Greece: Poll: People Against IMF, Faith in Papandreou
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 27 — Most people in Greece are against an intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with the crisis, and have confidence in socialist Premier Giorgio Papandreou and the government party. This emerged from a survey published by television network Mega, the first after the activation of the EU-IMF support mechanism. According to the survey, 70.2% of people who were interviewed see the IMF’s involvement as negative for Greece, and 60.9% are against the decision of the socialist government to start the international aid; 67.4% fear social unrest. Confidence in Papandreou, hardly damaged by the ongoing crisis, remains high at 50.8%. The Premier’s Pasok party keeps a clear lead of 9.6% over the main opposition party New Democracy (ND, rightwing). Only 31.9% of Greeks, according to the poll, believe that the Pasok government is the best way out of the crisis. A slightly lower percentage (31%) is in favour of an alliance between the two main parties, Pasok and ND, together with the far-right Laos party. Both ND and Laos have criticised the involvement of the IMF.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Papaconstantinou, Aid or We Go Under
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 27 — Greece’s Finance Minister, Giorgio Papaconstantinou, has warned today that Athens has to receive the promised EU-IMF financial aid by May 19, otherwise it will not be able to meet its debt payments. Addressing Pasok MPs, Papaconstantinou stated that 9 billion euros has to be found by May 19, “therefore it is necessary that the mechanism is up and running by that date, completed, agreed and signed with funds beginning to flow”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: 2009 Deficit Could Reach 14% of GDP
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 27 — Greek Foreign Minister George Papaconstantinou has not excluded that the 2009 deficit, already corrected by Eurostat to 13.6%, could reach 14% of GDP. Quoted by the media, Papaconstantinou made the statement today in front of the PASOK parliamentary group, where Premier George Papandreou also spoke this morning. Eurostat had already talked about potential revisions upwards, about which the Governor of the Central Bank Provopoulos spoke about today as well. Meanwhile, the Athens Stock Market closed today with the General Index at -6%, after hitting a low of -7.4% and stabilising below the critical threshold of 1,700 points, having lost 108. It is the worst result in 12 months with the banking sector recording losses of over 10%. ‘Black Tuesday’ follows a persistently negative trend for Greece on the financial markets to which the new negative data of the GDP is added, which will fall this year by more than the previously forecast 2%, according to the Central Bank. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: S&P Cuts Rating to ‘Junk’
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 27 — Standard & Poor’s has cut its rating of Greece to ‘junk’. Long-term rating was also downgraded to BB+ and BBB+ with a negative outlook, while short-term rating ratings have been cut to B from A-2. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Debt Downgraded to Junk Status by Standard & Poor’s
Greece’s debt has been downgraded to noninvestment status by Standard & Poor’s amid mounting fears that the debt crisis in Europe is spiraling out of control.
In a statement Tuesday, the agency said that it was lowering its rating on Greece’s debt three full notches, to BB+ from BBB — the first level of speculative, or junk, status.
The outlook is negative, meaning the agency could downgrade the rating again.
