Bernanke Tells Dallas Group: Bite the Bullet on Deficit
Addressing a Dallas audience Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the U.S. government’s budget deficits are unsustainable.
“The arithmetic is, unfortunately, quite clear,” Bernanke told about 1,500 people in a sold-out speech to the Dallas Regional Chamber.
“To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above,” he said.
However, a large immediate reduction in the deficit “is probably neither practical nor advisable,” Bernanke said. The economy is still operating well below its potential, with rampant joblessness.
But without a long-term commitment to balancing government spending and revenue, the nation will endanger its financial stability and economic growth, he said.
“Unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor economic growth,” he said. “Indeed, a credible plan that demonstrated a commitment to achieving long-run fiscal sustainability could lead to lower interest rates and more rapid growth in the near term.”
At the moment, Bernanke sees signs that economic growth following the nation’s worst financial crisis in seven decades will be “sufficient to slowly reduce the unemployment rate over the coming year.” U.S. payrolls expanded by 162,000 jobs in March, the most in three years.
But serious economic weak spots remain, he cautioned.
Unemployment remains high at 9.7 percent. More than 40 percent of the jobless have been out of work six months or longer, nearly double the percentage a year ago, Bernanke said.
Inflation in control
In the near term, inflation “appears to be well-controlled,” he said.
He also sees weakness in housing and commercial real estate, and he’s concerned about rising foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies.
Dana Johnson, chief economist at Dallas-based Comerica Inc., interpreted those comments to mean that the Fed is apt to maintain short-term interest rates at extremely low levels for quite some time.
“The clear take-away was to reinforce the notion that the Fed is pretty content to sit and wait for a stronger expansion to emerge,” Johnson said. “I think it’s inconceivable that the Fed would seriously consider raising rates anytime in the first half of the year, and it’s certainly questionable whether they would do it in the second half.”
The Fed has said in recent statements that economic conditions will probably mean keeping short-term interest rates at “exceptionally low levels” over an “extended period.”
Not all Fed officials agree with that approach. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has argued that the phrase “extended period” is no longer warranted.
In a speech Wednesday in Santa Fe, N.M., Hoenig said an alternative would be for the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee to start raising rates sooner than many people expect.
“Under this policy course, the FOMC would initiate sometime soon the process of raising the federal funds rate target toward 1 percent,” he said, adding that such a level would still represent a “highly accommodative policy.”
Long-term concerns
It was the long-term challenges facing the U.S. economy that Bernanke wanted to spotlight in his Dallas speech.
He has delivered his deficit-cutting message in testimony on Capitol Hill. Congress, not the Fed, controls the government’s taxing and spending decisions.
The Fed chairman took that talk beyond the Beltway with Wednesday’s speech, saying the U.S. economy faces a long-term challenge in meeting the needs of an aging population while restoring fiscal balance.
“The aging of the population will also have a major impact on the federal budget, most dramatically on the Social Security and Medicare programs, particularly if the cost of health care continues to rise at its historical rate,” he said. “And so, we must begin now to prepare for this coming demographic transition.”
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
IMF Expanding Its Tax Schemes Beyond the Third World
It used to be a Third World game.
As detailed in John Perkin’s important book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, consultants would fly into a country and design all kinds of grandiose public projects that were designed to fail.
The IMF would then be sent in to provide “rescue” financing. There would be strings attached, of course, in the form of higher taxes that were laid upon the people of the country who had nothing to do with the mad schemes in the first place. But the IMF “restructuring” would result in interest payments upon interest payments. The new taxes would never go away and the tax funds would end up in the hands of the global bankers.
There has been speculation that the IMF will come in to “rescue” Greece. The Greek people, rightly so, have been both suspicious and outraged.
One country that is going through the IMF treatment now, outside the Third World, is Iceland.
In a completely mad scheme, Iceland’s three major banks collapsed causing losses for the country of somewhere between 4 to 6 times the GDP of the country.
The Finance Minister of Iceland, Gylfi Magnusson, is in Washington D.C. this week talking to the IMF about more funding.
Today, the Finance Minister stopped by the National Press Club to provide a briefing of how things stand. I attended, and tried to get my head around why Icelandic officials even think it is the responsibility of the Icelandic government, and ultimately the Icelandic people, to pay those in Britain who placed money with the mad Icelandic banks, operating in Britain . What exactly does this have to do with the people of Iceland?
I asked the Yale educated Finance Minister (M.A. 1991., M. Phil. 1994 and Ph.D. 1997 in Economics) if there was any specific written agreement that required the Icelandic government to bailout British investors. He said there were many agreements, but didn’t seem to be able to come up with any specific one. He then finally answered the question by saying there was an EU agreement. Iceland is not a member of the EU.
After the briefing, I caught up with the Finance Minister to ask him if the IMF had recommended tax increases as part of its $5 billion loan package. He told me taxes of all kinds were raised, the personal income tax, the corporate tax, the VAT, even the liquor tax. He then told me, and he would know since he is here “negotiating” with the IMF for more money, even more tax hikes are coming for Icelanders.
I seemed to be more outraged by this than the Finance Minister. He seemed to be locked in a kind of, “I’m a sophisticated negotiator” mindset, never quite getting that he is stealing money from the wallets of his fellow Icelanders, who had nothing to do with the crazy schemes of Iceland’s bankers.
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Italy: Household Income Down 2.8% in 2009, Worst Since 1990s
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 8 — In 2009 the available income of Italian households at the current value dropped by 2.8% compared with 2008, reported the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT, noting that it is the most substantial reduction since the 1990s, since the historical series began. In the fourth quarter of 2009 available household income (the sector including producer and consumer households as well as non-profit organisations for households) dropped by 0.2% in current value compared with the previous quarter, while expenditure for final consumption dropped by 0.1%. On a yearly basis income fell by 2.8% and expenditure by 1.9%. In line with the drop in income, the buying power of households (meaning available household income in real terms) dropped by 0.2% on the quarter and 2.6% on the year. Also down was household tendency to save, which in the fourth quarter was at 14% (as it had been in the previous quarter), 0.7% less than in 2008. The decline also continued in household rate of investment, which in the fourth quarter was at 8.8% (-0.2% compared with the previous quarter), feeling the effects of a reduction in investments (-2.2%) which was much higher than that of available income (-0.2%). Compared with 2008 the rate of investment was down by 0.7%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada’s Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault is Practically Empty
Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA’s Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty. This is a relevant segue to a class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, which was settled out of court, in which it was alleged that Morgan Stanley told clients it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store, yet even despite charging storage fees was not in actual possession of the bullion. It appears that this kind of lack of physical holdings by all who claim to have gold in storage, is pervasive as the actual gold globally is held primarily in paper or electronic form. Lenny Organ who was the person to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta, says “What shocked me was how little gold and silver they actually had.” Lenny describes exactly how much (or little as the case may be) silver was available — roughly 60,000 ounces. As for gold — 210 400 oz bars, 4,000 maples, 500 eagles, 10 kilo bars, 10 one kilogram pieces of gold nugget form, which Adrian Douglas calculates as being $100 million worth, which is just one tenth of what the Royal Mint of Canada sold in 2008, or over $1 billion worth of gold. As Orgen concludes: “The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that’s when the mess will occur.”
Also note the interesting detour into what Stephan Spicer of the Central Fund Of Canada, said regarding his friend at a major bank, who wanted access to his 15,000 oz of silver, and had to wait 6-8 weeks for its to be flown in from Hong Kong.
It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders’ willingness to be diluted into perpetuity — when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.
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Senior SEC Employee Warns of Potential Municipal Bond Market Collapse
Rick Bookstaber, who is a a Senior Policy Advisor to the Director of the SEC, Mary Schapiro, continues to maintain his own private non_SEC affiliated blog.
Prior to joinning the SEC, Bookstaber served as the managing director in charge of firm-wide risk management at Salomon Brothers, director of risk management at Moore Capital Management, and Morgan Stanley’s first market risk manager. He is the author of three books and a number of articles on finance topics ranging from option theory to risk management, and has received various awards for his research. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On his blog he writes that he doesn’t think:
…we will see a big crisis emerging for some time in banks, hedge funds or derivatives, mostly because, like with a knockout punch, the risks that matter don’t come from where you are looking…
He is not so sanguine about the municipal bond market:
So, where to look next. To see other potential sources of crisis, let’s first recount the lessons learned from this crisis:
1. Problems occur when things get leveraged and complex (and thus opaque).
2. If the problems occur in a very big market, especially in a very big market like housing that is tied to the credit markets, things can go systemic.
3. The notion that you can diversify by holding a geographically broad-based portfolio, (“there has never been a nation-wide housing recession”), works fine — until it doesn’t.
4. A portfolio that is apparently hedged can blow apart. So we have to look at the gross value of positions, even if they are thought to be hedged.
5. Don’t bet on ratings, because rating agencies are conflicted and might not be all too dependable at their job.
6. Defaults are never easy to manage, but it gets worse when there are a lot of them happening at the same time. It is harder to manage the mess, and there is less of a stigma in defaulting. And it is all the worse when, as is the case in the housing markets, those defaulting are not businessmen. As an added complication, with housing the revenue that we thought was there really wasn’t. Income that was supposed to be there to finance the mortgages — even when that income was fairly stated — became committed to other areas (like second mortgages). .
Well, guess where we have a market that is (1) leveraged and opaque, that is (2) very big and tied to the credit markets; and is (3) viewed by investors as being diversifiable by holding a geographically broad-based portfolio; with (4) huge portfolios where assets and liabilities are apparently matched; and with (5) questionable analysis by rating agencies; and where (6) there are many entities, entities that may not approach default with business-like dispatch, and that have already mortgaged sources of revenue that are thought to support their liabilities?
Answer: The municipal market.
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Spain: 17 Billion Euros Infrastructure Plan
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — To accelerate recovery and tackle the crisis of unemployment, which in March reached the record figure of over 4,166,000, the Spanish government will bring forward an investment of 17 billion euros in rail and road infrastructures over the 2010-2011 period. The new investment plan for sustainable infrastructure and transport was presented in Madrid today, by Premier Jose’ Luis Rodriguez Zapatero,together with the competent Minister, Jose’ Blanco, and involves funding for 2 billion euros more than was initially programmed. “The current period of crisis constrains us towards austerity, but at the same time also to invest in a greater public initiative to promote the creation of jobs and an economic recovery”, said Zapatero to the media. For his part, Blanco recalled that the plan will either generate or save 400,000 jobs. Sixty-five per cent of the 17 billion will be invested in new works and 35 per cent in maintenance. Altogether, 70 per cent of the total will be invested in railroad works, especially the high speed sector, and the rest in road infrastructure. The bids relating to the new works will be fine-tuned in the second half of this year. The programme will be co-financed by the private sector, by both Spanish and international investors: the BEI will finance approximately 50 per cent, whereas 20 per cent will be covered by the official Credit Institute (Ico) and the remaining 30 per cent by private banks and construction enterprises. The programme will integrate private capital with the investment in public works laid out in the 2010 Budget, approximately 19 billion euros, aimed at developing the Strategic Plan for Infrastructures and Transport (Peit). In other words, it is a case of maintaining the current 30 billion investment level in the volume of tendered works or works pending implementation, despite the cuts deriving from the government’s austerity plan, and of stimulating recovery and employment levels, without jeopardising the programme for a cut in the deficit imposed by the EU for 2013. This is the reason for the public-private co-funding, which contemplates the use of concession contracts or mixed companies. “In this way”, said Blanco, “the construction enterprises that are awarded the bids will be responsible both for the implementation of the works and for their subsequent exploitation for a long period of time, 20-30 years, so that the sharing of the risk will make it possible to keep the investment and the corresponding debt out of the Administration’s budget. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Andrew C. McCarthy: Petraeus’s Israel Problem
His policy is to turn our back on a staunch ally.
Max Boot is a good historian. On Islam, I often disagree with him, finding in his work the wishful thinking common among Islamic Democracy Project enthusiasts. Still, he is thoughtful and civil, so one always expects to learn something from reading him. It was therefore jarring to read his smug attempt to drum Diana West out of the conservative movement. Boot seems to see himself as William F. Buckley Jr. and West as the John Birch Society. If you’re going to play that game, you’d better be right. Boot is dead wrong.
Boot’s attack on West is an effort to defend a surpassingly foolish statement in which Gen. David Petraeus cast Israel as the source of all America’s woes in the Middle East. To his great discredit, the general — in a Clintonesque fashion which, as we shall see, is probably not a coincidence — simultaneously denied making the statement, grudgingly admitted making it while minimizing its significance, and accused West and others of misrepresenting his views. In fact, the general’s critics quoted his words at length, placed them in unmistakable context, and drew from them the same commonsense conclusion drawn by Israel’s gleeful critics — for whom Petraeus is the hero of the moment.
THE HONEST BROKER
As head of Central Command, General Petraeus’s area of responsibility includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. That is, CENTCOM is the U.S. military’s bridge to the Muslim umma, much of which despises America. The vast majority of Americans couldn’t care less about that. It is Islam’s problem, not ours — we’re not dying to be loved by a dysfunctional civilization that produces most of the planet’s terrorists. But for the Wilsonians who deem it worth our time, money, and lives to try to remake the Islamic world, Muslim animus is something that must be addressed — otherwise, they’d have to concede that there is nothing we can do about it, that Muslims resent more than appreciate our help, and that their grand project is thus a fool’s errand.
We need, they tell us, to exhibit a little sympathy. We need to be more understanding of the totalitarian, iniquitous, misogynistic, homophobic, virulently anti-Western and anti-Semitic culture that dominates Muslim countries. We need to project the image of an “honest broker” in the impasse between our stalwart ally Israel and an Islamic world bent on Israel’s elimination as a Jewish state. We need to “live our values,” a favorite slogan of both top Obama officials and General Petraeus. These always turn out to be transnational-progressive values. Under them, our justice is blind: We must make no distinction between (a) a Western-style democracy that permits Muslims to live in dignity as citizens within its borders and (b) incorrigibles who make no secret of desiring that democracy’s annihilation and who consider mass murder to be legitimate resistance.
General Petraeus is a uniquely gifted warrior and intellect. He is also a major enthusiast of the Islamic Democracy Project. As Mark Bowden’s revealing profile in Vanity Fair recounts, the general’s embrace of nation-building put him at odds with the Bush administration, which initially was resistant to the concept of a long-term civil-society project in Iraq. And that’s what Petraeus’s counter-insurgency theory is: a civil-society strategy for an America that no longer believes we have to defeat our enemies first, that pretends most of our enemies are actually our friends, and that thinks we not only owe the world another Marshall Plan but one that starts in 1944 instead of 1947. Bowden notes that Petraeus “called for more reconstruction projects, more cultural sensitivity, and more partnership with the State Department and other civilian agencies.” In his approach, Islam is not a daunting challenge to us but a valuable asset. The State Department with which he anxiously partners is the institution of government foremost dedicated to the view that we must be absolute neutrals in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. No material distinction is to be drawn between one side’s construction of housing and the other’s suicide bombings.
