Greece: Communist Union, National Strike Tomorrow
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 4 — The Greek Communist Party (KKE) and its union Pame have announced a nationwide strike for tomorrow against the 4.8-billion-euro austerity package decided on yesterday by Giorgio Papandreou’s government. A national strike has been called by the confederation of state employees Adedy for March 16, while its private sector counterpart Gsee is getting mobilised for action. On Pame’s strike tomorrow and the numerous demonstrations already organised in many different cities, the communist daily Rizospastis announced a “War on war” in reference to the expression used by Papandreou, who had said that “the country is at war” against the crisis and speculation. The communist daily responded that “war is what was launched by the Pasok government against the population in the name of the middle class”. Taking part in today’s demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities, are several trade unions as well as student and teacher associations who will also be participating in the March 16 national strike called by the state employees union Adedy. Pame unionists have this morning conducted a sit-in at the building containing the Finance Ministry in Athens. The over a hundred protestors announced that they intended to stay until tomorrow, the day of the national strike. Also underway is a protest by former employees laid off by the privatised Olympic Airlines. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: German Deputies Suggest Selling Islands
(ANSAmed) — BERLIN — Two German Deputies have today suggested that the Greek government, struggling to deal with the disastrous consequences of the crisis, sell some of its islands to pay off its debt, according to the German daily Bild. The daily summed up the deputies’ comments with the following words: “We’ll give you the money, you give us Corfu”‘, while the article even went further with “…and sell the Acropolis as well”. “The Greek government must renounce its participation in companies and sell its landed property, such as uninhabited islands,” Frank Schaffler, an expert in economics of the Liberal Democrats party, told the paper. Deputy Marco Wanderwitz from Angela Merkel’s CDU was even more extreme and said that “if the European Union, and therefore Germany, helps out Greece economically, it will need to give something in exchange.” “Some islands, for example, might be a solution,” he added. According to the Tourism Ministry, Greek islands number 3054, of which only 87 are inhabited. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: With the Crisis Comes a Low-Cost Boom
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, FEBRUARY 22 — Italy’s Veneto region is offering packages of one to three days for sports holidays with rafting or biking starting from only 50 to 250 euro. The Liguria region is betting on economic backpacking vacations in the Apennines. Last year, the province of Cagliari registered a 22% increase in arrivals due largely to new low-cost air routes and bed and breakfasts, the number of which has almost quadrupled in four years. Times of crisis see an upswing in the low-cost sector and the packages on offer at the BIT (International tourism trade fair) which has been taking place in recent days reflect this, with reasonable prices and come-and-go offers available throughout regions and towns. Also, as data just presented by Italy’s Unioncamere-Insnart agency confirms, Italians may be tightening their belts but they’re not giving up their holidays. This tendency seems to have been confirmed among the stands of Milan’s Fieramilano, where yesterday the BIT concluded. The stands were invaded by thousands of tourists hoarding brochures and catalogues with their next holiday in mind. Earliest attendance figures available to the organisers already reveal an increase in the number of visitors to the fair compared to last year. However, a low-cost holiday does not necessarily mean that it comes at a lower price. According to the principal research conducted into vacation trends in 2009 (by Swg-Conferescenti, Harris Interactive and Ipsos-EuropAssistance) it is often the duration of the stay and the distance of travel that are reduced, without necessarily leading to a reduction in the price spent on services. A typical example of this is the so-called city break, or the long weekend in a European capital, a favourite among many of the groups represented at the BIT’s stands. In the decade from 1995 to 2005 the total number of nights spent by foreigners in the Old Continent increased by 56.7%, an average of 4.5% annually, and, according to Ipk World Travel Monitor, short to medium duration holidays represent 40% of total nights spent in Europe and 20% of the turnover generated in international tourism. This phenomenon is also interesting countries like Morocco, which for several years has been aiming its strategy towards long weekends in Marrakesh, Fes or other imperial cities, thanks to a boom in good-priced deals proposed by several companies active in the country. And, thanks to the financial crisis, the low-cost philosophy also seems to have expanded into business tourism in 2009: in fact, according to data from Volagratis, while 69% of reservations are in the low-cost sector, business clients account for 30% of this trend. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Iran Wants Release of Arms Suspects
Italian ambassador called in for official protest
(ANSA) — Rome, March 5 — Iran on Friday asked for the immediate release of two suspects arrested in a probe into alleged arms trafficking, calling the Milan investigation “a political manoeuvre”.
Italian ambassador to Tehran Alberto Bradanini was called to the Iranian foreign ministry Friday where officials issued an official protest requested the “immediate” release of Iranian TV journalist Hamid Masoumi-Nejad, 51, and Ali Damirchilu, 55.
The pair were among seven people including five Italians arrested Wednesday on suspicion of breaking an international arms embargo to smuggle weapons into Iran.
Two other Iranians, Hamir Reza and Bakhtiyari Homayoun, escaped arrest and are considered fugitives.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast called the arrests “another propaganda initiative against Iran,” according to Iranian news agency IRNA.
“We are following the affair seriously and the Italian ambassador was called to provide explanations,” he said.
The Milan prosecutors’ office has issued no response so far.
On Thursday Iranian TV claimed the arrest of the journalist was payback for his coverage of scandals surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi According to the Iranian TV news channel IRINN, Masoumi’s reports “on the Italian economic crisis and cases of corruption and scandals concerning Berlusconi” had annoyed politicians.
Masoumi has been accredited to the Rome foreign press association as a correspondent for IRINN for the last 15 years and is a well-known figure in journalism circles.
IRINN said Thursday the arrests were part of “a Zionist-American plan to unfairly accuse the Islamic Republic” and claimed Arab satellite TV stations Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera were allegedly helping it by covering the Milan probe. In the probe, Milan prosecutors say the suspects sought to export to Iran weapons ‘dual use’ materials and systems, which can be converted from civilian to military use.
EIGHT-MONTH PROBE.
On Wednesday Milan assistant prosecutor Armando Spataro told the press the investigation had been going on for eight months. He said it had been carried out using a vast number of wiretaps and intercepting email and SMS communication. This would not have been possible, Spataro stressed, under new wiretapping restrictions now before parliament. Spataro added that the investigation saw collaboration between several law enforcement agencies.
Among the Italians arrested was Alessandro Bon, 43, a Veneto native who lives in Monza and who is believed to have orchestrated the illegal trafficking through a Varese-based company, Antares.
Also arrested were Bon’s girlfriend Danila Maffei, 40; Bon’s business partner Arnaldo La Scala, 43, who is also a lawyer in Turin; Guglielmo Savi, 56, the head of a telecommunications company, Sirio SrL; and Raffaele Rossi Patriarca, who investigators said travelled to Iran to establish contacts with the Iranian military interested in arms deals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Industrialists’ About-Turn on ‘Rubbish Contract’
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 3 — A minimum wage contract for young people under 30 with a duration of between 6 months and 1 year, with no redundancy payment or right to unemployment benefits. The proposal put forward by the Industrialists’ Confederation (CEOE) for the reform of the labour market has brought about criticism and arguments from the unions, party and government, which was withdrawn today by the president of the CEOE, Gerardo Diaz Ferran. “It was just an example. It is not and will not be on the negotiating table,” confirmed Diaz Ferran today in statements to Antena 3 TV, on the issue of the proposal put forward yesterday by the director of labour relations of the CEOE, José de la Cavada. According to Ferran, it was only “an example of existing contracts in France,” while Spanish industrialists want to agree with the unions on “a contract for young people which is not ‘rubbish’, but which, on the contrary, can connect them to another more stable contract.” The French model proposed by Cavada is a contract the wage of which does not exceed the minimum inter-professional wage, which in France is 1,350 euros per month and which is 630 euros per month in Spain. The Minister for Infrastructure, José Blanco, said he was opposed to the contract speculated by the industrialists, saying that “what Spain needs is to stabilise and not to make the labour market more precarious.” The socialist spokesman to the Congress of Deputies, José Antonio Alonso, spoke along the same lines. The Minister for the Economy, Elena Salgado, today underlined in statements to the press that the contract proposal for young people without redundancy pay “is not a good start to social dialogue.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Has Second Highest Jobless Rate Behind Spain, Study
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 3 — Increasing unemployment rate has put Turkey to second-worst place in Europe, behind Spain, a study showed today as Anatolia news agency reports. Recently-announced figures showed that Turkey’s jobless rate rose 3 points since 2008 to 14%. Spain was worst hit by 18% unemployment rate. The study, conducted by Istanbul’s Okan University, covers EU countries, Turkey and the United States. The study said Turkey’s unemployment rate was not only an economic problem but also a sociological one. Europe’s average jobless rate is 8.8%, it said, adding that Germany has 7.5% unemployment rate, France and Croatia has 9.5%. The report also said that 43.9% of Turkey’s labor force was unregistered. This rate is estimated as 9% in EU, 7% in Britain and France, and 5% in Spain. Belgium and Greece follow Turkey with 15% unregistered employment in Euro zone, it said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Who’s Behind the Financial Crisis?
The New York Times is quoting a spokesman for George Soros as saying that the well-known hedge fund operator is guilty of no wrong-doing in connection with the financial upheaval currently affecting Greece and Europe as a whole. But Zubi Diamond, author of the powerful new book, Wizards of Wall Street, says the agenda of Soros and other short sellers is clear. Their purpose, he says, is “to loot America and any foreign country which invested in America. Greece was one of them. Iceland was ravaged and annihilated.”
