Factbox: Monti’s Emergency Austerity Package
Reforms aim to raise 30 billion euros in two years
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Italian Premier Mario Monti on Monday will present to parliament his emergency government’s package of budget measures that aim to raise 30 billion euros and help hurl the country out of its debt crisis.
The package is contained in what Monti described as a ‘Save Italy’ decree after the cabinet approved it on Sunday. It will go into effect at the start of 2012 and last for two years.
Parliament must approve the package within 60 days. Here are some key facts about the package: PENSION REFORM — Pensions above 936 euros will not be raised in line with inflation.
– The retirement age for men will increase from 65 to 66, with incentives to work until 70 for both male and female workers.
The women’s retirement age will increase from 60 to 62.
– Pensions will be determined based on the amount of money workers have contributed, as opposed to the current system which is based on salary levels at the time of retirement. — The minimum amount of contribution years to be able to retire before the retirement age will rise to 42 years for men and 41 for women, from 40 years currently.
TAX REFORM — A property tax dropped by the previous administration will be reintroduced, which will bring in or more than two thirds of the package, over 10 billion euros. — Taxes will be raised on luxury items like sports cars, yachts and private jets. — If necessary, there will be a 2% increase in value added tax in the second half of 2012, taking it up to 23% in the top band.
– Income tax will not be raised as many had speculated. PUBLIC SECTOR REFORMS — A number of public agencies will be eliminated.
– Elected officials in provincial governments will no longer receive salaries and their staffs will be cut. MARKET REFORMS — Stores will be given more flexibility in their opening and closing hours. — Antitrust powers will increase. — Rules on non-perscription drug sales will be liberalized. — Transport-sector regulations will be loosened. MEASURES AGAINST TAX EVASION — Small businesses and independent proprietors will receive tax breaks for fully declaring income. — The civil service will make transactions and payments electronically.
– Cash transactions above 1,000 euros will be prohibited. The current limit is 2,500 euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Two Tough Weeks Ahead
Awaiting IMF, EU summit, and troika decisions
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, DECEMBER 5 — Today begins two extremely critical weeks for Greece. In the afternoon a meeting of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) management council will be held and will decide on whether or not to grant a sixth 2.2-billion-euro installment, which alongside the 5.8 billion euros already approved by the eurogroup will be allocated to Greece by mid-December. An EU summit is scheduled for Friday December 19, the decisions of which will determine to a large extent the future of the Greek economy. Moreover, over the coming days technical experts of the troika — the IMF, the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) — will be making their way to Athens in the lead-up to the arrival of three other officials: the IMF’s Pauel Tomsen, the EU’s Matthias Mors and the ECB’s Claus Mazuch, scheduled to arrive on December 12. The three representatives of Greece’s international creditors — who Greek papers say will be staying in Athens at least until December 16 — will have the task of examining alongside the Greek government the October 26 agreement as well as the commitments deriving thereof, and will want to make sure that the economic measures called for by the Medium-Term Economic Programme are moving forward as planned, as well as see whether the obligations found unfulfilled on their last visit have now been fulfilled.
Troika representatives will be asking the Greek government to approve the new fiscal law and speed up structural reforms, including the privatisation of enterprises with state holdings and the liberalisations of closed professions. Moreover, they will have to analyse the 7 billion euros in new economic measures for the 2013-2015 three-year period, and will be requesting news on the beginning of talks between the government, unions and enterprises involving the labour market.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Credit Crunch Not Biting Into Xmas Meals; 3.2 Bln in All
(AGI) Rome — The CIA says the credit crunch is “biting” into presents and trips, but not the traditional Christmas Eve feast. Despite the fact that end of year bonuses are lower and that the retail prices of many products have risen, families are not prepared to compromise on traditional Christmas fare, and the food bill for this coming Christmas is likely to be almost the same as in 2010. The Italian Farmers Confederation (CIA) estimates are based on surveys of Italians’ Christmas spending budgets carried out over the last few days. According to initial results, the CIA says that only 19 per cent of Italians will be spending less on food and drink, while 81 per cent will spend the same amount as last year on the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day feasts. Italian families look likely to spend an average of 140 euros each on celebratory meals on 24th, 25th and 26th December, for an overall estimated spend of 3.2 billion, i.e. a mere one per cent less than in 2010.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti to Present ‘Save Italy’ Decree in Parliament
Measures aim to raise 30 billion euros
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Premier Mario Monti on Monday will present to parliament his emergency government’s package of budget measures that aim to raise 30 billion euros and start to hurl the country out of its debt crisis.
The package is contained in what Monti described as a ‘Save Italy’ decree after the cabinet approved it on Sunday.
It includes pension reform, the reintroduction of a property tax dropped by the previous administration, new taxes on luxury items such as yachts, sports cars and private aeroplanes, and a 2% increase in value added tax in the second half of 2012, taking it up to 23% in the top band.
The bill, which comes into effect immediately but requires parliamentary approval within two months, also features growth-boosting measures, such as tax breaks for companies who hire young people and for those investing capital in Italian firms.
It did not include an expected income tax hike.
The most contentious part of the package regards pensions, with Welfare Minister Elsa Fornero breaking down in tears when she was outlining the changes at a press conference on Sunday.
Next year pensions above 936 euros a month will not be raised in line with inflation.
Furthermore, the retirement age was raised from 60 to 62 for women and from 65 to 66 for men.
The minimum number of years of pension contributions needed to retire before the retirement age will increase from 40 to 42 years for men and 41 years for women.
“It’s a very big blow to pensioners’ incomes,” said Susanna Camusso, the head of Italy’s biggest and most left-wing trade union CGIL.
“The raising of the retirement age is an unsustainable extension for many people whose pension prospects have been disrupted and face many more years of work”.
Italy’s business associations and many of its political parties, however, said the package was tough but necessary to restore investor confidence and respect commitments to balance the national budget by 2013 The European Union, which fears that the euro could collapse if Italy does not get a grip on its public finances, praised the measures.
European Financial Commissioner Olli Rehn said the package was “timely and ambitious”. Former European commissioner Monti took over the helm of government as the head of a team of non-political technocrat ministers after Silvio Berlusconi resigned as premier last month, with Italy’s debt crisis threatening to spiral out of control.
Monti said on Sunday that, given the gravity of the situation and the sacrifices his government was asking people to make, he would decline his salary as premier.
The government said it planned further measures, including changes to the labour market to make it easier for young people to find steady jobs and new benefits.
It said bills for these reforms will be presented after talks with the unions and business associations.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Would Collapse Without ‘Save Italy’ Budget, Says Monti
Premier is confident of parliament’s support
(see related stories) (ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Without the government’s new austerity package Italy “risked collapse and would find itself in a similar situation as Greece, a country we have great sympathy for but which we would not like to imitate,” Premier Mario Monti said on Monday.
Speaking to the foreign press a day after his cabinet adopted its new 30-billion-euro ‘Save Italy’ package of budget measures, Monti said “we are firmly convinced that we need everyone’s participation in this effort to save Italy”.
The premier added that he was sure that he would have the backing of parliament, “where until the other day all they did was argue,” and said his government was not limited by parliament any more than others were.
Monti’s executive is made up of non-MP ‘technocrats’ but has the support of most of the main parties, with the exception of the regionalist Northern League, the coalition partner of former Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom party in the government before the media magnate resigned as premier last month.
In regard to his government’s aspirations, he explained that “we want to contribute to saving Italy and we want to do this more as technicians, who will then leave once the job is done”.
Aside from spending cuts, higher taxes and pension reform, the government’s new package includes a series of measures to boost economic growth because, Monti told the press, “without higher growth we cannot reduce the deficit”.
The growth boosting measures include reforms aimed at lowering the cost of labor and stimulating competition, along with liberalization, deregulation and aid to small businesses.
“If these measures help reduce the state’s borrowing cost and interest rates it will help ease the threat of recession,” Monti said.
Among the tax measures adopted is the restoration of a real estate tax on principal homes, abolished by the Berlusconi government, but Monti said his government has not yet examined the possibility of re-imposing real estate taxes on commercial real estate interests held by the Catholic Church, which was also lifted by Berlusconi.
Turning his attention to the eurozone crisis, which will be at the center of a European summit later this week, Monti said “this will be a crucial week. We (with this budget package) have done our part and I hope this government’s actions will contribute, also on a European level, to reducing the risk of recession”.
On the leading role being played by Germany and France in resolving the crisis, Monti said “close collaboration between Germany and France is necessary but not sufficient’ and added “a priority of my government is to see Italy play a role in governance both in Europe and on the international scene”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Austerity Budget ‘Necessary’ But ‘Unfair’, Church Says
Higher taxes on rich called for
(see related stories) (ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — The new austerity budget package adopted by the Italian government was “necessary” but could have been more “fair” with higher taxes imposed on the rich, a leading figure in the Italian Catholic Church told ANSA on Monday.
According to Msgr Giancarlo Bregantini, head of the committee on social and labor problems at the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), the so-called ‘Save Italy’ budget measures were a step in the right direction.
But he said they did not go far enough in regard to boosting economic growth and should have focused more on taxes on the rich and less on pension reforms.
“At this point attention should be shifted to a second phase which must be organized very carefully with an accent on growth” he said. “Unions are looking at these measures with great concern and perhaps it would be best for the government to dialogue with them in order to come up with precise proposals, above all in dealing with crucial problems like jobs for young people”.
While the 30-billion-euro austerity package appears to have the support of most parties in parliament, it has been sharply criticized by trade unions, unhappy over the proposed pension reforms.
Reactions were mixed among groups like the national retailers’ association, which fears a hike in value added tax (VAT) will curb consumer spending.
According to Confcommercio, the measures designed to help boost economic growth risk being “counteracted” by a hike in VAT next year that will result in lower consumer spending, which has already in a downward spiral, and thus lower tax revenue.
The group also said that higher VAT will hurt lower and middle-income households the most and could also rekindle inflation, which would pose a further blow to tax revenue.
Several Italian unions have already announced strikes to protest against pension reforms in the package which they said were decided without consulting them properly.
The budget package has received a thumbs-up from Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo who said that, while he was not exactly happy over a hike in taxes on luxury goods, he felt this was “fair”.
“I was certainly not the happiest man in the world over the luxury-tax hike but I believe that when necessary it is right to do something which will benefit all,” said Montezemolo, who was seen by many as a candidate to lead an emergency executive, a job which went to former European commissioner Mario Monti.