Boot is an unabashed admirer of Petraeus. That’s understandable. Petraeus is an extraordinary man. One ought to be able to acknowledge this welcome fact even in respectful disagreement. Boot is also correct that some of the heated rhetoric directed the general’s way by Petraeus’s critics on the right is disquieting. I share that frustration and sympathize with the bottom-line concerns of these critics. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we are building sharia states hostile to American interests. Elsewhere, we are promoting Islamists as if they were moderates and allies. And the rules of engagement under which Petraeus’s brand of counterinsurgency compels our troops to operate leave them unduly vulnerable. Still, there has to be a way for those of us who revere our military to express dissent without forgetting the patriotism and bravery of those commanders with whom we disagree.
Similarly, there has to be space on the right for good-faith dissent — it cannot be “our commanders, right or wrong.” Some months back, I had occasion to deride what I continue to believe is the wayward Afghanistan strategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, formulated under the guidance of his superior, Petraeus. I tried to do it firmly but respectfully (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). It wasn’t always taken that way. It is distasteful to criticize those we admire. This is life and death, however. When our commanders are wrong, it is crucial that we say so rather than make excuses for them. On Israel, Petraeus is wrong and Boot, who knows better, is making excuses for him.
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Arpaio Gets Inmates Moving on Electricity-Generating Cycles
PHOENIX — Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is implementing a new inmate program at Tent City Jail called “Pedal Vision.”
The program uses inmate-powered cycles to generate electricity for televisions.
Reports say Arpaio’s recent visit to Tent City inspired the idea, when he saw that many of the inmates were overweight.
The stationary bikes are customized so that as an inmate pedals, a connected television is powered once the cycle generates 12 volts of electricity.
One hour of pedaling equals one hour of television viewing for the inmates, according to Arpaio.
Arpaio said the inmates will only be able to watch television in the television room if they choose to pedal.
“I started with the females because they seemed more receptive to the idea,” Arpaio said. “The only exercise the females get right now is speed-walking around the tents yard and few are doing that. This gives them a reason to get moving and a way to burn up to 500 calories an hour. They won’t be charged a monthly gym fee but they will have to sign a contract.”
Sheriff Arpaio debuted the pilot program on April 1.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Evidence That Obama Was Deeply Involved in Socialist New Party “Sister Organization”
I now present evidence that Obama was involved as early as 1993, with a New Party “sister” organization — Progressive Chicago.
…It was the election of the leftist Harold Washington in 1983 that inspired Barack Obama to move to Chicago two years later.
The Harold Washington coalition, was led by an alliance of Chicago communists, socialists and “community activists”, just like both of its direct descendants, the New Party and Progressive Chicago…
People targeted or solicited to join Progressive Chicago included Obama political mentor and Communist Party affiliate Alice Palmer, Communist Party member Frank Lumpkin, Rev. Jim Reed of Christians for Socialism and Democratic Socialists of America associates Miguelle Del Valle, Carole Travis, Clem Balanoff, Sue Purrington and Jane Ramsey.
By September 1993 Obama was one of 17 people listed as a signatory on all Progressive Chicago letters — as shown by the second page of this September 22 Progressive Chicago letter to Joe Gardner.
…It appears beyond a doubt that Barack Obama was involved, more than two years before his Illinois State Senate run, with a New Party founded, “sister organization” — Progressive Chicago.
It is clear that ACORN and SEIU played a big role in Progressive Chicago, as did Marxist activists from Democratic Socialists of America and Committees of Correspondence. In 2008, the US media went into a frenzy when it was alleged that Sarah Palin’s husband had been involved in the Alaska Independence Party.
The same media apparently believed the Obama camp’s assurances that their candidate had never been meaningfully involved in the New Party — and even if he was, it wasn’t really socialist anyway.
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FCC Loses Key Ruling on Internet ‘neutrality’
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission and could even hamper the government’s plans to expand broadband access in the United States.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose such “network neutrality” obligations on broadband providers.
Supporters of network neutrality, including the FCC chairman, have argued that the policy is necessary to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain Web sites and online services, such as Internet phone programs or software that runs in a Web browser. Advocates contend there is precedent: Nondiscrimination rules have traditionally applied to so-called “common carrier” networks that serve the public, from roads and highways to electrical grids and telephone lines.
But broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after spending billions of dollars on their networks, they should be able to sell premium services and manage their systems to prevent certain applications from hogging capacity.
Tuesday’s unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel was a setback for the FCC because it questioned the agency’s authority to regulate broadband. That could cause problems beyond the FCC’s effort to adopt official net neutrality regulations. It also has serious implications for the ambitious national broadband-expansion plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs the authority to regulate broadband so that it can push ahead with some of the plan’s key recommendations. Among other things, the FCC proposes to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.
In a statement, the FCC said it remains “firmly committed to promoting an open Internet and to policies that will bring the enormous benefits of broadband to all Americans” and “will rest these policies … on a solid legal foundation.”
Comcast welcomed the decision, saying “our primary goal was always to clear our name and reputation.”
The case centers on Comcast’s actions in 2007 when it interfered with an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent, which lets people swap movies and other big files over the Internet. The next year the FCC banned Comcast from blocking subscribers from using BitTorrent. The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order on a set of net neutrality principles it had adopted in 2005.
But Comcast argued that the FCC order was illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce mere policy principles, which don’t have the force of regulations or law. That’s one reason that Martin’s successor, Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is trying to formalize those rules…
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
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States Must Rise Up: Only Way to Combat Obama’s Agenda
With the passage of ObamaCare coming on the heels of government takeover of industries and taxpayer-funded bailouts of the irresponsible, many are wondering how we can turn the socialist tide. They see Uncle Sam expanding, their rights and economic prospects shrinking and their voices ignored. For these people, November cannot come soon enough.
But November is not the ultimate solution. In the political universe, seven months is an eternity, and we cannot know precisely how public sentiment will evolve. Besides, the chances of Republicans retaking both Houses are slim and, even if they do, there’s no guarantee they’ll rise to the occasion. Some will be Scott Brown types — not the sort to give us tradition we can believe in.
A better solution lies on the local and state levels. Fifteen states are currently suing the federal government over ObamaCare, and then there is the Tenth Amendment Movement, involving at least 35 states that are asserting their sovereignty over powers granted them by that amendment. These are good starts, but . . . .
Question: What if the Supreme Court, in obvious violation of the Constitution, upholds ObamaCare? Do we simply obey unflinchingly and wait for the next federal usurpation?
Certainly, there is every reason to believe the Black Robes will thus rule, as enabling the Leviathan’s tyranny has become their practice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Four-Phase Transformation of America Behind Obama’s Wildly Racing Clock
The Obama Clock is racing ahead with the speed of light. On Monday, word went out to the world that the US would not use the nuclear option—even in self defense. Today comes the news that the White House will expunge the term “Islamic radicalism” from the lexicon of international terrorism.
The Free World as we know it has already become an upsidedown one, where right is wrong and wrong is right. Marxists in office are creating chaos and blaming the chaos on those who dissent against them.
But while the hands on the Obama clock spin crazily around the clock face, it is the blueprint or pattern behind it that tells us the real time, the truth and reality of what is happening.
The transformation of America taking place before our very eyes at a dizzying pace comes from phases, based on a formula to take America to its end.
Drawing on my experience as an Intelligence/Cryptologist for the U.S. Navy, here is where we are and where we are headed in the Obama Clock. By following these phases you can actually predict the next move of the enemy.
Phase One:
This phase which took decades to complete happened in the days when our grandfathers were out in the fields farming the land, raising their families, congregating in church on Sundays and paying their taxes. Ref: The Communist goals as duly entered in the Congressional Record, June, 1963
- The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
- The Bilderberg Group
- George Soros and Members of the Democracy Alliance.
- The Gamiliel Foundation
Selecting and getting elected members of Congress: (sleepers, who would hide their true motives, and just slowly push in baby steps towards Socialism until all other parts of plan were in place) Those members of Congress; Pelosi, Waxman, Rangel, Waters, Lee, Reid, Dodd, Boxer, Schumer, Durbin, and others are puppets, or the “useful idiots” of the above named groups.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter in McCarthy Road Beating Death
OTTAWA — A 27-year-old black man who killed a white man by hitting him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat after what some witnesses described as a racially charged confrontation has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Ahmed Ismail Ali admitted to hitting Maurice “Moe” Dinelle, 45, with the bat he took from one of Dinelle’s neighbours during a violent altercation at a McCarthy Road Esso station and Quickie convenience store on July 21, 2006.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the altercation occurred after Dinelle stopped by a backyard get together at the home of neighbours Ted McGrath and Dawn Mannoll. Several other people, including neighbour John Gribben and Theo Vanderhorn, were also at the party.
During the evening, there had been discussion about Mannoll being mugged at the gas station a few days earlier and how Gribben’s car window had been smashed that morning.
Court heard the discussion centred on the suspicion that local Somalis had been involved in both incidents.
At about midnight, Gribben moved his car to the parking lot behind the gas station, where Ali and eight to 10 of his friends had gathered.
Gribben, who removed a baseball bat from his trunk and was carrying a can of dog repellent, then began making his way home when he passed by Ali and his friends. A verbal confrontation ensued, which quickly escalated into a physical confrontation where Gribben sprayed his dog repellent at one male and swung his bat at another.
At this point, McGrath and Vanderhorn ran across McCarthy Road to help Gribben. McGrath managed to corner Ali and another male before punching both of them. During the fight, Ali was able to take the bat from Gribben. Gribben, McGrath and Vanderhorn then fled across the street.
According to assistant Crown attorney Dallas Mack, Dinelle then showed up at the gas station. Some witnesses reported that the “heavily intoxicated” Dinelle engaged in a “loud and verbally aggressive confrontation” — which included racial epithets — with Ali’s friends prior to being struck, Mack said.
Other witnesses reported Dinelle, who was unarmed, was “trying to sort the situation out.” Mack said Ali then approached Dinelle and swung the bat, hitting him in the head area.
Dinelle crumpled to the ground after the blow ruptured an artery and caused massive bleeding around his brain. Although paramedics were able to resuscitate him after a heart attack brought on by the trauma, Dinelle never regained consciousness and died the next day in hospital.
After striking Dinelle, Mack said Ali stood over his body and yelled in the direction of Dinelle’s friends, who had retreated across the street, “challenging them to see what he had done and asking if they wanted more.”
McGrath and Vanderhorn started back across the street with a different baseball bat and a walking stick. Ali and his friends then fled. Ali, who immediately took the bat to a friend’s house and changed his clothes, turned himself in to police 10 days later.
Two pathologists later concluded that Dinelle died from a traumatic rupture of the right vertebral artery. Neither doctor could identify the exact point of impact.
However, one of the doctors determined that Dinelle had an underlying genetic mutation that made him more vulnerable to trauma from a reduced level of force, particularly making him more susceptible to the type of vertebral rupture that killed him.
The guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter came as Ali was set to stand trial for second-degree murder.
Manslaughter is defined as a culpable homicide that is not murder — in other words, where someone killed someone unintentionally. Someone can be found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder if the killing was committed in the “heat of passion” as a result of a provocation that would cause an ordinary person to lose their self-control. It is different from second-degree murder, where the killing wasn’t planned but the killer still intended to cause death.
Ali was originally scheduled to stand trial in front of a jury in November, but the trial was adjourned and the jury dismissed after the judge’s mother got sick.
At that time, prosecutors alleged in their opening address to the jury that Ali was intending to argue that he only struck Dinelle with his fist, and not the bat.
A sentencing hearing for Ali will be held Monday.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Army Builds ‘Mosques’ On North Yorkshire Firing Range
The MOD said the buildings ‘replicated the environment’ of Afghanistan
A Muslim group has demanded an apology from the British Army after it emerged that replica mosques were being used on a North Yorkshire firing range.
The chairman of the Bradford Council for Mosques (BCM) said the structures at Catterick should be taken down immediately.
The Ministry of Defence said it had “no intention” of causing offence.
The BMC said it was particularly angry as it had been assisting the army in its efforts to recruit more Muslims.
‘Really disturbing’
Saleem Khan, the chief executive of the BCM, called for the Army to apologise.
“The first thing they need to do is remove this straight away,” he said.
“They do owe apologies to the Muslim community and it is the mind set which needs changing.”
There are seven of the structures on the range at Bellerby, which have green domed roofs. Ishtiaq Ahmed of the BCM said that they were undoubtedly meant to resemble mosques.
“The shape of the structures, the colour of the dome — the green dome — symbolises an Islamic place of worship,” he said.
“Anyone looking at it will think about mosques and Muslims and think about them negatively.”
He accused the Army of reinforcing negative perceptions of Muslims.
“What angers me very much is that we are conditioning the young British to say that mosques are a place where you are going to find danger and a place to target,” Mr Ahmed said.
“That is really disturbing.”
An MOD spokesman said that the range had been designed in response to feedback from Afghanistan.
“Providing the best training facilities for our armed forces ahead of deployment to operational theatres is a priority for us,” a spokesman said.
“Facilities at Bellerby have been upgraded in response to operational feedback from Afghanistan as it is crucial that our armed forces train at ranges that replicate the environment they will be deployed to.
“We have no intention of offending religious sensibilities.”
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s Big Issues Are Our Big Issues
They brought us the Beatles and it changed our music. Now they’re shaking things up and it could prove our future. Two big things happening in Britain today that I want you to pay very close attention to.
Big thing No 1: A big tax on very rich folks went into effect there today. Fifty percent. That’s right — 50 percent. And we wince at soon bringing ours up to just under 40 percent.
Big thing No. 2: A big election announced today for one month from today, even as polls show few bothered by rich tax today.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is putting the wheels in motion for what some say could be a preview of coming attractions here. Here’s why: Their big issues are our big issues — deficits and taxes.
The government there spending more, taxing more, with scant signs it’s doing a whole heck of a lot more. Just like the government here has been spending more, taxing more, with scant signs it’s doing a whole heck of a lot more.
But the prime minister, like our president — liberal chaps both — insists things are improving enough. Enough, Brown hopes, to keep his Labour Party liberals in power. And enough, Obama hopes, to keep his Democratic Party liberals in power.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels: First European Halal Certificate
The Brussels Chamber of Commerce (BECI) issued the first European halal certificate Thursday, meant to facilitate exports. The product is a festive drink without alcohol, ‘Night Orient’.