The term “short selling” in this context refers to investors, speculators and currency manipulators who bet on the decline or collapse of a stock or currency through complex financial instruments handled mostly through secret off-shore accounts. For the hedge fund short sellers to make money, prices have to go down.
Short-sellers, who are appearing at a March 11 event at the libertarian Cato Institute, insist that they “provide liquidity and transparency to our capital markets” and that their operations “expose corporate fraud and mismanagement.”
But Diamond strongly disagrees. He says the Managed Funds Association, the lobbying arm of the hedge fund short sellers, is crafty and deceitful. “When they tell you that short selling contributes liquidity to the market, that is a lie,” he says. “Short selling destroys capital and takes away liquidity from the market. When they tell you that they are taking steps to remove manipulation from the stock market, that is a lie. They are taking steps to introduce manipulation to the stock market, and prime the stock market for manipulation and looting. When they tell you that the uptick rule is outdated, because of decimalization, that is a lie. They lie to deceive, to bring forth a big pay day from short selling, hence the looting of America and America’s wealthiest corporations and their shareholders, sanctioned by their Washington D.C. lap dogs.”
“The most influential members of Managed Funds Association, the hedge fund short sellers, have an anti-capitalism agenda, an anti-industrialized nation agenda, and a far left liberal, Marxist radical agenda,” Diamond says.“Hedge Fund short sellers are not capitalist. They are anti-capitalist and they are not investors; they are anti-investors.” He says they “loot” companies and countries.
[…]
AIM had warned about this potential problem in a January 16, 2008, column, “Soros Bets on U.S. Economic Collapse,” in which we noted hedge fund ties to the Democratic Party and a report that hedge fund managers, including Soros, stood to make billions of dollars from a U.S. housing market collapse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama and the Date-Rape of America
Good Americans from sea to shining sea are grappling right now with how to mentally process what they’re witnessing in Washington, D.C.
The spectacle of a far leftist president literally forcing socialized medicine down the throat of an unwilling center-right America is reminiscent, perhaps more than any other contemporary metaphor, of date rape.
A man determined to have his way with a woman may start off seducing her with lies, flattery and the usual pretense of caring about her. But at a critical moment, when she says, “Stop, I’m not comfortable with this and don’t want to go any further,” he has a choice: Either do the right thing and back off, or abandon all prior pretensions and take her by force.
As president, Barack Obama courted us with sweet talk, but America grew increasingly uncomfortable with his advances and firmly said, “Stop” — in fact, screamed bloody murder for months. Yet Obama remains obsessed with forcing himself on America.
Put aside for the moment the fact that Obama is single-handedly destroying the Democratic Party for years, perhaps decades, by maniacally pursuing Obamacare as though it were Moby Dick and he Captain Ahab, leading all the Pequod’s hapless Democrat crewmen into political destruction.
Rather, let’s focus on how to truly understand what we’re seeing — something virtually unprecedented in the American experience, at least in our lifetimes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Las Vegas Air Force Base Placed on Lockdown
Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas was placed on lockdown Friday with nearby streets closed, according to local reports.
Base spokesman Eugene Hill said the main gate was closed and the base was put on lockdown about 3 p.m., according to the Las Vegas Sun.
It remains unclear what has caused the lockdown.
Metro Police spokesman Bill Cassell said officers are assisting with traffic control in the area.
Nellis is the location of the United States Air Force Warfare Center and is a major training location for both U.S. and foreign military aircrews.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Administration Plans to Close International Labor Comparisons Office [To Hide Reality of Globalization]
Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks globalization’s winners and losers, and the results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped in South Korea and Australia.
Soon, however, Americans may be spared the demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the unit that produces them.
President Obama’s budget would eliminate the International Labor Comparisons office and transfer its 16 economists to expand the bureau’s work tracking inflation and occupational trends. The White House says the cut, estimated to save $2 million, is one of many difficult decisions the president was forced to make to control spending.
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Obama Calls ‘Entrepreneurship Summit’ With Muslims
The White House on Friday announced a “summit on entrepreneurship” to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama’s outreach to Muslims.
The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.
“The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama first spoke of the entrepreneurship conference in his signature June 4 speech in Cairo to the Islamic world.
In the closely watched address, Obama said the United States was seeking a “new beginning” with the Islamic world to rebuild relations that had sharply deteriorated over the past decade.
Obama promised at the time that he would convene a “presidential summit on entrepreneurship” by the end of 2009.
He said that the meeting would “identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Queens Imam Pleads Guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court
NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) — An imam linked to the suspects in an aborted suicide bomb plot against New York City pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to the FBI — a deal sparing him serious jail time but forcing him to leave the country.
A tearful Ahmad Afzali told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn that he had wanted to help authorities in the investigation of the threat, but lied under grilling by the FBI about his phone conversations with admitted al-Qaida associate Najibullah Zazi.
“In doing so, I failed to live up to my obligation to this country, my community, my family and my religion,” he said. “I am truly sorry.”
Under the plea deal, Afzali faces up to six months behind bars at sentencing on April 8. It also requires the Afghanistan-born defendant to leave the country within 90 days after completing the sentence or face deportation.
Afterward, he told reporters, “I just signed my death sentence.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Rise and Fall of a Female Captain Bligh
Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it’s no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn’t one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general’s report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.
A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf “repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault” and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens “for personal gain.” But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges, substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous atmosphere she created aboard her ship.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Muslim Imam Kicks Off Congress With Prayer
Turkish Muslim imam Abdullah Antepli from Duke University delivered the opening prayer for the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, where the Armenian “genocide” bill was put to the vote in the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.
The US Congress has opened with prayers since 1789 but it is an honor only three Muslims have been given so far, the last occasion being in 2003. Antepli was invited to give the prayer by Democrat Representative David Price from North Carolina.
Antepli prayed that God guide members of Congress and enable them to serve citizens of the country and all humanity, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion. “Fill their hearts and minds with passion and determination to improve the quality of the life of their fellow human beings,” he recited.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Veil of Secrecy Covers Toyota Cars’ ‘Black Boxes’
Automaker won’t release information that could help crash investigations
SOUTHLAKE, Texas — Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline “black boxes” that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts.
The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent — and sometimes even contradictory — in revealing exactly what the devices record and don’t record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.
By contrast, most other automakers routinely allow much more open access to information from their event data recorders, commonly known as EDRs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Newspaper Politiken ??Apologizes to Muslims Worldwide; Law Firm of Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Lawyers and Legal Consultants) Urges Other Danish Newspapers to Follow Suit
In the first success achieved by the legal efforts regarding the Cartoon Drawings of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him), which were published by the Danish Newspapers, Politiken (one of the newspapers that had published the Cartoon Drawing) declared its apology for the offence it had caused against Islam, Muslims, and their Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him).
On Friday, 26 February 2010, corresponding to the 12th of Rabee’ Al-Awal 1431H, Politiken published its apology and the draft of the settlement which has been reached between the newspaper and the Law Firm of Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Lawyers and Legal Consultants) mandated by Corpc Unison Kinsfolk Home Wolq (the International Organization of Ilaf Al El-Bait) which exist in eight countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, Australia, and Palestine, and has more than (95.000) ninety five thousand members who are the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him).
Mr. Faisal Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Executive Partner of the Law Firm of Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Lawyers and Legal Consultants) and the Lead Council of the Prophet Case said: “We thank God for our success in reaching a settlement with the Danish Newspaper which has recognized its mistake, apologized, and indicated not to reoffend Muslims and their Prophet (peace be upon him). We wished that all the Danish Newspapers which published the Drawings accepted to enter into a settlement as Politiken did, and published an apology to avoid multiple jurisdictional litigations and costly damages in favor of our clients.
Mr. Faisal Yamani pointed out that on the authorization of Corpc Unison Kinsfolk Home Wolq (the International Organization of Ilaf Al El-Bait) to the Law Firm of Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Lawyers and Legal Consultants) the Law Firm more than once sent letters to the seventeen Danish Newspapers requesting them to apologize in order to avoid multiple jurisdictional litigations against them.
Mr. Yamani stated: “we have succeeded in reaching a settlement with the newspaper, however, we will continue as mandated by our clients (the organizations) as they are the descendants of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and have been harmed as all Muslims around the world by the publication of the Cartoon Drawings.
And he added: “We have asked the Danish Newspapers three demands, namely:
- To provide an apology for publishing the drawing, on its hard copy publication.
- To remove the drawing from all the websites and the ones they control.
- To promise not to republish the drawing again…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Diana West: How the West Will be Won
When the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders recently addressed voters in Almere, a Dutch city of 200,000 where his party handily won elections this week, he told them what to expect as his once-tiny, anti-Islamization party started flexing its new political muscle. Aside from lower taxes and other political staples, his plans for this city not far from Amsterdam include a ban on Muslim headscarves.
Wilders’ ban would apply to “headscarves in municipal bodies and all other institutions (that) receive even one penny of subsidy from the municipality.” He continued: “And for all clarity: This (ban) is not meant for crosses or yarmulkes because those are symbols of religions that belong to our own culture and are not — as is the case with headscarves — a sign of an oppressive totalitarian ideology.”
Here, Wilders is distinguishing between the religions of Christianity and Judaism, and the religio-political ideology of Islam, noting not only the near-indigenous nature of the former, but also the encroaching totalitarianism of the latter. This is the crucial cultural argument to make if a cultural Reconquista of Europe from Islamization is to be successful.
