshooter aboard the helicopter opened fire on the vehicle, killing two in the vehicle. Another one was injured and six others were arrested, she said. Calling the shooting “an enforcement action,” Cesinger said an investigation was underway.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Just 62 Out of 11,000 Foreign Prisoners Have Been Kicked Out Despite Cameron’s Pledge of Crackdown

Just 62 foreign criminals have been sent home under the Tories despite David Cameron’s pledge to remove thousands from British jails.

The Prime Minister promised a crackdown two years ago after it emerged that more than 11,000 foreign inmates — one in eight prisoners — are clogging up our jails.

But official figures released this week show that fewer offenders are being deported than when Labour was in power.

Since January last year, only 62 have been sent home to serve the rest of their sentences — 25 to just one country, the Netherlands.

— Hat tip: JD

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France: Pill 100% Free for Girls Aged 15-18, Health Minister

free, anonymous, high-level contraception for all, Hollande

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, OCTOBER 23 — The French government wants to make sure the contraceptive pill is 100% free for girls aged 15-18, Health Minister Marisol Touraine told Les Echos financial daily on Tuesday.

“I am presenting an amendment on the government’s behalf, providing full state reimbursement of contraception for girls aged 15-18,” the minister said.

This follows on President Francois Hollande’s proposed 2013 budget, which parliament begins debating today, and which contains full state coverage for abortions, fulfilling his campaign promise to guarantee “free and anonymous access to medical care and high-level contraception” for all minors.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Three-Quarters of Teachers Fear Easy Access to Hardcore Porn Through Smartphones and the Web is ‘Damaging’ Pupils

Three-quarters of teachers believe easy access to hardcore pornography through mobile phones and the internet is ‘damaging’ their pupils.

Girls as young as 11 are dressing like ‘inflatable plastic dolls’ while young boys are developing ‘almost pathological’ attitudes to sex as a result, according to research.

Some boys even admit to being unable to get to sleep without first viewing pornography while others are obsessed with getting a perfect body shape.

The study reveals escalating concern about children’s exposure to sexual images. Teaching staff warn that children are developing warped views of relationships as they feel pressured to perform sex acts, use derogatory sexual language and even consider plastic surgery.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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UK: Brighton Council Plans to Remove Mr and Mrs Titles From All Documents to Protect City’s Transgender Community From Offence

A city is proposing to ban titles such as Mr, Mrs, Miss and Ms in case they offend the transgender community.

Councillors in Brighton will vote on the proposal to remove the words from official forms and paperwork after complaints that they forced people to ‘choose between genders’.

The proposal is backed by Brighton and Hove City Council deputy leader Phelim MacCafferty, who has called the titles ‘useless’.

But the new proposal has been branded ‘political correctness gone too far’ by an opposition councillor who says the idea is ‘ludicrous’.

— Hat tip: Kitman

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	Financial Crisis
»	Greece: Electricity Rates to Climb by as Much as 40%
»	Greece: Patrons Not to Pay Bills Without a Receipt
»	Italy: Doctor Warned Berlusconi Over Excessive Party ‘Excitement’
»	Italy: Yields Fall at Two-Year Bond Auction
»	U.S. Economy Grew at 2% Annual Rate in 3rd Quarter
	USA
»	Obama Supplying America’s Islamist Enemies Abroad With Weapons
»	Robots Assemble for Military’s $2 Million Challenge
»	Texas AG Tells International Election Monitors to Butt Out
»	The Nation of Islam Discovers Scientology
»	Wind Energy Bird-Killing Exemptions
	Europe and the EU
»	Beer Paté Launched by Italian Food Makers
»	Belgium: British Oil Executive Shot Dead in Brussels
»	Belgium: British Exxonmobil Oil Chief ‘Assassinated’ In Brussels Street
»	France: Police Bust Balkan Child Trafficking Ring in Nancy
»	France: African Leader Caught Smuggling Monkey Meat
»	Greece Bans Novartis Influenza Vaccines
»	Italian Government Asks Earthquake Experts to Return to Post
»	Italian Cyclists Rebel Against UCI Over Armstrong Case
»	Italy: Ex-Environment Min Among 17 Cited in Campania Waste Probe
»	Italy: Woman Charged for Faking Blindness
»	Italy: Mussolini’s Granddaughter Considers Running in PDL Primaries
»	Italy: Up to Four Million Legal Cases Pending in Italy
»	Italy: Berlusconi Gets Four Years for Mediaset Tax Fraud
»	Slovenia: Last Call From Brussels, Now Clean Up Landfills
»	Sweden Dems Tout Image ‘Remake’ Amid Poll Surge
»	Swiss Expel French New Black Panther Activist
»	Terrifying Traditions Ghastly Winter Demons Run Wild in the Alps
»	UK: Eid Celebrations Across East Lancashire
»	UK: Home Secretary Urged to Ban ‘Racist’ EDL
»	UK: Jimmy Savile and the Dangers of Received Wisdom
»	UK: Key Issues Raised as Mosque Leaders Meet Police and Councillors
»	UK: Mosque Development Held Up by Council
»	UK: New Mosque Planned for Mill Road
»	UK: Rotherham Councillor Urges Home Secretary to Ban EDL
»	UK: The Real Lesson of the Jimmy Savile Scandal
»	UK: Whether It’s the Hutton Report or Jimmy Savile, The BBC is Hopeless in a Crisis
»	UK: Walthamstow: Police ‘Ban’ EDL Static Protest
	North Africa
»	Al-Qaeda Leader Calls on Muslims to Kidnap Westerners
»	CIA Operators Were Denied Request for Help During Benghazi Attack
»	Morocco: Hm the King Sends Congratulatory Messages to Leaders of Islamic States on Eid Al Adha
»	Obama Refused CIA Requests for Military Backup During Benghazi Attack
»	The Hidden Real Truth About Benghazi
»	Tunisia: Salafist Leader ‘Abu Ayub’ Sentenced to One Year in Prison
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Islam Gets a Bad Press, But There Are Many Stories Our Media Doesn’t Tell
»	Israel Mum Over Sudanese Arms Plant Blast
»	Sudan Vows No Retreat From Supporting Hamas in Aftermath of Israeli ‘Aggression’
	Middle East
»	Caroline Glick: Libya, Jordan and Obama’s Guiding Lights
»	EU Sakharov Prize Goes to Iranian Dissidents
»	Saudi Grand Mufti Calls Muslim Countries to Apply Sharia, Even in Shared Relations
»	Saudi Arabia: Child Molester Arrested in Jeddah
»	Saudi Arabia: Saudizing Mosque Jobs
»	UAE: Dubai Hopes to Push Eid Sales Through All-Day Opening Time
»	Zionism-Imperialism After Igniting Civil War Among Muslims: Analyst
	South Asia
»	Bomb-Sniffing Dog Killed in Afghanistan is Honoured
»	Death Toll Rises to 112 in Renewed Riot in Myanmar Western State: Official
»	Dozens Killed in Fresh Burma Violence
»	India: Costly Goats Bogging Down Devout Muslims on Eid
»	More Than 30 Dead in Afghanistan After Suicide Blast
»	No One Hurt as Afghan Roadside Bomb Hits Italian Convoy
»	Sacrifice in Afghanistan
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Nigeria: Let US Conform to Law and Order, Fashola Tells Muslims
»	Why South African Olive Oil is Really Lekker
	Latin America
»	Fidel Castro: The Quintessential Communist
	Immigration
»	69 Migrants Rescued Between Africa and Italy
»	Immigrants Know More About Britain Than the British, Says Labour MP Sadiq Khan
»	Myanmar: Rakhine: More Than 100 Dead in Clashes Between Ethnic Burmese and Rohingya
	Culture Wars
»	Denmark: Jewish Groups Angered at Absence of Israeli Flag at Diversity Festival
»	Inside the First Amendment: What is the Truth About American Muslims?
	General
»	Huge Saturn Storm Keeps Surprising Scientists
»	Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West
»	Parking Issues Debated at Liberty Corner Mosque Hearing

Greece: Electricity Rates to Climb by as Much as 40%

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 24 — The demand by Greece’s creditors for electricity rates to reflect the full cost of production will bring about fresh rate hikes by June 2013, as Kathimerini reports. The draft memorandum Athens has agreed to with the troika will spread the rise over two or three installments, with the first coming as early as January. Based on the cost data that Public Power Corporation presented to the Regulatory Authority for Energy in August, the implementation of the measure will entail rate hikes up to 40% for households and businesses with low consumption and is expected to affect no fewer than 2.2 million consumers. Sources say that the competent ministry will initially examine the possible expansion of the so-called Social Household Rates to include households with low consumption that are not covered by the criteria used today and are set for the biggest rate increase next year.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greece: Patrons Not to Pay Bills Without a Receipt

Ministry preparing measure in bid to combat tax evasion

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — Greece’s Development Ministry is about to present a regulation according to which patrons at bars, restaurants, cafes and so on will be able to leave without paying unless they are given a legal receipt, in an effort to reduce tax evasion. This unprecedented measure, as daily Kathimerini reports, will be part of a set of steps aimed at protecting consumers and facilitating doing business and may start to apply as of next week. The new market rules, part of which are connected to Greece’s commitments in the bailout agreement with its creditors, include a regulation that gives consumers the right not to pay for the goods they have consumed or purchased, or services rendered if the retailer or service provider fails to produce a receipt that would validate the transaction. Restaurants and cafes will have to state that consumers have that right on their menus.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Doctor Warned Berlusconi Over Excessive Party ‘Excitement’

Physician told ex-premier to get more sleep

(ANSA) — Milan, October 26 — Silvio Berlusconi’s personal physician, Professor Alberto Zangrillo, told a Milan court on Friday that he had advised the ex-premier to avoid excessive “commotion” and “excitement” during alleged sex parties at his villa at Arcore, near Milan. Zangrillo denied ever seeing “moments of a sexual nature” at the parties, or “girls dressed in scanty clothes” on the couple of occasions when he had been to the dance hall at Arcore.