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Portugal Sweats: Credit Default Swaps & Spreads Up
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 27 — Portugal is running the risk of being the next in line in the Euro-Zone, to follow Greece and to sink under the weight of its debt. Credit default swaps on the country’s debts rose by 33.5 points to 344.5 points today, while yield differentials on the country’s 10-year treasury bonds compared to German bonds widened by 34 base points to 252 points, reaching the highest point since 1997, according to figures released by Bloomberg. While Portugal’s debt, which stands at 77% of GDP, is in line with that of France, what is worrying investors is the level of debt of the country’s businesses and households, which, at 236% of GDP, is above the combined levels for Greece and Italy. At the same time, the country’s rate of savings is the fourth-lowest among OECD nations, according to the organisation’s own figures. “Investors may well divest themselves of Portuguese bonds to protect themselves from a possible default by the country, which would send bond yields rocketing and force Lisbon down the same tunnel as Athens”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal: S&P Cuts Rating to a-, Outlook Negative
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 27 — Standard & Poor’s has downgraded its long-term rating of Portugal to A- from A+. The short-term rating was also downgraded to A-2 from A-1, reports the agency in a note quoted by Bloomberg. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Property Recovery, Mortgages +8.5% in February
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 26 — Spain’s property sector is continuing to show signs of recovery, with the number of mortgages up by 8.5% in February compared to the same month last year. With 54,813 property mortgages granted, February’s increase follows the 2.3% rise recorded in January, according to figures released today by Spain’s national office of statistics. This sign of recovery adds to the real estate transfer figure of an annual +18.7%, which indicates a timid recovery for the sector, which collapsed in 2007 after the explosion of the speculative bubble. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Zapatero; Concerned at High Level of Unemployment
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 27 — Concerned at the levels of joblessness, which crossed the 20% mark during the first quarter of this year when they reached “their high-point”, but optimistic at the same time about a positive trend “over the coming months”. This is the stance taken by Premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, in his comments on the issue to the Senate today during a government controlled session. “I feel responsible for the situation in which people who have lost their jobs find themselves”, the premier said, as quoted by Efe. Zapatero warned the house that Spain’s economy is “in a job-destruction phase “ given that unemployment figures similar to those of the 1990s have returned. The head of the socialist administration stated that the government’s priority is that of maintaining and increasing social security payments, stressing that 80% of those without work are in receipt of benefits. In Zapatero’s view, the over the coming months “we should see a positive trend”. Concerning reforms to the jobs market, he stressed that there is a need to “modernise the framework of employment relations”, but that this must happen “through an agreement” aimed at creating jobs. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Big Brother to Track Your Medication Compliance With Electronic Transmitters in Pills
(NaturalNews) Now that the U.S. government has achieved its monopoly over health care, new technologies are in the works that will allow the government to remotely monitor and track whether ordinary citizens are complying with taking medications prescribed by conventional doctors. One new technology described at the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging allows “pills to be electronically outfitted with transmitters” which would track the patient’s compliance with medications and broadcast that information back to government health care enforcers who check for “compliance and efficacy.”
“Emerging technologies allow pills to be electronically outfitted with transmitters to communicate with the user’s wristwatch that shows that the pill has been consumed,” said University of Virginia professor Robin Felder at the committee meeting. “Broadband connectivity of these devices would allow the electronic medical record to be updated with regard to medication compliance and efficacy.”
This would allow government health operators, for example, to know whether you’ve taken all your prescribed psychiatric medications. If you veer from the course of pharmaceuticals prescribed by your doctor, health care enforcement agents could be dispatched to your door to make sure you start taking your pills.
Parents who currently attempt to protect their children from toxic medical therapies such as chemotherapy could be closely monitored by government medical enforcement agents. If you try to flush dangerous pharmaceuticals down the toilet instead of actually taking them, the lack of an electronic tracking signal will let your health care observers know you didn’t really take the pills.
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Black Republican Rebukes Steele
RNC Chairman Michael Steele said the GOP has not given Blacks a reason to vote republican. As a black conservative republican, I ask, what is the GOP suppose to do; serve soul food at republican events? In other words, I reject the concept of dividing Americans into victimized groups and pandering to them. Besides, the democrats are masters of insulting the intelligence of Americans by playing the old and tattered victim, race and class envy cards. The GOP does not need to go down the same shameful disgusting road.
Brother Steele, how about the GOP showing a little respect for the American people by standing up for conservative values and principles. If you do this, they will come. Right minded Americans of all stripes will join our cause.
[…]
The once great NAACP has deteriorated into a negative for black America. The organization sold it’s soul for a seat of power at the liberal democrat party table betraying blacks by keeping them thinking like victims so they will continue voting monolithically democrat. Why on earth should the republicans pander to this organization of disgusting race exploiters?