Certainly, we have seen glimmers. Last year, Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party of Belgium led a winning campaign to ban the hijab — what he calls “the propaganda weapon of choice for the establishment of Islamic society in Europe” — in the Flemish schools of his country, making the same vital judgment call that Wilders did.
“(He) who defends the headscarf out of reasons of tolerance and pluralism has little or no understanding of Islam,” Dewinter said. “The hidden agenda behind the veil leads to segregation,” a veritable apartheid-regime, he explained, with which Islam seeks to control and dominate the West. Equating the Muslim head scarf with the Christian cross or the Jewish yamulke is “therefore incorrect,” Dewinter continued, identifying the headscarf as “the flag of a political ideology” in which it is not the individual religious experience that is central, but rather “the realization of a theocratic society based on sharia, or Islamic law.”
Maybe that’s a lot for Americans to take in, but they haven’t lived through the Islamization Decades that their European cousins have…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sarkozy Launches Anti-Deindustrialisation Plan
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MARCH 4 — French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented a series of measures to support industry hit by the crisis, today in Marignane in the south of the country, with the aim of increasing industrial production by 25% by 2015. Sarkozy said he wants to “protect jobs in industry” as the active workforce has plummeted by 15% in the industry in the last 10 years. In 2009 it accelerated, with 200,000 jobs destroyed and a crash of 11.9% in production. The industrial component of France’s GDP fell by 22% in 1999 to 16% in 2008, the same level as Great Britain, while in Germany it was 20%. In order to give a boost to France’s industry, Sarkozy mentioned the ‘large national loan’ of 6.5 billion euros which will be launched during 2010, 5.5 billion of which will go towards financing businesses which innovate and towards investment in transport and space. But the government also plans to propose a new savings product aimed in particular towards funding industry. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: New Halal Shop for Middle-Class Muslims
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MARCH 3 — A young businessman of Moroccan descent, Rachid Bakhalq, has opened a 100% halal food shop in Nanterre, in the Paris suburbs, making the most of a market which is growing rapidly in France. But Hal’Shop is not your average bazaar, because Rachid has gone for a “bobo” (bourgeois-bohemian) approach, his aim being to attract middle-class Muslims, whom he calls “Beurgeois” (a composite of “beur”, the term for a French person of North African descent and “bourgeois”). These are Muslims who are westernised in terms of lifestyle, but who cannot eat non-halal foods, explains the young man, who worked for General Motors and Danone before embarking on his latest adventure. His move comes after the fast-food outlet Quick created ripples by opening a branch serving only halal hamburgers. Rachid is offering these “bobo” Muslims a selection of French halal products, such as foie gras and sweets without pork-derived gelatin. No alcohol will be served but there are some products that are not associated with the tenets of Islam, such as spices, North African cured meats and Argan oil, items targeting what Rachid calls “food tourists”. According to a recent study, the halal food industry’s turnover, which has a predicted annual increase of 15%, is an estimated 5.5 billion euros for 2010, of which one billion comes from fast food. Bio products lag far behind with a predicted 2.6 billion euros.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Geert Wilders on Course to be Next Dutch Prime Minister
The far-right politician Geert Wilders is poised to become the next Dutch prime minister after making major gains in regional elections.
Municipal results announced on Thursday put his party in first place in Almere, a region near Amsterdam and second in The Hague, one the country’s largest cities and the seat of the Dutch government.
If repeated in national elections on June 9, the Freedom Party could win 27 out of 150 seats, becoming the largest single party and putting him in line to become prime minister and form a new government.
[…]
“The leftist elite still believes in multiculturalism, coddling criminals, a European superstate and high taxes. But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Keep Out GM Potato
Government ‘won’t allow’ EU approved genetically modified crops
(ANSA) — Rome, March 3 — A genetically modified (GM) potato approved by the European Commission this week will never cross the Italian border, Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia vowed Wednesday.
“We will be opting not to allow the sale or cultivation of the so-called Amflora potato in Italy,” he said.
On Tuesday, the EC ended a 12-year moratorium on new GM plants in Europe by giving the go-ahead to the Amflora potato, engineered to produce more of a certain kind of starch, as well as three varieties of pest-resistant corn.
Zaia was one of the first to speak out against the decision and on Wednesday criticised the newly elected European Health Commissioner, John Dalli, for his part in their approval.
“The EC has held firm against GM foods for over 12 years, but now Dalli, after just a week in office, gives them the go-ahead,” Zaia said.
While adding that he didn’t question Dalli’s good faith and scientific acumen, he maintained that Italy would not budge in its opposition.
The widely criticised decision on Tuesday included a clause allowing EU member states to decide for themselves whether or not to permit the crops’ cultivation and sale.
However, the Italian Farming Confederation (CIA) argued that taking advantage of the clause was not enough and that the government should adopt a law explicitly forbidding the cultivation GM foods in Italy and requiring products made with GM materials to bear a label. Following the decision, which met with near-unanimous disapproval from Italian politicians and conservationists, some reports cited the Catholic Church as coming out in favour of it.
The Vatican daily Osservatore Romano on Wednesday was quick to deny those reports, saying they confused the opinions of “a few individual clergymen” with an official position on the part of the Church.
However, the editorial did quote a passage from Pope Benedict XVI’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which suggested GM foods could help stamp out worldwide hunger.
“It’s no coincidence that countries which grow GM foods raised their annual production by 13% compared to 7% in the rest of the world,” said the article, adding that the number of hungry people in the world rose above one billion for the first time in history last year.
But Italian environmentalists insisted that long-term health risks overshadowed the possible benefits of GM foods, and promised fierce opposition should they ever appear in Italy.
The Italian Green Party on Wednesday threatened to occupy any land set aside for GM farming to protect Italian agriculture from contamination.
“We will take over the fields in a non-violent protest to protect our health and our food,” vowed party chairman Angelo Bonelli.
In the hospital after a 33-day hunger strike to protest alleged censorship in the media, Bonelli said his party would also ask Rome police to seize any imported seeds of GM plants as a public health risk.
He went on to criticize the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA), which gave the corn and potato the all-clear, for allegedly ignoring concerns raised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
According to experts, the Amfla starch potato contains small quantities of a protein that neutralizes the effects of two very common antibiotics, generating fears that exposure to them could render people more vulnerable to infection.
The three brands of corn, which have been approved for human consumption in the United States, have raised health concerns in Germany where one of the varieties is banned.
However, the EFSA said that extensive testing failed to demonstrate that the vegetables posed health risks of any kind.
According to a report issued Wednesday by farmers’ union Coldiretti, only six of 27 EU member states allow the cultivation of GM foods.
The study said GM seed sales fell by an average of 12% across those six countries, together with a net reduction of land set aside to grow them.
At present, Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and Portugal are the only countries in the EU that produce GM crops.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kercher ‘Violent Sex Crime’
‘Crescendo of violence’ in drug-fuelled attack, judge says
(ANSA) — Perugia, March 4 — The murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia in November 2007 was a violent sex crime, an Italian judge said Thursday in his detailed ruling on the December guilty verdict for Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
The murder, said Judge Giancarlo Massei in a written ruling of more than 400 pages in support of the 25-year and 26-year sentences, was “erotic, violent and sexual” in motive.
A second man sentenced to 16 years in a separate, appeals trial, Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede, tried to have sex with 21-year-old Kercher before she was killed on the night of November 1, the judge said.
Knox, now 22, and Sollecito, now 25, decided to help Guede, now 23, “subject Meredith to sex abuse” but the victim put up “fierce resistance”.
The assailants gripped the Leeds University exchange student so tightly around the throat they left bruises that led investigators to initially think the cause of death might have been suffocation, the judge said.
But this was in fact only a part of a “crescendo of violence” aimed at getting Kercher to give in to the attempted rape, he said.
Traces of Guede’s Y chromosome were taken by a vaginal swab during Kercher’s autopsy, the judge said.
A small wound found on Kercher’s neck was caused by a knife “Sollecito always had with him” and was made after he cut her bra, the verdict said.
The fatal wound was inflicted by Knox with a kitchen knife later found in Sollecito’s apartment, Judge Massei said.
Massei said the assailants were under the influence of drugs on the night of the attack, while Kercher had been drinking.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini hailed the ruling as “upholding almost entirely the prosecution case” and “vindicating the work of the police”.
DEFENCE VOWS TO REBUT SENTENCE ‘POINT BY POINT’.
Sollecito’s lawyer Luca Maori said his team intended to “rebut point by point” the verdict.
“It is a sentence which we still have to carefully assess but which we wholly disagree with,” Maori said.
There was no immediate response from Knox’s defence team.
The case will be examined at the Chamber of Deputies on March 18 by US legal experts called by the Italy-US Foundation.
Foundation Chairman Rocco Ghirlanda said “it will not be a counter-trial but will have the sole aim of comparing Italian and US judicial and trial systems and try to understand what a possible verdict might have been if a similar case had been tried in the United States”.
In the 427-page ruling, made public Thursday, Massei and fellow judge Beatrice Cristiani said the case against Knox and Sollecito was “without gaps or inconsistencies”.
Knox, a Seattle university exchange student living with Kercher, was sentenced to 26 years in jail and Sollecito, a Perugia University student from Perugia, to 25. They did not get a life sentence because they were first offenders.