“It is not a question of generosity but one of making the right choices. We must help the country based on our ability to do so.
“The package was tough but balanced. It’s what could be done in a very tight time frame and in a crisis situation.
“Much remains to be done… but the premier has already moved swiftly and with great seriousness to restore credibility to our country”.
Outside Italy, the government’s package was praised by the Organization for European Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The Paris-based organization said a statement on Monday that “the fiscal measures adopted by the Italian government deal with the need to consolidate the country’s budget. By easing taxes on business and new employees they will give a boost to economic growth and employment”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bond Spreads Fall Below 400 Basis Points on Monti Package
‘Markets reacted well’, says Marcegaglia
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Bond spreads fell sharply on Monday after Prime Minister Mario Monti’s cabinet approved a 30-billion euro austerity package.
The yield on the Italian long-term Treasury bond against the benchmark German bond closed trading at 375 basis points, down 80 points on Friday’s close of 455 points. Ten-year yields fell below 6% to 5.95% for the first time in a month and were down from 6.68% of last week.
For weeks the yield has been around the crucial 7% mark, considered by many to be a tipping point for the financial crises experienced in Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Milan stocks also rose 2.91% to close at 15.926 points, while Paris, Madrid, Frankfurt and London also closed slightly higher. Emma Marcegaglia, the President of Italy’s largest employer group Confindustria, welcomed the market reaction.
“The markets reacted well to the government’s package and this is important. With a spread of 570 you have to say you cannot sustain public spending or have banks available to finance that,” she said.
However, Marcegaglia warned that Italy was “in danger” because the country had not yet resolved all its problems”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy and Merkel Push for Changes to Europe Treaty
The two primary leaders of the euro zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, issued their first joint call on Monday for amendments to Europe’s governing treaties to provide better economic governance for the 17 countries of the euro zone.
The leaders met over lunch at the Élysée Palace to prepare joint proposals to offer the full membership the European Union in Brussels on Thursday night. They agreed to propose automatic penalties for countries that exceed European deficit limits as well as the creation of a monetary fund for Europe. They also backed monthly meetings of European leaders.
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‘Save Italy’ Package Eases Spread and Bond Yields
Market confidence boosted, yield drops to 6.37%
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Italian bond yields and the spread with the German bund eased in early trading as Italian Premier Mario Monti was due to present a 30-billion-euro austerity and growth-boosting package to parliament Monday. The spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their German equivalents fell to a two-week low of 422 points while the yield dropped to 6.37%, its lowest in three weeks.
Both measures are bellwethers of market confidence in Italy’s ability to pay down its huge 1.8-trillion-euro debt, 120% of GDP.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
AFDI/SIOA, VAST to Host Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference in Dearborn, Michigan at Hyatt Regency
NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2011 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The prominent human rights organization American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), its Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) program and the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST) will be hosting the first-ever human rights conference dedicated to exposing the plight of women under Islamic law in Dearborn, Michigan on the anniversary of the honor murder of Jessica Mokdad: the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.
The Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference will be held at the Hyatt Hotel in Dearborn. After bowing to Islamic supremacist pressure and canceling a speech by Pamela Geller that had been scheduled for a Hyatt in Nashville, Tennessee, the Hyatt reversed its stance, recovered its understanding of the American principle of free speech, apologized and offered AFDI space in a Hyatt for a future Conference to make it up the human rights organization. Geller chose the Hyatt in Dearborn to stand in solidarity there with girls who are in danger of being victimized like Jessica Mokdad.
Jessica Mokdad was a 20-year-old Muslim woman in Warren, Michigan, who was brutally murdered in May 2011. Fox News Detroit reported: “Authorities say a Minnesota man killed his 20-year-old stepdaughter in Michigan because she left home and wasn’t following Islam.” Jessica’s stepfather, a devout Muslim, tracked his stepdaughter over four states to murder her for bringing dishonor on her family.
AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: “We’ve named the Conference after her as part of our ongoing campaign to raise awareness and bring a stop to the phenomenon of Islamic honor killing. These girls have rights, too, they’re human beings, and yet they’re completely forgotten in our politically correct culture, in which speech that is offensive to Islam is increasingly forbidden. We’re standing for the human rights of girls like Jessica Mokdad.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama’s ‘Smart Power’ Foreign Policy Looks Amateurish as US Ambassador to Belgium Insults Israel
The US ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, has sparked outrage in both Israel and the United States with his recent comments suggesting that Israel should shoulder the blame for some forms of anti-Semitism. According to a report by Haaretz over the weekend:
Ambassador Howard Gutman, who is Jewish, made the controversial remarks at a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union in Brussels last week. “A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly told those gathered, going on to argue that “…an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.” In reaction to the comments, and the subsequent uproar they caused, the White House released a statement distancing itself from Gutman’s words: “We condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms, and that there is never any justification for prejudice against the Jewish people or Israel,” read the statement, which was sent out over the weekend to Jewish leaders.
Gutman’s remarks coincided with an aggressive swipe at Israel by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, as well as comments critical of Israel by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As I’ve noted previously, this administration has a long track record of Israel-bashing, which it has turned into an art. For all its talk of “smart power”, the Obama administration has pursued a condescending and at times downright foolish foreign policy, one that projects strikingly little empathy for traditional US allies. Gutman’s remarks were no isolated incident, but part of a broader pattern of insults and even betrayals of some of America’s closest partners on the world stage. The appalling reception given to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanhyahu at the White House, the sneering depiction of Britain by a senior State Department official, the siding with Cristina Kirchner over the Falklands sovereignty issue, and the knifing of the Czechs and the Poles over third-site missile defense all spring to mind. At the same time, the Obama presidency has bent over backwards to appease Arab opinion, placate the Russians, pat Argentina on the back, extend the hand of friendship to Iran, and engage as many despotic regimes as possible, from Syria to Burma and Sudan.
There is something fundamentally distasteful about an international strategy that rewards enemies and strategic adversaries, while kicking key allies in the back. When he was president, George W Bush was constantly derided for pursuing what liberals saw as a simplistic, aggressive and “unilateral” approach to international affairs. They painted him as an arrogant cowboy, unschooled in the art of diplomacy while throwing American weight around the world. But for all the juvenile mockery of the Left, Bush looks increasingly like a Kissinger or Metternich on foreign affairs when compared to the gaffe-prone Barack Obama, who last week didn’t even know the difference between England and Great Britain when commenting on the Tehran embassy attack. At least Dubya believed in cultivating allies rather than treating them with disdain, and had no truck with America’s enemies. There is nothing smart in the Obama administration’s undermining of America’s friends. Howard Gutman’s remarks were, unfortunately, not an aberration but a reflection of President Obama’s increasingly destructive foreign policy.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Hockey Player, 28, Had Brain Disease Linked to Hits to the Head
Derek Boogaard, a former National Hockey League player, had a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma when he died in May at age 28, according to researchers.
The disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, widely known as C.T.E., is a close relative of Alzheimer’s disease and has been diagnosed in the brains of more than 20 former football players. It can be diagnosed only posthumously.
The researchers at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy who examined Boogaard’s brain said the case was particularly sobering because Boogaard was a young, high-profile athlete, dead in midcareer, with a surprisingly advanced degree of brain damage.
“To see this amount? That’s a ‘wow’ moment,” said Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and a co-director of the center.
Boogaard was one of the sport’s most feared fighters, filling the role of enforcer for the Minnesota Wild and the New York Rangers. Over six seasons in the N.H.L., he accrued three goals and 589 minutes in penalties. On May 13, his brothers found him dead of an accidental overdose in his Minneapolis apartment.
The degenerative disease has been found in the brains of all four former N.H.L. players examined by the Boston University researchers. The others were Bob Probert, who died at age 45; Reggie Fleming, 73; and Rick Martin, 59.
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Islamic Art Exhibit Comes to BYU Museum
Muslims and Mormons. The two religions are rarely mentioned in the same sentence, but BYU’s Museum of Art is trying to change that with an exhibit featuring Islamic art from around the world. “It was amazing how many times people found the same values found in the Mormon traditions and culture also in (Islamic culture),” said Sabiha Al Khemir, the project’s director. “We aspire to similar things. Many times, my Mormon colleagues are quoting things to me directly from Mormon scripture that directly correspond with what these pieces are about.”
The exhibition will feature more than 250 pieces from nine countries. The project began in 2008 when Al Khemir, a Tunisian native and world-renowned writer, artist and expert in Islamic art, had the idea to bring a collaborative exhibition to the university. The exhibition will open at BYU before moving on to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Newark Museum in Newark, N.J., and the Portland Museum in Portland, Ore. The exhibit will take up the main floor of BYU’s Museum of Art, and museum staff is already moving other exhibits to make room for the display. [JP emphasis]
Mark Magleby, director of the museum, said the international scope of the museum, with Al Khemir’s help, will provide a promising asset for the university as a reminder to the community of how religious beliefs can parallel each other. “There’s no question that when you get to know people who truly live their value system, it is an act of devotion,” said Magleby. “Her (Al Khemir’s) practice is an act of devotion within Islam. We see our jobs at BYU the same way to be in excellence as a museum or university needs to be when it is funded by the faith of the Saints and the church.”
The exhibit will guide viewers through the pieces in a step-by-step progression that will help visitors appreciate and understand Islamic culture by starting with simpler pieces and ending with the more complex. “The mentality is to be in the state to learn but to also be in a state to unlearn,” Al Khemir said. “When it comes to Islamic culture, we have a great deal to unlearn and forget and to just see what is.”
She said doing the project has been spiritual on many levels for all those involved. She gave an example of one piece she really wanted for the main display, but she couldn’t obtain it. In the end, the museum received a pleasant surprise — an even more iconic emblem that was donated by a family in Kuwait. “Some objects you might really want, but they are in another exhibition,” she said. “Life brings you surprises and can sometimes give you something better.”
Magleby said that working with Al Khemir has given him a greater understanding of the Muslim faith, and he has started to see Islamic origins that have found their way into Utah. Some of the staff working on the project attended a rehearsal by the Mormon in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and Magleby said he was amazed by the connections Al Khemir found between Islam and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even down to the architecture. They found a group of sister missionaries with nametags bearing countries from all over the world, and he said he enjoyed seeing Al Khemir sincerely listen to the sisters. “She has no trouble hearing about the kinship to the faith,” Magleby said. “We felt some meaningful moments of sharing faith.”