“I was only concerned about the commotion and the excitement, prescribed greater care for Berlusconi and told him not to spend too much time in such situations,” he told the court. Berlusconi is on trial for allegedly paying for sex with an underage prostitute called Ruby after several of the alleged parties and coercing police into releasing her after an unrelated theft claim to hush up the fact.

The ex-premier and Ruby have both denied the accusations. The doctor also told the court that he had only seen “bodies moving in time to the music, dancing and nothing striking”.

Prosecutors believe Berlusconi had sex with 33 prostitutes at his villa in Arcore over the course of several months.

The prostitutes were allegedly supplied by bankrupt ex-talent scout Lele Mora, Lombardy regional councillor and Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist Nicole Minetti, and retired television anchor Emilio Fede.

The three are now facing charges of inducing and favouring prostitution, including underage prostitution, in a separate trial.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Yields Fall at Two-Year Bond Auction

Demand 1.65 times the 3 bln euros on sale

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Yields fell to 2.397% at a two-year Treasury bond auction Friday, from 2.532% at the last sale in September.

Demand was 1.65 times the three billion euros on offer, the Treasury said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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U.S. Economy Grew at 2% Annual Rate in 3rd Quarter

The United States economy grew at a annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, as more positive consumer activity and a healthier housing sector outweighed the effects of the drought, caution on the part of businesses and weaker exports.

The new figure, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, is the government’s first estimate of growth in the third quarter. The economy grew at a 1.3 percent pace of growth in the second quarter of 2012, and by a 2 percent rate in the first quarter.

The report, stronger than expected, came amid fears that companies are clamping down on spending in the face of fiscal uncertainty in Washington, a recession in parts of Europe and a deceleration in demand from China. Some economists fear all these factors will keep a lid on any pickup in growth in the final quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013.

[Return to headlines]

Obama Supplying America’s Islamist Enemies Abroad With Weapons

Obama’s curriculum vitae didn’t merit his being elected to the office of President of the United States. His past, associations, and attendant political baggage should have precluded it. We can add to that the draconian and unconstitutional policies, executive orders, and other actions he has taken during his presidency. Then, there are the criminal acts, such as the Fast and Furious gun running fiasco. Of course, since no formal charges have been made relative to F&F (and may never be) this assertion remains wild supposition by Obama supporters.

Now, it appears as though this president may have been supplying America’s Islamist enemies abroad with weapons under the guise of aiding Libyan and Syrian rebels. Charges have been made that the administration’s apparent failure to provide appropriate security for its foreign service personnel in Benghazi, Libya, or to act to save them during the September 11, 2012 attack had their genesis in Obama’s desire to cover up this out-of-control operation.

[…]

Obama’s questionable activities have become quite overt in many cases, given his knowledge that the press at large can be counted on to suppress stories that might reflect badly. On October 24, The Blaze reported that Thomas R. Pickering, whom Obama appointed as the chief investigator for the terror attacks in Benghazi, is an Islamist sympathizer with documented ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-funding trial in U.S. history. He is also is also co-chairman of the board of pro-Obama financier and Nazi collaborator George Soros’ pro-Islamist International Crisis Group.

— Hat tip: JD

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Robots Assemble for Military’s $2 Million Challenge

A headless humanoid robot clambers noisily through an obstacle course with the grim, unfeeling purpose of a terminator. Luckily, it’s just the latest video celebrating the official start of a U.S. military challenge to create robots that can work alongside humans in disaster scenarios.

Seven robot designs star in the early lineup chosen by U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for its $2 million DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), according to an agency announcement on Oct. 24. They include a two-legged descendant of NASA’s Robonaut that is currently assisting astronauts aboard the International Space Station, a new Guardian humanoid robot based on Raytheon’s military exoskeleton suits, and a small Korean Hubo robot that has featured in many YouTube videos.

“Just as natural and man-made disasters are common worldwide challenges, what the response to the DRC has shown is that the international robotics community shares a common goal of advancing robotic technology to the point where it can have a tangible and positive impact on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” said Gill Pratt, DARPA program manager for the competition.

The Pentagon’s DARPA wants robots that are able to eventually do many things humans can — such as opening a door by using the handle, climbing a ladder or even wielding power tools to break through walls. Such robots must also have the capability to handle steering, accelerating and braking from the driver’s seat of a vehicle.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Texas AG Tells International Election Monitors to Butt Out

The head of an international body that will monitor the U.S. elections next month protested to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday after Texas’ attorney-general warned that any international observer who approaches a polling station in the state risks criminal prosecution.

“The threat of criminal sanctions … is unacceptable,” said Janez Lenarcic, the Slovenian diplomat who heads the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), a part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Lenarcic was responding to a letter sent by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to the ODIHR Tuesday informing it that “groups and individuals from outside the United States are not allowed to influence or interfere with the election process in Texas.”

“The OSCE’s representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place,” Abbott wrote. ‘It may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place’s entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE’s representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law.”

[…]

One area the OSCE/ODIHR plans to focus on in its monitoring is that of voter-identification laws.

Groups including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earlier urged the mission to deploy its monitors in states where they allege there is “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities, low-income people, women, young people, persons with disabilities, and the elderly.”

— Hat tip: JD

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The Nation of Islam Discovers Scientology

The Nation of Islam’s historic role as a bridge between American blacks and Islam ended in 1975 when W. Deen Mohammed followed his father, Elijah Muhammad as leader of the Nation and immediately disavowed his father’s folk religion, bringing his followers to normative Islam, the Islam of the Middle East. From then on, despite the theatrics of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation has been in a long downward trajectory. Now comes evidence, thanks to Eliza Gray writing about “Thetans and Bowties” in The New Republic, of a jaw-dropping turn by Farrakhan, 79, to Scientology; as her subtitle puts it, “America’s two weirdest sects join forces.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Wind Energy Bird-Killing Exemptions

Environmentalists have gone to great lengths to have certain eagles, hawks, and owls protected as endangered species, only to have wind turbines act as avian cuisinarts.

Wind power currently enjoys a unique exemption from Endangered Species Act protections and other federal restrictions protecting animals from deliberate or incidental killings. And to add to this, here is an interesting new development: the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering a dramatic expansion in the length of permits allowing wind power operators to kill bald eagles and other protected bird species. (1)

Under current law, developers of renewable energy projects can apply for a five-year permit that allows them to kill bald eagles in the course of conducting normal business operations. However, the FWS, which administers the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, is now proposing introducing 30-year permits ‘to better correspond to the time frame of renewable energy projects’. The prospect of a six-fold increase in the length of FSW’s ‘programmatic incidental permits’ has unnerved bird advocates, many of whom are already alarmed by the number of birds and bats killed by wind farms. (1)

In just one location, the Altamont Pass in northern California, turbines yearly kill 75 to 100 golden eagles, 350 burrowing owls, 300 rat-tailed hawks, and 333 American kestrels. (2)

One resident of California protested: “There’s a big, big hypocrisy here. If I shoot an eagle it’s a $10,000 fine and/or a vacation of one to five years in a federal pen of my choice.”(3)

— Hat tip: JD

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Beer Paté Launched by Italian Food Makers

‘Spread it on toast, goes great with cheese’

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Italian food makers have figured out a way to turn beer into a spreadable paté. “It’s like a sweet, beer-flavored gelatine,” said Pietro Napoleone from the Napoleone chocolate company in Rieti, central Italy, which teamed up with the Alta Quota brewery in nearby Cittareale to make the paté. The team showed off their product Thursday at Turin’s Salone del Gusto food fair. Spreadable beer comes in both light and heavy flavors. “It goes great with appetizers and cheeses, and it’s wonderful on toast,” said Napoleone. “We think this is the future”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Belgium: British Oil Executive Shot Dead in Brussels

Two men were spotted running away from scene of Nicholas Mockford’s killing on 14 October, reports say

A British oil executive has been shot dead in front of his wife in Belgium. Nicholas Mockford, 60, an executive for ExxonMobil, was shot three times as he left an Italian restaurant in a suburb of Brussels. His wife, Mary, was left beaten and covered in blood, cradling her husband and shouting for help. Witnesses said they saw the couple walk across the street to their Lexus car before shots were fired. Reports suggest two men were spotted running away from the scene, one holding a motorcycle helmet. The shooting is understood to have happened on 14 October, but the news has only now emerged after Belgian police imposed a reporting blackout…

— Hat tip: JP

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Belgium: British Exxonmobil Oil Chief ‘Assassinated’ In Brussels Street

Exclusive: A British executive for the oil company ExxonMobil has been shot dead in front of his wife in an assassination-style killing in Brussels.