Knox got one year more for defaming a local pub owner she initially blamed for the murder.
Both deny wrongdoing and are appealing.
The verdict, against Knox in particular, caused a strong reaction in the United States where ‘pro-Amanda’ groups who claimed she had been demonised by the press have rallied to support her appeal later this year. One of the United States’ top lawyers, Ted Simon, will flank her Italian defence team.
Simon said in January: “Her conviction was a tragic mistake…but I’m certain that we’ll be able to obtain her release with the new trial,” he said.
The appeal is expected to focus on the DNA evidence which was already hotly contested in the first trial.
After the sentence, the Knox family said she had received a fair trial but the verdict was a “big mistake”.
Under Italian law convicted criminals are entitled to two appeals. Knox and Sollecito’s first appeal is expected to get under way this summer.
Their legal teams are confident of overturning the verdict or getting the jail terms shortened.
The US consulate is providing its customary support for Knox ahead of her appeal.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Immigrant Voters Again Important for PvdA in Local Elections
THE HAGUE, 05/03/10 — Immigrant voters have again provided important support for Labour (PvdA) in the local elections. Moroccans in particular voted for the party en masse, according to research by Amsterdam city council and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam.
The PvdA remained the biggest party in Amsterdam by some way, partly due to 74 percent of Moroccans voting for the social democrats. Among Ghanaians, a big group in the Zuidoost district, the figure was even 88 percent. Among Surinamese and Antilleans, the PvdA ‘only’ won 53 percent, De Volkskrant reported yesterday. It gave no figures for Turks.
The PvdA was as always the biggest party in Amsterdam by a long way. But it did drop to 28.9 percent from 39.4 percent. The conservatives (VVD) won some ground (17.1 percent), as did the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks), to 15.2 percent, while the Socialist Party (SP) vote was halved to 7.4 percent. Centre-left D66 climbed to 14.8 percent from 4.1 percent in Amsterdam.
In 2006, the immigrant vote for PvdA was even higher at 80 percent, with only GroenLinks and SP picking up a few crumbs. This time around, D66 was also a competitor. The turnout in Amsterdam among immigrants was similar to four years earlier, ranging from 46 percent among Turks to 26 percent among Surinamese and Antilleans.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Abengoa: 5 Mln for Combined Cycle Plant
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 3 — Spanish group Abengoa will invest 5 million euros for the construction of a combined cycle thermoelectric plant in Tabernas, in the zone of Almeria, in Spain. The Econostrum.info website reports that the project, which will in part be financed by the provincial government of Andalusia (with 5 million euros), will see the participation of other companies such as DLR, a branch of Caterpillar Turbomach, GEA and Algerian Neal (New Energy Algeria). Once it is up and running, the new experimental plant — which plans for a solar tower, a 5 MW gas turbine — should allow the optimisation of gas consumption. Again in Tabernas, the Junta of Andalusia has decided to build a research centre for renewable energies. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Srdja Trifkovic: Prison of Nations
Nigel Farage, a British member of the European Parliament, was fined an equivalent of $4,000 on Tuesday for “insulting” the new European Union President Herman van Rompuy (r.) and refusing to apologize. In a memorable performance in Strasbourg ten days eaerlier, the Euroskeptic MEP told the former Beligian prime minister that he had “all the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk”:
“We were told that when we had a president, we’d see a giant global political figure, a man who would be the political leader for 500 million people, the man that would represent all of us all of us on the world stage, the man whose job was so important that of course you’re paid more than President Obama. Well, I’m afraid what we got was you… The question I want to ask is: ‘Who are you?’ I’d never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you.”
Mr. Farage’s tirade was well worth his ten days’ MEP allowance. It put some spotlight on the inner workings of a monstrous bureaucracy. It gave a welcome boost to the popularity of his UK Independence Party (UKIP), which advocates Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and opposes the Tory-Labour therapeutic-social-democratic duopoly. It provided a rare spark of rhetorical flair in an institution otherwise reminiscent of the Supreme Soviet, circa 1957.
But let us first consider Farage’s passing reference, during his response to Van Rompuy’s inaugural address, to Belgium as a “non-country,” “an artificial construction” which is “breaking up.” The bien-pensants were offended with that part of his statement, too, but they cannot refute the facts.
Belgium was created by treaty, ex nihilo, by the Concert of Europe 180 years ago, mainly on Britain’s insistence as a buffer keeping the Channel ports neutral…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland to Vote on Appointing Lawyers for Abused Pets
Switzerland, where flushing goldfish down the toilet is illegal, is preparing to vote on whether abused animals deserve lawyers.
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Tourism: Bit: One Out of Two Tourists Books Via Web
(ANSAmed) — RHO-PERO (MILAN), FEBRUARY 18 — According to Unioncamere-Isnart research presented at Fieramilano on the opening day of the International Tourism Bourse (BIT), there are more than 2.2 million hotel bed places in Italy, about a million more than in France and one third more than Spain’s. Italy appears to be the second destination for those seeking hotel accomodation (about 77 million, behind France’s 99 million), though the first in terms of visiting tourists,which amount to just short of 252 million. Here is a fact about marketing strategies,in which the web is increasingly becoming more evident: nowadays practically one out of two tourists (41%) makes their own booking in Italy’s establishments on-line (on-line bookings were 36% in 2008), whereas package tourists represent little more than 9%, as last year. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Torture’ Litigation Costs Begin at $60 Million
Resolution could take years to reach
LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided that “at least” $60 million taxpayer cash will be spent to meet the legal costs for damage cases lodged against the government by six former Guantanamo Bay detainees, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The six are suing MI5 and MI6, claiming the security services were complicit in alleged torture.
Seventy-five of Britain’s top lawyers have been retained by the government to analyze almost a million documents related to the Guantanamo Bay claimants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Spy Chips Hidden in 2.5 Million Dustbins: 60pc Rise in Electronic Bugs as Council Snoopers Plan Pay-as-You-Throw Tax
The growing threat of a stealth tax on the rubbish we throw away was exposed by startling figures yesterday.
More than 2.5million homes now have wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh their contents.
This is an increase of nearly two-thirds in just a year. The bins, which can be electronically identified and weighed, are designed for ‘pay-as-you-throw’ rubbish tax schemes.
Under such schemes — which are likely to be hugely unpopular — families who put out more waste will pay higher taxes to their local council.
Disclosure of the rapid spread of chipped bins followed the announcement this week of the first council to bring in a bin tax. Bristol City is presenting its scheme as a reward for recyclers, with cash payments to homes that leave out less rubbish.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Taxpayer Will Have to Fund Yet Another £250,000 New Identity for James Bulger Murderer After His Return to Jail
One of the killers of James Bulger will have to be given a second new identity costing the taxpayer £250,000, it emerged today.
Officials are resigned to having to provide Jon Venables with another new name, National Insurance number and passport, to protect his anonymity after he was recalled to prison.
It was claimed today fellow inmates are already aware of the 27-year-old killer’s real identity.
It was also alleged that Venables has made several visits to Liverpool — the scene of James’ killing — to enjoy nights out, a pop concert and a football match.
[…]
The tight-knit group that knows the new identity of Jon Venables operates a culture of extreme secrecy.
Even police officers who come in contact with the killer will have no idea they are dealing with a dangerous individual.
Instead, Venables has been told he can simply give any arresting officer his new name — guaranteeing he is treated like any other member of the public.
Normally, when police stop a murderer, a cursory check of the Police National Computer would advise them of the criminal history of who they are dealing with so they can take great care in the way they handle the case.
But in Venables’s case his new name is on the computer and it does not have his full criminal history. The same is true of the DNA and fingerprint databases. A police officer entering Venables’s new name into the computer would not be aware of the full truth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: We Must Not be Afraid of Taking on Islamic Extremists
Muslims are standing up to fundamentalist organisations such as the Islamic Forum of Europe. We should do the same, writes Andrew Gilligan.
By Andrew Gilligan
The East End has one of the best local papers in Britain, a genuine mirror of its community. But curiously, this week’s issue seems to have missed a story which has been making some serious waves in that very community. One of the local MPs, Labour’s Jim Fitzpatrick, was quoted in The Sunday Telegraph, and on national television, as saying that his party had been infiltrated by a secretive, fundamentalist organisation, the Islamic Forum of Europe — which he compares to the Militant Tendency in the 1980s.
At the same time, the area’s other MP, George Galloway, was quoted — albeit on a secretly recorded tape — as saying that the IFE played a “decisive role” in his election victory, and admitting that he owes them “more than it would be wise… for me to say”. Lutfur Rahman, the council leader in Tower Hamlets, repeatedly refused to deny that the IFE helped him win the leadership. And the reports also pointed out that a great deal of public money has been channelled to IFE-linked projects, causing council officers major concerns.
The IFE, based at the hardline East London mosque, claims to be an “open and tolerant” social welfare institution. In fact, as undercover reporters for Channel 4’s Dispatches found, it is working, in its own words, to change the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed… from ignorance to Islam”. It may not manage that — but it has already won significant political power over a multiracial community through democratic, secular parties whose values are diametrically opposed to its own.
I admit an interest — I made the programme, and wrote The Sunday Telegraph report. But I think I know why others are reluctant to address the issues we raised. That reason is fear. In six months of research, we spoke to dozens of people in the Tower Hamlets Labour Party. Almost everyone who talked to us said exactly the same thing — but no one, save Mr Fitzpatrick, was brave enough to say it on the record.