Al Khemir suggested visitors attend the exhibit to open communication between Muslims and Mormons. “Because you are bringing objects from all over the world, the scale is huge,” Al Khemir said. “That has added to the dimensions of the dialogue. That is what is going to bring interaction from the Mormon community to the rest of the world.” Magleby said the exhibit will give visitors the chance to get to know a culture that many in Utah are not familiar with. “One of the great privileges of working on the exhibition is becoming aware of the significant community of Muslims in the West and in Utah,” Magleby said. “It’s a great opportunity to get to know neighbors we haven’t formally known as well as we should.” The free exhibit will open Feb. 24, 2012, and run through Sept. 29, 2012. The museum is located on North Campus Drive in Provo.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Newt Encounters a Different Kind of Tea Party
by Laurie Penny
“To my astonishment, the audience applauds. Gingrich is in a spot.”
“You’re from Britain? You want to watch out,” says the man with the Newt 2010 sticker plastered across his paunch. “If you don’t do something soon, your country will be under Sharia law. And that won’t be any good for you, miss. You know what I’m saying.” I have come to a meeting of the Staten Island Tea Party, where Newt Gingrich, currently the front-runner in the Republican presidential debate, is about to give a campaign speech. My new friend, Kevin Coach, is a retired police officer in his early sixties. He was a supporter of Herman Cain, but as the former pizza-chain mogul’s presidential bid recently collapsed in a welter of sexual assault allegations, Kevin has switched allegiance . “Anyone but Mitt Romney,” he says.
We need to talk about Kevin, and the five hundred other overwhelmingly white, middle-aged Americans who have gathered to hear Gingrich speak today. This man — a former cop with fists like ham hocks that he thumps on his knees for emphasis, a libertarian blogger, a Tea Partier and, finally, a person wearing a baseball hat without a shred of irony — is everything that people like me are supposed to loathe. But I don’t. When he informs me about the practical dangers of the burqa — “no side vision. Those women are constantly getting run down by cars” — he flashes a grandfatherly smile, and I suspect that the safety of young women on the roads of a notional Islamic Caliphate of Britain is, on some level, a genuine concern for him.
[…]
[JP note: British misery princess, Laurie Penny, patronizes Americans.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The State Department vs. Free Speech
Hillary Clinton chats up the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which demands world-wide bans on criticizing Islam.
Last July in Istanbul, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-chaired a “High-Level Meeting on Combating Religious Intolerance” with the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Mrs. Clinton invited the OIC to Washington for a conference to build “muscles of respect and empathy and tolerance.” That conference is scheduled for Dec. 12 through Dec. 14. For more than 20 years, the OIC has pressed Western governments to restrict speech about Islam. Its charter commits it “to combat defamation of Islam,” and its current action plan calls for “deterrent punishments” by all states to counter purported Islamophobia.
In 2009, the “International Islamic Fiqh [Jurisprudence] Academy,” an official OIC organ, issued fatwas calling for free speech bans, including “international legislation” aimed at protecting “the interests and values of [Islamic] society,” and for judicial punishment for public expression of apostasy from Islam. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu emphasizes that “no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs.” The OIC does not define what speech should be outlawed, but its leading member states’ practices are illustrative. Millions of Baha’is and Ahmadis, religious movements arising after Muhammad, are condemned as de facto “insulters” of Islam, frequently persecuted by OIC governments, and attacked by vigilantes. Those seeking to leave Islam face similar fates…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Cultural Blindness and Four Dead Women
It seems like everyone knew what danger Montreal sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia and Rona Amir Mohammad, one of their father’s two wives, were in before the four drowned somewhere near Kingston, Ont. School staff, the Montreal police, both of the city’s child-protection services, relatives, friends, boyfriends, a women’s shelter, a stranger on the street — so many people had heard of threats to their safety before they died in June 2009. “Hindsight is always perfect,” said Gerald Savoie, adviser to the executive director of Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, which serves Montreal’s English-speaking community. Savoie was not referring specifically to the Shafia case, in which the girls’ father, Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife and the girls’ mother, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their eldest son Hamed, 20, are on trial in Kingston, charged with four counts of first-degree murder. But the Shafia case fit a pattern Savoie was describing: A clash of cultures, recanted testimony and a lack of corroborative information.
The Shafia family, originally from Afghanistan, immigrated to Canada in 2007. The three girls, according to court testimony, would not talk about their fears in front of their parents.
Protection services such as Batshaw may think they are trying hard to serve Montreal’s ever-increasing minority populations, but some people within those populations think they’re blinded by layers of cultural unfamiliarity to the child in danger. Aliya Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, says that if the three Shafia girls had been treated as “ordinary” Canadians instead of members of a minority, they might still be alive. “This was a Canadian family. These were Canadian children. The system failed them,” she told me. The fear the girls expressed about their father should have been enough to warrant intervening in that family’s life, she said.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
TMR [Town of Mount Royal, Montreal] Latest to Refrain From Religious Decorations
Tis the season for holiday decorations — and holiday controversies. A group of Muslims living in TMR asked town officials if Islamic symbols could be added to the holiday display at city hall. Instead, town officials decided to remove everything except a Christmas tree.
The decision, intended to keep from offending anyone, is not sitting well with some residents. “I think it’s dreadful,” said one TMR resident. “I was born in the town. I remember that since I was little. I don’t think they should remove that at all.”
Mayor Philippe Roy said the move was in response to a request from a local Muslim group who wanted Islamic symbols displayed at City Hall as well. Instead of adding the religious symbols, Roy said council decided to take a different tack and remove their nativity scene and menorah. “We talked about it and we felt it wasn’t the best place to do a religious display… at city hall,” he said. Council gave its menorah away to a local synagogue and its nativity scene to a local church.
The move meant TMR missed an opportunity to display its inclusive attitude, said Samer Majzoub from the Canadian Muslim Forum.
“It is very shocking that they go that far to the opposite side to remove everything, instead of dealing with the issue positively,” said Majzoub. Roy said the decision is final, and that all religions are welcome in the Town of Mount Royal, but religious symbols will stay out of City Hall. It’s not the first case of religious sensitivity irking Quebecers this season. On Friday, Service Canada admitted it made a mistake by banning all Christmas decorations from its location at Complexe Guy Favreau. They reversed the decision and will hang Christmas decorations at the federal outlet.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Antisemitism
Thinking About Anti-Semitism in Europe “Conference on Fighting Anti-Semitism in Europe: What is Next? Speech by Ambassador Howard Gutman on November 30, 2011
I am delighted and honored to get a chance both to meet all of you and to share some thoughts on the issue of anti-Semitism today in Europe. First, a couple of apologies. When I was asked to speak, I did not realize that I would be slated to do an “Opening” or “Welcome.” And the topic today is too important to dally too long with welcomes. So welcome. If you are new to Belgium, the frites, chocolate, and beer are terrific and have only the oval waffles called Liege waffles, put no toppings on them, and get them straight from the waffle iron. OK. So much for welcomes.
The second apology is an apology in advance for my not saying what you would expect me to say. You see, the temptation always exists at conferences discussing perceived biases, prejudices, discrimination and even hatred, to cite a couple of anecdotal instances of violence or hatred, sound an alarm, rally a response, take the applause and sit down.
But to me, the issues are too complex and too much in flux to simply take the easy path. This topic is too important and the time of each of you is too valuable to simply use this meeting as a group opportunity to decry hatred. Of course, we and all well-meaning among the brotherhood of man must decry hatred. But that is just the starting point, not the end of the discussion.
So I likely will not just say fully what you expected and or maybe hoped to hear. I respect all of you too much to do that. But let’s start with some context. Who am I and from what background do I approach these issues? My story is not that atypical for the United States — it is in fact right at the core of the American dream. My father, Gitman Mogilnicki, grew up in a Polish town of Biala Rawska. As the Germans began to pressure the Poles, he left the town to try to join the Resistance. Having been rejected by the Resistance for looking too Jewish and having been gone but a week, he returned to find that the Jewish section of the town no longer existed. He spent the war with a few other escapees in the woods, never being caught, sleeping in dug out graves to avoid the bullets when the Germans fired along the ground, and stealing food in the middle of the night by risking missions to town.
He often wondered whether any from the town of Biala Rawska had been taken to camps rather than just having been slaughtered on the spot. But having spent the years after the war searching in vain for even one survivor, he finally concluded that, had the town been taken to camps rather than being killed then and there, surely one person would have survived. There was simply no one left.
Having searched in vain for both survivors and employment in Warsaw and Berlin until 1950, he decided to come to the United States and start again. But the United States had quotas limiting the number of immigrants from Poland. So my father arranged illegally to purchase a false passport in which he transposed his first and last names, and Gitman Mogilnicki of Biala Rawska Poland became Mosher Gutman first of Danzig and then Max Gutman of the Bronx, New York, and the garment district in the lower East Side of Manhattan. Carrying forward with the next-generation-make-good story, I attended public schools. My father died when I was 16, never having discussed the war with me and never having told me even his real name. Upon his death, I went to work after school cleaning tables in a restaurant and through the student loan program, I attended Columbia University and then Harvard Law School. Having finished among the top of my class, I then clerked on our highest court, the United States Supreme Court, an honor given to the top roughly 40 law school graduates a year, I spent two years as a Special Assistant to the Director of the FBI for counterintelligence and counter-terrorism, and 27 years as a lawyer at a leading law firm and as an advisor to government officials and Democratic political candidates for office. I was on the Board of the Washington Hebrew Home for seniors and a member of two different shuls in Washington DC — a reform shul and an Orthodox shul.
During the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, I participated in a lot of activities including policy, speechwork, press, fundraising and more. One of my efforts was working with the Jewish vote. Though there was much support in the Jewish community during the campaign, I combated significant suspicion and concern among the Jewish community as to whether a black man named Barack Hussein Obama could really be a good friend for Israel and the Jewish community. And since I have come to Belgium, I have made my story well known and it has been well received by all. I have engaged at great lengths with the Jewish communities, giving speeches in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia and even before the World Jewish Congress on Barack Obama’s relationship with the Jewish community and the Middle East. The speech, which argues that by becoming credible in the Arab world, President Obama has become Israel’s best and most valuable friend, is on our website and is available to any who are interested. And I appear regularly at Jewish community events such as memorials, tributes and celebrations.