Belgian police have imposed a news blackout after Nicholas Mockford, 60, was shot as he left an Italian restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek, a suburb of the capital.The executive was shot three times, once as he lay on the ground, after leaving the Da Marcello restaurant in Rue de Beyseghem at around 10pm on Oct 14. His wife, Mary, was left beaten and covered in blood. Mr Mockford died on the way to hospital. Witnesses said they saw the couple walk across the street to their car, a silver Lexus 4×4, before shots were fired. The attack was said to have happened very quickly and Mrs Mockford was left cradling her husband in the street, shouting for help. According to reports, two men were seen running away carrying a motorcycle helmet. Initially police said they were not excluding any possibilities, including a carjacking, but Mr Mockford’s car was not stolen. The Belgian prosecutor’s office said last night that there was a “judicial instruction” from Martine Quintin, the investigating judge, that meant they could give no “explanation” and no detail about the killing…

— Hat tip: JP

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France: Police Bust Balkan Child Trafficking Ring in Nancy

French police have arrested seven people for running an international child trafficking ring in Nancy, north east France.

The ring is thought to have bought children from Macedonia or Kosovo for €1000 to €1500 and then sold them on to Belgium and Germany for €10,000.

Seven members of a family originally from the Balkans were arrested on Tuesday after a month of police investigation.

According to local paper Est Républicain, several other members of the family had also been arrested in Germany in relation to the ring.

Police took in two girls, both about 12-years-old, for questioning. They say they do not believe the girls were subjected to sexual abuse or used as slaves, but traded in line with “local customs” in the traffickers’ home countries.

“The objective of the people in charge of this inquiry is to determine what these two children have suffered and how many other victims there are,” said one officer close to the case.

“Clearly this is not a torturous or barbaric trafficking ring… We don’t where the girls were going to be sold onto.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France: African Leader Caught Smuggling Monkey Meat

French customs officials on Thursday fined former Central African prime minister Martin Ziguele after he was found carrying 11.8 kilograms of bushmeat, mainly monkey, on his arrival at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport.

Investigators said the meat “mainly of a protected species”, was in his luggage when he arrived on an Air France flight from Bangui.

Customs inspectors found a total 600 kilograms of meat in passengers’ luggage on the Bangui flight, judicial officials said.

Ziguele, who was prime minister between 2001 and 2003 and who was defeated by Francois Bozize in presidential elections in 2005 and 2011, said the meat was for his personal consumption.

The amount of the fine was not revealed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greece Bans Novartis Influenza Vaccines

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 26 — Influenza vaccines produced by Swiss pharmaceuticals manufacturer Novartis are not to be sold in Greece until further notice, it was announced on Thursday. The ban, which follows a similar move in Italy, applied to the drugs Agrippal, Fluad and Influpozzi. As daily Kathimerini reports, the Italian Pharmaceutical Agency ordered the ban following indications of possible side effects and ordered further tests on the drugs.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italian Government Asks Earthquake Experts to Return to Post

Top scientists stepped down after L’Aquila manslaughter sentence

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — The government on Friday asked members of Italy’s principal natural-disaster risk-assessment body to return to their post after they resigned in protest against this week’s conviction of former group members for manslaughter in connection with the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake that killed more than 300 people. Some of Italy’s top earthquake experts resigned from their posts on Tuesday in protest at Monday’s ruling, which spurred disbelief and dismay across the global scientific community.

Environment Minister Corrado Clini said Wednesday that he was baffled by the ruling. “If it was because they did not predict (the earthquake), it would be absurd,” he said. “I’ve never understood the accusation and therefore I don’t understand the convictions”.

Sources told ANSA Friday it was Clini who asked to scrap their resignations as a sign of “solidarity with the scientific community on the part of the government”. Sources said Clini had already refused to accept the resignation of Bernardo De Bernardinis, the head of Italy’s Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), who was convicted Monday. On Tuesday physicist Luciano Maiani resigned as president of the Major Risks Commission in the wake of the sentence.

He told ANSA that he had decided to resign due to the “impossibility for the commission of being able to work with serenity and provide the State with a high level of scientific consultancy in such complex conditions”.

The commission’s vice-president, Mauro Rosi, and its president emeritus, Giuseppe Zamberletti, also stepped down.

One of the defendants was Mauro Dolce, director of the civil protection department’s seismic and volcanic risks office, who also on Tuesday tendered his resignation.

On Monday a L’Aquila court sentenced seven scientists, all members of the commission at the time of the earthquake, to six years in jail and barred them from public office for allegedly providing “superficial and ineffective” assessment of seismic risk and of disclosing “inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory” information regarding earthquake danger.

The trial focused on one event in particular, in which the commission met on March 31, 2009 in L’Aquila to examine rumblings that had frightened residents for months.

In a memo, the experts concluded that it was “unlikely” that there would be a major quake, though it stressed that the possibility could not be ruled out.

One week later the 6.3-magnitude tremor hit, toppling buildings, killing 309 people and displacing 65,000 more in and around the city.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italian Cyclists Rebel Against UCI Over Armstrong Case

ACCPI calls on governing body to drop sporting-justice role

(ANSA) — Rome, October 26 — Italian professional cyclists’ association ACCPI on Friday challenged the authority of the sport’s international governing body, the UCI, for its handling of the Lance Armstrong case. On Monday the UCI stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and banned him for life, but the move only came after the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) had done the same following probes into doping by the American rider.

ACCPI said in a statement that there were suspicions that the UCI had allegedly “not wanted to see” Armstrong’s illegal practices and even more serious ones of the possibility that the body was allegedly involved in covering them up.

Therefore, ACCPI called on the UCI to “take a step back so that cycling can regain credibility” and drop the role it has in administering sporting justice for cycling.

“The UCI can no longer be the guarantor of the application of sporting justice,” the ACCPI statement said.

“In our opinion, it’s necessary to create an independent, autonomous body of justice”. This week the UCI ratified the decision USADA took in August to strip Armstrong of his titles for participating in what was described as “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”.

The 41-year-old American, a cancer survivor who was seen as a hero by many sufferers of the disease, called the charges “nonsense” but announced in August he would no longer contest them.

The UCI defended itself by saying that it did not have the anti-doping tools to detect Armstrong’s illegal practices when he was racing.

“The UCI has always been the first international sporting federation to embrace new developments in the fight against doping and it regrets that the anti-doping infrastructure that exists today was not available at that time so as to render such evasion impossible,” a UCI statement said. UCI President Pat McQuaid has rejected calls for him to resign over the Armstrong scandal.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Ex-Environment Min Among 17 Cited in Campania Waste Probe

Bordon, ex-Campania governor Bassolino charged over dumps

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Former environment minister Willer Bordon, ex-Campania governor and former waste-emergency commissioner Antonio Bassolino and ex-welfare undersecretary Raffaele Morese were among 17 charged Thursday in connection with alleged irregularities in cleaning polluted waste dumps in the region around Naples.

The 17 are accused of depriving the Italian tax man of 43 million euros by giving a contract to a company to clean up polluted sites on the coast near Naples and in the countryside near Aversa north of the Campanian capital, prosecutors said. The work was worth 117 million euros, they said.

Campania has struggled for years with rubbish collection and toxic dumps.

The European Union has urged Italy to sort out the problems after a string of rubbish emergencies which hit front pages worldwide with pictures of a garbage-strewn Naples.

Bordon, 62, had a one-year stint as environment minister in a centre-left government from 200 to 2001.

Before that he was public works minister for a year, and afterwards cultural undersecretary, again for a year. photo: Bordon

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Woman Charged for Faking Blindness

Investigators say she received 50,000 euros in benefits

(ANSA) — Macerata, October 25 — Police on Thursday reported a woman registered as legally blind and claiming benefits for aggravated insurance fraud in the central Marche town of Macerata.

Photos and videos taken of the allegedly disabled woman reading death announcements, getting on and off buses unassisted and checking her watch led to charges against her.

Police said that she had received more than 50,000 euros in state support over the last five years.

Investigators say they are probing whether other people may have assisted the woman in the scam.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Mussolini’s Granddaughter Considers Running in PDL Primaries

Says certain issues need putting on agenda

(see related stories) (ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, said Thursday that she was considering running in primaries to be the centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party premier candidate after Silvio Berlusconi said he would not run in next year’s elections.

“I’m thinking about it because there are issues that have not been touched on and which should be put on the agenda, such as children and the emergency women are facing with violence and work”.

Mussolini added that she thought Berlusconi’s decision not to stand for a fourth term as premier was “wise”.

“It puts in motion a mechanism of participation that will bring vital life for the future of the party,” she said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Up to Four Million Legal Cases Pending in Italy

Report finds inefficiencies, flaws in system

(ANSA) — Rome, October 25 — As many as four million legal cases are pending in Italy, suggesting problems in the judicial system, says a new report released Thursday.

The report, presented in Vienna by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, evaluated the judicial systems in all but one of the 47 member states in the Council of Europe. Researchers examined the budgets, jurisdictional organization, the flow and length of legal proceedings in 2010.

And they found serious problems in Italy — primarily related to how long it takes to resolve legal disputes.

Some improvements were found compared with a similar report in 2008.

For example, civil disputes took an average of 492 days to resolve in 2010, an improvement over the 532-day average in 2008, said legal scholar Marco Velicogna of Italy’s Research Institute on Judicial Systems, who helped to prepare the report.

However, that’s still too long, especially compared with Spain’s average length of 289 days for a civil dispute; 279 in France; and 184 days in Germany.

And fully four million cases continue to clog the Italian system, he noted.

Many of those are in the criminal justice system, where there has been a steady increase in the length of proceedings: an average of 998 days, which he said is 194 days more than the average in 2008.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Berlusconi Gets Four Years for Mediaset Tax Fraud

Banned from public office for three

(ANSA) — Milan, October 26 — Former premier Silvio Berlusconi was found guilty Friday of tax fraud in the trading of film rights for TV broadcasts by his Mediaset media empire.

Berlusconi, who said this week he would not run for premier in April, was sentenced to four years and banned from public office for three.