The certificate verifies that the product conforms to the percepts of Islam. The first product to receive the new label is from Liège. It’s a festive drink made from white grapes without alcohol, whose marketing is clearly directed at Muslims.
A company that wants to obtain a halal certificate for a product must first submit an application. After an initial audit, an imam comes to the production site and decides if the product merits such a label. If it does, it facilitates exports, particularly to Organization of The Islamic Conference countries, Olivier Willocx of BECI told La Capitale.
According to Sudpresse, in a big city like Brussels, 17% of the residents eat halal. Issuing a new certificate of this type simply means engaging in a rising market in Europe. Willocx says that the market is vast and growing, because it concerns various food types, prepared for restaurants, supermarkets and other food manufacturers.
Source: RTL Info (French)
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
France-ANP: A Square for Mahmoud Darwish in Paris
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 7 — After a promenade that was named after the father of Israel, ‘Promenade Ben Gurion’, which will be opened on April 14 along the Seine in the presence of Israeli President Shimon Peres, France will dedicate a square in its sixth arrondissement to the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who died in 2008. The announcement was made by the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe. During a visit to Tel Aviv he explained that the square will be opened on the occasion of the next visit to Paris of the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The opening of the ‘Promenade Ben Gurion’ has led to protests from the side of the communist party and pro-Palestinian associations. David Ben Gurion (1886-1973) was Israel’s first government leader after declaring the State’s independence in 1948. “I have been criticised for the choice of Ben Gurion, as I will be criticised for choosing Mahmoud Darwish” said Delanoe, “but I don’t like it when politics, hate and the spirit of war take culture and creation hostage”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Catholic Youth Leader: ‘There is No Generation Benedict’
The pope may use Facebook and Twitter, but he still isn’t as well-connected with Catholic youth as he could be. “A lot of young people often simply don’t understand him,” Dirk Tänzler argues in a SPIEGEL ONLINE Interview.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Tänzler, when Pope Benedict XVI was first elected, there was considerable hype surrounding him amongst young Catholics. That was especially apparent at the 20th World Youth Day held by the Catholic Church in Cologne in 2005, where an estimated 1 million young Catholics celebrated mass with the newly elected Pope Benedict. What remains of their enthusiasm?
Dirk Tänzler: The World Youth Day was quite an event — but there has never been the sort of personal popularity that Pope John Paul II had. That is clear. Because Pope Benedict is another type of person altogether, a more reserved one.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were you at the 20th World Youth Day? And if so, did you cheer for “Benedetto”?
Tänzler: Yes, I was there — but I generally also tend to be reserved.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is your verdict on five years of Pope Benedict?
Tänzler: Ambivalent. He has made some good points, but they have often been interpreted in a completely different way. He is, after all, an intellectual — and he comes across that way with young people. That’s why a lot of young people often simply don’t understand him. In that sense, John Paul II was much more of a “showmaster,” who found simple words and celebrated with the youth. Benedict is more like a professor, and that’s a world that is foreign to a many young people.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What are the good points that Pope Benedict has made?
Tänzler: They include his positions on issues like justice, the climate and creation. Those issues are important to many young people. At the Copenhagen climate summit, for example, he made a significant contribution and reminded participants of the importance of united action. And he always draws people’s attention to the fact that Jesus Christ is more important than him or the church. Another good point is his social encyclical in which he writes about justice today and emphasizes the meaning of love.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Recently, though, the greatest issues have been cases of church abuse rather than love. And although the pope did send a papal letter about incidents of abuse to Irish Catholics, he has not commented on the allegations in Germany. Does that upset you?
Tänzler: It would have done some good if the Holy Father had personally mentioned the situation in Germany. But he did not. And now we should look forward.
Part 2: ‘I Don’t Think That Major Reforms Will Take Place’
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But isn’t that always the problem for the Catholic grassroots — you have to accept everything but nothing ever touches the pope?
Tänzler: That is nothing new and it is also no wonder with a global organization this big. After all, we obviously don’t have the pope’s telephone number. We discuss things with the local bishops here and have also occasionally been given their support.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do your concerns make it all the way to Rome?
Tänzler: Personally, I am certain that the Vatican takes the discussions in Germany, and the thoughts of the German Association of Catholic Yough (BDKJ), seriously. I believe that the need to regain credibility concerns the Holy Father just as much as it does us.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It also took Pope Benedict a very long time to comment on the case of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson. In this era of speedy communication, is it appropriate that the pontiff only reacts after days, or even weeks?
Tänzler: I believe that the church’s philosophy envisions the conclusive rather than just the accompanying word of the Holy Father. We would like to have heard some words of support during the debate over abuse. But this was something that wasn’t part of the Vatican’s thinking. But society functions differently today. It would be good if something changed there.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can the Williamson case be described as Benedict’s biggest mistake?
Tänzler: That was indeed a pretty big mistake — and he wrote as much in his letter to the bishops. His original aim differed from the eventual outcome. This was a failure of management and mediation. As with other issues, we need translators who ask: What did the pope actually mean by that? We believe we can help with this and we are willing.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does the pope have decent connections to Catholic youth?
Tänzler: He meets many people — youth, too. We think it’s good that the Holy Father is trying to get involved with modern means of communication. That he is being bold and using Facebook and YouTube for instance.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But it isn’t interactive — as in, you can’t correspond with him there.
Tänzler: Naturally young people expect the communication to go both ways. But what is noteworthy is that a 2,000-year-old institution like the church is trying these new methods of communication out — and relatively early too. These are just the first attempts — one cannot expect too much. Society is developing more rapidly than ever, and I believe that this won’t be lost on the Vatican, either.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What sort of role does the pope play for German youth?
Tänzler: Above all, young people seek role models in their own vicinity. At a fundamental level, the Holy Father would obviously come into the picture. But I know that not all Catholic youth see the pope as an example.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is that?
Tänzler: Most have a different idea of how to live their lives than the pope might imagine for them. There is no “Generation Benedict.”
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you think there is still a chance that major reforms can take place under Pope Benedict XVI?
Tänzler: I don’t think that major reforms will take place. But he does hold some issues close to his heart, like unity within the church. He genuinely appears to be suffering under the split. I believe that he is quietly setting a course that will help lead us to unity with, for example, the Orthodox Church.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What would your wishes be in a face-to-face meeting with pope?
Tänzler: I would speak to him about a stronger connection between the church’s laypeople and democracy within the church. I would try to convince him persuasively that the church needs a synodal system (Editor’s note: a system involving a church council) as well as a hierarchical one. So that it can be sustainable and credible, and remain that way.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you sometimes wish that the current pope was as media-savvy as the former one?
Tänzler: Personally I like Benedict’s approach. But I think a lot of young people would find it more attractive if there was somebody with whom they could celebrate.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have any ideas for the “ideal” pope?
Tänzler: Perhaps it might be good if there was a pope who had worked in a poor part of South America, or in some other poverty-stricken region. That person would have a completely different world view from someone who had already been sitting in a bishop’s chair for years.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Given the events of recent weeks, have you considered leaving the church?
Tänzler: I have never even toyed with this idea because I am convinced that the church and faith is good for society. And because one must change the church and develop it further. And you can only do that from the inside.
Interview conducted by Maria Marquart
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Life Terms Sought in Calvi Death
God’s Banker ‘killed for taking Mafia money’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 8 — A Rome prosecutor on Thursday requested three life sentences in an appeals trial on the death of ‘God’s Banker’ Roberto Calvi in London 28 years ago The three charged with premeditated murder — jailed Mafia boss Pippo Calo’, Sardinian wheeler-dealer Flavio Carboni and Rome crime boss Ernesto Diotallevi — were acquitted in 2007 for insufficient evidence.
But the prosecution appealed, arguing that the wording of that verdict “prove(d) that this was murder”.
Making his sentencing request, prosecutor Luca Tescaroli said the three were helped by the Mafia in staging the murder under London’s Blackfriar’s Bridge in 1982 to make it look like a suicide.
Tescaroli said Calvi was murdered “to punish him for taking possession of large sums of money belonging to criminal organisations”. Two other defendants in the original trial, Carboni’s former girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig and smuggler Silvano Vittor, are not on trial since their acquittals have been confirmed. Calvi had been a leading light in Italian banking circles for many years. In 1975 he became chairman and managing director of the Banco Ambrosiano, at the time Italy’s biggest private bank.
His death was originally ruled a suicide but Italian prosecutors later accused the defendants of killing him in revenge for not paying back laundered money to the Mafia.
Prosecutors claimed there were at least three motives for the killing.
These included Calvi’s mismanagement of the Mafia’s money; the possibility that he would reveal how it was laundered by the Ambrosiano; and to gain leverage among Calvi’s extensive network of contacts in masonic lodges, the subversive Propaganda Due (P2) lodge, Vatican bank Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), political and institutional figures, and public-sector agencies.
Defence attorneys dismissed the claims as “fantasy”.
A probe against former P2 chief Licio Gelli and ten others for their alleged involvement in Calvi’s death was dropped last year, also on insufficient evidence. The investigation into the death of Calvi, who earned the nickname ‘God’s Banker’ by working closely with IOR, was re-opened 13 years ago.
Calvi was found hanging under the well-known London landmark in June 1982, pockets bulging with banknotes and bricks. The suicide verdict came a few months after his death.
But a second autopsy indicated that someone put the bricks in Calvi’s pockets before stringing him up.
According to theories aired over the years by informants, Calvi worked hand-in-hand with Mafia-linked banker Michele Sindona — killed in jail by a poisoned cup of coffee in 1986 — to set up a complicated web of banking and insurance interests.
Many paths were smoothed, the informants said, by his membership of the lodge led by Gelli, who, now 90, is under house arrest after receiving a 12-year sentence for the Ambrosiano collapse.
Prosecutors claimed Calvi was forced into a corner by his exposure to the Vatican Bank, then led by American cardinal Paul Marcinkus, who died in 2002 in Arizona.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Makes ‘Biggest-Ever’ Mafia Seizure
Police take 700 million euros of assets from Casalesi clan
(ANSA) — Naples, April 8 — Italian police on Thursday seized 700 million euros of assets from the Camorra in what Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said was the largest assets seizure from a mafia group ever.
The assets taken from the Casalesi clan near Naples included apartments, farms, land and firms including a plant that once belonged to the Cirio food giant.
They were seized from the heirs of Dante Passarelli, a Casalesi associate who died in a mysterious accident in 2004 while on trial with the then top bosses in the clan.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Justice Minister Angelino Alfano and Maroni all hailed the operation as hitting the mafia where it hurts.
Maroni, who has made assets seizures the linchpin of a new anti-mafia plan, said “today is a day for all honest people to celebrate” and estimated the full worth of the seizures could run as high as two billion euros. The National Anti-Mafia Directorate said the Casalesis had been brought so low financially they were “finding it hard to pay their members”. The Carabinieri said “the clan’s treasure chest has been seized”.
The Casalesis’ criminal empire was spotlighted in Roberto Saviano’s 2006 bestseller Gomorrah, later made into a successful film of the same name.
The journalist and writer has been under round-the-clock police protection after receiving death threats from jailed Casalesi chieftains.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Aid Group Expels Volunteer Over PVV Sympathies
ALMERE, 08/04/10 — Humanitas has kicked volunteer and board member Rene Eekhuis out due to his political preferences. He supports the Party for Freedom (PVV) and this is unacceptable, according to the aid organisation.
Humanitas is a big humanistic organisation chaired by Lodewijk de Waal, the former chairman of the FNV union federation. Eekhuis was elected a PVV representative on the local council of Almere last March.
Eekhuis has been told by the local branch of Humanitas in Almere that he is no longer welcome as a volunteer because the PVV is urging a ban on the wearing of headscarves in public buildings. Many women in headscarves work at Humanitas. “And there is the tension,” explained Marja Smits in Algemeen Dagblad.
Eekhuis organises holidays for children for Humanitas in his free time for the past years. He was also a board member of the aid organisation’s Almere branch.
Close www.nisnews.nl
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Anti-Terrorism Unit: Elections May Spark Violence
THE HAGUE, 08/04/10 — The National Anti-terrorism Coordinator (NCTb) warned yesterday of possible political violence in the runup to the general elections on 9 June. The threat comes from both radical Muslims and far left activists.
There is a chance that the Islam debate around the elections will in the coming months lead to “politically motivated violence.” Regarding the risks in this area, “account should also be taken, more than in other situations, of radicalising loners of a variety of natures,” concludes NCTB director Erik Akerboom.
The possible great changes in political power relationships in the Netherlands can lead to conflicts arising via the strengthening of differences of opinion between ethnic groups or political parties, added the NCTb. This could provoke Muslims at home and abroad to violence, as it could leftwing radicals or extremists that fight for animal rights.
Despite the warning, there is as yet no specific information suggesting that things would come to violence. “But it is something we are taking into account,” said a NCTb spokesman.
In 2002, nine days before general elections, right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn was assasinated by an environmental activist. In 2004, another Islam critic, the writer and filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered by an Islamic terrorist.
In light of this, the warning from the NCTb led to some commotion yesterday. Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, responsible for the “great changes in political power relationships” cited by Akerboom, said he was surprised. “I have never yet been advised about it by the NCTb,” was his response.
The NCTB warning does not appear to have been coordinated with the AIVD intelligence service. It stressed yesterday that it has no concrete indications of any politically-motivated violence in the Netherlands. “The AIVD has nothing to add to the threat picture,” said a spokesman for the secret service.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Pope ‘Didn’t Protect Maciel’
Vatican defends Benedict again
(ANSA) — Vatican City, April 8 — The Vatican on Thursday reiterated its defence of Pope Benedict XVI from sex abuse cover-up allegations.
It was “ridiculous” to claim, as German newsweekly Stern had, that the pope had “in any way” protected Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ order, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.
Maciel died in 2008 in disgrace after it emerged he had abused scores of seminarians over decades and fathered several children.
Critics of the Vatican claim that it was only after a long campaign by victims that Benedict ordered an internal probe into Maciel’s abuse, which allegedly dragged out its investigation before reaching its conclusions last month.
The Legionaries apologised to victims on March 26, saying they would accept “with filial obedience” any action resulting from the probe, whose findings remain secret.
In rebutting Stern’s report, Father Lombardi stressed that the pope, in his previous post as head of the doctrinal office that deals with abuse cases, advanced the case against Maciel.
This had allowed the office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to firmly establish Maciel’s guilt, Lombardi said.
Another top bishop came to the pope’s defence Thursday against what the Vatican has termed a media smear campaign.
“The vehemence and weakness of many accusations are amazing,” said Naples Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe.