I have engaged at great length as well with Muslim communities. I have done significant outreach with the largely Moroccan and Turkish communities throughout Belgium — in Molenbeeck, in Anderlecht, in Hasselt and many other areas. Today alone, I met with leaders of a Flemish nationalist party to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the effect on the U.S. position with regard to UNESCO and other U.N. organizations, and with the largest mosque in Belgium to talk about the same topic and East-West relations. I host at my Residence an annual Iftar, last September sharing dinner in my ballroom with 180 leaders of the Muslim communities. I have available in fact copies of a column that was written two years ago by the former Mayor of Jeddah,Saudi Arabia, who was then the Saudi Ambassador to Belgium, talking about the advances of the Obama administration in East-West relationships following his participation at one of our Iftars.
And I follow closely and think often about issues of anti-Semitism in Europe. In the past few months, Jacques Brotchi, a Federal Senator and leading neurosurgeon, quit his affiliation with a Brussels university over issues of anti-Semitism and we are in the process of following up on those developments. We have been following up since last week when a Jewish female student was beaten up at a Belgian school by other students spewing racial epithets. To some extent, I have unique exposure to these issues. And such exposure has left me convinced how complicated and changing this issue is. Generalizations about anti-Semitism in Europe are dangerous indeed — always at risk of oversimplifying and of lumping together diverse phenomena.
So let’s start the analysis with the clearest and easiest departure point. There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different. That hatred is of course pernicious and it must be combated. We can never take our eye off it or just dismiss it as fringe elements or the work of crazy people, because we have seen in the past how it can foment and grow. And it is that hatred that lawyers like you can work vigilantly to expose, combat and punish, maybe in conjunction with existing human rights groups. I have not personally seen much of that hatred in Europe, though it rears its ugly head from time to time. I do not have any basis to think it is growing in any sense. But of course, we can never take our eye off of it, and you particularly as lawyers can help with that process. So in some sense, that is the easy part of the analysis.
Let’s turn to the harder and more complex part. What I do see as growing, as gaining much more attention in the newspapers and among politicians and communities, is a different phenomena. It is the phenomena that led Jacques Brotchi to quit his position on the university committee a couple of months ago and that led to the massive attention last week when the Jewish female student was beaten up. It is the problem within Europe of tension, hatred and sometimes even violence between some members of Muslim communities or Arab immigrant groups and Jews. It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem. It too is a serious problem. It too must be discussed and solutions explored. No Jewish student — and no Muslim student or student of any heritage or religion — should ever feel intimidated on a University campus for their heritage or religion leading to academic leaders quitting in protest. No high school or grammar school Jewish student — and no Muslim high school or grammar school student or student of any heritage or religion — should be beaten up over their heritage or religion. But this second problem is in my opinion different in many respects than the classic bigotry — hatred against those who are different and against minorities generally — the type of anti-Semitism that I discussed above. It is more complex and requiring much more thought and analysis. This second form of what is labeled “growing anti-Semitism” produces strange phenomena and results.
Thus for example, I have been received well by Belgians everywhere in this country. I always get polite applause and sometimes more. But the longest and loudest ovation I have ever received in Belgium came from the high school with one of the largest percentages of students of Arab heritage. It was in Molenbeek. It consisted of an audience dominated by girls with head scarves and boys named Mohammed, standing and cheering boisterously for a Jewish American, who belongs to two schuls and whose father was a Holocaust survivor. Let me just share a minute or two with you of a video clip from that visit. These kids were not anti-Semitic as I have ever thought of the term. And I get a similar reaction as I engage with imans, at Iftars, and with Muslims communities throughout Belgium. And yet, I know and I hear at the same time that the cheering occurs for this Jew, that within that same school and audience at Molenbeek, among those at the same Iftars, and throughout the Muslim communities that I visit, and indeed throughout Europe, there is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes and all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East.
This is a complex problem indeed. It requires its own analysis and solutions. And the analysis I submit is not served simply by lumping the problem with past instances of anti-Jewish beliefs and actions or those that exist today among minority haters under a uniform banner of “anti-Semitism.” It is I believe this area where community leaders — Jewish, Muslim, and third parties-where diplomats and religious leaders, where lawyers and professionals from both communities, where mothers and fathers, where university leaders and school administrators, can make the most difference by working to limit converting political and military tension in the Middle East into social problems in Europe. But it is the area too — both fortunately and unfortunately — where the largest part of the solution remains in the hands of government leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories and Arab countries in the Middle East. It is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.
I said that it is both fortunate and unfortunate that the largest part of the solution for this second type of problem — too often lumped under a general banner of anti-Semitism — is in the hands of Israel, the Palestinians and Arab neighbors in the Middle East. It is fortunate because it means that, unlike traditional hatred of minorities, a path towards improving and resolving it does at least exist. It is crucial for the Middle East — but it is crucial for the Jewish and Arab communities in Europe and for countries around the globe — that Mid-East peace negotiations continue, that settlements abate, and that progress towards a lasting peace be made and then such a peace reached in the Middle East. Were a lasting peace in the Middle East to be reached, were joint and cooperative Israeli-Arab attentions turned to focus instead on such serious, common threats such as Iran, this second type of ethnic tension and bigotry here in Europe — which is clearly growing today — would clearly abate. I can envision the day when it disappears. Peace in the Middle East would indeed equate with a huge reduction of this form of labeled “anti-Semitism” here in Europe.
It is at the same time somewhat unfortunate that most of the cause and thus most of the solution for tension and hatred in Europe, for growing problems at Belgian universities, for epithets in the streets, rest with governments and people a continent away. For, in some respect, citizens, parents, religious and community leaders here in Europe can simply try to promote understanding and patience, while ensuring law enforcement serves its mission, without being able fully to address the most root causes and most efficient cures.
It is a challenge for us all. I hope it is one you will address in this conference. Thanks so much and all the best.
[JP note: This man appears to be either clinically insane or a cynical political opportunist — perhaps these are equivalent.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Should Norway Allow More Foreign Names?
Norway’s population registry system is unable to cope with a letter in the Spanish alphabet, meaning 7-week-old baby Livia Patiño Risholm can’t get official recognition for her name. Is this acceptable?
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Don’t Avenge Knifed Boy’
THE mother of a teenager stabbed to death after fleeing from a gang of youths pleaded against revenge attacks yesterday. Danny O’Shea, 18, suffered a knife wound to his neck at the hands of the black youths in Canning Town, east London, on Friday night. But his mother yesterday insisted the killing was not racially motivated and said there should be no reprisals. Julie Brewer said: “We do not know why such a terrible thing happened, but what we do know is that this is not racially motivated. Danny was a popular boy with friends from all cultural backgrounds. “We do not want to see any local retribution and urge anyone with any information to come to the police.” The Metropolitan Police said they had arrested a 43-year-old man yesterday morning and more arrests were “expected in the coming days”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: £7,000 Payout for Muslim Woman Who Wore a Headscarf to Job Interview
A GRIMSBY bakery — found to have discriminated against a headscarf-wearing Muslim woman on religious grounds — is asking top judges to block a similar case being brought by her husband. Country Style Foods Limited was ordered to pay Latvian-born Anastasija Bouzir about £7,000 in compensation following an employment tribunal’s ruling that it failed to offer her a job at its bread factory in Wickham Road, after she wore a Muslim headscarf to her interview.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Shocking Outburst of Prejudice
by Robert Haflon
I like Paul Flynn. It may surprise JC readers to know that he is one of my favourite Labour MPs. Witty, intelligent and original, we have often collaborated on the Public Administration Select Committee, which examines the machinery of government. Yet his outburst in front of the most senior civil servants, Sir Gus O’Donnell, really shocked me. During questioning about the Liam Fox/Adam Werritty controversy, Mr Flynn seemed to imply that the British ambassador to Israel was, in collusion with Liam Fox et al, working with Israeli intelligence as part of a Zionist plot. As the transcript shows, when I tried to interject, Mr Flynn then accused me of being a neo-conservative and part of a clique that wanted to bomb Iran.
Mr Flynn’s actions betray an extraordinary mindset on the left, that allows normally highly intelligent and engaging individuals to lose all sense of proportion when the word “Israel” is mentioned. The same kind of mindset rarely raises the daily atrocities committed in Syria or Iran, preferring to focus on Israel as part of some vast international conspiracy — usually involving American and British Conservative politicians.
What makes this worse is that Mr Flynn is able to do this because the British ambassador to Israel is Jewish. The subtext, of course, is that Jews by nature are not loyal to the country that they serve but are working for foreign powers. This has been the habitual accusation of antisemites throughout the ages. Whilst I do not believe for one moment that Mr Flynn is antisemitic, the question that people will ask is: “Has he allowed himself to fall into the trap that those who hate Jews often set?” Readers will note that I, too, as a Jewish MP, am being accused of being part of a “plot” to bomb Iran. Yet as Sir Gus O’Donnell observed, the fact that the British ambassador has meetings with Israeli intelligence is part of his job, just as the British ambassador to Pakistan meets Pakistani intelligence. If only the left, with a few notable exceptions, put their money where their mouth is in terms of human rights and freedom, there would not be outrageous attacks on the British ambassador to Israel but real condemnation of President Ahmadinejad and President Assad.
Robert Halfon is MP for Harlow
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Fatal Stabbing of Teenager Not Racial Attack, Claims Mum
THE mother of a teen stabbed in the neck outside his home last night appealed for calm amid rumours that the killing was a race attack. Danny O’Shea, 18, died despite his stepdad Jim Blewitt, 53, trying to save him after youths chased him for around 300 yards. But mum Julie Brewer, 53, spoke out after Twitter and Facebook messages claimed it was racially motivated. She said: “We don’t know why such a terrible thing happened, but we do know is it is not racially motivated. “Danny was popular, with friends from all cultural backgrounds. We do not want to see any local retribution.” Det Chief Insp John Macdonald said: “The people chasing him were black but I reinforce the family’s position that there is nothing to suggest it was racial.” A 43-year-old man was last night being quizzed over Friday’s murder in Canning Town, East London, by police, with more arrests expected.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Holocaust Archive Moves to New Home
Historians and members of the public who want to find out more about the Nazi atrocities will be able to browse around two million documents at the new home of the world’s oldest Holocaust archive. The Wiener Library reopened this week at its new location in Russell Square. The Princess Royal was present at the ceremony, which took place more than 71 years after the library was founded by German-Jewish refugee Alfred Wiener, who had fled Hitler’s regime for Amsterdam. It opened in London six years later, on the day that Hitler invaded Poland, and is now home to some 20,000 photographs as well as thousands of pamphlets and newspaper articles, children’s board games attacking Jews, and children’s books full of crude stereotypes, that could be found in 1930s Germany. As well as being the world’s oldest collection, it is one of the largest and an a valuable resource for researchers. During the libel case involving Holocaust denier David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt’s legal team was able to draw on the material for their successful defence. Thanks to a £475,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the library was able to meet its target to equip fully the new premises. “Some of our items are so old that you can’t collect them now,” said library director Ben Barkow. “We have them because we were there at the time.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MP Defends ‘Disloyal’ Envoy to Israel Claims
The Labour MP at the centre of a storm over his suggestion that the British ambassador to Israel could be disloyal because he is Jewish has complained that he has been treated unfairly. Paul Flynn, who represents the Newport West constituency, said that because Matthew Gould has “proclaimed himself to be a Zionist” he is not a suitable person for the role.