The verdict was the first of a possible three since defendants are entitled to two appeals, the last to the supreme Court of Cassation.

The trial, which featured 11 defendants in all, was one of three involving the media magnate, including one in which he is accused of having sex with an underage alleged prostitute and using his position as premier to allegedly try to hush it up.

Berlusconi has been tried some 30 times but very rarely convicted.

The few convictions were either overturned on appeal or timed out, sometimes because of law changes made by his governments.

The ex-premier, replaced by technocrat Mario Monti almost a year ago, has fiercely argued he is the victim of a witch hunt by a group of allegedly left-leaning magistrates.

Mediaset President Fedele Confalonieri was acquitted Friday.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Slovenia: Last Call From Brussels, Now Clean Up Landfills

18 are still in breach of legislation, 2 months to reply

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 24 — Slovenia has 18 landfills in breach of the legislation. Under EU law, landfilling should only be used as a last resort, and it can only be done under conditions that avoid impacts on human health and the environment. Existing landfills must meet a number of conditions in order to obtain an operating permit.

Slovenia had agreed to close or upgrade a number of landfills.

While some progress has been made and an adequate waste management system is now in place, 18 landfills are still in breach of the legislation. Ten landfills for municipal waste lack the appropriate permits, and eight more are still operating in defiance of a refusal by the national authorities to issue the necessary permits. The Commission is sending a reasoned opinion (the second stage in EU infringement proceedings), and Slovenia has two months to reply.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sweden Dems Tout Image ‘Remake’ Amid Poll Surge

The far-right Sweden Democrats want to rid themselves of the image that they are a bunch of “angry young men” as a poll released on Friday ranks them as Sweden’s third largest political party.

In a poll carried out by research firm Ipsos and published on Friday in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper, support for the Sweden Democrats surged 2.7 percentage points to 8.5 percent.

Coupled with a drop in support for the Green Party, which saw its poll figures fall by 2.7 points to 7.2 percent, the Sweden Democrats now rank as the third biggest party in Sweden behind the Moderates and the Social Democrats.

The figures come as the party gets set to release a plan detailing how it wants to alter its image ahead of the 2014 elections.

“There is undoubtedly some justification for the caricature of us Sweden Democrats as angry young men,” the plan reads.

Among other measures outlined in the plan, which will be revealed at a conference over the weekend, Sweden Democrat members should also strive to speak with one clear voice, dress well, and be careful about how they express themselves on social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

In terms of policy goals, however, the party remains committed to ensuring Sweden takes in fewer asylum seekers by instead boosting humanitarian aid to areas in the world with large numbers of refugees.

“You can just as well put it that we’re helping more refugees than the other parties,” party leader Jimmie Åkesson told the TT news agency.

Moreover, the new poll numbers suggest that the party is gaining support among a wider cross-section of voters.

While the Sweden Democrats have usually proved popular with young men, workers, and low-educated voters, the poll reveals the party now has supporters among women and pensioners.

However, the greatest growth came among voters in the party’s traditional base.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Swiss Expel French New Black Panther Activist

A radical French activist who heads the French branch of the New Black Panther Party was on Thursday expelled from Switzerland for fear he would incite violence, Geneva authorities said.

Stellio Capo Chichi, better known under the name Kemi Seba, was intercepted at Geneva airport Thursday afternoon and escorted to neighbouring France, where he was handed over to the authorities, the regional Geneva government said in a statement.

The move came shortly after federal Swiss police decided to ban Kemi Seba from entering the country.

He had planned to hold a conference in Geneva on Saturday entitled “Pan-Africanism and the crimes of imperialism”, but Swiss authorities feared he would use the occasion to “incite racial hatred and launch appeals for violence”.

Kemi Seba is well-known in France as the founder of the first “Tribu K” and later of “Jeunesse Kemi Saba”, or Kemi Saba Youth, both of which were dissolved by the French justice ministry for inciting a “racist and anti-Semitic” ideology.

He was appointed head of the French chapter of the NBPP in 2010.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Terrifying Traditions Ghastly Winter Demons Run Wild in the Alps

Halloween spooks are for wimps compared to the grisly Christmastime traditions of Europe’s Alps, where demonic creatures come out to punish misbehaved children or to drive winter away each year. A gorgeous new photography book explores the many guises of these wild monsters, whose traditional rumpus harkens back to pagan rites.

With its bright-red eyes, green cheeks, oddly crooked nose and rows of white teeth, the monster carved out of wood looks like it should be on a Native American totem pole or a mask from Papua New Guinea. But the blonde Heidi-style braids attached to the mask made of Swiss pine betray a different origin. The image of the mask wasn’t captured in an exotic, far-off place, but the picturesque Swiss valley of Lötschental.

“When you discover something like this practically at your doorstep, it is fantastic,” says photographer Carsten Peter. “I travel a lot, and that sharpens the sense for such things.”

Peter’s photography book, “Alpendämonen,” or “Demons of the Alps,” explores 20 different such wintertime traditions from the Alps that include gruesome masks, costumed processions and pagan rites. The at time terrifying figures often go by different names, but are most commonly known as Krampus or Perchten, who serve as helpers to Saint Nicholaus. They threaten to punish or even kidnap naughty children when he visits on the evening of Dec. 5, ahead of the Feast of St. Nicholas the following day.

Other monsters are the symbolic expression of driving out winter and its demons to herald warmer seasons to come, and their costumes and processions vary between regions. In the largely German-speaking northern Italian region of South Tyrol, for example, residents of a town stage the Wudeljagd, or “Wudel Hunt,” whereby dragon-like figures called Schnappviecher, or “snapping animals,” are slaughtered by men in butcher’s outfits during a procession. The butchers represent spring, which triumphs over winter.

Research for the book took four years, and Peter attended some of the events more than once before he was satisfied with his images. “It was very difficult photographically,” he says. “One had to be very close, travel great distances — and much of it happens at night without good lighting.” But it is precisely the motion blurring and spooky atmosphere that illuminates the sheer oddity of his subjects. Peter’s goal was to make them look “as exotic as possible,” and achieve a “foreign look at my own culture.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: Eid Celebrations Across East Lancashire

THOUSANDS of Muslims across East Lancashire are today celebrating Eid, to mark the annual Hajj. The second Eid of the year is known as the ‘Festival of sacrifice’ and coincides with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Coun Salim Mulla, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “Every mosque in the borough will be packed full. We wish everybody, both the Muslims and the indigenous population across Lancashire a very happy Eid, and we hope to share this very happy celebration.” Following both sessions of prayers, the community retires to spend time with family and friends. Ibrahim Master, chairman of Diverse Communities, said: “It’s a joyous occasion for the community and is an opportunity to have all the enjoyment the Koran allows, but we must only indulge in what is permitted. In recent years, some of the younger people have rented cars and gone speeding, and playing music very loudly around the residential areas. This is not right.”

[…]

[JP note: Indeed. Neither is the Islamification of the UK.]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Home Secretary Urged to Ban ‘Racist’ EDL

ROTHERHAM’s councillor responsible for community cohesion has written to Home Secretary Theresa May describing the impact of the far right English Defence League’s march in the town — and calling for membership of the group to be banned. Coun Jahangir Akhtar said there were ‘several arrests’ and a number of skirmishes between groups of people in the town centre after the march. He estimated the cost of the police operation during the event, and a rival gathering by Unite Against Fascism, was £300,000. Coun Akhtar said: “The damage to the wider economy is also significant — possibly of greater magnitude to the policing costs as many town centre businesses decided not to open for fear of staff and customer safety, damage to their premises, the rise in insurance costs and the down-time in making repairs.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Jimmy Savile and the Dangers of Received Wisdom

by Douglas Murray

What does the Jimmy Savile case tell us about received wisdom? Over the last few weeks it has become clear that one of the most famous people in Britain was known by very many people to be an active, abusive paedophile. Many other people in broadcasting knew it. People in charities he was associated with knew it. People in hospitals he was associated with warned child patients about how to get around it. The person who founded Childline, no less, had heard about it. But nobody said or did anything…

Two things about human nature always come out of such stories: one is completely gloom-laden, the other inspiring. The gloom-laden one is this: that we are such appalling, gullible, fearful, weak and sheep-like creatures that we are willing to put up with anything — including (and as many figures in the Catholic church also recently demonstrated) massive on-going abuse of children — rather than make our lives difficult for even a moment by pointing to a terrible thing that is happening.

The positive thing is that it should remind us of the power that even one individual armed with the truth has to correct a terrible wrong. It is one of the most vital arguments for nearly limitless free-speech, that even one person with a dissenting view must be heard if we are to correct the errors of a whole people. If a person has truth on their side, and they are willing to speak up, then they can do anything: turning round the course of a lifetime, a government or a nation.

[Reader comment by Susan on 26 October 2012 at about 10:30 am.]

This is BBC’s phone hacking moment, only many times worse. They cheered Murdoch’s discomfiture, and in my opinion, even assisted in the process. But now that their own dirty laundry is hanging out on the wash line, albeit still unwashed, their sheer hypocrisy, political skullduggery and contempt for truth is exposed for everyone to see. Just like the Guardian, they are nothing but a lefty, anti-Judeo/Christian, pro Hamas, Islamist propagandist institution. Now delete this comment and prove yet again that you’re no different.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Key Issues Raised as Mosque Leaders Meet Police and Councillors

The leaders of Northampton’s mosques have met with councillors and police to raise issues of community safety. The meeting on Tuesday looked at several issues including parking, the safety of people attending mosques for prayers and classes, and the recent gold burglaries affecting the Asian community. Taxi driver safety was also raised with police, who are working with drivers to improve safety and reduce the incidences of anti-social behaviour they are experiencing. It was also agreed that an all-mosque committee would be formed to organise a town Eid celebration for next year. The meeting was hosted by Councillor Danielle Stone (Lab, Castle, with Councillor Tony Ansell (Con, Abington) and Nazim Choudary (Lab, St Davids).