Graham Taylor, the chairman of the party, has been forced to make a grovelling apology for suggesting that the town hall was a “centre of Islamic fundamentalism” (he says the comment was meant ironically). Rushanara Ali, the Labour candidate in Mr Galloway’s Bethnal Green & Bow constituency, is a secular moderate. But she issued a weaselly statement which can be read, as it was no doubt intended, as an attack on Mr Fitzpatrick, who represents the neighbouring constituency of Poplar and Canning Town.
In the back of every politician’s mind lurks the fear that taking on the IFE will cost them votes. In the back of every journalist’s mind is the knowledge that writing anything even faintly questioning of the East London mosque will incur tedious correspondence with its hair-trigger libel lawyers. In the back of every white person’s mind lurks the fear of the IFE’s favoured charge, “Islamophobia”.
Dispatches’s answer to that charge is that 70 per cent of our interviewees were Muslim. The most important people in the film are the locals of the area — Harmuz Ali, the vice-chairman of the Brick Lane mosque, Badrul Islam, the chief executive of the Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project, and many others. They reject the IFE, knowing better than anyone that it does not represent their community. They dismiss as nonsense the claim that any attack on it is an attack on Islam itself.
Interestingly, too, the IFE’s and the mosque’s response to the reports has so far been rather more muted than their pre-publication threats would suggest. The Muslim community of East London is calling the IFE’s bluff. Given the importance of this issue, it is time for others to find similar courage.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Wilders, Not Islam, ‘Is Holland’s Biggest Problem’
Geert Wilders and his anti-Islam Freedom Party party did well in Dutch municipal elections on Wednesday. Still, despite the attention the populist party attracts, it still has a long way to go if it wants power on the national stage, say German commentators.
General elections in Holland aren’t scheduled until June. But municipal polls on Wednesday may have provided a peek at how the populist, anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders’ might fare. And for many, the glimpse is cause for some concern.
Election results show that Wilders’ party came out in front in the town of Almere and finished in second place in The Hague, the only two municipalities — of 394 — where his party put up candidates.
“Today Almere and The Hague, tomorrow the whole of the Netherlands,” Wilders said Wednesday night, according to the AP. “We’re going to take the Netherlands back from the leftist elite that coddles criminals and supports Islamization.” Given the weak showing by the Christian Democrats and the Labor party — which shared power in a national coalition until it collapsed last month over the country’s Afghanistan deployment — Wednesday’s vote could signal that the Freedom Party may be a key player in June.
Wilders, 46, is known for his outspoken anti-Islam and anti-immigrant views. He has called for headscarves to be banned in public buildings, compares the Koran with Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and wants to see “urban commandos” provide “additional safety” on city streets. He is currently facing charges for inciting hatred. On Friday, he is in Britain for a showing of his controversial, anti-Muslim film “Fitna.”
In Friday’s newspapers, German commentators express disappointment at Wilders’ success but add that his party doesn’t have the manpower yet to act on the national stage. At the same time, they also see it as a ominous sign, worrying that the troubles there might soon find their way to Germany:…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Turkey and Croatia, No Decentralisation Progress
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 2 — No progress has been achieved in the decentralisation of power: an opinion project being debated by the Committee of European regions complained about the lack of improvement by two candidate Countries to join the EU (Turkey and Croatia) when it comes to local and regional administrations. The opinion, whose spokesperson is Georgios Papastergiou (Ppe) from Greece, highlights in the case of Turkey its “disappointment for the total lack of progress in the transfer of jurisdiction to local powers”. But the spokesperson also pointed out that Croatia “failed to adopt the decentralisation strategy” and that “there is the absence of coordination between the political and technical levels, as like between the central and local administrations”. The opinion was examined today by the competent commission that was also called to draw up the situation concerning the use of the pre-acceptance instrument which should offer municipalities and regions the means required for an improved integration at all levels. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Tounsi Murder, Family Contests Official Version
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MARCH 4 — The family of Ali Tounsi, the Algerian police chief killed a week ago in his Algiers office by one of his collaborators, Colonel Chaib Oultache, have decided to break the reigning silence and speak out against the official version, calling it “biased and premature”. A few days ago Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said that the murder had occurred “without witnesses”, underscoring that it had been of a personal nature, simply “a matter between two men”. His family “cannot be indifferent” to “such comments, which attempt to explain the murderer’s motives as ones of a personal nature”, reads the statement released by the press. Tounsi, said his family, “did not have any problem with his killer, nor with anyone else. The deceased was killed in cold blood, in a cowardly and deliberate manner in his office just before a meeting,” and “he died as a patriot, in the service of the State in the struggle against criminality in all its forms.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Bill Proposed on Crimes From French Colonial Period
(ANSAmed)- ALGIERS, MARCH 4 — A draft law to criminalise French colonialism is currently being examined by the Algerian government, which must make a decision within 60 days. After an initial postponement, a reworked bill was presented to Algerian Parliament again on February 25, reported the Algerian press. The draft law demands that Paris apologise and calls for the creation of special war crime tribunals for acts carried out during the colonial period (1830-1962). The proposal was signed by 125 MPs from various parties, including the alliance that supports the president, the National Liberation Front (FLN, formerly the country’s single party), the National Rally for Democracy (RND) and the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, formerly Hamas). When it first arrived in Parliament on February 12, the bill sparked anger in the French government, reigniting the periodic tensions that exist between the two countries. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: 1.6 Mln Counterfeit Articles Seized in 2009
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MARCH 4 — In 2009, Algerian customs officers impounded one million 640 thousand counterfeit articles. The general direction of customs offices (DGDN), quoted by APS, reports that this number is rising: in 2008 1.59 million articles were impounded. Cigarettes and cosmetics represent respectively 41.36% and 30.18% of all seized products. Most of them come from China (62.5%), United Arab Emirates (18.75%), France and Niger (6.2% each), Turkey and Thailand (3.2% each). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Lebanese Popstar Homicide, New Trial for Tycoon
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MARCH 4 — The Supreme Court of Cairo has accepted the appeal presented by the lawyers of Egyptian businessman, Hisham Talat Mustafa, and by the police official Mohsen el-Sukkariti, both condemned to death for the assassination of the Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim. The two will thus be retried by another court of law. According to a release given after the sentence, the original verdict “was found to be erroneous in its application of the law”, and the court did not respond to several important pleas by the defense. Last summer, the death sentences by hanging had been confirmed for Mustafa, a member of the National Democratic Party (PND, currently in power) and of the retired official el-Sukkariti, one for have ordered the killing of the singer, 30 years of age, and the other for having carried it out. The woman was killed in 2008 in Dubai. The Court had initially given its verdict in May of 2009, but the death sentence still had to be ratified by the high judge, or mufti. According to the charges, Mustafa, who allegedly had an intimate relation with the singer, paid el-Sukkariti 2 million dollars to kill Suzanne Tamim, who was the found dead on July 28, 2008 in her Dubai apartment, with numerous stab wounds and her throat slit. El-Sukkariti, after having watched the singer’s house, supposedly introduced himself to her as a real-estate agent, and then stabbed her. Mustafa directed one of his multi-billion dollar economic groups and was also a member of the consultative Council (Senate). He had been deprived of immunity and substituted by his brother as the head of the enterprise. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Arab League Supports Tripoli Against Switzerland
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, MARCH 4 — The Ministers of Arab League Countries decided yesterday in Cairo to fully support Libya in its conflict with Switzerland, which they called “racist”, and to officially ask EU institutions to “refuse the list of people who are not allowed to enter the Schengen countries”. The document arrived after another long day dedicated to the diplomatic row between Libya and Switzerland that started in July 2009, when Hannibal Gaddafi, one of the sons of the Libyan leader, was arrested in Geneva. The countries that signed the document are: Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Djibouti, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia. The decision was taken on the day when Libya launched a “total” commercial and economic embargo on Switzerland. This new move follows the crisis of Schengen visas and the call for Jihad, ‘holy war’, made by Libyan leader Gaddafi against Switzerland because of the question of the referendum on minarets. The announcement of the “total commercial and economic” embargo came at the moment when Libyan Foreign Minister Mousa Kousa spoke of some hope to resolve the diplomatic crisis between the two countries. In the past two months Tripoli has cut its oil supplies to Switzerland, withdrawn Libyan capital from the country’s banks, closed the doors to Swiss Air and to close all Swiss companies active in Libya. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
E. Jerusalem: Jews Praise Jewish Terrorist
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MARCH 4 — Jewish inhabitants of the Arab district of Sheik Jarrah, in East Jerusalem, have sung the praises of the Jewish terrorist and physician Baruch Goldstein. Goldstein opened fire on praying Muslims in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron 16 years ago, killing 29 Palestinians before being killed himself. The Sheik Jarrah is the focus of serious tensions between the local Arab population and Jewish settlers who are trying to move into the area. Israeli leftwing pacifists and activists have organised a demonstration in the district for next Saturday, to denounce the violent conduct of these settlers. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jerusalem: Clashes Erupt at Temple Mount
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MARCH 5 — Clashes erupt today at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at the end of Friday prayers. According to military radio, groups of Islamic worshippers threw rocks against the Wailing Wall which stands below, where Jewish followers were located. In order to bring an end to the disturbances, the Israeli police entered the Temple Mount where they met with a considerable hail of stones. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Million Hungry Souls: Brutal Transfer Committed by Syrian Regime Finally Recognized by UN
Syria can no longer hide the immense transfer it has embarked on in respect to more than one million of its miserable citizens, after a UN report two weeks ago exposed the bitter truth successfully concealed thus far: More than 300,000 Syrian families have been uprooted by authorities from their homes in eastern Syria and abandoned in the country’s major cities without any means of making a living. The reason: An illogical policy of forced agricultural in the east of the country that included forcing residents to grow water-hungry corps such as cotton and wheat; this prompted water wells to dry up completely and led to deep hunger.