In remarks criticised by MPS, the Foreign Office and Jewish communal organisations, Mr Flynn added that Britain needed an envoy with roots here who “can’t be accused of having Jewish loyalty”. Mr Flynn said the suggestion that he had made an antisemitic remark was “ludicrous”. Writing on his blog, he said: “I have been a lifelong friend of Israel and Jewish causes. I have visited Israel on four occasions including a private family holiday. I have been accused of being too friendly to Israel on many occasions.” He said he was disappointed in the criticism from his Labour colleagues “without any of them first contacting me”. On Thursday, Labour MP Denis MacShane raised Mr Flynn’s comments in the House Business Questions. He said it should be made absolutely clear “that we do not have a religious bar in our diplomatic service and that we do not say that Jews cannot serve in Israel”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Newport Mosques Unite With Anti-Terror Message
MOSQUES across Newport will unite this week to speak out against terrorism in a special reading. Seven mosques have joined together and will explain to around 1,000 worshippers why extremism and terrorism goes against the what is written in the Koran. As part of the daily prayer on Friday, the Shah Poran Jame Mosque, Al-Noor Mosque, Alexandra Road Mosque, Jamia Mosque, Islamic Society of Gwent in Victoria Road, the Hussaini Mission and Newport Central Jamia Mosque will simultaneously deliver the reading at 1.10pm. The reading will be accompanied by a leaflet called ‘What does Islam say?’, which police believe is the first of its kind in the UK. Sheik Mohammad
Tahir Ullah, chairman at the Shah Poran Jame Mosque in Hereford Street, said: “We don’t want any extremists here in Newport, South Wales or the world, Islam doesn’t want extremists. Islam is a peaceful religion.” Mubarak Ali, secretary for the Islamic Society for Wales, based at the Mosque in Victoria Road, added: “We don’t want extremists coming to Newport and we’re preaching the true message of Islam, which is peace. “These extremists are a separate entity, they’re nothing to do with mainstream Islam and normal Muslims want nothing to do with them. It’s important to highlight what the key messages are.”
Gwent Police’s Mike Davies, co-chairman of the Newport PREVENT Delivery Group, which works to help Muslims in Newport to promote anti-terrorism initiatives, said: “Mosques leaders will be taking to task the arguments promoted by Muslim extremist groups. This will send out a clear message that true Muslims reject extremism and know that the indiscriminate use of violence is forbidden.” Mr Davies said he applauded the Muslim community for this to “prevent the possibility of extremist groups influencing the outlook of young Muslims in the city.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Unlikely Origins [Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking]
The Khatib is delivering the Friday sermon and as the congregation listens quietly, a train passes by in the distance, rustling the leaves in this suburb of Woking in the British county of Surrey. Rising above the trees, the bright green dome and minarets of the Shah Jahan Mosque are a sight to behold in this busy commuter town. While mosques are quite a common sight in the United Kingdom, what sets this one apart is not only the fact that it is the oldest purpose-built mosque in the country but also that it was commissioned by a Jewish man, Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner.
If you find the idea of a Jewish man commissioning the first mosque in the United Kingdom a bit strange, then hold on to your hats! Leitner was also instrumental in the establishment of the University of the Punjab, right here in Pakistan. If this is news to you, that’s largely because of the fact that history in Pakistan has always been at the mercy of politics, and is routinely distorted (or ignored) to suit agendas and ideologies. The Shah Jahan Mosque was commissioned in 1889 by Leitner so as to provide a place of worship for Muslim students at his Oriental Institute. The cost of the mosque was borne by the ruler of the state of Bhopal, Begum Shah Jahan, after whom the mosque is named. The mosque is now a Grade 2 protected building in the UK, giving it a special status.
Built by a Victorian architect named WI Chambers, the mosque has a traditional Indo-Saracen design, with geometric patterns and Arabic calligraphy being used for decoration. Chambers, who wasn’t exactly well-acquainted with mosque design, is said to have visited the Arab Hall in Leighton House, and the India Office Library for inspiration. The results speak for themselves, and Chambers is even said to have sought the help of a naval captain in order to ensure that the mosque faced Makkah precisely. The original mosque still stands today and can hold up to 60 worshippers, but since the weekly congregations far exceed this capacity, the mosque has also expanded to neighbouring buildings. In 2001, BBC Southern Counties Radio funded the building of a garden on the South side of the original Mosque. It now greets visitors to the mosque as they enter the grounds.
As Britain’s first purpose-built mosque, the Shah Jehan Mosque played an important role in the establishment of Islam in the UK and paved the way for the set up of the first cemetery for Muslims in the country. Woking’s Muslim Burial Ground was built during the First World War as the only designated place of burial for Muslim soldiers who died at the Indian Army Hospital in Brighton Pavilion. The Shah Jahan Mosque has become a centre for the local Muslim community in Surrey and every year hundreds of tourists of various faiths visit the mosque. “We hope to turn the mosque into an institution for Islamic learning in the hope of fostering peace and understanding,” said the prayer leader of the mosque, Sahibzada Nisar.
[JP note: Why is the BBC funding the construction of mosque gardens?]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia/Croatia: Elections: Left-Wing Parties Win, Official
No easy task ahead for 2 future premiers with crisis
(ANSAmed) — LJUBLJANA/ZAGREB, DECEMBER 5 — The official definitive figures from the parliamentary elections held yesterday in Croatia and Slovenia have confirmed the victory of the centre-left parties, a given in Croatia where Zoran Milanovic won easily, but a surprise result in Slovenia where Ljubljana mayor Zoran Jankovic will not have an easy task of forming a coalition capable of governing the country. With 28.5% of the vote (28 seats out of 90 in Slovenian Parliament), Jankovic claimed victory and will in all likelihood have the task of forming the new government. “In a surprise, Jankovic surpassed Jansa at the end” was the headline in Delo, a Slovenian newspaper, referring to the centre-right leader Janez Jansa, favoured in the polls prior to the election, who lost by a narrow margin with 26.3% of the vote. Delo, close to the left-wing parties, commented with preoccupation that “yesterday’s result does not guarantee the end of instability since now everything depends on the willingness of the other parties to form a stable government capable of coming out of the decision-making crisis” which caused the outgoing government of Premier Borut Pahor to fall. His Social Democrats (SD, centre-left) obtained 10% of the vote with 10 MPs, which, if added to the votes taken by Jankovic’s Positive Slovenia Party, are not enough to obtain the minimum majority of 46 seats. The future Slovenian premier must now also meet with Gregor Birant, a moderate neoliberal whose party won 8 seats, as well as the Democratic Party of Pensioners (DeSUS), which won 6 seats, a party that is strongly against the idea of cuts to the public sector. Jankovic is opposed to rapid privatisations, which are supported by Virant, and prefers a corporatist and state management of Slovenia’s many public-run companies. “This type of government may not be very effective, everyone would try to obtain concessions, and yesterday’s early elections may not be the last,” predicted Dnevnik, another Ljubljana-based daily. In Croatia, where the Social Democratic Party (SPH) together with another three minor liberal left-wing parties took 40% of the vote and a secure majority of 81 out of 151 seats in Parliament, the selection of ministers has already begun, while the pre-election deal because the new government’s programme, with the main task of putting the economy back on its feet and stabilising public accounts. “I am offering you a better Croatia,” was the title on the front page of Zagreb daily Jutarnji list, featuring an enormous picture of the premier designate at the voting station. Already last night analysts noted that Milanovic’s victory speech was not triumphant, but serious, moderate and even partly marked by tones of preoccupation over the difficult task standing in front of the new government. This opinion was also reflected by the front page of Vecernji list: “And now we have to avoid a catastrophe”, referring to the grave state of the Croatian public debt and near-zero economic growth. Everyone is in agreement that outgoing premier Jadranka Kosor, the head of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ, conservative), which tumbled from 36% four years ago to 23% yesterday, made an error in not congratulating his rival and blaming the press for his party’s defeat.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: A Predictable Fiasco
The Egyptian elections have resulted in a rout for the throngs whose springtime hopes for freedom are now facing the prospect of a nuclear winter at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Salafists. These Islamists appear to have garnered 60% of the seats in the next parliament and the opportunity to shape the country’s new constitution in line with their ambitions to impose the totalitarian doctrine of shariah nationwide. That will be bad news for the people of Egypt, for Israel and for us.
This fiasco was made predictable in early February when President Obama announced that President Hosni Mubarak had to leave office at once. It was clear even then that the most organized, most disciplined and most ruthless group would prevail in the ensuing, chaotic electoral environment. Apart from the military, in Egypt that group has been the Muslim Brotherhood basically since its founding in 1928…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Copts React to Islamist Electoral Win
For Egypt’s Coptic Christians, the win of the Islamists at the ballot box was no surprise. Opinion is divided, however, on how to react: stay and fight for equal rights, or leave
It is an understatement to say that 2011 has been a difficult year for Egypt’s exhausted Christians. It began with the bombing of the Two Saints Church, only minutes after the New Year started, and culminated in the victory of Islamists with more than half of the parliament in the first phase of the elections. Indeed, according to the latest results, the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly licensed Freedom and Justice Party won no less than 40 per cent of the seats, while the Salafist El-Nour Party won 20 per cent of the seats. And this is only the first phase, which covered nine of the country’s governorates. There are two more phases before a final picture of the first post-Mubarak regime can be drawn.