Sepe called the pope’s Easter letter to Catholics in Ireland, hit by the biggest of a string of Europe-wide scandals, “at once moving and inflexible”.
Italy’s biggest-selling Catholic weekly, Famiglia Cristiana, stepped into the fray with an editorial entitled The Pope Acts, States Don’t.
“What State has ever seriously dealt with the sexual abuse of minors as a social phenomenon of extreme importance?” it asked.
The editorial summed up the various moves taken by Benedict, first as doctrinal chief from 1984 and then as pope since 2005, to “uncover, denounce and publicly take on the problem, bringing it to light and pursuing it explicitly”.
The Economist magazine, in an excerpt from its Friday edition, likened Benedict to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in their alleged tendency to see “plots” in media coverage.
Meanwhile, in the latest of a series of abuse cases to emerge in Italy, an anonymous victim of a predator priest claimed that a bishop near Rome did not respond to appeals to act against Father Marco Agostino but instead transferred him to Assisi in 2002.
Father Agostino committed suicide in 2006 after being arrested.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Child Left in Shopping Centre, Mother Condemned
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 7 — She had no-one to whom she could leave her child, so she decided that a shopping centre was the safest place for her. A woman from the Caribbean was condemned to a year in prison for having abandonned the 10-year old girl for 4 days running, ten hours per day, in a shopping centre in the municipality of Calahorra (Logroo), in the region of La Rioja. The daily newspaper Larioja, citing the sentence passed by the court of Logroo, wrote that the child was left from nine in the morning until eleven ò clock at night in the Arcca shopping centre, when her mother returned to pick her up at closing time, and she was obliged to beg for food from supermarket staff. The facts occurred in March 2005, when the child, after a denuncia to the social services, was declared in a state of abandonment. The sentence stigmatises the girl’s unjustified absence from school and the lack of the “required essential personal and moral assistance”. The mother was condemned to a year in prison, with a suspended sentence if she does not commit any other crimes over the next two years.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Three Dead in Malmö ‘Family Drama’
Three people — a man, a woman and a child — have been found dead in a Malmö apartment shortly after police received a report from the scene of a man who intended to harm himself.
“Presumably this is the result of a tragic family drama,” police spokesperson Calle Persson told news agency TT.
Police in Malmö were called to an apartment building in the Virentofta district at 4.15pm to investigate reports of a man in a poor condition.
A unit was dispatched to the scene and found three people dead in an apartment.
More information soon.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Wrong Man Exposed Over Car Park Killing
A storm of comments and accusations circulating on the internet in the wake of revelations over the 23-year-old suspect in the Landskrona car park killing has afflicted a man in Denmark who has no connection to the case.
The man in Denmark happens to have the same name as the 23-year-old male suspect in the investigation into the brutal assault and subsequent death of a 78-year-old woman in a car park in the southern Swedish town last Monday.
The Dane, who lives in Vejle on Jylland, was tipped off that his name and picture had been published on two Swedish Facebook group pages together with angry comments expressing outrage over the violent incident resulting from a car park dispute at a branch of the Hemköp supermarket chain.
“There were around 1,500 people logged in who voiced racist statements and threats,” the man said to Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.
The man has tried unsuccessfully to enlist the help of the Danish police to put a stop to the defamation, and is now considering contacting a lawyer.
A picture of the actual suspect is also circulating on the internet, as well as full personal and address details of the man and his family. At least one report of alleged defamation has been lodged with Swedish police.
Police have underlined that the publication of the man’s picture and personal details only complicates the ongoing investigation into the case, with identification line-ups for example becoming impossible.
Despite the complications, Tommy Lindén, the officer leading the investigation, confirmed on Tuesday that the full details of the brutal assault will be established within three-four weeks.
“This is still our ambition,” said Magnus Lord at Landskrona police, who have now taken over the investigation.
The 23-year-old was on Tuesday remanded into custody on charges of aggravated involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault with respect to the 78-year-old woman, and assault with respect to her 71-year-old partner.
The 78-year-old woman was punched in the face while trying to intervene on behalf of her 71-year-old partner who was being attacked by a man in a parking dispute last Monday. She lost consciousness and died after undergoing an operation at the Skåne University Hospital in Lund on Wednesday.
The 71-year-old man escaped the incident with minor injuries.
A further man has been arrested on charges of aiding and abetting the 23-year-old suspect, but is not in custody.
After the remand hearing in Lund district court on Tuesday the 23-year-old’s lawyer, Urban Jansson, indicated that his client intended to appeal the ruling. But according to Jansson, the heated atmosphere on the internet and the chain of unpleasant events that have affected the man’s family have given them cause to conclude that the 23-year-old is safest in custody.
The question of whether to lodge an appeal has been left open however.
With the suspect’s immigrant background a source of major debate on internet forums, police have sought to pour cold water on suggestions that the death had any connection to integration problems long evident in the southern town where the far-right Sweden Democrats claimed 23 percent of the votes in 2006 council elections.
“This is more a question of gender than ethnicity. If there had been a woman in the car this would never have happened,” Tommy Lindén told reporters at Tuesday’s press conference.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Labour’s Betrayal of British Workers: Nearly Every One of 1.67m Jobs Created Since 1997 Has Gone to a Foreigner
Immigration was at the centre of the election campaign today as it emerged that virtually every extra job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker.
Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants.
The Tories seized on the revelation as evidence that the Government has totally failed to deliver its pledge of ‘British jobs for British workers’.
As Gordon Brown tried to fight on the economy and cleaning up politics, he was confronted in the Commons about how British people of working age have lost out.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green revealed unpublished figures showing there are almost 730,000 fewer British-born workers in the private sector than in 1997.
Mr Green said the Tories would reduce net migration to tens of thousands a year from the peaks of 200,000 under Labour by enforcing an annual cap.
Mr Brown rejected the idea of an immigration quota, which he said would do ‘great damage to British business’.
But Mr Green said the official figures were ‘the final proof that Gordon Brown was misleading the public when he promised British jobs for British workers’.
He added: ‘Instead he has presided over boom and bust and left British workers in a worse position than when he took office 13 years ago.
‘British workers have been betrayed. A Conservative government would introduce a genuine limit which would help us properly control immigration.
‘We would reduce net immigration to the levels of the 1980s and 90s — tens of thousands a year, not the hundreds of thousands we have seen under Labour.’
The ONS figures show the total number of people in work in both the private and the public sector has risen from around 25.7million in 1997 to 27.4million at the end of last year, an increase of 1.67million.
But the number of workers born abroad has increased dramatically by 1.64million, from 1.9million to 3.5million.
There were 23.8million British-born workers in employment at the end of last year, just 25,000 more than when Labour came to power. In the private sector, the number of British workers has actually fallen.
The number of posts for people of working age has increased since 1997 by over 500,000, to 20.5million.
But the number of British-born workers in the private sector has slumped by 726,000, from 18.4million to 17.7million.
The figures exclude people working beyond pension age, which critics say the Government includes as ‘new jobs’ in its assessments.
Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that, over ten years, only Luxembourg had seen more of its new jobs taken by migrants.
The latest totals do not include the hundreds of thousands of migrants employed in the ‘black economy’.
Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch pressure group, said: ‘The government’s economic case for mass immigration is finally blown out of the water.’
A Labour Party spokesman said: ‘Net inward migration has fallen and Labour has set out how we will use the points-based system to ensure that, as growth returns, our priority is to see rising levels of skills, wages and employment, not rising immigration.
‘But we reject a Tory quota which is arbitrary and misleading — not covering most of those who apply to come to Britain — and bad for business and growth.
‘Under the points-based system the door is currently closed to unskilled workers from outside the EU, and the rules are being tightened on students working part-time. Skilled jobs must be advertised in Jobcentre Plus before being opened to migrant workers.
‘Unemployment is around half a million lower than people anticipated last year, as thousands of British workers benefit from the help and support we offer.
‘With more than 480,000 vacancies right now we are making sure no one gets left behind.’
Net Migration
Net inward migration to the UK, the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving, is up threefold since Labour came to power.
In 1997, it stood at 48,000. By 2004, fuelled by a surge in new arrivals from Eastern Europe, it reached an all-time record 244,000, and in 2007 it was 237,000.
The following year it did begin to fall, as Britain headed into a deep recession, but the total still stood at 163,000.
Mr Brown suggested the as-yet-unpublished figure for 2009 would be 147,000. But this was incomplete data which excluded asylum seekers, visitors who decide to stay long-term and arrivals from Ireland and earned the Premier earned a swift rebuke from Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority.
The Tories have pledged to reduce the level of net migration to ‘tens of thousands’ — but have yet to specify a number.
Population Growth
The Office for National Statistics projects that — based on current levels of migration — the UK’s population of 61million, will grow to 70million by 2029.
The figure has become a battleground between the Government and those pushing for stricter immigration controls.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson initially said he did not ‘lie awake’ worrying about such rapid growth.
He is now insisting the ONS figure is only a projection and that the statisticians have been wrong in the past.
The number of immigrants living in Britain has almost doubled in less than three decades. The total foreign-born population now stands at 6.7million.
Jobs
Mr Brown’s now notorious ‘British jobs for British workers’ pledge is fatally undermined by employment figures from the ONS.
These show that, in the private sector, there were 288,000 fewer UK-born people working in the third quarter of last year than there were in 1997.
Mr Brown likes to include people working beyond pension age as ‘new jobs’ — but if you strip them out, there are 637,000 fewer.
Overall, immigration has accounted for more than 1.64million of the 1.67million jobs created since 1997.
The Black Economy
For much of the last decade, Britain has been a magnet for illegal immigration and it has never been possible to put a definitive figure on the numbers entering this way.
Migrants mass at the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais, then smuggle themselves into the UK, often hidden in lorries.
The stowaways vanish into a black economy estimated to be worth billions of pounds.
Commonly, illegal immigrants work in kitchens, agricultural and construction jobs. Immigration staff, struggling to cope with a backlog of asylum claims, do not have the resources to track them down.
During the 2005 election campaign, Tony Blair repeatedly refused to estimate how many illegals were living here. A month after being re-elected, his Government produced an estimate of 570,000.
The campaign group Migrationwatch says the true total could be as high as 870,000.
Some Labour ministers have flirted with calling an ‘amnesty’ but it has been rejected as electorally unpopular.
Eastern Europe
Officials estimated that, following EU enlargement in May 2004, between 5,000 and 13,000 Eastern Europeans would move to Britain.
But by the end of 2009 the number who had signed the Home office’s Worker Registration scheme alone was 1,041,315.
This does not include the self-employed or those who did not bother to sign. The unexpected influx — mainly from Poland — placed significant strain on schools, the health service and local councils, who have still not been properly funded for the new arrivals.
Citizenship
Handing out passports to foreign nationals is how the Labour Government changed the make-up of society for ever. In 1997 just 37,010 people were given citizenship.
Last year the Home Office approved an all-time record 203,865 applications, an increase of 58 per cent in a year.
In total, Labour has now created 1.5million new British citizens — all with full voting rights.
Ministers have repeatedly promised to toughen citizenship rules, most recently by insisting migrants must earn a passport by doing voluntary work.
Asylum Removals
Labour has never recovered from the mayhem which occurred at the start of this century, when a record number of asylum seekers poured into the UK.
Even on conservative estimates, it has left around 285,000 failed claimants living in Britain — but the number being removed is falling.
In 2009, there were 10,815 removals or voluntary departures, down 16 per cent on 2008.
Of those who went, 2,985 benefited from the Assisted Voluntary Return scheme — worth £3,000 each.
The Government’s target of concluding 90 per cent of asylum cases within six months by December 2011 has been dismissed as ‘unachievable’ by Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine.
Only a third of failed asylum seekers — 7,850 out of the 26,832 served with deportation notices — were actually removed in 2008. Inspectors have recently identified a new backlog of 40,000 cases massing in the asylum system.
Student Visas
In 1998, the number of visas handed out to overseas students was 69,607. In 2008/9, this figure had risen to 236,470.
The Government’s own figures suggest more than one in ten of the foreign students studying in this country last year was sponsored by a bogus college.
At least 1.5million student visas have been handed out in the past eight years alone.
The beneficiaries included Christmas Day transatlantic flight bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — given permission by the Home Office to study mechanical engineering at University College London between 2005 and 2008.
A string of other terror suspects have used the student visa route into the UK.
Prisons
Britain’s jails have been turned into what the Tories have called a ‘United Nations of crime’ containing inmates from 160 different countries.
The 11,546 foreign nationals represent one in every seven inmates in our prisons. They range from murderers and rapists to burglars, paedophiles, drug dealers and thieves.
There are only 192 member countries of the United Nations, so all bar 32 are represented in the British prison system.
The vast number of overseas inmates is a major factor behind the overcrowding which has led to the early release of UK criminals.
The Secret Plan
Arguably, the most damaging charge of them all. New Labour’s election manifestos made little or no mention of immigration policy.
But according to a draft report by the Cabinet Office, written in 2000, ministers had a secret plan to ‘maximise the contribution’ of migrants to the Government’s ‘social objectives’.
Former Labour advisor Andrew Neather, who worked on the report, said the aim was to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.’
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
UK: What Has Britain Come to When it Takes a Muslim Like Me to Defend Christianity?
Christianity is under siege in this country.
Britain’s national religion has never been so marginalised and derided, especially by the public institutions that should be defending it.
The case of nurse Shirley Chaplin, who has been banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix while caring for patients, is a graphic illustration of this insidious trend.
Indeed, it is surely an affront to the very concept of religious liberty, which was once regarded as a cornerstone of our democratic, respectful and tolerant nation.
For make no mistake, a new form of virulent secularism is sweeping through society — and its target is Christianity.
I am Muslim. But even as a non-Christian, I can see all too clearly the shameful way in which Britain’s national faith is being eroded. Indeed, banning a crucifix makes a mockery of our treasured right to religious freedom.
With a typically bureaucratic mix of arrogance and authoritarianism, the Devon and Exeter Trust has claimed that the ban is not an attack on Christianity because wearing a crucifix is not an essential requirement of the faith.
But who appointed these quangocrats to pronounce on matters of religious doctrine? What right do they have to lecture a devout woman about her cherished beliefs?
And why can’t they accept that Ms Chaplin’s deeply religious convictions, which she chooses to express by wearing the crucifix, also inspire her compassionate work in the NHS?
As a Muslim, I am filled with despair at the attitude of our politically correct officials towards Christianity.
For me, all true religious faith, if practised with benevolence and humility, can only strengthen our society. To undermine religion is to undermine society itself.
It is no coincidence that as Christianity is repeatedly attacked, so the social fabric of Britain becomes increasingly frayed.