A spokesman for Abington Central Mosque, said: “It is very important all the mosques come together with local authority officers and police to deal with issues as they arise. “This way we can all work together for community cohesion and the development of relationships built on trust. Having a committee with representatives from all the mosques to organise Eid for next year will be a big step forward for the community and will also help promote positive community relations.”

[JP note: That’ll be the day.]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Mosque Development Held Up by Council

Builders converting a corner unit on London Road into a mosque are waiting for Sheffield Council to act, so they are able to complete construction.

The delay is caused by the Whitney Street road sign which is fixed to the original skin of the building. A new outer wall is has been built around the building in order to make it more in keeping with traditional Islamic architecture. The corner of Baitul Mukarram Jamb Mosque has been unfinished for a number of weeks in order to allow the Council to move it. Nevertheless, the premises are now being used for their intended religious purpose. Section 19 of the 1925 Public Heath Act states that ‘If any person pulls down any inscription of the name of a street which has lawfully been set up, or sets up in any street any name different from the name lawfully given to the street, or places or affixes any notice or advertisement within twelve inches of any name of a street marked on a house, building, or erection in pursuance of this section, he shall be liable to a penalty.’

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: New Mosque Planned for Mill Road

Cambridge City Council has announced plans to construct the city’s first purpose-built mosque, after it approved plans submitted by the Muslim Academic Trust.

The application for the £17.5 million building, which will occupy the former site of the Robert Sayle warehouse on Mill Road, was initially met with mixed reactions when it was submitted in August. City centre residents opposed the construction on the grounds of parking and traffic congestion, as the area is a popular shopping street and residential area. This comes after the news in December last year that homeowners on the street received anonymous leaflets asking them if Cambridge needed “a megamosque… that will dominate and overbear the area”. The pamphlets also warned of disturbance, and attempts have been made to veto the plans due to possible fears about congestion. The Muslim Academic Trust responded to the claims by saying that car parking facilities would be included, and many worshippers would cycle or work to the mosque…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Rotherham Councillor Urges Home Secretary to Ban EDL

Rotherham’s councillor responsible for community cohesion has written to Home Secretary Theresa May describing the impact of the far right English Defence League’s march in the town — and calling for membership of the group to be banned…

[JP note: One law for Muslims, crumbs for the rest.]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: The Real Lesson of the Jimmy Savile Scandal

by Melanie Phillips

The Jimmy Savile scandal is fast escalating into one of the most shocking cases of a sexual predator that has ever been uncovered. As the BBC tears itself apart over its role in Savile’s unchecked, five-decade sexual rampage, the scale of his abuse of under-age girls and boys is turning out to be unimaginably vast. So the question that’s been voiced from the start — how on earth so many people could have turned a blind eye to so much horror for so long — grows ever louder. The answer must involve the threatening character of Savile, the cult of celebrity and the mind-twisting fact of his charity work. But the elephant in this most sordid of rooms is surely the way in which our culture of permissiveness gave a green light to depravity. For decriminalising paedophilia was once a liberal cause. Back in 1978, an organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange affiliated itself to the National Council for Civil Liberties — known today as Liberty…

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Whether It’s the Hutton Report or Jimmy Savile, The BBC is Hopeless in a Crisis

by Andrew Gilligan

Peter Rippon of Newsnight has been hung out to dry as his BBC bosses play the blame game

As for almost everyone who grew up in the 1970s, BBC children’s television took hold of me and never quite let go. For hours every week, I lived in a safe and cosy world with my friends, Lesley Judd and John Craven, Peter Purves, Noel Edmonds — and Jimmy Savile. The horror of this scandal is not only what Savile did to dozens, or hundreds, of trusting children. In a much smaller way, he — and the people who let him do it — have violated the childhoods of millions. I can never think of my after-school viewing in quite the same way again. I now know that unimpeachable as those first four presenters may have been, the late Sir Jimmy was not my friend; that behind all the bonhomie and security, which I rushed home to join, lay the curved corridors of BBC Television Centre, with terrible things going on in the dressing rooms.

For me, as a survivor of a previous BBC crisis, recent attempts to draw up a league table of Beeb scandals seem slightly silly — but there’s a case for saying that this is indeed one of the worst. In the Hutton affair, the public was on our side and the BBC was broadly in the right. Few now doubt, as I claimed on the Today show, that the famous dossier was sexed up. With Savile, however, the picture looks bleaker. For him, and perhaps for some other stars as yet unnamed, we now realise that the BBC wasn’t just a broadcaster for children. It was, however unwittingly, a sexual procurer of children. The BBC created Savile. It gave him the platform and the stardom that drew in the young, which persuaded parents, or those in loco parentis, to entrust him with their sons and daughters. It appears to have known or suspected what he was doing, and turned a blind eye, for four decades…

The other thing about BBC management is that, a little like officers in the Tsarist Russian army, they have almost no contact with the grunts who do the actual work. Newsnight reporters knew all along how a cancellation would be seen — and made strenuous efforts to warn their bosses — but as we learnt from Mr Entwistle on Wednesday, he doesn’t believe it’s “always appropriate” to “talk to people on the shop floor”. That alone, I think, raises serious questions about George Entwistle’s suitability to run anything. As the Panorama special on Savile showed, some of the BBC’s reporters are lions. But they really are led by donkeys.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Walthamstow: Police ‘Ban’ EDL Static Protest

POLICE have announced new restrictions which in effect ban the far-right English Defence League (EDL) from holding even a static protest in Walthamstow this weekend. The government confirmed yesterday that all marches would be banned in Waltham Forest for the next 30 days, but the EDL vowed to hold a static demonstration on Saturday (October 27) instead. The Home Office said yesterday that static protests could not be banned, but the Met says it has now imposed protest “conditions” under the Public Order Act, which mean the EDL can only legally demonstrate in London outside the Houses of Parliament between 1pm and 2pm tomorrow.

But the group, which claims to be a “movement” opposed to Islamic extremism but which critics say is racist, has said it will return to the borough when the march ban expires.

In a statement, the EDL said: “We have informed the Met Police that once the 30 day ban has ceased then the EDL will be applying again to march in Walthamstow and will keep on applying until we are allowed to march the route that we have chosen.” The group also advised its members to stay away from Walthamstow this weekend…

— Hat tip: JP

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Al-Qaeda Leader Calls on Muslims to Kidnap Westerners

AFP — Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged Egyptians to restart their revolution to press for Islamic law and called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, the SITE Intelligence Group said Friday.

In a video released on jihadist forums and translated by the US monitoring service, Zawahiri also lashed out at President Barack Obama, calling him a liar and demanding he admit defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa.

Criticizing the new Egyptian government — led by a president drawn from the Muslim Brotherhood — as corrupt, he said a battle is being waged in Egypt between a secular minority and Muslims seeking implementation of Shariah law.

The Egyptian doctor, the former deputy to slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, said these Egyptians want to see their government liberated from US influence and Palestinian victory over Israel, SITE reported.

“The battle isn’t over, but it has started,” Zawahiri said, urging “every sincere person in Egypt” to “wage a popular campaign to incite and preach in order to complete the revolution, which was aborted.

“The revolution in Egypt must continue and the Muslim Ummah must offer sacrifices until it achieves what it wants and until it snatches from the corrupt forces … the dignity and honor of Egypt.”

Massive protests erupted on January 25, 2011 and toppled former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of iron-fisted rule. He was replaced by the Islamist Mohamed Morsi after elections earlier this year.

Zawahiri said liberating Omar Abdul Rahman, an Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and inmates at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay was an “obligatory duty for every Muslim.”

“I call upon Muslims to capture citizens of the countries that wage wars against Muslims,” he said.

“Our captives or Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahamn will not be liberated except through force, for it is the only language that they understand.”

In that vein, he referenced Warren Weinstein, a relief worker with USAID who was captured in Lahore, Pakistan, in August 2011.

Zawahiri also called Obama a “professional liar.”

“Obama must admit he and his allies are standing in the defeated line, and that Osama bin Laden, may Allah have mercy on him, and the rest of the Mujahideen and the Muslim Ummah are standing in the victorious line, whether anyone likes it or not.”

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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CIA Operators Were Denied Request for Help During Benghazi Attack

How would you feel if it were YOUR family member who asked for military intervention three times but were denied it by this Administration — and then were slaughtered?

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that three urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack nearly seven hours later were denied by officials in the CIA chain of command — who also told the CIA operators to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were part of a small team who were at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. Consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When they heard the shots fired, they radioed to inform their higher-ups to tell them what they were hearing. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. An hour later, they called again to headquarters and were again told to “stand down.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Morocco: Hm the King Sends Congratulatory Messages to Leaders of Islamic States on Eid Al Adha

Rabat — On the occasion of Eid Al Adha (feast of the lamb), HM King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, sent messages of congratulations to leaders of brotherly Islamic countries, wishing them health and happiness, and progress and prosperity for their peoples. In these messages, HM the King underlines that the celebration by the Umman of this joyful event crowns the season of pilgrimage, embodies the values of selflessness and sacrifice, and symbolizes attachment to Islamic unity. “It urges Muslims to remain attached to the teachings of our holy religion which calls for sticking to the values of solidarity, justice, peace, moderation and tolerance, and refraining from anything that could stir violence and discord,” the sovereign said. “May God assist all Muslim leaders and peoples to close their ranks and reinforce their ties of brotherly solidarity in this delicate phase of history, marked by rapid changes and mutations,” the message concluded.