If the first phase results are anything to go by, Islamists will be the overwhelming majority in the next parliament. This outcome, which was expected, has still left the Coptic community reeling. It has been a year where Coptic churches were burned by Salafist groups, where residents of the southern city of Qena demonstrated and blocked the city’s highways to protest the appointed of a Coptic governor, where Copts repeatedly took to the street to protest increasing discrimination and where deadly clashes between Coptic protesters and the army left at least 28 dead in what became known as the “Maspero massacre,” taking place in front of the State TV building in Maspero.
It’s also been a year where various Islamists speaking on TV shows called Christians kafirs (heretics) and insisted that they should pay the jizya (Islamic fine for non-Muslims), pushing Egypt’s Christians to spiral into an even more intense wave of panic. Now, however, speaking to Ahram Online, various faces of Egypt’s Christian population talk about their fears, aspirations and predictions of how life under an Islamic dominated parliament will be for them.
Father Filopater Gameel, a Coptic priest, and a leading member of the Maspero Youth Union and eyewitness to the Maspero massacre.
“I am not surprised that the Islamists won the parliament majority. There were many hints in recent months that they were going to easily win many seats. The fact that they were insisting that the elections take place while all the other political forces were pleading that the elections be postponed hints that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists made a deal with the military council. The elections were filled with rigging and violations. The Supreme Electoral Committee (SEC) has already announced that many ballot boxes will be disregarded because concerns that they were rigged. We also saw violations in terms of niqabis (fully veiled women) entering the polling stations and refusing to identify themselves so that they can keep entering the station and vote more than once. We’ve also heard of cases were the Salafist El-Nour Party blocked the door to the polling stations, so that any voter going in would have to pass by them first, which is actually against the law that bans campaigning in front of polling stations.
Also, during the electoral process there was heavy usage of religious slogans and mosques were used for campaigns and to promote the Islamists. The Islamists were pushing for the elections even when the martyrs blood had not yet dried in Tahrir Square and Maspero. But we Copts now insist on continuing the electoral process until the end. The Copts are flexible and are able to adapt to any regime. We tasted bitter medicine during the Mubarak regime and we will probably face more of that under the rule of the Islamists. The Copts will be the voice in Egypt that will continue to call for freedom, equality and a civil state. We will remain here and continue the fight for the beautiful and ancient Egyptian civilisation.
I do not agree with the decision of many Copts to emigrate or flee the country because the Islamists won. This is passive. I think those who leave will be very few. Mass emigration, I believe, will not take place and Egypt will always have its Christians. The biggest problem I have with the Islamists is that they are unclear and have many faces. They say one thing and then later deny it, and when people lie you cannot trust them. I think it also shows that we replaced the Mubarak dictatorship with a new dictatorship, but this time it is religious.
We Copts will never forget the role Islamists played in the massacre of the country’s pigs in 2009 after the swine flu scare in the country. Most of the pigs are owned by Copts. We still have very painful memories of this. They killed these innocent pigs just because they thought they violated their religion in some way. However, we Copts will not give up. We will continue in the struggle for our freedom in Tahrir Square and all other squares in the country.”
[…]
[JP note: Give it another decade or so and many Europeans may be confronted by the same dilemma.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists on the Rise in Egypt
DEMOCRACY, despite its unquestionable virtue, sometimes throws up the most awkward challenges, and nowhere is that better illustrated than in the triumph of Islamist candidates in the first phase of Egypt’s elections.
Together, the Muslim Brotherhood with 36 per cent, the hardline Salafists with 24 per cent, and the moderate Islamist al-Wesat party with 4 per cent are within a whisker of achieving a two-thirds parliamentary majority. That would give them power to draft a new constitution — probably based on sharia law, without support from the secular liberal democrats who led the Tahrir Square uprising to overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship. Egypt’s best-known reformist leader, the respected Nobel prize laureate and former International Atomic Energy Agency head, Mohammed El Baradei, has spoken despairingly about the liberals poor showing in the polls. He has described the angst of the educated classes, and expressed concern about the extremist elements who want to see women banned from driving.
Mr El Baradei’s apprehensions are well-founded. So are the concerns of those who see the Islamist triumph as a potential geopolitical game-changer in the Middle East, with the leaders of Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood creation, thumping their chests and proclaiming the Islamist victory in Cairo as theirs. Now they are talking of an end to the linchpin 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, a prospect rightly described by Israeli officials as extremely disturbing.
There is still a way to go, with two further rounds of voting for the remaining parliamentary seats due in the next few weeks. But the trend is clear, and with those seats in even more conservative areas, a liberal and secular resurgence is highly unlikely. So in the wake of Islamist victories in Tunisia and Morocco, the Arab world’s biggest and most influential nation is now set for an Islamist government.
It is a profoundly challenging prospect. It recalls Iran in 1979, when secular democratic forces and the military deposed the Shah, only to have the revolution hijacked by extremist ayatollahs. While it is early days, if the Muslim Brotherhood does dominate the government it must learn from the way democratic revolutions, led with good intentions, have been betrayed in countries such as Iran. What Egypt needs is sensible, pragmatic, democratic government, not an illiberal form of religious tyranny.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Righteous Israeli
Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees crossing the Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the atrocities in Darfur.
What started out as a small number of men, women and children fleeing from the machetes of the Janjaweed and violent fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned into an organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin “guides,” these refugees are promised to be transported from Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe haven of Israel.
We increasingly hear horror stories of the atrocities these refugees suffer on their way to freedom. They are subject to, and victims of extortion, rape, murder, and even organ theft, their bodies left to rot in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving this gruesome experience whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence separates them from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death run and try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the border. Egypt’s soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It’s an almost nightly event.
[…]
The refugees flooding into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country. More than 100,000 refugees have fled this way, and hundreds more cross the border every month. The social, economic, and humanitarian issues created by this influx of refugees are immense.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Camel Fetches Record KD 2 Million in Auction
Public awestruck as seller insists on cash
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 3: A camel named Bedour entered the Guinness Book of Records when it was purchased for 2 million dinars cash after the seller refused to take a cheque or ATM card during the Safat Camel Auction in Sulaibiya, reports Al-Shahid daily.
According to the seller, the camel is expensive because it’s unique and exceptionally beautiful, which makes it different from other camels and on par with camels the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and his companions rode. He affirmed that this revelation is verifiable and has already been established. Therefore, the camel is worth the amount he collected from the purchase, the seller noted.
He reiterated that the value of the camel has nothing to do with quality of its meat, hyrax, milk or urine but its offspring and byproducts. He said the buyer will recoup the KD 2,000,000 with huge profit, stressing that mere onlookers were surprised that the camel had been sold for 2 million, which is almost enough to buy a private jet and way beyond the prices of latest automobiles.
He claimed the camel originates from camels the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and his companions owned. He also said the buyer could insure the camel just like human beings, cars and houses, even though he refused to mention profit he made through the deal.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Why We Need a Start the War Coalition
by Dan Hodges
The Stop the War campaign is gaining momentum. Tonight those jihadists of peace, George Galloway, Tony Benn and Lindsay German, launch their latest bid to stay the hand of the warmongers threatening the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their public meeting, “Don’t attack Iran”, starts at 7 pm in Red Lion Square. It’s the future of mankind we’re talking about, so please don’t be late. Of course not everyone will be able to make it. David Miliband has a prior engagement. So does Meir Dagan, the former head of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. But over the past week both have, in their own ways, sent their apologies.
Last Tuesday, Dagan told Israeli TV an attack on Iran risks the start of a devastating regional conflict. Then on Thursday Britain’s former foreign secretary penned an article in the Financial Times warning of the “risk of sleepwalking into a war”. “Nature abhors a vacuum”, he said, “and so does international politics. It cannot be filled by nudges and winks about military options. A concerted diplomatic effort on Iran is needed now to prevent the world sleepwalking into another war in the Middle East.” When it comes to opposing military intervention, neither Dagan nor Miliband could be described as the usual suspects. In fact, they’ve never so much as had their fingerprints taken. A willingness to bomb people formed an important part of Dagan’s former job description. And David Miliband’s support of the invasion of Iraq, a vote which went some way to costing him this leadership of his party, showed that politically he’s only too happy to place his boots on the ground.
That is why both men’s interventions are significant. Not only because of what they contribute to the debate on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. But also for what they tell us about where the balance of that debate currently rests. And not to put to fine a point on it, the pacifist doves are currently giving the interventionist hawks are right good kicking. A couple of weeks ago my former New Statesman colleague Mehdi Hasan wrote a piece in the Guardian arguing that “If you lived in Iran wouldn’t you want the bomb?” The premise of his article was that Iran, surrounded on all sides by US imperialist lackeys, renegade nuclear states and Jericho-packing Zionists, would be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic if it didn’t try to acquire its own bomb. “If you were our mullah in Tehran, wouldn’t you want Iran to have the bomb — or at the very minimum, “nuclear latency” (that is, the capability and technology to quickly build a nuclear weapon if threatened with attack)?” he argued.
The piece caused quite a storm, not least for its controversial statement that nearly one in three ordinary Iranians want an independent nuclear capability. For a moment it looked as if the interventionists were finally getting their act together. And then Mehdi received support from an unexpected quarter. “If I were Iranian, I’d probably want nuclear weapons”, Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak told PBS television. With friends like that, those arguing the case for a robust response to the Iranian nuclear threat hardly need to worry about George Galloway. But just because the anti-war coalition are gaining some significant converts, and winning the PR war, does it mean they’re right? No. It doesn’t.
Let’s put aside for a moment the current Iranian president is a Holocaust denier who has called for the “occupying regime” of Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Let’s also park the fact that since 2006 the United Nations has passed no less than seven resolutions against Iran, the most recent in June of this year — resolution 1984 — which clearly calls on all member states to “cooperate fully with the sanctions imposed on Iran over concern about the nature of its nuclear activities”. Instead, let’s ask ourselves what the practical implications would be if the Stop the War coalition won. If David Cameron and Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon stood up in unison and said, “under no circumstances will we attack Iran”. The sabres were sheathed. The nudges and winks ceased. The Iranians were formally informed that whatever machines of infernal damnation they chose to construct, the could do so free from any risk of a military response.