As we lose our strong moral compass, family breakdown and violent crime are at record levels, while our once famous sense of community spirit is evaporating.
[…]
A strong society demands tolerance and integration. Yet the political class has made a tragic mistake in recent years by emphasising cultural differences between migrant communities and normal Britons.
This agenda has been eagerly exploited by Islamic hard-liners who thrive on division. They are so eager to promote the wearing of the burqa by women, so that the line of separation is further widened.
But these shrill demands for the imposition of the burqa in the Muslim community are utterly misguided. Nothing in the Koran says Muslim women have to be dressed in this way.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UKIP Official Suspended Amid Race Row
A leading member of the UK Independence Party has been suspended from his position as London chairman after becoming embroiled in a race row.
Paul Wiffen, who is standing as his party’s candidate in Ilford South, allegedly fired off a racist email to a magazine in response to an attack it had made against Ukip on its website.
In the email, directed at the social work website Community Care, Mr Wiffen wrote: “You left wing scum are all the same, wanting to hand our birthright to Romanian gipsies who beat their wives and children into begging and stealing money they can gamble with, Muslim nutters who want to kill us and put us all under medieval Sharia law, the same Africans, who sold their Afro-Caribbean brothers into slavery that Britain was the first to abolish.”
He was immediately dropped from his official position within Ukip, but has been allowed to continue campaigning to stand as MP in the Ilford South constituency.
Explaining what sparked his outburst he said: “I was very surprised to see such a party political piece on a website called Community Care, and when I read the lies about Ukip being a racist party, I just saw red and fired off an angry email.
“I am truly sorry to anyone who was offended by some of the language I used.”
A spokesman for the party said: “Ukip is a party of real people, not career politicians. Real people sometimes make mistakes and when they do they should apologise. Both Ukip and Mr Wiffen have apologised.”
The latest embarrassment for the party comes just a day after the chairman of Ukip’s Liverpool branch was suspended for making films featuring mock torture and sex games.
Rob Ager was forced to step down from his position after it emerged that he had made a series of films featuring scenes of bondage, incarceration and flagellation.
Defending the movies, which included titles such as The Sex Game and The Victim, Mr Ager said: “My material is pretty tame. I put a lot of intelligent material into the scripts.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican: Bishop ‘Resigned After Sex Abuse Inquiry’
Vatican City, 7 April (AKI) — The Vatican on Wednesday confirmed that a bishop had resigned in Norway last year after child sexual abuse allegations were made against him. As the Vatican is working to contain the impact of the sex abuse scandal engulfing the Catholic Church, its press spokesman Father Federico Lombardi confirmed that Bishop Georg Mueller had resigned from his position as bishop of Oslo and the central city of Trondheim in May 2009 after an investigation.
Mueller had admitted to sexual abuse involving an underage altar boy several years ago, the English-language daily, The Norway Post, said on Wednesday.
The Vatican confirmed an earlier statement by Bishop Markus Bernt Eidsvig, who replaced Mueller in Trondheim.
Eidsvig said in a statement on Wednesday that the 58-year-old German had been removed from all pastoral duties and undergone therapy after he admitted the abuse.
“The matter concerns a case of sexual abuse of a minor at the beginning of the 1990s, which came to the knowledge of the ecclesiastical authorities in January 2009,” Lombardi said in a statement.
Mueller admitted to only one case and no other allegations had come to light, Eidsvig said.
“The question was rapidly confronted and examined through the apostolic nunciature in Stockholm, by order of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Lombardi said.
“In May 2009, the bishop presented his resignation, which was immediately accepted by the Holy Father, and he left the diocese in June. He underwent a period of therapy and no longer carries out pastoral work.”
The news broke after the victim, who is now in his thirties, told his story to a Catholic priest after having kept it a secret for around 20 years.
Mueller, originally from Trevi in Germany, was a priest in Trondheim at the time of the abuse.
According to the local Trondheim newspaper Adresseavisen, the man received a year’s salary, around NOK 500,000 ( 84,000 dollars) in compensation.
Eidsvig told the Trondheim paper that the victim did not want publicity while expressing the church’s “shame” over the incident.
“From the point of view of civil law, the case is subject to the statue of limitations. The victim, now an adult, has thus far always asked to remain anonymous”.
Earlier this week, Eidsvig said that the Church was aware of four other cases of sexual misconduct in Norway.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Vinitaly: 2010 Year of Turnaround for Italian Wine
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, APRIL 7 — Italian winemakers present the year 2010 as the year of the turnaround, at the event Vinitaly which will be held in Verona from tomorrow to April 12. The event’s 44th year will be opened by Minister and Governor Luca Zaia (Giorgio Napolitano will be present on Friday, the first time an Italian President visits the event). The role of Vinitaly is that of commercial global network for wine-making. Five days, more than 92 thousand square metres of exposition space with 12 pavilions and 4,200 exhibiting firms from Oceania, America, Europe and Africa. In Italy the sector is worth 20 billion euros, employs 1.2 million people. Italian wine exports totalled almost 3.5 billion euros in 2009 (around 20% of total food exports), despite a 5.4% decline in value (+10.2% in volume). But according to a survey carried out by Assoenologi, the total surface of planted with vines in Italy has fallen by almost 4.5% over the past four years. Falling sales in the past year (-9% in volume and -1.3% in value) have forced many winemakers change their plans, though others have decided to see the international crisis as an opportunity for development. Italy is still very strong in the United States, despite the unfavourable exchange rate and the strong competition from Argentina and Chile. A survey carried out by ‘Winenews’ shows that people prefer wines that cost less than 20 USD, particularly Pinot Grigio and Prosecco. In 2009 new markets were conquered as well, like Russia (+30% demand for Italian wines), and Sweden (+14.2%). Looking at the immediate future, Italian wines seem close to conquering Japan, while the markets of China and India, which could grow, are for the moment considered to be marginal.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: EU: Moratinos Announces No Need for Visas After June
(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, APRIL 8 — In June the European Union will be announcing that it is lifting visa requirements for Bosnian nationals, stated Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos yesterday in Sarajevo. Spain is the current holder of the EU presidency. The announcement — said Moratinos, who since Tuesday has been in Bosnia along with US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg — will be made during the EU-Balkans conference in Sarajevo at the beginning of June. “The time has come,” said the Spanish minister, “for important decisions and the conditions for advancing Bosnia’s bid for EU and NATO membership. The US and the EU came to Bosnia together to convey a message of support, solidarity, and hope, as well as one of responsibility.” On Tuesday in Sarajevo, Moratinos and Steinberg met with the tripartite presidency and the High Representative for the International Community Valentin Inzko, while yesterday — in separate meetings — they visited the leaders of the seven main Bosnian parties. To the latter they again encouraged the speeding up of the reforms requested by the international community to give the country a better functioning structure. Local leaders, however, are not at the moment — six months before the general elections — willing to deal constitutional reforms, on which differences of opinion remain between Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The lifting of visa requirements for Schengen-area countries — a measure for which, according to Security Minister Sadik Ahmetovic, Bosnia has fulfilled all the conditions laid down by Brussels — is much awaited by the population, especially after last December when the measure was brought in for the citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Montenegro: Minister, in 2011 Negotiations for EU Admission
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 7 — In 2011 Montenegro will begin negotiations for full membership to the European Union. This was announced today by the Minister for European Integration Gordana Djurovic, who said she was certain of her Country’s admission to the EU in 2014. “Montenegro, together with Macedonia, is better prepared with respect to other candidates to be admitted” to the EU, said Djurovic, quoted by Tanjug. The citizens of Montenegro, and those of Serbia and Montenegro, have been exempted since last December from requiring a visa to enter the EU Countries. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: 9.2% Live Below Poverty Line
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 7 — In Serbia 670 thousand people, 9.2% of the country’s population, live below the poverty line, with a monthly salary of less than 8,300 dinars (around 83 euros). This was reported by the Minister of Labour and Welfare, Rasim Ljajic, who said that the government has allocated 880 million dinars (8.8 million euros) for the poorest and most vulnerable social groups. The Minister added that he wants to propose a decree to use domestic reserves for social purposes. In Serbia, where unemployment reached 16.6% in January, the average monthly salary is around 30,000 dinars, almost 300 euros. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Huge Interest for Traveling Abroad
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 7 — In spite of economic crisis there is huge interest for traveling arrangements that the agencies are organizing for the 1st May Holidays, reports daily Blic. Rome and Vienna are the most looked for destinations. There is also huge interest in Prague, tours through Italy, Sharm el Sheikh, Teneriffe, Maiorca, Maldives, Dominicana and Cuba. As regards domestic destinations people are mainly interested in the Mountain of Zlatibor and spas. This year for the first time there is a direct flight from Nis to Rimini so that destination has become the most attractive for people of that part of Serbia. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Frees Top Muslim Brotherhood Members
Deputy leader Mahmoud Ezzat and Essam al-Erian, members of the group’s governing body, were set free late Wednesday while the remaining 14 members, including senior members Abdel-Rahman Al Bar and Mohi Hamed, were released Thursday.
Egyptian authorities had accused the senior members of setting up a body aligned with the thinking of former leader Sayyed Qotb who was executed in the 1960s and whose ideas have inspired militants.
But a criminal court ordered their release on April 4 as no evidence was found.
“We are glad to see the authorities’ swift execution of the court’s release order,” the group’s lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud told Reuters.
The Brotherhood says it wants peaceful political reform to establish a democratic state. Though banned, the group won a fifth of the seats in parliament in 2005 when members ran as independents.
“Accusations against these members as well as others are false. This is a political case and we hope that the rest of the detained members are released especially as parliamentary elections are coming,” senior member Gamal Nassar told Reuters.
The Brotherhood says the series of security sweeps are aimed at disrupting the group’s political activity.
Analysts expect the group’s numbers in parliament to shrink at the election in the second half of this year after increasing state suppression of the group.
The government of President Hosni Mubarak, whose predecessor was gunned down by Islamic militants, is wary of any group with Islamist leanings, including the Brotherhood.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Vaujour Dies, Witness of Start Algerian War
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 7 — Former prefect Jean Vaujour, one of the last witnesses of the start of the Algerian war on November 1 1954 when he was director of General Security in Algiers, died on March 28 at the age of 95. His relatives announced his death today. Vaujour, who had infiltrated the Algerian nationalist movement in the year the revolt started, had tried without success to warn the government of Pierre Mendes-France and his Interior Minister, Francois Mitterrand, that a revolt was about to start. In his contacts with the French special services in Cairo and with his counterparts in Morocco and Tunisia he had collected many clues that something was about to happen, but his report “North-African commandos”, drafted in March 1954, remained a dead letter. He discussed the issue directly with Mitterrand who visited Algeria from October 15 to 23 of that year, on the occasion of an earthquake that shook Orleansville one month earlier. Vaujour proposed Mitterrand to arrest the whole group of conspirators or at least to keep a close eye on them ahead of a large-scale roundup. “Wéll see when I get back” was the answer of the Interior Minister, who also ignored a successive urgent report. All that Vaujour obtained was a reinforcement of police forces, which arrived as late as October 30, on the eve of the revolt, with some 30 attacks in which only 7 people were killed. But the event was the start of eight years of one of the most terrible conflict in the history of decolonisation. Vaujour denounced France’s inactivity in a book in 1985. In interviews he gave in 2000 for the army’s history service, he said that the continuation of the Algerian war was a consequence of the wish of de Gaulle to carry out nuclear tests in Reggane, in the Algerian Sahara (where the first test took place on February 13 1960). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Editor of Israeli Arab Newspaper: The Conflict Between the Arabs and Israel is a Religious War
In a recent article, Hamed Aghbariya, editor of the Israeli Arab paper Sawt Al-Haqq Wal-Hurriya, which is affiliated with the Islamic Movement, claimed that the Israeli-Arab conflict is essentially a religious struggle.
The following are excerpts from the article: [1]
“All of a sudden, some of the forgetful among our people have woken up and expressed a fear that the Israeli establishment wants to drag the region into a religious war […].[2]
“It is as if they are saying that everything that has happened since the fall of the Islamic Caliphate and the release of the Balfour Declaration does not constitute a religious war. As if the 1948 war against the entire [Muslim] nation was not a religious war, and the 1967 occupation of the territories and the desecration of the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] were not [part of] a religious war, and all the [other] wars and plans for Judaization were not [part of] a religious war. As if the war against Gaza was not a religious war, and what is going on today in Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem is not linked to a religious war. As if global Jewry and its leaders did not declare a religious war from the very first moment at the Basel Congress, when they announced that [the goal of] their enterprise was to realize the dream of returning to the land of [their] forefathers…
“The State Committee of Arab Local Authority Heads was in error when it withdrew its call for a strike [of the Arab local authorities] […],[3] and [its] chairman, engineer Ramez Jaraisy, was doubly in error: [first] when he agreed to cancel the strike — though he is among those familiar with the pitfalls, ills, and intrigues of the [Israeli] Interior Ministry — and again when he requested a meeting with [Interior] Minister [Eli] Yishai […]
“It would have been preferable, or [more] appropriate, that the Committee insist on holding the strike, since its purpose was to bring things to some kind of solution, and not [to achieve] a meeting with a minister — especially [considering] that the committee, [its] chairman, and [its] members know all too well that the governments’ policy (which is to say the policy of the Israeli establishment) towards our society is based on the [following] principle: ‘[The Arabs are] a strategic threat… But we won’t get rid of [this threat] in one fell swoop, but instead starve it slowly, so that it is neither dead nor alive.’ Our much-exalted leaders know this, and say so both openly and behind closed doors. [So] why did they agree to cancel the strike? They owe the people an answer.
“It is true enough that the strike would not have been terribly effective, especially [since it was to be] a one-day strike. And what is more, many of our local authorities exist in a perpetual state of ‘strike.’ But a meeting with a minister does not achieve anything.