This is the greatest transfer operation undertaken in the Middle East in dozens of years and Syria tried as much as possible to hide it, as it cannot admit to such grave economic failure while also admitting that it is no different than hunger and drought stricken African nations. Now everyone also understand how deeply desperate Syria was to get its hands on our Sea of Galilee, in order to dry it up completely by transferring water in pipes to eastern Syria, to the arid and no longer inhabitable areas.
Syria also prefers to bow down to Turkey, so that the latter perhaps hand over more water from the Euphrates. The issue of water involving Syria, Turkey, and Iraq is grave and severe, yet everyone tries to hide it as much as is possible. I already wrote in the past about the Syrian plot to take over the Sea of Galilee in order to resolve its water crisis, and now we got the official proof in the form of the UN report.
Our Golan buffer
What would have happened had Israel handed over the Golan to Syria? Where would the Syrians deliberately and immediately relocate their million uprooted citizens to, in order to take over the area and be kept away from the major cities? The answer is clear — the Golan Heights; there is water there. Bashar Assad dreams of filling the Golan with one million Syrians, and then northern Israel will be in his hands; when he wishes to do so, he will prompt “resistance” and then roll his eyes to the heavens and declare that he doesn’t know who did it.
Given that the ethnic rule in Syria is artificial — that is, the small 7% Alawite minority rules over the other hostile 93% of citizens — a civil war is merely a matter of time. In Iraq, a Sunni minority ruled over a Shiite majority, yet the Middle East is mostly Sunni. Alawites can only be found in Syria. Should this happen, and the Golan will be deliberately inhabited by Syrian citizens, the terrible ethnic war will also immediately boil over to our Galilee. There will be neither stability nor peace; it will only open the door for much worse trouble.
The Syrian regime has made a reputation of forced transfers of its oppressed citizens: It already transferred about one million Syrian citizens to Lebanon in order to take over its economy, and now another one million Syrians were transferred from the east of the country, under terrible conditions of coercion and brutality. This, of course, does not stop the Syrian regime from raising a hue and cry in respect to Israel’s “horrific acts” in Gaza.
Fortunately, we have the Golan in order to isolate us from the civil war that will be raging in Syria, as happened in its neighboring country, Iraq. The Golan also serves as a buffer in the face of the brutal Syrian regime; it is doubtful whether the US president knew what the regime is doing to more than one million of its own miserable citizens when he decided to renew diplomatic ties with Damascus. It is the very same Syria whose regime is still the only suspect in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
After reading this article, no Israeli would again be able to claim: I didn’t know. Should the Golan Heights be handed over to Syria, the plateau will be filled with people incited against us and deliberately used to target northern Israel, in an organized and unorganized manner. In a world of lies, deception, and concealment of the truth, this article is a warning.
| — Hat tip: RH | [Return to headlines] |
Barry Rubin: When It’s Necessary and Desirable to Assassinate Terrorists
There has been a huge international controversy about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leading Hamas terrorist, in Dubai on January 19. I have no idea who did it but have some points to make on the subject.
1. Generally speaking, media coverage almost never (in Europe) or only minimally (in the United States) talks about what Mabhouh actually did to merit his end. The New York Times had the following paragraph at the very end of its story:
“Mr. Mabhouh had a role in the 1989 abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers, and was also involved in smuggling weapons into Gaza, Israel and Hamas have said. Israel officials say the weapons came from Iran.”
It would seem that there would be more discussion of the deeds of such people so they are not portrayed, at least implicitly, as innocent victims. Readers could weigh the assassination against their crimes, which would otherwise go unhindered and unpunished. Mabhouh was probably in Dubai arranging more arms’ shipments from Iran so that Hamas could go to war again, causing deaths on both sides. He was a real war criminal, in contrast to the bogus ones fabricated by the terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships which seem to have so much influence on the “human rights” agenda.
2. As long as Western states do nothing to help bring Hamas or Hizballah terrorists to justice, and since Israel has no way of getting these people before a court, it has no option other than the extra-judicial one. Remember that an Israeli cabinet minister is more likely to face prosecution in the United Kingdom nowadays than a terrorist who has murdered Israeli civilians.
Some European countries—France and Italy have admitted as much regarding past deals—have secret agreements with terrorist groups to allow them to operate freely as long as they don’t do attacks within the country. Other terrorists—like the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered an American citizen or one of the Libyan masterminds of the Lockerbie plane bombing that killed scores of passengers, mainly Americans—have been released from prison without completing their terms.
This point of international culpability in letting certain terrorists escape or function isn’t brought up, explained, or seriously discussed: What do you do if specific people are attacking you and there’s no other option to stopping them? If the United States could assassinate Usama bin Ladin or other top al-Qaida terrorists whom it could not capture shouldn’t it do so? Of course it should.
3. There is a cliché when talking about counter-terrorism to the effect that getting a specific individual doesn’t matter as there is always someone to replace him. But in terrorism, as in other aspects of life, there are more effective and less effective individuals. Since Israel eliminated Hamas’s master bombmaker-who not only made bombs but trained others—in 1995, less capable people replacing him in that line of work have managed to blow themselves up a lot.
The terrorist Imad Mugniya, who someone killed in Damascus, was a unique individual since he had personally worked with the Palestinians, Hizballah, Syria, and Iran. Given his energy, ability, and connections he was not really replaceable.
Mabhouh was in a similar position, the top Hamas arms’ procurer who enjoyed the trust of the Iranians and who knew how to get lots of rockets and other equipment quickly and consistently.
These are not people who merely carried out a specific attack but those who make possible the staging of dozens of attacks.
Of course, terrorism doesn’t go away-expecting that it will do so is a Western act of wishful thinking-but the point is to reduce the number and effectiveness of attacks, and thus the number of casualties.
There are other advantages to eliminating key terrorist operatives. Often it can spark factional conflicts which make terrorist groups spend more time on internal battles. It also sparks mistrust among terrorist partners. If Mugniya can be assassinated in the neighborhood of Damascus that is the most secure place in all of Syria, can Iran and Hizballah trust Syria? Where did the leak occur? Who is infiltrated by the enemy?
Indeed, though outsiders may understate this reality, there is more than a seed of suspicion planted…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Divorced Before Puberty
By Nicholas D. Kristof
It’s hard to imagine that there have been many younger divorcées — or braver ones — than a pint-size third grader named Nujood Ali.
Nujood is a Yemeni girl, and it’s no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists (and now, thanks to Nujood, children who have been divorced). Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.
For Nujood, the nightmare began at age 10 when her family told her that she would be marrying a deliveryman in his 30s. Although Nujood’s mother was unhappy, she did not protest. “In our country it’s the men who give the orders, and the women who follow them,” Nujood writes in a powerful new autobiography just published in the United States this week, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.”
Her new husband forced her to drop out of school (she was in the second grade) because a married woman shouldn’t be a student. At her wedding, Nujood sat in the corner, her face swollen from crying.
Nujood’s father asked the husband not to touch her until a year after she had had her first menstrual period. But as soon as they were married, she writes, her husband forced himself on her.
He soon began to beat her as well, the memoir says, and her new mother-in-law offered no sympathy. “Hit her even harder,” the mother-in-law would tell her son.
Nujood had heard that judges could grant divorces, so one day she sneaked away, jumped into a taxi and asked to go to the courthouse.
“I want to talk to the judge,” the book quotes Nujood as forlornly telling a woman in the courthouse.
“Which judge are you looking for?”
“I just want to speak to a judge, that’s all.”
“But there are lots of judges in this courthouse.”
“Take me to a judge — it doesn’t matter which one!”
When she finally encountered a judge, Nujood declared firmly: “I want a divorce!”
Yemeni journalists turned Nujood into a cause célèbre, and she eventually won her divorce. The publicity inspired others, including an 8-year-old Saudi girl married to a man in his 50s, to seek annulments and divorces.
As a pioneer, Nujood came to the United States and was honored in 2008 as one of Glamour magazine’s “Women of the Year.”
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GOP Reps. Want Charges Dropped Against Seals Accused of Abusing Terror Suspect
Two Republican lawmakers are seeking to have charges dropped against three Navy SEALs facing court-martial for accusations of abusing a terror suspect arrested for an ambush killing of U.S. contractors in Iraq.
The SEALs — Special Warfare Operators 2nd Class Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe and Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Julio Huertas — were part of a team that in September 2009 captured Ahmed Hashim Abed, the suspected plotter behind the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA contractors in Fallujah in 2004.
The contractors’ bodies were burned and left hanging from a bridge. The image came to symbolize the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the brutality of the enemy Americans face there.