The world would be safer? The middle east more stable? The families of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv able to sleep more soundly in their beds? Syria does not to me seem a more tranquil place now we know the world has no intention of intervening to halt the internal repression that has so far lead to the deaths of 4,000 people. Nor, in fact, does the world’s muted response to the brutal crackdown following the 2009-2010 Iranian presidential elections appear to have encouraged liberalisation of that regime. The military option is always a terrible one. But to remove it unilaterally from the table will not reduce the danger we face. It will increase it. The Stop the War coalition is winning. We need a Start the War coalition. Peace demands it.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan Wants Exemption From Sanctions on Syria
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, DECEMBER 5 — Jordan has urged the Arab League to exempt the kingdom when imposing sanctions on neighbouring Syria, citing heavy economic price, an official said today.
Jordan, which shares its northern borders with Syria, stands to lose nearly USD 650 million in case Damascus was slapped with sanctions, said an official from jordan’s ministry of trade.
The government has already alerted members of the Arab league over its economic debacle, hoping to be spared impact of the sanctions.
The Arab League is yet to start the economic measures, meant to punish Damascus for refusing to sign an agreement to allow observers into Syria following rise in number of casualties.
Jordan exports through Syria fruits and vegetables to Turkey and some countries in Eastern Europe and imports part of its needs through the giant neighbours.
Foreign minister Nasser Judeh said last week that his country supports Arab consensus on Syria but, warned any measure should not expose interest of neighbouring countries.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia/Charity: IIROSA Calls for Spreading a Culture of Volunteering
JEDDAH,9 Muharram/ 5 Dec.(IINA)- The secretary general of the International Islamic Relief Organization-Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) has called for spreading a culture of volunteering and for inculcating the spirit of giving, solidarity and partnership among all members of society. On International Volunteer Day (IDV) today (Monday) Adnan bin Khalil Basha said volunteer work has become almost obligatory in view of the importance of Takaful and solidarity among human race, especially in an era where there is great need to mitigate the dangers of calamities, support the poor and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Basha stressed Islam has outraced the whole world and all international organizations in the call for voluntary work as a basic pillar in society and as an outstanding human behavior embodying the noble meanings of benevolence, charity and good work. He explained Islam has always propagated giving and helping others, the crux of voluntary work. Basha said the Holy Qur’an is replete with verses urging Muslims to give and to do good to others, while promising them rewards from Almighty Allah. Among others, these verses included: “By no means shall you attain righteousness unless you give (freely) of that which you love most” (Al-Imran).
The secretary general said Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) was very keen to inculcate in his followers the value of giving and voluntary work to the point that he considered even a smile in the face of others a kind of charity. Basha pointed out that IIROSA has made great strides in spreading the culture of volunteering and benefiting from the energy of people with sufficient expertise and scientific specializations in various fields. He called for increasing awareness of the significance of volunteering and further promoting it at local, regional and international levels. He said IDV provides a rare opportunity for individuals and organizations to increase their participation in voluntary work and contribute to improving development and alleviating poverty. The secretary general called for supporting the efforts of the United Nations in this domain and said the voluntary work was crystal-clear evidence of the progress and prosperity of nations. “It is a symbol of civilization and advancement,” he added.
[…]
[JP note: If charity begins at home then Islam is going about it the right way by making itself at home in the world.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Global Launch for Heavily-Taxed Raki
‘Secular’ alcoholic spirit in giant Diageo’s strategy
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, DECEMBER 5 — Diageo, the world’s leading alcoholic drinks giant, is to begin global distribution in January of its brand of raki, the Turkish spirit that has the status of national beverage in a country with a secular constitution but whose population includes an overwhelming Islamic majority.
The global launch of raki produced by Mey Icki, the Turkish liquor and wine group purchased by the British group Diageo in February, is another piece in the puzzle of Turkey’s relationship with alcohol, an acid test of the tolerance of the form of moderate Islam proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The opposition newspaper Hurriyet notes that the launch of “Yeni Raki” (new raki) in Germany, the US, Russia and countries sharing a border with Turkey, the group is expected to treble its income from the sales of the beverage, a brandy infused with aniseed and mint. “We will beat Greek ouzo and French pastis,” said Diageo’s European president, Andrew Morgan, referring to the two drinks most similar to raki, which has a similar transparency to water but a minimum alcohol level of 40%. Morgan admitted that it would be difficult to market the wines from its new holding company, Mey Icki. “The only problem is that Turkey and wine do not go well together,” he said.
The implicit reference is to the high level of taxation imposed on alcohol, wine included, in order to discourage its consumption. Officially, the aim is to protect the health of young people, but secular circles see the serious tax imposition as an application of the Islamic precept that dictates that alcohol should be avoided. Taxes are so high for raki that they exceed the price of the product itself. Even in the historic tavern favoured by Kemal Ataturk, the secular founding father of modern Turkey and lover of the beverage, a 20 cl glass of raki costs more than the copious main dish on the menu. In June, Turkey’s leading basketball team was forced to change its name in deference to a new ruling banning sponsors advertising alcohol. The political and legal battle over the freedom to drink in Turkey is currently in a very delicate and decisive stage, with a new constitution currently being worked on to replace the one launched after the coup d’état in 1980 by the military, the bastion of secularity in the country. Despite being a practicing Muslim, whose wife wears a veil, Erdogan used the campaign for the general election in June to repeat his desire to protect all lifestyles, therefore including secularity. Threats to free alcohol consumption, however, remain in place. At the end of May, only intervention by the State Council obtained the suspension of both an unprecedented ban on the sale of small bottles of alcohol in food shops and an age limit of 24 for drinking alcohol at concerts or sporting events.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India: Massive Congress Efforts to Appease Muslims in State [Rajasthan]
JAIPUR: It is raining sops for Muslims in the state after the Gopalgarh incident. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot is leaving no stones unturned to win back Congress’ traditional vote bank that has drifted away, thanks to the recent communal clash. The Congress government has taken a slew of measures within two months to appease the community: from including of a cabinet minister-Amin Khan, one minister of state Naseem Akhter and Zahida Khan as parliamentary secretaries to long-pending political appointments and granting funds to Muslim “socio-religious” organizations to appoint more Urdu teachers. The long-pending demand of a Haj house was accepted within minutes at a department of minorities meet at the secretariat on Saturday. The government allocated Rs 4.75 crore for construction of a house near Karbala Maidan to be completed before the 2012 Haj. Education minister Brij Kishore Sharma on Sunday announced recruitment of Urdu teachers. Significantly, not a single Urdu teacher has been recruited in the past 12 years.
The Gopalgarh police firing over a land dispute between Meo Muslims and Gujjar claimed 10 lives, angering Muslims. Muslim organisations launched an anti-Congress campaign in Rajasthan and Delhi by highlighting the Gopalgarh police firing and several incidents of alleged atrocities against the community. Reports suggest the organizations will launch a concerted campaign against the party highlighting such alleged incidents of atrocities in poll- bound UP. The simmering anti-Congress feeling among the Muslims in the state has been noted by the Congress leadership which worried about poll prospects. What added to the woes of Gehlot is the human rights organizations and National Commission for Minorities report blaming the government’s failure in handling the Gopalgarh incident. The series of events had upset high command, who sought explanations from Gehlot. It was followed by former home minister Shanti Dariwal’s resignation. However, Gehlot is believed to have retained his post for want of able candidates in the party. However, Syed Sarwar Chisthi, the Gaddi Nashin of Dargah Ajmer, termed it as an ‘eye wash.’ He said, “By merely appointing political people to political posts, the government cannot get away from the series of violence committed against our community during their rule. In many cases like Gopalgarh and the desecration of the holy book in Sarwar, not a single arrest has been made.”
[JP note: It is ‘raining sops for Muslims’ all over the shop, not just in Rajasthan.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Martyr Maria Goretti of Pakistan on Sale Under Islamic Sharia
Islamabad: December 5, 2011. (PCP) A Christian girl named Mariah Manisha killed by a Muslim on defying enforced conversion and Islamic marriage was put on sale under Islamic Sharia law of “Compensation” by rich influential family of killer and Islamic clerics in Pakistan. A Catholic Christian girl named Mariah aged 18, was allegedly kidnapped on gunpoint by a Muslim named Mohammad Arif Gujjar on November 27, 2011, when she was on way to get drinking water with her mother. Mohammad Arif Gujjar accompanied with his Muslim friends dragged Mariah Bibi in front of her mother shouting loudly “You are a beautiful girl and must convert to Islam to be my wife” which Mariah Bibi denied and cried for help. Mohammad Arif Gujjar became furious on denial of Mariah Bibi to accept Islam and shot her killing instantly and forced her mother Razia Bibi to run away to save her life.
Mariah Bibi was living in a village of Samundari with her five siblings, mother Razia Bibi and Father Manisha Masih. The killer Mohammad Arif was arrested and local Muslim elders visited Manisha Masih to condole death of Mariah Bibi to express solidarity with grieved Christian family. The Catholic Diocese of Faisalabad immediately called Mariah Bibi “Martyr of Faith’ and forward it to Vatican for inclusion in list of Martyrs. The Christian media called Maria Bibi to be “Martyr Maria Goretti of Pakistan” to remember her martyrdom.
Shafi Nohammad Gujjur, father of Arif Mohammad Gujjur is influential landlord of the area and has contacts with politicians in government. A delegation of Islamic clerics and influential Muslims is visiting Manisha Masih and pressing him to accept “Blood Money” according to Islamic Sharia laws to pave way for release of killer Mohammad Arif Gujjur. Under Islamic Sharia law “Diyyiat” which means Compensation or Blood Money to victims family and forgiveness of crime and criminal. Manisha Masih, father of Mariah Bibi “Martyr of Faith” had openly vowed punishment for the killer of her daughter but after frequent visits of Islamic cleric’s delegation to accept “Diyyiat” for her daughter has raised his agony.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Yusuf Islam Musical to Premiere in Melbourne in May 2012
Yusuf’s new musical is scheduled to make its world premiere next year.
Moonshadow, written by the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, will open at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in May next year, directed by Swedish director Anders Albien and with an all-Australian cast. According to AAP, Moonshadow — which tells the story of a young man and his struggle against the darkness — has cost an estimated $5 million (£3.3 million). The production will feature Yusuf’s hit songs such as ‘Father and Son’ and ‘Wild World’. When plans for Moonshadow to premiere in Australia were first announced in October, Yusuf’s Melbourne-based nephew Steven Georgiou revealed that the musician wanted to keep the cast all-Australian “because of the talent” in the country. Georgiou added: “He went to see a few musicals when he was here on his concert tour and he was very impressed. Australia’s been an important place for him in his career. He’s very well received here and loved. He has a soft spot in his heart for Australia.” Yusuf changed his name from Cat Stevens in 1978 following his conversion to Islam.