[JP note: Delicate for the West, delicious for Islam.]

— Hat tip: JP

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Obama Refused CIA Requests for Military Backup During Benghazi Attack

The scandal just keeps getting bigger, while the mainstream media tries furiously to distract attention from it.

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later was denied by U.S. officials — who also told the CIA operators twice to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to “stand down.”

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Hidden Real Truth About Benghazi

Based on information provided by my source and corroborated elsewhere, the official account by administration officials is a mosaic of lies that were necessary to cover the unpalatable truth of covert actions taking place in Libya, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The primary objective of our covert actions was to secretly arm anti-Assad “rebels” in Syria by funneling arms from Libya to Syria via Turkey, with other destinations that included Jordan and Lebanon. Regarding the threat to Stevens and the other murdered Americans, the truth will reformat the persistent question posed to government officials, from UN Ambassador Susan Rice to White House Spokesman Jay Carney and others from “how could you not have known” to “how could you have done these things?”

First, it is important to understand that Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Dougherty and Tyrone Woods were not killed at a consulate office in Benghazi—as there is not such office there. They died at one of the largest CIA operations centers in the Middle East, which was located in Benghazi and served as the logistics headquarters for arms and weapons being shipped out of the post-Qaddafi Libya.

— Hat tip: JD

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Tunisia: Salafist Leader ‘Abu Ayub’ Sentenced to One Year in Prison

Tunis — The Tunis Court of First Instance Thursday sentenced Slim Guetari, better known as “Abu Ayub,” to one year in prison for “inciting” the attack on the US Embassy in Tunis last September 14.

— Hat tip: JP

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Islam Gets a Bad Press, But There Are Many Stories Our Media Doesn’t Tell

by Lee Williams

As the history books illustrate, Islam has as much claim to be the religion of forgiveness as Christianity. So why don’t we hear these stories?

“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

Where do you think you could read this piece of religious hate-mongering? On the blog of some ultra-right wing nationalist like Anders Breivik? Scrawled on the walls of a Palestinian dwelling by Jewish settlers? Perhaps the words of some British political relic at the time of the break up of the empire? Think again. If you live in New York, you can read these words everyday on your trip to work on the subway or the New York buses…

— Hat tip: JP

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Israel Mum Over Sudanese Arms Plant Blast

JERUSALEM, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel had nothing to say about Wednesday’s explosion at an arms factory in Khartoum, Sudan. Israel officially has no comment on the event, the prime minster said at a joint press conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Jerusalem. Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterated Netanyahu’s response, telling Channel 2 news that there is “nothing to say” about this topic…

— Hat tip: JP

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Sudan Vows No Retreat From Supporting Hamas in Aftermath of Israeli ‘Aggression’

Khartoum — The speaker of the Sudanese parliament, Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Tahir, declared on Thursday that the Israeli attack on Al-Yarmook arms factory will not deter his country from continuing its support to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas…

— Hat tip: JP

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Caroline Glick: Libya, Jordan and Obama’s Guiding Lights

Monday’s US presidential debate on foreign policy came and went. And we are none the wiser for it.

Not surprisingly, at the height of the campaign season, neither US President Barack Obama nor his Republican challenger Gov. Mitt Romney was interested in revealing his plans for the next four years..

But from what was said, we can be fairly certain that a second Obama term will involve no departure from his foreign policy in his current term in office.

As far as Iran and its nuclear weapons program is concerned, that policy has involved a combination of occasional tough talk and a relentless attempt to appease the mullahs. While Obama denied The New York Times report from last weekend that he has agreed to carry out new bilateral negotiations with Iran after the US presidential elections, his administration has acknowledged that it would be happy to have such talks if they can be arranged.

As for Romney, his statements of support for tougher sanctions, including moving to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the crime of incitement of genocide were certainly welcome.

But they were also rather out of date, given the lateness of the hour.

If there was ever much to recommend it, the “sanction Iran into abandoning its nuclear weapons” policy is no longer a relevant option. The timetables are too short…

— Hat tip: Caroline Glick

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EU Sakharov Prize Goes to Iranian Dissidents

(AGI) Strasbourg, Oct. 26 — The director Jafar Panahi and human rights activist and lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, won the 2012 Sakharov Prize. It is the first time that the European Parliament has awarded the prestigious prize for freedom of thought to two members of the Iranian opposition. The winners were preferred to the band Pussy Riot and Belarusian dissident Ales Beliatski.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Saudi Grand Mufti Calls Muslim Countries to Apply Sharia, Even in Shared Relations

For three million Muslims these are the days of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Today they will observe the “stoning of the devil”. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh underscores the importance of the application of Islamic law, in all areas of life, including politics, while “some slogans raised among Muslims these days call for setting up democratic states with no connection with the Islamic Shariah. “

Riyadh (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The need to apply Sharia, or Islamic law, in all areas of life even in relations between Muslim states. This is the invitation that the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh addressed to the nearly three million faithful who in these days are making the pilgrimage (Haj) to Mecca.

For them, today is the day of the “stoning of the devil”, symbolized by the stone throwing against three Jamarat, tall pillars, which have now been replaced for safety reasons by long walls (see photo). This is in fact the most dangerous moment of the pilgrimage: the stone throwing has sometimes caused riots and in 2008 caused the death of 346 pilgrims.

The ritual takes place in Mina, east of Mecca and follows the Wuqoof-e-Arafat, when the faithful gather in the plains of Arafat and recite “Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik,” Here I am, O God, in answer to your call. Helicopters and thousands of police agents have followed the journey, which took place in a hot 37 degrees, relieved by hydrants that bathe the pilgrims. After sunset, they came to Muzdalifa, a plain where traditionally they gather stones that today are launched against the Jamarat.

But yesterday was also the day of the sermon of the Grand Mufti who urged believers to “make all your efforts to achieve dignified living for your people and end their sufferings.” He called on them to treat people with “justice and fairness” and underlined the importance of the application of Sharia, or Islamic law, in all areas of life, including politics, while “ some slogans raised among Muslims these days call for setting up democratic states with no connection with the Islamic Shariah. “

“The leaders of the Muslim world should engage in dialogue and comply with Shariah in resolving differences.” Muslim leaders must be on guard not to become prey to the schemes of their enemies, who are trying to ignite sectarianism and destabilize the security of the Ummah, the Islamic nation.

Muslim nations should also exchange expertise in the economic, business and scientific spheres. “ This will achieve two benefits for Muslim nations. First, there will be a political advantage. A Muslim nation should run its own affairs without interference from outside. Second, there will be an economic advantage. Production will increase in Muslim countries and more job opportunities will be created. Moreover, the well-educated will stay and will not leave for non-Muslim countries “

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Saudi Arabia: Child Molester Arrested in Jeddah

Ibrahim Alawi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Police have arrested a Chadian in connection with the kidnap and sexual assault of a boy. Police said the attacker also stole a car and changed its number plates. Officers circulated a description of the car and a manhunt was launched. A short while later, a security patrol spotted a car matching the description and tried to stop it, but the driver got out and fled. The security personnel chased and arrested him. The assault victim identified the driver as his attacker. A white belt dropped by the driver when he ran away contained a gun, bullets, and some cash and was kept as evidence by the investigating team…

— Hat tip: JP

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Saudi Arabia: Saudizing Mosque Jobs

Yasser Salamah

Al-Madinah newspaper

I WOULD suggest to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance not to build or issue licenses to philanthropists to construct any new mosque before making sure the project will include suitable housing for the imam, muezzin, guard and janitor. If we are insistent on Saudizing the jobs of imams and muezzins, we should first of all ensure them with suitable accommodation. Nobody with the slightest sense of patriotism would stand against Saudization of these two important jobs. But how can Saudization of the jobs of mosque imams and muezzins be achievable if obstacles prevailing in many of our big mosques hinder it? The most important of these obstacles is the lack of suitable living quarters for the imams and muezzins…

— Hat tip: JP

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UAE: Dubai Hopes to Push Eid Sales Through All-Day Opening Time

DUBAI, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) — For the first time, Dubai’s major shopping malls are open around the clock during the Islamic feast Eid al-Adha, in a bid to attract shoppers from across the Arab world. During this year’s Eid al-Adha, which starts on Oct. 26 and will lasts for four days, the Gulf business metropolis Dubai, with its traditional instinct for business and tourism, will keep its major shopping centers open for 24 hours each day until Oct. 28…

— Hat tip: JP

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Zionism-Imperialism After Igniting Civil War Among Muslims: Analyst

A prominent analyst and Imam of Washington D.C Islamic Center tells Press TV that the Zionist-Imperialist axis seek to ignite a kind of Sunni-Shiite civil war among the Muslims at a time when Muslim Ummah needs unity to free the Palestinian lands.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned against the conspiracies of the global hegemonic powers to divert the tide of the popular Islamic Awakening in the region. In his annual message to 2012 Hajj Pilgrims on Thursday, the Leader lauded the popular uprisings and revolutions across the Arab countries as “one of the most crucial issues of the Muslim world” and noted, “If Muslims let go this great opportunity without using it to reform the Islamic Ummah, they would incur great losses. The aggressive and interventionist arrogant powers are making every effort to divert the course of these significant Islamic movements,” Imam Khamenei pointed out. Press TV has interviewed Muhammaed al-Asi, Imam of Washington D.C Islamic Center from Washington to shed more light on the issue at hand. He is joined by two additional guests: Imam of Masjid al-Islam Abdul Alim Musa from Washington and the Beirut-based Political Analyst Ibrahim Mousawi. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview…

— Hat tip: JP

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Bomb-Sniffing Dog Killed in Afghanistan is Honoured

A bomb-sniffing army dog who died in Afghanistan on the day his handler was killed has been honoured with Britain’s highest award for animal bravery. Springer spaniel mix Theo was posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal on Thursday at a ceremony in London…

— Hat tip: JP

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Death Toll Rises to 112 in Renewed Riot in Myanmar Western State: Official

YANGON, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — At least 112 people including 61 women have been killed and 72 others injured in renewed sectarian riots occurred in six townships in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state over the past five days, according to local official sources Friday. The number of death toll was compiled as of Friday’s noon, U Win Myaing, Rakhine State spokesman told Xinhua, adding that the situation in the area is leading to calm down. During the riot, over 2,300 houses were destroyed in arson fire in six townships — Myaebon, Mrauk U, Kyauk Phyu, Minbya, Yathedaung and Kyauktaw. The local authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew from 7 p.m. (local time) to 5 a.m. in Minbya and Mrauk U since Oct. 22 night as the riot escalated there.