McCabe is accused of punching Abed in the stomach and giving him a bloody lip during the arrest.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Death Penalty for 12 Extremists
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, MARCH 4 — Twelve extreme Islamist terrorists have been sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Beirut for taking part in clashes against the Lebanese army in the refugee camp Nahr al Bared in 2007. The tribunal sentenced the extremists for “forming an armed group with terrorist aims” and for killing Lebanese soldiers and civilians. The men were all members of Fatah al Islam, a group inspired by al Qaeda, and six of them were Palestinian. From May to September 2007, over 400 people, almost 200 of them Lebanese soldiers, were killed in battles inside and around the Palestinian camp close to the northern port of Tripoli. Three of the terrorists were sentenced in absentia. The suspected leader of the group, Shaker al Abbsi, is still on the run. In recent weeks another dozen members of Fatah al Islam were sentenced to death, something that is hardly ever carried out in Lebanon, however.DAC (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Pleased With Raid Against PKK in Belgium
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 4 — Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said today Turkey was pleased with the operation being waged in Belgium against terrorist organization PKK. At a joint conference with his New Zealander counterpart Murray McCully in Ankara, Davutoglu thanked Belgian authorities for their cooperation. Belgian Police launched a wide-scale operation against terrorist organization in Belgium Thursday morning, raiding 25 locations including the studios of ROJ TV, broadcast organ of the terrorist organization, in Denderleeuw town near Brussels. The Police arrested several members of the organization including former legislator of the dissolved Democratic Party, Remzi Kartal, and his assistant Zubeyr Aydar. “We are very pleased because Belgium fulfilled its responsibility,” said Davutoglu. Belgium’s stance following the suit of Italy and France, is a clear message to those who provide resources to acts of terror,” said Davutoglu. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Lay Women Rip Veils in the Streets
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 4 — In a demonstration that was more unique than rare in Turkey, against the feared Islamization of the country, roughly a hundred lay women, belonging to the main opposition party, demonstrated in the southern city of Mersin, ripping apart dozens of turbans, the traditional Islamic Turkish veil, and trampling the pieces. This was stated by local media, which published several images of the protest, which took place before the so-called ‘House of Ataturk’, situated on the street of the same name, in Mersin. Appearing for the protest were the “die hard” members of the People’s Republican Party (CHP), the political party founded in 1923 by Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, with the name of the People’s Party, on the occasion, yesterday, of the anniversary of the abolition of the Califate in Turkey. The initiative, more than being anti-Islamic, was against the CHP, which last year, in an attempt to gain back popular support and votes before the administrative elections of March 29, 2009, had launched a so-called “openness to the turban”, (a piece of clothing that the secular Turkish Constitution forbids being worn in universities and in all other government offices), thus irritating thousands of its own supporters, both men and women, mostly lay. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Massacres of Armenians, We Won’t Cave Into Pressure
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 5 — “We will not cave into pressure and Turkey will never make decisions under pressure from anyone,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Speaking about normalising relations with Armenia, the minister said that “this will require common sense from all parties involved. Aside from the last 25 years, we have lived in peace with the Armenians for 10 centuries. Any intervention by other parties will only damage the process of normalising relations between Ankara and Yerevan”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Armenian Massacres; Use of Incirlik Air Base at Risk
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 5 — In reaction to the approval yesterday evening by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on a resolution in which the Armenian massacres that took place during the Ottoman empire are defined as “genocide”, Ankara could prohibit the US from using the Incirlik air base (southern Turkey) which is currently used by the US military to supply their troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The news was reported by daily newspapers Zaman and Hurriyet. The Turkish threat to not allow the US to use Incirlik is not new. The same threat was made in October 2007 after the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress approved a similar motion to the one approved yesterday evening. Again at that time Ankara recalled their then ambassador, Nabi Sensoy, back to Turkey for consultations. All the Turkish daily newspapers today headline on yesterday evening’s vote in Washington and underline how the US President Barack Obama “did not do enough” to block the resolution. Daily newspaper Vatan, in particular, highlights the “hardly orthodox” methods which it says the Committee head, Democrat Howard Berman, is said to have used to get his more rebellious colleagues to vote. For his part, Murat Mercan, Chairman of the Turkish Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, who is currently in Washington, has described yesterday’s vote as “a comedy”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Armenian Massacres; USA, Ankara Not Mincing Words
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 5 — The vote of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on a non-binding resolution in which the 1915 and 1917 Armenian massacres that took place during the Ottoman empire are defined as “genocide” was expected in Ankara. So much so that, with unusual speed in Turkey, as soon as it was discovered from the website of the Turkish Cabinet Office that out of the 46 members of the Committee, 23 against 22 voted in favour of the document, a message of condemnation immediately appeared. Premier Tayyip Erdogan expressed concern over the consequences of the vote and underlined that the taking of a stance by the parliamentary body “risks damaging Turkish-American relations, as well as the process of normalisation between Turkey and Armenia.” Shortly after, it was announced that the Turkish Ambassador to the US, Namik Tan, has been immediately recalled to Ankara “for consultation”. Tan arrived in Washington just a few weeks but is already an expert on America. That things were not looking good for Ankara was already clear a few days ago, but events have taken a turn for the worse in the last 48 hours. Turkey was opposed to the approval of the document insomuch as it has always denied that the number of Armenians killed during the massacres total one and a half million (for Ankara there were “only” 300,000) and that they died as a result of a civil war and not due to genocide. Thus yesterday morning Turkey had already raised not only the possibility of withdrawing their Ambassador if the resolution were approved, but also the potential of cancelling contracts worth 45 billion dollars with five large US defence companies. Furthermore, Ankara has circulated — via the Turkish press — a so-called ‘Plan B’ to be implemented if the document is approved. This plan sets out, amongst other things, that Turkey could potentially not ratify the protocols of normalisation of relations signed in October in Zurich with Armenia, considered to be important for the stability of the Caucasus. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Warns US Over Armenian ‘Genocide’ Vote
Foreign Minister Davutoglu cautions Obama administration of negative diplomatic consequences if it doesn’t impede American resolution on World War I-era killing of Armenians. US Secretary of State Clinton says will ‘work very hard to ensure the resolution does not go to the house floor’
Associated Press Published: 03.05.10, 21:47 / Israel News
Turkey warned the Obama administration on Friday of negative diplomatic consequences if it doesn’t impede a US resolution branding the World War I-era killing of Armenians genocide.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey, a key Muslim ally of the US, would assess what measures it would take, adding that the issue was a matter of “honor” for his country.
Meanwhile, a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said there was an understanding with the Democratic leadership in Congress that the resolution would not proceed to a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.
A US congressional committee approved the measure Thursday. The 23-22 vote would send the measure to the full House of Representatives, if the leadership decided to bring it up. Minutes after the vote, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to the US.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not answer a question about the diplomatic fallout Friday.
“The Obama administration strongly opposes the resolution that was passed by only one vote by the House committee and will work very hard to make sure it does not go to the house floor,” Clinton told reporters in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
President Barack Obama’s administration had been silent about the resolution until shortly before the vote when it said it opposed its passage. Turkey wants stronger action to block the resolution.
“The picture shows that the US administration did not put enough weight behind the issue,” Davutoglu told reporters. “We are seriously disturbed by the result.”
“We expect the US administration to, as of now, display more effective efforts. Otherwise the picture ahead will not be a positive one,” he said. He complained of a lack of “strategic vision” in Washington.
The measure was approved at a time when Washington is expected to press Turkey to back sanctions against Iran to be approved in the UN Security Council, where Turkey currently holds a seat. Turkish cooperation also is important to US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘Domestic political games’
Also at stake are defense contracts. Turkey is an important market for US defense companies, many of which had lobbied against the measure.
“We have had good cooperation with the US administration at all levels,” Davutoglu said. “We would expect our contributions not to be sacrificed to domestic political games.”
Davutoglu said the US ambassador had been called to the Foreign Ministry for talks. The ambassador, James Jeffrey, told reporters the Obama administration was opposed to the measure being voted in the full House.
The foreign minister said Turkey was determined to press ahead with efforts to normalize ties with Armenia, but said Turkey would not be “pressured” into taking any decisions.
He added that the vote had put the ratification of agreements to normalize ties with Armenia at risk.
Last year, Turkey and Armenia agreed to normalize ties by establishing diplomatic relations and reopen their shared border, but the agreements have yet to be approved by their parliaments.
Turkey has been dragging its feet, fearful of upsetting ally Azerbaijan, which balks at any suggestion of the reopening of the border until its own dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh is settled. The region in Azerbaijan has been under Armenian control.
Armenian groups have sought congressional affirmation of the killings as genocide for decades and welcomed Thursday’s vote.
“The problem that America faces is how to recognize the Armenian genocide without damaging its strategic alliance with Ankara. But at some point, we must adopt moral positions,” Mourad Papazian, president of the western European branch of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, told AP Television News in Paris.
He stood in front of a monument overlooking the Seine River to victims of the killings.
“The reaction is unanimous, that is to say that the Armenian residents and the diaspora welcome the decision” by the House foreign affairs committee, he said.
Armenians abroad — estimated at 5.7 million — outnumber the 3.2 million living in Armenia itself, the smallest of the ex-Soviet republics.
In Ankara, dozens of members of a small left-wing party staged a protest near the heavily protected US Embassy, shouting: “Genocide is an American lie!” Police allowed a small group to approach and lay a black wreath at its gates.
The genocide issue is one of many obstacles to Turkey’s membership in the European Union. Turkey has been struggling to block similar genocide bills in parliaments across the globe.