“One of the best ways to exert pressure on the establishment — in this case, the Interior Ministry — is to declare an open strike or a prolonged strike (lasting two weeks or a month), during which the local Arab authorities would be [completely] paralyzed. (They are in various states of paralysis to begin with.) Maybe such a prolonged strike would rouse the [Arab] public, which doesn’t see this matter as pertinent to it…
“Changing the terms we use [is one of] the means for altering the current situation […] [One’s] terms and words reflect [one’s] education. Seeing that our education draws on our culture, and seeing that our culture is Islamic, [our] terminology must be fitting. One of our errors is the use of the term ‘the Middle East’ to describe our region. It is more proper to call it ‘the Islamic East’ or ‘the Muslim Lands.’ ‘The Middle East’ is a Western term that was favored by imperialism and by its Orientalists when referring to our region, in order to distinguish it from other regions in the East, such as ‘the Near East’ and ‘the Far East.’“
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
France-PNA: Industrial Park in Bethlehem Opened
(ANSAmed)- PARIS, APRIL 8 — A French-Palestinian industrial park, initiated by France with the aim of promoting the economic development of the future Palestinian state, was opened today in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, in the presence of the French Minister for Industry, Christian Estrosi, the Palestinian Minister for the Economy, Hassan Abu Lidbeh, and numerous industrialists from both countries. The park “aims to support the private sector in Palestine, to fight unemployment, to attract French investments and to create a dynamic economy”, according to a statement by the mixed French-Palestinian company BMIP (Bethlehem Multi-Purpose Industrial Park) which manages the project and which will be operational at the beginning of 2011. The park, which will allow the creation of jobs (from 500 to 1,000), is a public-private partnership between PIEFZA, the Palestinian public authority appointed to the industrial zones of the territories, and BMIP, which groups together private Palestinian shareholders from Bethlehem and French investors in an equal holding. According to the French agency for development, France has released 10 million euros to “support the attractiveness of the park,” financing amongst other things the water and electricity network and the construction of an access road. Estrosi also signed, with his Palestinian colleague, a financial protocol for the promotion of the Palestinian private sector which provides for a donation from the French Government of five million euros. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu: No to Imposed Peace Plan
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 8 — Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu, according to newspaper Haaretz which today quotes well-informed sources, has said in talks behind closed doors with his collaborators that Israel will refuse peace plans imposed from the outside. “They would not work and an imposed solution would not be acceptable for us”, Netanyahu reportedly said. The Premier’s statements regard the news in some US media that President Barack Obama, losing hope that Israelis and Palestinians will resolve their conflict, is now inclined to approve a peace plan that will be imposed to both parties. This plan reportedly includes points on which Israelis and Palestinians already agree, and elements of the peace plan that was proposed by Arab countries, as well as the plan of former US President Bill Clinton. According to daily Maariv, also Vice Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was negative about the idea. He said that “it is absolutely unacceptable that any international institute tries to impose a peace plan to the involved parties. There are no ready-made peace plans to take from a shelf, an agreement must be based on direct talks between the parties (in conflict)”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
New Obama Policy: Israeli Nuclear Workers Denied US Entry
NRG/Maariv reports today that workers at the Dimona reactor who submitted VISA requests to visit the United States for ongoing University education in Physics, Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering — have all been rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.
This is a new policy decision of the Obama administration, since there never used to be an issue with the reactor’s workers from study in the USA, and till recently, they received VISAs and studied in the USA.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Diplomatic War on Israel is Just Getting Started
Apparently, David Ignatius of the Washington Post isn’t the only recipient of White House leaks about an Obama peace plan. Helen Cooper of the New York Times chimed in with her own piece this afternoon about the president’s desire to jump into the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to Cooper, the trigger for this latest instance of administration hubris was a recent gathering of former national-security advisers including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Samuel Berger, and Colin Powell, who were called in to consult with the president and his adviser General James L. Jones. The consensus (only Powell seems to have dissented) was that Obama must put forward his own scheme that would state exactly what the parameters of a peace deal would be. The idea is that peace can only be obtained by the United States imposing it on the parties. The plan is, of course, along the lines of past Israeli peace offers rejected by the Palestinians, plus extra Israeli concessions. The Palestinians give up their “right of return,” and Israel “would return to its 1967 borders,” including the one that divided Jerusalem, with only “a few negotiated settlements” as an exception. The supposed sweetener for Israel is that the United States or NATO, whose troops would be stationed along the Jordan River, would guarantee Israeli security.
[Comments from JD: Hat tip: Atlas.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Unprecedented: U.S. Bargaining on Behalf of Palestinians
Instead of acting as intermediary, Obama administration ‘assuming all PA positions’
JERUSALEM — In an unprecedented move, the U.S. has been conducting negotiations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, according to a senior PA negotiator and sources in the Israeli government.
The U.S. has been calling for the resumption of indirect talks, with Obama administration officials publicly proposing to serve as a go-between to facilitate dialogue between Israel and the PA.
Sources in both the PA and Israeli government told WND talks are underway on a number of issues, including future borders and security controls for a Palestinian state.
A senior PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rather than act as an intermediary, the U.S. has been negotiating with Israel on behalf of the PA, assuming all Palestinian positions and bargaining with Israel from the Palestinian side.
The account was confirmed with sources in the Israeli government, who said such behavior by the U.S. government is unprecedented.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Zapatero and Hariri Ask Israel to Cooperate
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 8 — Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri ask Israel to cooperate to restart dialogue with the Palestinians and the peace process in the Middle East. In the joint press conference held today in the Moncloa Palace, during Hariri’s first official visit in Spain, Zapatero reaffirmed his country’s commitment to peace-building in the area and Lebanon’s stability, observing that Hariri’s national solidarity government contributes to both. “We hope Israel cooperates to start a dialogue as soon as possible”, the Spanish Prime Minister remarked, who added that “the major actors in the international community reached a wide agreement on the (peace process’) key points”. As far as he’s concerned, the Lebanese Prime Minister appeared to be particularly harsh with Israel. Hariri remarked that the investment that “Palestinians and Arabs made in the last 60 years in diplomacy” found “only aggression and intolerance” in the opposite party, and warned Israel that, no matter how many wars can rage in the region, “there will be a political solution eventually.” The Lebanese Prime Minister spoke of Zapatero as an ally in the mission to give Palestinians their own State with Jerusalem as capital. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Frattini to Erdogan: Israel No Threat to Peace
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 7 — “Israel is not threat to peace” and “Erdogan knows that very well”, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, commenting the statements made by the Turkish Premier during his visit to Paris. Erdogan said that Israel currently poses “the main threat to peace in the region”. Frattini underlined that “Turkey’s role has always been constructive and important” for the Middle East peace process, and that “we are certain that Turkey will continue to be constructive and proactive”. The Italian FM also said that he “appreciates the words” of Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu, “who has kept a cool head and has softened Israel’s response”. Frattini added that the peace process has reached “a worrying stalemate and the American efforts have not led to results so far”. Therefore it is in “the interest of everybody to keep a cool head”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel — Iran: Anti-Biochemical Warfare Kits and Gas Masks Handed Out in Israel
Defence Ministry makes the announcement after Iran makes more threats against Israel. Tensions are rising in view of possible attacks against Iran.
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Israel has begun handing out millions of protection kits against biochemical warfare, Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced, stressing the move is not linked to any imminent threat. However, many in Israel believe the campaign is in preparation of a possible attack against Iran,
“Every family in Israel can receive these kits at home and be instructed on how to use them by Israeli postal workers, at an average cost of 25 shekels (US$ 5), or pick them up free of charge at post office counters,” Israeli army radio quoted Vilnai as saying.
The distribution of protection kits comes a few hours after Iran made further threats against Israel. Mojtaba Zolnoor (pictured), an aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said yesterday, “If the enemy takes its chance and fires a missile towards Iran, the dust from an Iranian missile strike will rise in the heart of Tel Aviv even before the dust from the enemy attack settles.”
In Israel Zolnoor’s statement is viewed as all an act, but local analysts contacted by AsiaNews said that tensions are rising in the country, leading some to believe that an attack against Iran will be carried out in the next few months.
The Israeli government decided on January 5 to distribute eight million new gas masks, one for each citizen, and has already distributed gas masks to 70,000 residents of Or Yehuda, near Tel Aviv in February.
Gas masks were distributed to Israel’s population during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait over fears of possible chemical attacks from Iraq.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Clashes Between Militants of Palestinian Group
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, APRIL 8 — Violent clashes between militants of a pro-Syrian Palestinian group broke out this morning in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, according to the local press. There are no reports of victims. Automatic weapons and mortars were used in the shootout, according to the websites Now Lebanon and Naharnet, which specify that the fight involved many militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC), based near Qussaya and Kfar Zabad, on the Syrian border. Satellite television network al Arabiya reports that the clashes started after “an official” of the group, led by Ahmad Jibril, “was dismissed”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu: Interested in Good Relation With Turkey
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 7 — Israel remains interested in “friendly ties with Turkey”, but regrets the attacks of Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who today in Paris said that Israel is “the main threat to peace” in the Middle East. This was said today by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, in response to the statements made by Erdogan during a press conference in Jerusalem on the occasion of the first anniversary of his government. “We are interested in maintaining good relations with Turkey” said Netanyahu in response to a question. Therefore, he added, “I regret that Erdogan seizes all chances he gets to attack Israel”. Earlier the Foreign Ministry called Erdogan’s words an example of “vulgar anti-Israeli propaganda”. Referring to the ongoing tension in the wake of Turkey’s criticism on Israel’s operation ‘Cast Lead’ conducted in the Gaza Strip 15 months ago, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, yesterday asked the Turkish government to relax the atmosphere, pointing at the traditional alliance between the two countries. But at the same time compared Erdogan’s recent rhetoric statements to those of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi — seen as provocative and fundamentalist by Israel — or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Israeli authorities also protested in the past months against series on Turkish television in which Israeli troops are depicted as criminals and rapists of Palestinian women.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sadr Supporters Reject Leading Candidates for Iraqi PM
The Iraqi political group of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has rejected both of the front-running candidates for prime minister.
The members of the Sadrist bloc voted for former Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in a referendum.
The Sadrist bloc of 40 parliamentary seats could have swung the decision for either Iyad Allawi or Nouri Maliki who lead the two biggest political blocs.
The decision means government-forming negotiations have become more complex.
It may take months, and not weeks, for the parties to form the coalitions necessary to get enough seats to form a governing majority.
The referendum offered a choice of five candidates, all of them Shias — Mr Maliki, Mr Allawi, Mr Jaafari, Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi, and Jaafar Mohammed Baqir Sadr, a second cousin of Moqtada Sadr and son of the revered Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadiq Sadr, who was assassinated during the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Crushed
In the informal poll of grass-roots supporters, Mr Maliki came only fourth, with 10% of the votes.
The man who heads the coalition which narrowly won the election, Iyad Allawi, came behind Mr Maliki with 9% of the vote.
Mr Jaafari, a former doctor, headed the American-appointed interim government in 2005.
He was seen at the time as a popular leader who wanted to unify Sunni and Shia interests.
He was replaced by Mr Maliki as head of the largest Shia coalition in 2006.
As prime minister, Mr Maliki crushed the military wing of the Sadr organisation, the Mehdi Army, in an offensive during 2008.
If the Sadrist movement had backed one of the two top contenders their role as kingmakers would have been clear the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Baghdad.
The bloc’s choice of Mr Jaafari is not likely to be viewed with enthusiasm by other political blocs, our correspondent says.
It is a month since the general election was concluded.
None of the political groups won a big enough majority to form a government.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: New Measures to Enhance Holy Sites Development
(ANSAmed) — MAKKAH, APRIL 8 — Haj Minister Fouad Al-Farsy on Wednesday highlighted the government’s move to further develop the holy sites and the services being provided to the guests of God who come for Haj and Umrah, as Arab News reports. The minister was referring to the 13-point objectives of the Ninth Five-Year Development Plan (2010-2015), which were endorsed by the Cabinet meeting on Monday. “The new move to develop the holy sites and improve pilgrim services under the five year plan will expand facilities for the growing number of pilgrims who come from different parts of the world”, he said. Al-Farsy underscored the gigantic projects established by the government during the past years including expansion of the two holy mosques and construction of the four-story Jamrat Bridge in Mina. “These projects reflects the Saudi government’s desire to provide the best possible services to the guests of God”, the minister added. Besides, Haj missions from a number of Muslim countries are arriving in Makkah to discuss preparations for their pilgrims, a source at the Haj Ministry told Arab News, while missions from Indonesia, Pakistan, Algeria and Jordan are already in the holy city. The peak season for Umrah pilgrimage, is usually in Ramadan, increasing the price significantly. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Female Poet Hissa Hilal Loses in Contest Final
The veiled female Saudi poet competing in the United Arab Emirates’ version of Pop Idol failed to win the top prize in the final of the event.
Hissa Hilal, who had attracted attention with her poetry — fiercely critical of Islamist radicals — came third in the Millions Poet contest.
But the mother of four walked away with a $817,000 (£536,000) prize.
The winner, Nasser al-Ajami from Kuwait, received the 5m dirham ($1.4m) first prize.
Death threats
Mrs Hilal, Wearing the Saudi traditional head-to-toe black abaya cloak, with a veil masking her face, recited her last poem in the contest — a defence of the freedom of thought.
In past rounds she recited poems which condemned “evil” fatwas by radical Muslim clerics.
As a result she received death threats on the internet.
The annual competition in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi draws masters of Bedouin dialect poetry, known as Nabati, which is highly appreciated by Gulf Arabs.
Hilal has drawn the wrath of Islamist conservatives in her home country of Saudi Arabia after criticising its strict segregation of the sexes and blasting fatwas that reject an easing to allow women to take on jobs that are currently for men only.
The contest’s panel, whose voting accounted for 60% of the final score, gave her the highest score and praised her courage for expressing her opinion “honestly and powerfully”.
But Hilal lost out after the audience vote, which accounted for the remaining 40%, was not enough to give her the crown.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
The Obama Administration and Sanctions on Iran: The Farce Deepens
by Barry Rubin
For more than a year I have repeatedly pointed out that the Obama Administration’s strategy of increasing the level of sanctions against Iran has been a mess. Deadlines set by the U.S. government for September and then December weren’t met. Even afterward, the government had not even established publicly (and it seems not even privately) its basic position on what sanctions should be. Congressional proposals for a tougher stance were discouraged and ignored.
Now President Obama once again assures us in early April:
“My hope is that we are going to get this [sanctions] done this spring. So I’m not interested in waiting months for a sanctions regime to be in place, I’m interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks.”
Over and over again we were assured, apparently without basis, that Russia and China were going to support increased sanctions. With the Obama Administration in office now for 14 months, Moscow and Beijing seem no closer to supporting such a policy than they were when the process began.
Now there is more news. It is April and there are no immediate prospect for sanctions. Indeed, the issue is not even on the agenda for the UN Security Council this month. In May, the rotating presidency goes to Lebanon, a country in which Hizballah, an Iranian client, has a veto power over every decision. The Lebanese government has already declared that it will be supportive of Tehran.
June, anyone? Just remember that spring ends June 22 and no doubt we will be discussing the lack of increased sanctions on the day summer begins.
Government officials who are well-informed tell me they believe there might not be any increased sanctions at all.