— Hat tip: JP

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Dozens Killed in Fresh Burma Violence

At least 56 people have been killed and thousands of homes torched in communal violence in western Burma, a local government spokesman said Friday, as international concern over the unrest grew.

People have fled their homes in droves following the latest clashes in Rakhine state, which was rocked by Buddhist-Muslim violence in June that split communities and left tens of thousands of mainly Muslim Rohingya in camps. More than 150 people have now been killed in the state since June, according to the authorities, who have imposed emergency rule in the face of continued explosive tension in the region. “Twenty-five men and 31 women have been killed in four townships and 2,000 houses were burnt,” Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing told AFP while an official in Rangoon who requested anonymity said the toll could be as high as 67. Burma’s 800,000 Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh by the government and many Burmese — who call them “Bengalis”. The latest violence, which prompted Burma’s main Islamic organisations to cancel celebrations for the four-day Eid al-Adha holiday that began on Friday, is seen as serious challenge to the government as the nation emerges from decades of military rule…

— Hat tip: JP

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India: Costly Goats Bogging Down Devout Muslims on Eid

NAGPUR: On Bakri-Eid this year many goat dealers and butchers are cursing the mobile connectivity. The easy communication is now helping farmers and dealers from areas around Nagpur to bargain for better prices for their stock. The fall out is that goats meant for the city are now being sold in Hyderabad where they are getting a better price…

— Hat tip: JP

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More Than 30 Dead in Afghanistan After Suicide Blast

A suicide bomber killed as many as 37 and wounded dozens more today when he detonated among worshippers at northern mosque on the first day of a Muslim holiday.

The blast tore through a crowd gathered outside the packed mosque as worshippers marked the beginning of the Eid al-Adha festival. Many police officers were reported to be among the dead and several senior local officials were also present at the blast in Maymana, capital of Afghanistan’s Faryab province. There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing at the Eid Gah mosque and it was not immediately clear if anyone in particular had been targeted. Faryab is not a stronghold of the Taliban, but it has seen increasing violence in recent years and this week has seen bloody clashes between the security forces and insurgents. The Taliban’s shadow governor for Faryab was killed along with 24 of his fighters on Wednesday after a prolonged battle which also killed five policemen, the governor has said…

[JP note: Another one to chalk up for Anders Fogh Rasmussen www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9625757/Natos-plan-is-working-in-Afghanistan.html ]

— Hat tip: JP

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No One Hurt as Afghan Roadside Bomb Hits Italian Convoy

Attack a day after 52nd victim in eight-year mission

(ANSA) — Kabul, October 26 — A roadside bomb hit an Italian military convoy in Afghanistan Friday but no one was hurt, military sources said.

On Thursday Corporal Tiziano Chierotti, 24, became Italy’s 52nd victim in the eight-year NATO-led ISAF mission.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sacrifice in Afghanistan

If we fail to build the basis of democracy in Afghanistan, the deaths of British servicemen and women will have been in vain

Again the list of casualties in Helmand lengthens: this time with the deaths of a Royal Marine and female medic, in a confused firefight involving Afghan forces in Nahr-e Saraj district. The killings brought the British death toll in the country to 435. Taken alongside further casualties among American forces this week, and a report from the Commons international development select committee warning that Afghanistan may never be a viable and sustainable state, they will provide extra ammunition for those who argue for a hasty exit by the West.

Such a temptation to despair, however, should be resisted. As the committee says in its report, we owe it to the many Britons who have died in the conflict, or been maimed or traumatised, to ensure that their efforts were not in vain. If we fail to build the skeleton of a democracy that can accommodate the country’s different factions while resisting the irreconcilable militants, then we will have done precisely that.

Moreover, as Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, noted on these pages earlier this week, there are reasons for hope. Afghan forces are increasingly capable; the Taliban are being pushed back into areas distant from the centres of population; and violence has, in many areas, been diminishing. In terms of aid spending, while throwing large sums at the corrupt Afghan government has often proved a fool’s errand, the MPs on the committee found that smaller-scale projects have done much to improve the lot of ordinary Afghans, and can do more in future — one of many recommendations that will help the Department for International Development in its work. No one is pretending that a successful outcome to the West’s efforts in Afghanistan is inevitable. But neither is their failure.

[Reader comment by Allectus on 26 October 2012 at about 9am.]

That the deaths of soldiers might not be “in vain” is the classic plea of supporters of failed military enterprises throughout history, and of governments desperate to buy time, at the cost of yet more soldiers’ lives, to defer the day of reckoning for their hubris and incompetence. (The true measure of the Government’s valuation of British servicemen may be gauged from its politically motivated decision, designed to appease corrupt elites in Afghanistan, to prosecute a squad of Royal Marines for the alleged “murder” of a Taleban prisoner.)

The other big lie is that our troops are fighting in Afghanistan to defend our national security. Tighter border controls and a more aggressive policy towards resident hostile aliens were always much more likely to defeat domestic terrorism than the kind of foreign adventurism and “nation-building” favoured by Blair and Cameron. Deporting a single Islamist fanatic would do more for our national security than killing 100 Taleban fighters, and wouldn’t cost a single British life. So why should our soldiers have to die in Iraq or Afghanistan just because the Government is too craven to repeal the Human Rights Act or to stand up to ideologically-driven judicial activism at home or in the ECHR?

In any case, our current mode of intervention in Afghanistan is futile. Perhaps the Taleban can’t defeat our forces; but they’ve always known that they don’t have to: all they’ve ever needed to do is keep them engaged and hold out until the political will to keep tens of thousands of foreign troops in Afghanistan evaporates — next month, next year or five years from now. So not only is walking away from Afghanistan not unthinkable, it is inevitable; it’s just a question of when, and how many more British lives are wasted before we accept this fact.

But “walking away” doesn’t mean we should negotiate with the Taleban, or that we can’t continue to offer limited support to factions hostile to the Taleban. Let us remember that, even without such support, and with the Taleban receiving generous material assistance from Pakistan, the old Northern Alliance remained undefeated. I can therefore see no reason why an anti-Taleban alliance, with Western logistical and tactical support, would not be able to keep the Taleban tied down indefinitely (although we should be resigned to the fact that the Taleban will take control of Kandahar and the southern provinces). There’s no need to install “democracy” (whatever that’s supposed to mean to venal and corrupt wretches like Karzai) or pursue a negotiated peace. We owe the Afghan people and the Obama Administration precisely nothing. Our sole consideration should be our national interest. We should pull out now.

[Reader comment by Bob Landy on 26 October 2012 at about 9am.]

The threat in the UK is self inflicted and nobody has the ***** to do anything about it. Deporting, instead of importing, the enemy would be a good start.

— Hat tip: JP

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Nigeria: Let US Conform to Law and Order, Fashola Tells Muslims

As muslims in the country join their counterparts worldwide to celebrate the Eid-el-Kabir, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has enjoined all Nigerians to conform to the tenets of the rule of law saying without law and order, no society would prosper. In his Sallah message to the muslims, the governor stressed that the act of obedience as demonstrated by Prophet Ibrahim when he was commanded by Almighty Allah to sacrifice his only son, Ismail, was a compelling factor for all muslims to lead from the front in the maintenance of law and order in our society…

— Hat tip: JP

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Why South African Olive Oil is Really Lekker

[There doesn’t seem to be much integrity left in the Old World, even when it comes to their prize, heritage-based products. — LH]

[…] The “Mediterranean diet”, celebrated for its health benefits, probably has a lot to do with the fact that many South Africans believe that the world’s best olive oils hail from Italy and Spain.

That, and slick marketing.

Which explains why local olive oils count for only about 30 percent of total olive oil sales. And it doesn’t help that the imported oils are mostly substantially cheaper than the South African ones. […] [M]uch of the oil that gets passed off as extra virgin olive oil in supermarkets across the world is actually adulterated olive oil with low-grade vegetable oils and added artificial colouring.

Some of the oil starts off being half decent, but by the time it’s sold, it is so old that it has lost its taste and its health properties along with it.

Governments have been loathe to do anything about this mass deception because bad olive oil isn’t fatal […]

[A]s [olive oil expert Tom]Mueller says, cheap olive oil and extra virgin olive oil are two completely different things.