The US congressional vote came at a time when relations with the United States — strained by Turkey’s refusal to allow its territory to be used for the invasion of Iraq — had recently improved. Turkey was the first Muslim country Obama visited after taking office.
| — Hat tip: RH | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Premier Erdogan to Receive “Arab Nobel Prize”
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 5 — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Saudi Arabia next week to receive the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam, popularly known as the “Arab Nobel Prize,” as Anatolia news agency reports. Erdogan will visit Saudi Arabia on March 8 and 9. Prior to his visit, Erdogan, who spoke to the International Islamic News Agency, said that he considered the prize was awarded not only to him but also to Turkish nation and Turkey. The prize, which is given every year by Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Foundation, is presented to scientists and people who create positive differences in the world and make contributions to Islam. This year, eight people from seven countries were announced winners of the prize in different categories such as, Service to Islam, Medicine, Arabic Language and Literature, Islamic Studies, and Science. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Global Jihad Creeping Into Russia’s Insurgency
The Islamist insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus region appears to be mutating from a grassroots separatist movement towards global jihad or holy war, whose goals, propaganda and patronage point abroad.
In February Russia’s most wanted guerrilla, Chechen-born Doku Umarov, vowed on Islamist websites to spread his attacks from the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus into the nation’s heartland, wreaking havoc through jihad.
His pledge follows escalating violence in the form of shootings and suicide bombs targeting authorities over the last year in the mountainous North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya, site of two separatist wars since the mid-1990s, and the provinces flanking it, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Regional Muslim leaders and rebels revile each other as blasphemous and criminal. But after years of the Soviet Union suppressing religion, both welcome a Muslim revival that has brought elaborate new mosques, government-sponsored hajj trips to Mecca and a bubbling interest in Arabic.
Alexander Cherkasov, who has closely followed the North Caucasus for 15 years for rights group Memorial, said whereas in the past rebels wanted freedom from Russia, a struggle that dates back over 200 years, now they are influenced by jihadism, a global fight against alleged enemies of Islam.
“Part of it is homegrown. Corruption leads many to seek out what they call true Islam, but political Islam, by way of foreign financing and insurgents, is certainly playing a role,” he told Reuters.
Al-Qaeda links?
Al-Qaeda operative and Egyptian militant Makhmoud Mokhammed Shaaban in Dagestan, who the FSB security service said had masterminded several bombings.
A myriad of web sites that have come to characterize the insurgency show videos of “martyrs”, something unheard of in the region five years ago. They feature mostly local men, framed by Caucasus flags, chanting in Arabic ahead of suicide missions.
Over the last year, public statements of support for Doku Umarov and other Caucasus rebel leaders have come from a leading al-Qaeda mentor, Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi.
U.S. intelligence officials say Maqdisi is a major jihadi mentor who wields more influence over Islamist ideology than leading militants such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.
In an open letter to Umarov last year, which was posted on unofficial Islamist websites, Maqdisi said “it is my great pleasure to express my alignment with, patronage for, and support to the Mujahideen of the Caucasus.”
Rebel leader Alexander Tikhomirov, an accomplished cleric who renamed himself Said Buryatsky after his native East Siberian Buryatia region, trained for jihad in Egypt for many years, where he learned fluent Arabic, political analysts say.
Buryatsky took responsibility for the deadliest attack in the North Caucasus in four years last August when a suicide bomber killed at least 20 and injured 138 at a police headquarters in Ingushetia.
Christopher Langton of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told Reuters that “jihadism” in the North Caucasus is “energized” partly by links to Afghanistan and the Middle East composed of a mixture of smuggling, trade, Islamic non-governmental organizations and charities.
The FSB, successor to the KGB, has long said the insurgency has links to al Qaeda although regional leaders reject that.
“We have identified enormous financial influence from Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Sergei Goncharov, head of a group of veterans of an elite KGB force.
Isolation tactic
But Kremlin critics say the government blames al-Qaeda to cover up its share of responsibility for the region’s poverty and endemic corruption, which also inspires youths to turn to extremism.
“Moscow wants to conceptualize the North Caucasus, they are interested in isolating it from the rest of Russia,” Glen Howard, President of the Washington-based think tank Jamestown Foundation, told Reuters.
Regional leaders often play down the insurgency as a whole.
Moscow-backed hardline Chechen boss Ramzan Kadyrov says there are fewer than 30 insurgents left in his republic. He has also accused the West of financing the Islamist insurgency, as well as plotting to seize the entire Caucasus region.
Ingushetia’s leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov maintains that deep poverty alone fuels discontent.
Over the last two years, deaths due to violent incidents have shot up dramatically in the North Caucasus, from just over 40 in January 2008 to 140 in August 2009, according to a study by Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
There is now alarm that Islamist extremism could spread to other parts of Russia, home to around 20 million Muslims, more than half of whom live outside the North Caucasus.
Paul Quinn-Judge, from the International Crisis Group, warned that the violence could indeed spread: “The guerrillas are trying to extend the war to Russia proper.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Lawmakers Review ‘Male Mutilation’
Bill before legislature would ban circumcision
Lawmakers in Massachusetts are attacking the practice by Jews and other groups of circumcision with a bill to label the process genital mutilation and outlaw it.
The proposal would make Massachusetts the first U.S. state to take such action.
The bill calls for outlawing circumcision of males of any age except in cases of medical necessity and also outlaws all forms of circumcision or alteration of the genitals in females.
The most controversial part of the bill appears to be the provision to outlaw circumcision in infant boys.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Harriet’s Man Ban in ‘Sexist’ Commons: MPs Vote to Ditch Term ‘Chairman’ For Gender-Neutral ‘Chair’
Parliament has banished the word ‘chairman’ from its proceedings for being too sexist.
MPs voted by 206 to 90 to replace it with the gender neutral ‘chair’ as part of sweeping reforms in the Commons.
The move was endorsed by Commons Leader Harriet Harman, pictured, who has spearheaded a feminist agenda at Westminster.
But Tory MP Nadine Dorries condemned the move as ‘ridiculous’.
She said: ‘What a complete nonsense. MPs should be getting on with the more substantive reforms in the Commons rather than dealing with this politically correct frippery.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Parents’ Anger After Class of Seven-Year-Olds is Shown ‘Graphic Sex Cartoon’ At School
A mother has taken her seven-year-old daughter out of school after she was made to watch a cartoon showing a couple chasing each other around a bed and having sex.
Seven and eight-year-old pupils watched the controversial Channel 4 sex education DVD, Living and Growing, at their village primary school.
A voice-over on the DVD describes the sex as ‘exciting’.
Lisa Bullivant, from Legbourne, Lincolnshire, was so upset by the ‘graphic’ content, she took her daughter out of East Wold Primary School and placed her with another school.
Mrs Bullivant said: ‘The cartoon was very graphic. My daughter was frightened and children have unfortunately been copying what they have seen. Parents should have been given the decision of whether the video should have been shown or not.
‘Seven to nine-year-olds should not possess this knowledge. There is no educational or psychological benefit or need for children of this age to have full knowledge of what sexual intercourse actually entails.’
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Ihsanoglu Calls for a Holistic Approach to Human Rights
The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, called for adopting a “holistic approach that covers all human rights for all individuals and peoples when carrying out an objective assessment of the lessons learned.” He noted with appreciation the mechanism of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) which forms an efficient tool to promote Human Rights’ values. Ihsanoglu emphasized that the Human Rights Council’s role “should be constructive and remedial and not judgmental or selective.”
He said this in his statement at the High Level Segment of the 13th Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) held in Geneva on Monday, 1st March 2010. Ihsanoglu called on the HRC to effectively address the plight and permanent suffering of the Palestinian people under the continuous and deliberate aggression by the Israeli military forces and a frequency of flagrant violations of their basic human rights in light of the various United Nations independent mechanisms, including the recent Goldstone Report, which have highlighted grave breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law that underpin contentions of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He demanded the HRC in particular and also other UN bodies to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone Report and ensure action on the Report. Additionally, he reiterated his call for a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention on measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian territories.
Moreover, Ihsanoglu declared that the OIC is keen to encourage efforts for promoting and protecting human rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and described the resumption of engagement between Pakistan and India as a positive development.
The Secretary General expressed his concern over the rising trend of Islamophobia whose manifestations have caused serious disturbance of public order and which must not be allowed to threaten regional and global peace and security. On this issue, he said that the “OIC believes in according primacy to multilateralism to dealing with such issues of global concern.” He also called for a constructive engagement in dealing with a range of issues such as discrimination, intolerance and incitement to hatred on religious grounds, limits to freedom of opinion and expression and complementary standards.
Ihsanoglu stated that the task of improving human rights conditions on a global scale should be seen as a shared responsibility that must be borne collectively by all nations represented in the family of the United Nations. However, he emphasized that the OIC believes that tackling contemporary threats to global peace and security posed by conflicts and terrorism solely from the security angle would not lead to a durable and comprehensive solutions. Hence, there is a need for a proper understanding of the root causes, which often lie in political grievances, backwardness, underdevelopment and concerns related to preservation of national, ethnic, cultural and religious identities, he added.
The Secretary General declared that the OIC is on the verge of establishing an Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights whose “establishment must be viewed as a landmark event and a most positive development in the four-decade long history of the OIC. The Commission is expected to constitute an important pillar of the ongoing process of reform at the OIC with a view to transforming the OIC into a body that would effectively cope with the existing and emerging challenges faced by the Muslim world.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
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