I repeat: It now seems to be a race between Iran getting nuclear weapons and inadequate increased sanctions being implemented, too little and too late…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-Syria Trade Volume Target Set at 5 Bln USD, Minister
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, APRIL 8 — Turkish Industry & Trade Minister Nihat Ergun said Wednesday that they set Turkey-Syria annual trade volume target as 5 billion USD for the next three years, as reeported by Anatolia news agency from the Syruan capital. Speaking at the third meeting of Turkey-Syria Industry Follow-Up Committee in Syria, Ergun said that Turkey was the 16th biggest economy of the world and it was exporting more than 7,000 different products to 170 countries. Ergun added that 90% of the export products were industrial products. Noting that Turkey was one of the automotive centers of the world, Ergun said that Turkey was also among the biggest producers of the world in textile, television, large household appliances and iron and steel sectors. Ergun said that Turkish contractor companies undertook projects worth of over 150 billion USD in 72 countries, adding that Turkey was in the second place behind China in this aspect. Ergun noted that Turkish economy offered important opportunities to Syrian businessmen. He recalled that Free Trade Agreement which was signed in 2007, and Visa Exemption Agreement which was signed in 2009 between Turkey and Syria came into force, adding that those two agreements were a turning point in economy and trade for the two countries. Ergun said that trade volume between Turkey and Syria was 795 million USD in 2006, and it increased to 1.8 billion USD in 2009. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Cigarette Sales Hit by Smoking Ban
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 8 — Cigarette sales dropped nearly 15% after the smoking ban took effect last year in Turkey, Anatolia news agency reports quoting the head of an anti-tobacco non-governmental organization said on Wednesday. Also, there is a significant decline in cigarette sales, around 20%, in the first two months of 2010, said Elif Dagli, head of the National Committee on Cigarette and Health, an organization working voluntarily in line with World Health Organization’s 1997 campaign “United for a Tobacco-Free World.” However, she said, government’s tax income increased remarkably. In July 2009, Turkish government introduced a law that made it illegal to light up in all enclosed areas including bars, cafes and restaurants across the country. Government also increased tax on tobacco products at the beginning of 2010 which led to price hike on cigarettes. About concerns over cigarette smuggling following rise in prices, Dagli said the ban and high cigarette prices had nothing to do with smuggling. “It is just a way followed by the tobacco industry, which does not want high prices, to dismay governments,” Dagli said. “Turkey is not a safe haven for smugglers. Illegal tobacco trade is around 6.8% in Turkey,” she said. Restaurant owners have been complaining about the ban and they had demands from the government to soften it. However, Turkish government is resolute to continue the ban. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish, Greek Unions Join Hands Against Armament in Aegean
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 8 — Unions on both sides of the Aegean will get united to slow down armament so that funds allocated to armament can be spent on creating new jobs, education, health and social security. Sources told the Anatolia news agency on Thursday that the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) took a decision against arms race between Turkey and Greece in its 34th General Assembly held between March 18 and 21. In its decision, the GSEE said that the arms race between Turkey and Greece brought heavy burden on the workers and economies of both countries. The GSEE made a call on both Turkey and Greece to end the armament immediately. Responding to GSEE’s call, Turkish Confederation of Labor (Turk-Is), Moral Rights Workers’ Union (Hak-Is) and several other Turkish unions indicated that they will work with the GSEE to end the arms race between Turkey and Greece. Our cooperation with the GSEE will be a role model to the whole world and contribute to global peace, said Turkish unions officials. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yemeni Child Bride Dies
SANAA — A 13-YEAR-OLD Yemeni girl who had been forced into marriage died five days after her wedding when she suffered a rupture in her sex organs and haemorrhaging, a local right’s organisation said on Thursday.
Ilham Mahdi al-Assi died on Friday in al-Thawra hospital, in Hajja province north of the capital, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said in a statement quoting a medical report.
She was wedded on Monday in a traditional arrangement known as ‘swap marriage’ in which the brother of the bride also married the sister of the groom, it said.
‘The child Ilham has died as a martyr due to the abuse of children’s lives in Yemen,’ the non-governmental organisation said.
Her death is a ‘flagrant example’ of the results of opposing the ban on child marriage in Yemen, which is leading to ‘killing child females,’ it said. The marriage of young girls is widespread in Yemen which has a strong tribal structure.
The death of a 12-year-old girl in childbirth in September illustrated the case of the country’s ‘brides of death’, many of whom are married off even before puberty. Controversy has heightened in Yemen recently over a law banning child marriage in the impoverished country through setting a minimum age of 17 for women and 18 for men. — AFP
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Russia — USA: Moscow Gives Up Nuclear Arsenals, But Sells Arms to Dictatorships of the World
Tomorrow in Prague, Obama and Medvedev will sign the new Start treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals. The success of the new U.S. president is overshadowed by Russia’s possible abandonment of agreements in light of threat posed by the U.S. missile shield.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — The signing tomorrow in Prague of the new Start treaty on reducing nuclear arsenals marks another success (at least formally) for the Obama administration. But the new relationship established between the Kremlin and the White House after the election of the president, Nobel Laureate for Peace, is overshadowed by gaping holes and ambiguities that put Moscow ‘s good intentions in doubt.
Conflicting statements have emerged from Russia : yesterday the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Serghiei said that his country could withdraw from Start, if it feels threatened by the U.S. missile shield.
While Obama hopes to finally put an end to the Cold War relations that characterized Presidencies of Bush and Putin (and bring the Russians down on his side with the aim of reaching new UN sanctions on Iran), Russia has established strategic alliances and is selling weapons and nuclear materials to some of the dictatorships heavily criticised by the U.S.. An example of this is President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Venezuela, where he signed a deal with the military sector worth 5 billion dollars. On that occasion, President Chavez assured: “We will not make the atomic bomb, but with Moscow we will develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Even worse, Chavez has also talked about a Russian proposal for the space industry. Bolivian leader Evo Morales is also hoping for a closer alliance with the Kremlin. He arrived in Caracas obtaining a loan from Putin for 100 million dollars in military supplies and an Antonov for personal use.
Russians are also busily trading with Beijing. In early April 15 ground-to-air missile batteries valued at 2.25 billion dollars were handed over to China.
The collaboration between the two powers in fighting terrorism is also far from watertight. According to the Washington Post, citing anonymous CIA and FBI sources, the US-Russia cooperation after Sept. 11 was “very limited”. Moscow — they claim — is focused only on Chechen terrorism, and sometimes, when American agents have requested an exchange of information on extremist groups operating in the former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan, they “have not even received a response.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladeshi Christians Hope Easter Will be a National Holiday Soon
It is with such hope that the faithful shared the “joy of the Resurrection” with Muslims and Hindus. However, Muslim extremists continue to be a threat to Christians. Catholic minister says having Sunday as the day of rest would provide benefits to the country’s economy.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The Christians of Bangladesh hope that Easter Sunday will soon be recognised as a national holiday. In the meantime, the faithful shared in the joy of the Resurrection of Christ with Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions, and this despite threats from Muslim extremists.
Promode Mankin, state minister of cultural affairs, is Catholic and a Garo (also A-chik Mande or hill people), an ethnic group found in Bangladesh as well as India. He is on his third mandate as a Member of Parliament for Mymensingh 1 (Haluaghat). He said that Christians have been waiting to see Easter Sunday recognised as a national holiday for the past “30 years”.
“I raised the issue in the cabinet for the first time,” he told AsiaNews. “The government should declare Easter a national holiday,” but a “strong popular movement” must back the move because it is opposed by many Muslims.
More importantly, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) is in favour of moving the weekend from Friday-Saturday, which is based on the Islamic calendar, to Saturday-Sunday because, “In Europe and the United States, the official day of rest is Sunday.” The temporal discrepancy has long-term effects and “causes every year huge losses to companies”. Muslims oppose the change, but “in many Muslim countries like Pakistan Sunday is the main day of rest.”
Last Sunday, Bangladeshi Christians shared the joy of Easter with Muslims and Hindus. There were however episodes of religious fanaticism.
Fr Leo Desai said he celebrated the festivity “under heavy threats”. He explained, “The same group of people who removed the fence from our land have been saying that they would ‘put Christians on the cross’.”
Minister Mankin said he was aware of the “anti-Christian attacks,” but added that he was “working to ensure their safety”.
At the same time, “Christians in Bangladesh are waiting with hope that the government might soon recognise Easter Sunday as a national holiday,” he noted.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Illiterate, Corrupt and Trigger-Happy
German Trainers Describe Pitiful State of Afghan Police
A functioning police force is seen as a prerequisite for a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. German trainers, however, paint a disastrous picture of the quality of Afghan security forces. Too many police, they say, can’t read or write, can’t shoot straight or take bribes.
The delegation of police trainers and soldiers from Germany, Hungary and the United States had come prepared for a work meeting. They had expected it to be somewhat formal at first, but that it would become more relaxed as the meeting progressed.
Abdul Rahman Khaili, the police chief of Baghlan province in Afghanistan, had invited the group to a reception. But when the guests arrived at the police headquarters building, there was no one there to greet them — only a strange, eerie silence.
Until a man in an Afghan uniform appeared, approached the delegation with measured steps and, when he was close enough, blew himself up.
Networks of Relationships
Two Americans died and five people were wounded. The target of the attack was Police Chief Khaili, the provincial governor said in a hasty statement.
But international investigators had a different theory. They believed that Khaili might have been behind the suicide bombing. He was seen as a man with ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and he was suspected of being involved in the opium trade.
But nothing happened to the police chief, despite massive protests from Berlin and Washington. “There are networks of relationships that are much more powerful than the government in Kabul,” says a German police inspector who spent a long time working as an adviser in Afghanistan and traveled widely in the country.
He tells the story to illustrate his view that Afghanistan will never function in accordance with the rules of Western civilization, not even at a police headquarters building. “We don’t recognize the Afghan reality, and that’s why we will fail there,” says the inspector.
Crash Courses
For the last eight years, Germany, working with the United States, has been building a police force in Afghanistan. The effort was very academic and very thorough at first — and also very naïve. Eventually the Germans gained the support of other European Union countries. Since 2008, German trainers have been giving eight-week crash courses in an attempt to turn Afghan men into law enforcement officials. It is a mission impossible.
SPIEGEL interviewed a number of German police officers who participated for a year or more in this impossible task in the land of warlords, Taliban and corrupt rulers. They included organized crime specialists, experienced trainers and senior German officials who advised Afghan cabinet ministers. They didn’t want their names to be published, because what they have to say is politically unpopular. Their verdict is unanimous and devastating. “The establishment of rule of law in Afghanistan is an illusion,” says one man who was stationed in Kabul until recently.
Last weekend, a German interior minister visited Afghanistan for the first time in six years. Thomas de Maizière visited Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, where he inaugurated a new training center. German trainers will train up to 500 Afghan police officers a year at the facility. The Kunduz center is a German contribution to the agreements reached at the Afghanistan conference in January. Western forces expect to train an additional 30,000 police officers to protect Afghan citizens by 2012. Half of them will have been trained by German personnel. Germany expects to increase its contingent of trainers to 260 by mid-year.
‘We Lose Control Over Them’
De Maizière was given an unvarnished account of what is important in Kunduz. “The emphasis of the training,” project coordinator Volker Winkler explained to him, “is always to learn how to survive.” Winkler also told de Maizière that German assistance would still be needed after 2012. “We need a lot of police officers in Afghanistan, and we need good police officers. The two things go together.”
There’s only one problem: The plan isn’t working.
That, at least, is the sober assessment of almost everyone involved in the police recruitment and training process. It’s the view held by the Americans, who have already pumped $6 billion (€4.4 billion) into the training programs, by the Italians, who sent a Carabinieri unit to the police training center in Kabul in January, and by the Germans. “We are training police officers at top gear,” says a senior German official, “and when they leave us, we lose control over them.”
Part 2: Dead or Vanished
Things were different when the Germans first became involved in Afghanistan. Back then, the training program usually lasted three years. “The applicants were excellent,” says an inspector, “motivated and educated.” They became good police officers, but there were too few of them. Many were sent to the violent south of the country, says the German inspector. By now, he adds, one-third have been killed and a third have disappeared.
The Americans advocated shortening the training program. Now the Afghan learn how to march, arrest people and shoot in an eight-week course. What they don’t learn is how to read and write.
Trainers complain that they spend half of their time translating into the local languages, Pashto and Dari. They say that many recruits are unable to concentrate for more than half an hour, and that often their poor motor skills mean they are unable to do much beyond simply walking in a straight line.
In fact, most of the applicants are rural laborers with no formal education. About 20 percent of the cadets fail the drug tests, and 90 percent are illiterate, a rate higher than the national average.
Obtaining Confessions
When the well-meaning planners at German Federal Police headquarters in Potsdam near Berlin were still feeling ambitious, they sent forensics kits and electron microscopes to the training centers. Today the equipment sits on the shelves gathering dust. As one instructor says, confessions are all that count in the world of the Afghan police. The instructor once asked one of the Afghan officers how he obtained confessions. The officer replied by pointing, somewhat shyly, to his baton.
In the seventh week of training, the police cadets are expected to demonstrate their shooting skills. The test requires them to hit a life-sized cardboard figure at 50 meters (164 feet). Each cadet is allowed 60 shots from an automatic weapon, and 42 must hit the target.
Some of the students are good marksmen, hitting the target 60 times. One cadet even managed to hit it 62 times, because the man standing next to him was shooting a little too far to one side.
Those who score below 42 hits receive a certificate stating that they are not qualified to shoot guns. Nevertheless, they are handed a service weapon at the end of the training course.
“They’ll be out there on a checkpoint with an automatic weapon in a couple weeks,” one of the trainers told the New York Times. “I wouldn’t want to be an innocent civilian downrange of them.”
‘Mind-Boggling’
This is a state of affairs that affects not only the security of people in Afghanistan, but calls the security strategy of the Western world into question. For years, it has been clear that there can be no withdrawal of American troops without a police force that functions at least halfway decently.
Three weeks ago, US President Barack Obama asked military officials in a briefing whether the Afghan police would be ready when the first units begin leaving the country in July 2011. Lieutenant General William Caldwell, who has been head of the American police training program since November, briefed the president via video teleconference. According to Newsweek, what he reported did not sit well with Obama at all. “It’s inconceivable, but in fact for eight years we weren’t training the police,” Caldwell said. “All we did was give them a uniform.” The president was reportedly shocked. “It’s mind-boggling,” he said.
Caldwell estimates that no more than a quarter of Afghanistan’s roughly 98,000 police officers has received any formal instruction. This has led to a high death toll. According to a classified German Foreign Ministry report, about 1,200 police officers died in 2007, 1,150 in 2008 and, by the fall of 2009, 760. Most were killed in ambushes, traffic accidents — or by their own weapons.