“Extra virgin olive oil is a squeezed fruit juice, and in many cases, cheap imports are just dumbed down liquid fat.”

Aside from its superior quality, he says, another reason local olive oil costs quite a bit more than the imports is that the EU subsidises olive oil farming and production to the tune of about e2 (R22.70) a bottle, which puts the European producers at a massive advantage in the global marketplace.

Consumer assumptions that the Mediterraneans make the world’s best olive oil simply aren’t true, because the ancient, traditional ways of olive farming and olive oil production are no longer the best, Mueller says.

“The New World countries — South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the US (California) are not blinded by the past or committed to doing things the way their forefathers did, so using new farming and production methods they’re making some really world-class olive oils.”

Unlike wine, olive oil does not improve with age. In fact, olive oil deteriorates with age, so the fresher the better — nothing older than two years. […]

To preserve its freshness, it should be kept away from air, light and excessive heat. But not in the fridge. […]

So, what should you look for on an olive oil bottle?

As far as Mueller’s concerned, go straight to the local olive oils and choose one with an SA [South African] Olive seal, which tells you the SA Olive Association has tested it chemically and for taste. […]

Next, check for the age of the oil, given that fresh is best. […]

Most imported oils do not indicate the year of harvest, which, given that freshness is key, is a significant omission.

“The only indication that you are likely to find on imported oils is bottling date, which tells you nothing,” Mueller says.

“That oil could have been sitting in a tank for two to three years before it was bottled.”

And what about taste?

“Really fresh extra virgin olive oil is fruity and aromatic, often with a marked bitterness and pungency, whereas the inferior stuff is either completely characterless, or worse — so old it’s rancid.”

And if it’s rancid, it’s anything but good for you. […]

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Fidel Castro: The Quintessential Communist

My foremost memory of Fidel Castro dates to 1961 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when, as a young soldier, the Second Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia was put on full readiness in the event the U.S. had to invade Cuba. I was informed that I would remain in the Army “for the duration” thereby extending my enlistment. Happily, the crisis was resolved in 13 days, but everybody was holding their breath.

I had begun to hear of Castro as he pursued his efforts to overthrow the Cuban dictator General Fulgencia Batista who had overthrown an elected government. Throughout my college years, 1955-1959 at the University of Miami I had become friends with the sons of wealthy Cubans who were sent to the U.S. for a higher education. There were discussions as to whether they should return if he was successful. I knew nothing of Batista beyond the fact he was a dictator, but I harbored doubts about Castro even then. It was during the Cold War and anything that suggested a communist revolution made me wary.

Castro had been born into a wealthy family in 1926 and had drifted into the communist orbit like so many who thought it would bring “social justice” to the masses.

— Hat tip: JD

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69 Migrants Rescued Between Africa and Italy

Taken to Lampedusa

(ANSA) — Lampedusa, October 26 — The Italian coast guard took 69 migrants from a struggling dinghy in the Sicilian Channel between Africa and Italy to safety on the stepping-stone island of Lampedusa Friday.

Migrant crossings form north Africa have increased lately because of a prolonged spell of good weather.

The 69, who all said they were from sub-Saharan Africa, were reported to be in good health.

Meanwhile 15 minors were moved from Lampedusa’s migrant reception centre to youth homes around Agrigento.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Immigrants Know More About Britain Than the British, Says Labour MP Sadiq Khan

A left-wing MP has claimed that new immigrants know more about the nation’s heritage than many Britons. Labour justice spokesman Sadiq Khan said that it ‘frustrated’ him to see newcomers obliged to sit citizenship tests when many people ‘know b***** all’ about British history. Mr Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and MP for Tooting in South London, said he met many people who have gone through the citizenship ceremony who feel ‘so excited and enthused’. But he added: ‘Then I’ll be canvassing in my area and there’ll be people who have lived in the same home for three or four or five generations who know b***** all about our country, about our heritage…

[Reader comment by MaBle, Northumberland on 26 October 2012 at 9:11 am.]

If talking out of your backside was an Olympic sport, Sadiq Khan would win a gold medal! On a serious note, this is dangerous and divisive but not unexpected from this man!

— Hat tip: JP

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Myanmar: Rakhine: More Than 100 Dead in Clashes Between Ethnic Burmese and Rohingya

Fighting between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims restarted on Sunday. So far, in addition to the dead, 72 people have been injured and some 2,000 homes set on fire. Myanmar president rails against manipulators who are behind the violence, pledges action by the military and the authorities to restore stability. Bangladesh tightens controls to stop refugees from reaching its coasts.

Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Interethnic clashes between majority Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims have caused the death of more than 100 people in Rakhine, a state in western Myanmar on the border with Bangladesh, this according to official government sources. The authorities are now concerned that the strife could harm the country’s reputation, undermining the peace process and democratisation. In view of this, President Thein Sein warned that the military and police would act to restore peace by force if necessary.

Rakhine State spokesman Win Myaing said 112 people died in clashes that began Sunday between Buddhist Rakhinese and the Muslim Rohingya, with 72 people reportedly injured, including 10 children. Earlier, the authorities had announced that almost 2,000 homes had been burnt down during the violence. As a result, they imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

Parts of the state have been under a state of emergency since 10 June. Matters could still get worse. Until yesterday, the official number of victims was low according to the media because of delays by local officials in making public the real figures.

In a strongly worded statement, Myanmar President’s Office warned that manipulators responsible for the recent sectarian clashes in Rakhine state would be exposed. Because of them, Burmese Muslims have cancelled celebrations for the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha).

The situation is undermining Myanmar’s international image, the president said. For this reason, “The army, police, and authorities in cooperation with local people will try to restore peace and stability and will take legal action against any individual or organisation that is trying to instigate the unrest”.

Back in June, the District Court in Kyaukphyu (Rakhine) imposed the death sentence on three Muslims for the rape and murder in late May of Thida Htwe, a young Buddhist Rakhinese woman. The decision sparked sectarian violence between Muslims and Buddhists. In the days following the trial, an angry mob attacked Muslims unconnected with the incident, killing ten.

As hatred spiralled out of control, 29 more people, 16 Muslims and 13 Buddhists, were killed. According to official sources at least 2,600 homes were also set on fire, whilst hundreds of Rohingya sought refuge abroad.

According to United Nations estimates, Myanmar is home to 800,000 Rohingya. But the government does not count them as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups and denies them citizenship.

Similarly, neighbouring Bangladesh treats as illegal immigrants with no citizenship rights, to be expelled whenever they try to land on its beaches.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Denmark: Jewish Groups Angered at Absence of Israeli Flag at Diversity Festival

City organisation rethinking procedures after criticism of a recommendation it says was sparked by security concerns

A city hall request that the Israeli flag not be displayed at a street festival intended to promote diversity has Jewish community leaders wondering what “diversity” really means to some city leaders.

During planning meetings for September’s Smag Verden — Mangfoldighedsfest, a celebration of the foods and cultures of different countries, Jewish participants were warned that some would interpret the flying of the Israeli flag as a provocation.

“We were told that is was better if we did not fly our flag,” Malgorzata H Hansen, who represented local Jews at the meetings, told Berlingske newspaper.

Organisers said they feared clashes between Jewish, Muslim and leftist groups if the Israeli flag was displayed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Inside the First Amendment: What is the Truth About American Muslims?

by Charles C. Haynes Gannett

In the past decade, an anti-Muslim movement in America has pushed for anti-Shariah laws in some 23 states and helped generate anti-mosque protests in more than 50 communities. Even more disturbing, poisonous anti-Muslim rhetoric has contributed to an atmosphere of anger and hate that provokes acts of intimidation and violence — including the recent attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin where six people were murdered, apparently because the killer confused Sikhs with Muslims. Groups involved in the “stop Islamization of America” campaign have spent more than $40 million attempting to convince the public that American Muslims practice an inherently violent and oppressive faith that seeks to subvert the Constitution, according to a 2011 study conducted by the Center for American Progress. (www.americanprogress.org)

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Huge Saturn Storm Keeps Surprising Scientists

A massive storm that encircled Saturn nearly two years ago was even more powerful than scientists had thought, new research reveals. Observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft — which first detected the tempest in December 2010 — show that the enormous Saturn storm sent temperatures in the planet’s stratosphere soaring 150 degrees Fahrenheit (66 degrees Celsius) above normal, according to a new study.

“This temperature spike is so extreme it’s almost unbelievable, especially in this part of Saturn’s atmosphere, which typically is very stable,” study lead author Brigette Hesman, of the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.

At first, this vortex was larger than Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot. Though visible signs of the Saturn storm are no longer evident, the Saturn vortex persists to this day. But it’s unlikely to have the 300-year-plus staying power of the Great Red Spot; scientists think the vortex will likely dissipate by the end of 2013.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West

by Edward Rothstein

Jacques Barzun, the distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history and came to see the West as sliding toward decadence, died Thursday night in San Antonio, where he lived. He was 104…

— Hat tip: JP

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Parking Issues Debated at Liberty Corner Mosque Hearing

BERNARDS TWP. — Parking capacity issues continued to shadow a proposed mosque at a third hearing before the Planning Board Thursday night, despite assertions that there would be no negative traffic impact. At issue was whether 50 proposed parking stalls could accommodate a long-term projection of 150 worshippers, even though that would seem to comply with a zoning requirement to provide one parking stall for every three seated worshippers. The Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) is seeking to raze a house at 124 Church St., located on 4.3 acres roughly opposed the Liberty Corner Firehouse, and build a two-story, 4,250-square-foot facility. The proposal has drawn opposition from neighbors…

— Hat tip: JP

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