[JP note: Perhaps Australians might be interested in Yusuf Islam’s views on stoning women and executing apostates — see here hurryupharry.org/2010/11/01/cat-stevensyusuf-islam-on-stoning-women-executing-apostates/ ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greens Abandon Official Support for Israel Boycott
The NSW Greens have abandoned their official support for an international boycott of the state of Israel, a policy that drew unprecedented ire towards Marrickville Council this year and exposed broader rifts within the party.
At a State Council meeting yesterday, which was not open to the media, every local Greens group voted to support a revised motion which recognises the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign as a legitimate political tactic, but to abandon it as an official party position.
The policy provoked a huge backlash from Jewish groups and some sections of the media when it was adopted in-principle by Marrickville Council last December, with support from Greens, Labor and an independent.
Some Green party members, including Bob Brown and MLC Cate Faehrmann, blamed the policy for contributing to former mayor Fiona Byrne’s unsuccessful tilt at the seat of Marrickville in the March state election. Immediately after the election, the council abandoned the policy when two of the Greens on the council split and voted with others to overturn it at a dramatic meeting.
Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham more recently criticised the targeting of Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate shops by BDS protestors.
In May, the party convened a working group of about 25 people to reconsider the divisive policy. Their report provided the basis for the revised position.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: 6 Die When Town Attacked in North Nigeria
Gunmen from a radical Muslim sect raided a town in northern Nigeria early Sunday morning, bombing police stations and robbing banks in an attack that killed at least six people, authorities said. The attack in Azare in Bauchi state mirrored other recent attacks by the sect known as Boko Haram, showing their ability to strike at will in Nigeria’s Muslim north. The attack also shows the group remains focused on raising cash for future attacks in the oil-rich nation. Sect members bombed two police stations in the city and robbed local branches for bank chains Guaranty Trust Bank PLC and Intercontinental Bank PLC, Bauchi police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba said. One police officer, one soldier and four civilians were killed during the five-hour attack, he said. “We did not make any arrest, as investigations are still being carried out,” Aduba said.
Aduba blamed Boko Haram for the attack, saying the assault Sunday mirrored attacks its members have carried out in recent weeks. The group has launched a series of bombings against Nigeria’s weak central government over the last year in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across the nation of more than 160 million people home to both Christians and Muslims. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a Nov. 4 attack on Damaturu, Yobe state’s capital, that killed more than 100 people. The group also claimed the Aug. 24 suicide car bombing of the UN headquarters in Nigeria’s capital that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others. Little is known about the sources of Boko Haram’s support, though its members recently began carrying out a wave of bank robberies in the north. Police stations have also been bombed and officers killed. Boko Haram has splintered into three factions, with one wing increasingly willing to kill as it maintains contact with terror groups in North Africa and Somalia, diplomats and security sources say. The sect is responsible for at least 387 killings in Nigeria this year alone, according to an AP count.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Islamic Scholar Seeks Death Penalty for Homosexuals
Says they are worse than murderers and deserve more than capital punishment
Malam Abdulkadir Apaokagi, an Abuja-based Islamic scholar, on Sunday called for the imposition of the death penalty on homosexuals in Nigeria. Apaokagi, in a sermon preached at the weekly prayer session of Nasrul-lahi-L-Fatih Society of Nigeria (NASFAT), said gays in Nigeria were perverts who did not deserve to co-exist with right thinking and decent people. According to him, they are worse than murderers and deserve stiffer penalties than those accused of killing fellow human beings. “Homosexuality and lesbianism are just too dirty in the sight of Allah, those who engage in them deserve more than capital punishment, he said. “When they are killed, their corpse should also be mistreated.”
Apaokagi, who is the deputy chief Imam at the Abuja branch of NASFAT, said in his lecture entitled: “The position of Islam on gay marriage”, that gay people were mentally unstable and could bring severe instability to the society in which they lived. None of them can pass a psychiatric test, because they are not normal,” he said. The scholar’s sermon came against the background of a recent law passed by the Senate banning same-sex marriage and public display of affection by gays in Nigeria and stipulating a 14-year jail term for violators. Quoting from the Quran, Apaokagi hailed the Senate for passing the law, saying that Allah decreed marriages only between members of the opposite sex. “Any society that tolerates gay marriage would come to destruction the way God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for sodomy,” he said. “They are criminals, Allah Himself describes them so, and it is great that the Senate has criminalised what they are trying to do.”
He urged the House of Representatives to take a cue from the Senate, and pass its own version of the bill without delay so that President Goodluck Jonathan could sign a harmonised version into law. Apaokagi also urged Nigerians to ignore criticisms from the West, and come together as one to fight practices that might bring destruction to their country. In his contribution, Alhaji AbdulHakeem Bello, told the congregation: “Whenever any of you sees something that is indecent, change it with your hands. If you cannot change it with your hands, use your tongue to condemn it. The anti-gay law is very popular in Nigeria because it aligns with popular religious, cultural and moral principles of majority of citizens.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisian Asylum Seekers Face Image Problem
Many recent Tunisian asylum seekers arrived in Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa (Keystone)
Newly arrived Tunisian asylum seekers have been dubbed criminals in recent press reports and described as “the worst we have had to deal with” by asylum centre staff.
But has this group of Tunisians really earned a reputation as troublemakers and if so, what is going wrong?
Unofficial police statistics from Zurich, published this week in the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, backed up the alarming headline: “Number of criminal North Africans set to double by the end of the year”.
Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said her ministry was taking the problem of security very seriously and that the processing of Tunisian asylum requests had been given “top priority”.
The minister has also discussed the problem of Tunisia’s image with the Tunisian ambassador.
The majority of the more than 2,000 Tunisians applying for asylum in Switzerland this year have come through Italy, out of a total of 24,500 Tunisian nationals who landed on the island of Lampedusa in the first half of the year.
According to the Federal Migration Office’s third quarter report on asylum statistics, about half of this total were given a limited-term Italian residence permit on humanitarian grounds.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Why I’m Sick of Being Force-Fed the ‘Political Message of the Christmas Story’ By Trendy Clerics and Think-Tanks
Christmas is coming, so we must expect the usual crop of denunciations, denials and perversions of the story of the Christ-child by the senior clergy. Theologians generally join in too, in order to give the appearance of weighty scholarship to this debunking. We always used to rely on Bishop David Jenkins of Durham to announce in his Christmas message that he didn’t believe in the Virgin Birth. But now he has retired. Never mind, to the relief of sceptics everywhere this year comes Dr Stephen Holmes, a theology lecturer at St Andrew’s university. He says: “The birth of Jesus was a political event. Our celebration of Christmas should be political also.”
St Luke’s gospel tells us that Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem to comply with the Roman census requirements, but there was no room for them in the inn. So they had to make do with a stable. Dr Holmes says the stable was “insanitary”. Well, I suppose even Mary and Joseph didn’t expect The Ritz. But Dr Holmes adds, in a hilarious tincture of anachronism, “We can add health-care provision to the list of themes referenced.” Anyone who uses the jargon of bureaucratic welfare like that to speak of the coming of Christ should be told to go away and wash his mouth out. I’m only surprised that he didn’t go on to denounce the chorus of angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven for making such a gigantic carbon footprint.
Holmes develops his anachronistic approach by describing Mary as “a single teenage mother” — a description which almost prompts us to ask about her favourite pop album and whether the city corporation has given her a council house yet. Thus in his bizarre rewriting of Scripture, Holmes turns Jesus and his parents into perfect specimens of our contemporary left-wing agitprop icons: “Their flight into Egypt turns them into asylum-seekers.” There is, believe it or not, an entity called Theos, a religious think-tank. Its director, Elizabeth Hunter, says: “In a year when we have seen the Arab Spring and Occupy protests, we should turn from a sentimentalised vision of the season and listen to the political message of the Christmas story.”
But Ms Hunter, is there anything more sentimental than idealising teenage secularists in Cairo, plotting on their mobile phones a revolution now being taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist fanatics in the Salafi party? Yes, there is something even more sentimental than that: it is, with Ms Hunter, to join in the game of adolescent politics being played by the cathedral clergy in support of the shambles on their doorstep.
[JP note: Good to see a Christian rant as part and parcel of the traditional British Winterval scene — enough already with all the peace & love moonshine malarky. See also the piece by Dan Hodges on “We need a Start the War coalition: Peace demands it.” A just political slogan for our times perhaps.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star’s habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).
The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope’s total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700. The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Potentially Earth-Like Planet Has Right Temperature for Life
For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. “If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],” says William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center here, who is the principal investigator of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “[It’s] another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth’s twin,” adds Ames director Simon “Pete” Worden.
Unfortunately, the true nature of the planet, named Kepler-22b, remains unknown. It is 2.4 times the size of Earth, but its mass, and hence its composition, has not yet been determined. “There’s a good chance it could be rocky,” Borucki says, although he adds that the planet would probably contain huge amounts of compressed ice, too. It might even have a global ocean. “We have no planets like this in our own solar system.”
Kepler-22b is 600 light-years away. Every 290 days, it orbits a star that is just a bit smaller and cooler than our own sun. The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009 to scan the skies for Earth-like worlds, found the planet because it sees the orbit edge on. That means that every 290 days, the world transits the surface of the star, blocking out a minute fraction of its light.
Borucki likes to call the new discovery the Christmas planet. “It’s a great gift,” he said at a press conference here this morning. “We were very fortunate to find it.” The first of the three observed transits occurred only days after Kepler started observing. The third one was seen just before Christmas 2010, shortly before the spacecraft was unable to carry out any observations because of a technical glitch. Says Borucki: “We could’ve easily missed it altogether.”
“There are two things really exciting about this planet,” adds Natalie Batalha, Kepler’s deputy science team leader. “It’s right in the middle of the habitable zone [the region around a star where temperatures are neither too high nor too low for liquid water to exist], and it orbits a star very similar to our sun.” Previously discovered “habitable” planets orbited dim, red dwarf stars, or they were located at the edge of the habitable zone, with more extreme temperatures…
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