Part 3: ‘The Taliban Pay More Money’
The lack of reliability of the graduates is also a problem. In purely economic terms, says Italian Brigadier General Carmelo Burgio, it is more attractive for the men to join the Taliban. “They pay more money,” he told the New York Times. And despite recent pay raises that brought monthly wages up to as much as $240 (€180), this still isn’t enough to feed a family of four. Instead, the low wage level creates a breeding ground for corruption, which is already commonplace, and for the tendency to follow the traditional rules of Afghan culture instead of Western-style laws.
In this culture, nothing is more important than friendship and family loyalties. Brigadier General Khudadad Agah, the head of the training center in Kabul, is familiar with the consequences. “One has a brother who is with the Taliban, another has an uncle,” he told the New York Times. “We go on an operation and one brother calls another and they know we’re coming.”
No one knows how many of the 98,000 police officers trained to date are actually performing their jobs, how many are merely shown on salary lists and how many have been recruited by the Taliban. The infiltration of the Afghan National Police (ANP) by the insurgents is a nightmare for everyone involved. Last November, five British soldiers died in a hail of bullets fired by a police officer that they had been working with.
No Better than Highwaymen
One of the grim experiences of international trainers is that some police academy graduates promptly fall into line with the usual customs and collect bribes at checkpoints. The image of the police, reports one of the German officers, is hardly better than that of the Taliban. “Among the population, they are denounced as highwaymen.” According to a United Nations poll, half of all Afghans believe that their law enforcement officials are corrupt.
The nations involved in the training program have come up with various strategies to improve this miserable reputation. “We’re trying to train (the Afghan cadets) to respect and relate to people,” Italian police officer Massimo Deiana told Newsweek. Those are skills that might be more important to the country’s development than marksmanship.
The Germans have decided to accompany the novices on patrol more often than in the past, so that they can intervene if necessary. In relatively safe areas, this means that one Afghan police officer is escorted by four German police officers and four German soldiers.
Extremely Dangerous
The approach is called FDD, or Focused District Development. The idea behind it is to pacify roughly 400 districts, one district at a time. Once the military has secured an area, the police move in and provide the security needed for economic development. But the German trainers in the field believe that the method is extremely dangerous and ineffectual. “FDD means getting killed,” they say.
The Americans, one inspector argues, have suffered considerable losses during these patrols. Chahar Dara in Kunduz province, where up to 140 people died in September 2009 when tanker trucks hijacked by Taliban fighters were bombed at the behest of German Colonel Georg Klein, was an FDD project that failed.
As soon as the military has left an area, says the inspector, the Taliban return and make an example of police officers: “They target and kill police officers, as symbols of the hated government in Kabul.” The officials at German Federal Police headquarters in Potsdam are aware of this risk. “The Afghan National Police remains the insurgents’ main target in all parts of the country,” according to an internal report.
‘Failure Is Inevitable’
The German Interior Ministry, on the other hand, recently stated: “German police officers working in mixed teams with military police in the context of FDD are not exposed to any elevated threat situation.” That assessment, however, appears to be largely at odds with information contained in weekly internal situation reports submitted by police on the ground in Afghanistan. It also seems to be contradicted by a conclusion the government reached on Feb. 10, when it began defining the German military’s Afghanistan mission as a “non-international, armed conflict” — in other words, as a war.
“Until now, the only places where we operated within the FDD framework were safe districts,” says a German inspector. But, as he points out, the risk increases dramatically as the officers move farther and farther away from their bases. For this reason, the German police organizations are in a latent conflict with government officials. The Association of German Criminal Police Officers is calling for a suspension of the mentoring program and a “strategy shift,” arguing that “continued failure is inevitable.” Konrad Freitag, the head of the German police union, sees no room for negotiation. “German police officers have no business being in the field,” says Freitag.
Extra pay of €110 a day has kept it relatively easy to find sufficient numbers of volunteers for the job. But reports by returning police officers and a barrage of criticism from the unions are beginning to have an effect. The number of applicants is declining, and the German Federal Police is already looking into ways to reactivate retirees or hand out decorations.
On the Most-Wanted List
But given the messy situation, this will hardly do any good. The German leadership has simply experienced too many negative events. Take, for example, the case of Taliban commander Haji Malik, who regularly visited Police General Ghulam Patang in Mazar-e-Sharif. Malik was on the military list of most-wanted insurgents, and he was believed to be behind many bombing attacks. But Patang refused to arrest the man, despite intervention by the German military. He was highly regarded in the region, the police chief explained, and besides, there was no official arrest warrant.
When the pressure became too great, a typically Afghan solution was agreed to. Malik went to prison voluntarily, as part of a deal under which the military officials had three days to come up with evidence against him. But no evidence was found.
On the fourth day, Malik left the prison as a free man. The Taliban militant warmly embraced his former captors and vowed not to set off any more bombs.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea — USA: Pyongyang Sentence American Christian to Eight Years Hard Labour
Mahle Aijalon Gomes, a 30 year old U.S. citizen, was found guilty of unlawful entry and hostility towards the regime. In addition to forced labour, he received a fine of approximately 650 thousand euros. He is the fourth American arrested in North Korea since 2009.
Pyongyang (AsiaNews / Agencies) — A North Korean Court has sentenced Aijalon Mahle Gomes, a U.S. citizen originally from Boston, to eight years forced labour for having entered the country illegally. This is confirmed by the Korean Central News Agency, the regime’s official press agency.
The sentence, reported by the KCNA in a dispatch of four paragraphs, “was imposed for illegal entry into the communist state and hostility shown towards the government.” According to the judges, in addition, the American citizen, “ admitted all his responsibilities.” At the trial, which took place yesterday, was attended by unidentified officials from the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which often represents U.S. interests in the absence of direct diplomatic relationships.
Last month, state media released the identity of the American citizen arrested on January 25: Aijalon Mahle Gomes, a 30 year old Christian, who is a former English teacher with deep religious convictions. Until last January, he lived and worked in South Korea. On Jan. 25 he entered the communist country. The authorities have also imposed a fine of 70 million new Won, approximately 650 thousand Euros.
Analysts believe Gomes will also be freed soon. Kim Yong-hyun, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, says: “The North will not keep him for eight years. They will suspend the sentence and expel him, as a gesture of goodwill towards the United States. “
Gomes is the fourth U.S. citizen accused of having illegally entered North Korea in 2009. In February, Pyongyang released Robert Park, who entered the country from China after crossing a frozen river. Last year, in addition, two American journalists — Laura Ling and Euna Lee — were arrested for the same reason and sentenced to 12 years hard labour. After four months in prison, they were freed and delivered to a diplomatic mission led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Call for Civil Action Over Racial Slurs
The Equal Opportunity Commission wants to have the power to launch civil action against people or organisations who have racially vilified an individual in a public place.
Laws allowing civil action for racial vilification passed the Lower House in 2007 but the legislation never passed through the Upper House.
It is already a criminal offence and, in at least one incident, it has been taken to court in Western Australia.
Commissioner Yvonne Henderson says racial vilification can have a major impact.
“People feeling a sense of injustice and exclusion and it can lead to social problems further down the track.”
The President of the Ethnic Communities Council of Western Australia, Maria Saracini, supports the call.
“It deters or is aimed to deter people from engaging in conduct which is considered unlawful or un-Australian.”
Yvonne Henderson says she would like a racial vilification bill to be placed on the parliamentary notice paper once again.
She says people who have been the subject of racial discrimination should be able to lodge a complaint with the Commission.
“Well it would have to be in a public place. It could be a sign, it could be a poster, it could be a sticker, it could be words spoken.
“It could be words broadcast by means of a P.A. system. It would have to be in some kind of public place which could include a workplace.”
The Government and Opposition have been unavailable for comment.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Woman Strangled by Her Burkha in Freak Go-Kart Accident
A young Muslim woman had died after her burkha became snagged in a go-kart.
The 24-year-old woman, who has not yet been named, died a terrifying death today when a fluttering part of her burkha became caught in the wheels of a go-kart she was driving near the town of Port Stephens, north of Sydney.
The Muslim clothing the woman was wearing flew back as she sped around the track and part of it became entangled in the go-kart’s wheels.
She was strangled in a second and crashed the vehicle.
Despite the efforts of paramedics who rushed to her aid, the neck and throat injuries she suffered were so severe that doctors were unable to revive her when she arrived at the John Hunter Hospital in the New South Wales city of Newcastle.
The young woman was riding the go-kart at a popular recreational area known as Bob’s Farm, which offers rides of up to 15 minutes at a time.
Her death is being likened to that of American dancer Isadora Duncan, acknowledged as being the creator of modern dance, and who was famous for the flowing silk carves she liked to wear.
But while riding in an open-top car in Nice in 1927, her scarf became entangled in one of the vehicle’s spoked wheels and she was strangled.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Cesar Chavez Would Not Have Supported Amnesty for Illegals
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) recently issued a statement urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
No surprise there. The nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization has long been a vocal proponent of such reform. It is especially fond of a major component — a pathway to earned legal status for illegal immigrants if they make amends for the infraction of entering the country illegally by meeting certain conditions.
What was unusual was the marketing behind the plea. The statement came on March 31, and the organization urged that Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform “in recognition of the birthday of the late civil rights leader Cesar Chavez.”
I’ve studied and written about Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) union the labor leader co-founded for more than 20 years. I also grew up in the same San Joaquin Valley where so much of the UFW drama played out. And honestly, at first, I thought the statement was a parody. As I’ll explain in more detail in a moment, the historical record shows that Chavez was a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, and so it’s unlikely that he’d have looked favorably on a plan to legalize millions of illegal immigrants.
But this was no joke. The NCLR actually wanted Congress to honor Chavez by passing comprehensive immigration reform. Here’s how Janet Murguia, NCLR president and CEO, connected the dots between the legislation and the labor leader. Chavez, she said, “shined a national spotlight on the depressed wages and unbearable working conditions experienced by agricultural laborers in the 1960s” and part of “any solution to the myriad problems faced by farm workers is immigration reform.”
I support comprehensive immigration reform. But it is absurd for anyone to invoke the name of Cesar Chavez to pass immigration reform. As I said, were he alive today, it’s a safe bet that Chavez would be an opponent of any legislation that gave illegal immigrants even a chance at legal status.
These days, Chávez is revered among Mexican-American activists and others as a civil rights figure. Yet that’s not who he was. Chavez was primarily a labor leader, and so one of his main concerns was keeping illegal immigrants from competing with and undercutting union members either by accepting lower wages or crossing picket lines. When he pulled workers out of the field during a strike, the last thing he wanted was a crew of illegal immigrant workers showing up to do those jobs and take away his leverage.
So Chavez decided to do something about it. According to numerous historical accounts, Chavez ordered union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service and report illegal immigrants who were working in the fields so that they could be deported. Some UFW officials were also known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
It gets worse. In 1973, in a disgraceful chapter, the UFW set up what union officials called a “wet line” to stop Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. Under the supervision of Chávez’s cousin, Manuel, UFW members tried at first to convince immigrants not to cross the border. When that didn’t work, they physically attacked the immigrants. Covering the incident at the time, the Village Voice said that the UFW was engaged in a “campaign of random terror against anyone hapless enough to fall into its net.” A couple of decades later, in their book The Fight in the Fields, Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval recalled the border violence and wrote that the issue of how to handle illegal immigration was “particularly vexing” for Chávez.
UFW supporters might brush aside this ugly history and insist that it’s conceivable that, were he alive today, Chavez might have no trouble with the concept of legalizing undocumented immigrants. After all, the argument goes, once those individuals are legal, they won’t be easily exploited and thus won’t be able to undercut the negotiating power of union members.
But there is more to it than that. Keep in mind that the current discussion about comprehensive immigration reform includes plans to bring in, over the next few years, hundreds of thousands of guest workers to — borrowing a phrase — do jobs that Americans won’t do. That provision costs reformers the support of organized labor, and it’s very likely that would have included the support of Cesar Chavez.
In fact, the one good thing to come of this episode might just be that it serves to remind the immigration reform community not only who their heroes really were in the past but also who their friends are today.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: 81% Muslims Feel Well Integrated
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 7 — More than 8 Muslims oout of 10 say they are well adapted to Spanish customs; 70 per cent say they are content to reside in Spain and 84 per cent guarantee they have not encountered any obstacle to the practice of their religion. This almost idyllic scenario is highlighted by the latest survey on Muslim immigrants in Spain, and was carried out by Metroscopia for the government. The report, the fourth over the past four years, was presented today in Madrid by the Ministers of the Interior, Justice and Labour, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, Francisco Caamao and Celestino Corbacho. It reflects a “community of Muslim immigrants which is particularly tollerant, adapted to Western customs and liberal, and whose opinions do not differ substantially from those of Spanish citizens”. In fact, 89 per cent of the interviewees sustained that it is perfectly possible to be contemporarily a good Spaniard and a good Muslim; whereas 94 per cent is convinced that “everybody has to make an effort to respect the religious beliefs of others”; and 81 per cent consider that non-believers have the same value as persons and are worthy of the same respect. The study also does away with stereotypes on integralism, presenting a Muslim community in which 52 per cent define themselves as very practicing Muslims; 34 per cent as irregularly or occasionally practicing and 12 per cent as practicing no religion. There are currently 700,000 Muslims in Spain, based on official estimates; one million according to unofficial estimates. A community which respects the Spanish institutions, starting from NGOs, which mark 7.3 points di gradimento in a scale from 0 to 10, followed by the King (7), by the legal system and magistrates (6.5), by the police (6.5) and by Parliament (6.3). The interviewees also think that in Western countries there is a high degree of freedom and tollerance (72%); a greater respect for women (60%); less social differences (56%); more respect for human rights (55%); and more consideration is given to the poor (43) and people have more consideration for others (36%). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pediatricians Warn Educators Not to Promote Being ‘Gay’
‘It is not the school’s role to ‘affirm’ perceived personal sexual orientation’
A professional organization for pediatricians has dispatched letters to thousands of school superintendents across the United States with a warning that promoting — or “affirming” — the homosexual lifestyle to young children can be damaging them.
The letter was sent just days ago by the American College of Pediatricians, a nonprofit organization funded by members and donors, to school superintendents that tells them plainly, “It is not the school’s role to diagnose and attempt to treat any student’s medical condition, and certainly not a school’s role to ‘affirm’ a student’s perceived personal sexual orientation.”
Further, schools can create a “life of unnecessary pain and suffering” for a child when they reinforce a behavior chosen out of a child’s “confusion.”
“Even when motivated by noble intentions, schools can ironically play a detrimental role if they reinforce this disorder,” said the letter, signed by Dr. Tom Benton, the organization’s president.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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