I am so done with “identity politics.” We are all Americans. Why can’t politicians simply relate to us as such rather than dividing us into victimized groups which they promise special concessions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Entrepreneur Summit Eyes Muslim World
Nearly one year after President Obama called for a “new beginning” in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world, the White House is convening a two-day summit on entrepreneurship Monday it hopes will promote business ties abroad — even in those countries where political ties are rocky.
More than 250 participants from about 60 countries will attend the event, which will feature remarks by Mr. Obama and senior Cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Attendees include entrepreneurs, investors, academics and others from nations as diverse as Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait and Israel.
The summit is part of a promise Mr. Obama made in a speech at Cairo University last June, in which he identified economic development as a source of potential partnership between the U.S. and the Muslim world.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Government Health Care a 4-Letter Word: W-a-i-t
Report: Lines stretch months, twice as long as physicians call ‘reasonable’
A study released on Canada’s socialized medical system reveals that the average patient spends over 16 weeks — in some cases more than twice as long as doctors deem “reasonable” — waiting for health-care treatment, costing both estimated thousands of dollars per year per patient and, potentially, lives.
“The promise of the Canadian health-care system is not being realized,” concludes the 19th annual study released by the independent Fraser Institute. “This grim portrait is the legacy of a medical system offering low expectations cloaked in lofty rhetoric.”
Corresponding “lofty rhetoric” in the United States has touted government-regulated and -mandated health care as a way of closing a medical-coverage gap between the rich and poor.
The Fraser study, titled “Waiting Your Turn,” however, found that even with government attempts to level the playing field, poor and rural residents in Canada are routinely denied what doctors consider even adequate care.
“On the contrary, a profusion of research reveals that cardiovascular surgery queues are routinely jumped by the famous and politically-connected, that suburban and rural residents confront barriers to access not encountered by their urban counterparts, and that low-income Canadians have lower cardiovascular and cancer survival rates than their higher-income neighbors,” the study concluded.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Meet Stunning Americans Looking to Dethrone Pelosi
Contenders include combat vets, beauty queen, scientist, surgeon
What do more than 25 returning combat veterans, a beauty queen, a general surgeon, a scientist, talk-radio hosts, a political analyst, a former welfare mom and Richard Nixon’s grandson have in common?
Most have never held political office — none are garden-variety politicians — but they’re all determined to take back Congress this year from the hands of incumbents who they believe do not represent America’s best interests.
The following are just a few unique characters vying for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives this year:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Radio: 4-25-10-Aaron Klein Show
Aaron confronts the Muslim extremist group who threatened the creators of “South Park” for depicting the Islamic figure Mohammad. Also, is the Obama administration trying to carve up Jerusalem before negotiations even begin? Aaron has the startling information. Plus, does Sarah Palin stand a chance at becoming the next U.S. president?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Susan Sarandon Discovers Italian Roots
Great-grandfather a statue-maker from Tuscany
(ANSA) — Los Angeles, April 26 — Oscar-winning US actress Susan Sarandon has discovered her Italian roots.
Her great-grandfather came from a small town near Lucca in Tuscany called Coreglia, she found out.
The Dead Man Walking and Thelma and Louise star went on hit TV ancestry show Who Do You Think You Are? to trace a grandmother called Anita Rigali who dropped off the family tree in the 1930s.
Rigali, she found out, was a showgirl and dancer in New York before WWII.
Rigali’s father, Sarandon’s great-grandfather, was a statue-maker called Mansueto who, the show’s genealogists said, came to America because life was tough for sculptors in Tuscany.
In Coreglia, Sarandon visited a church where ten generations of the Rigali family were baptised, dating back to the mid-17th century.
“I’m always happy to be in Italy,” she said.
“The first time I came I felt inexplicably at home”.
“Now I know why. My gene pool was crying out”.
Sarandon, has a 25-year-old actress daughter, Eva Amurri, with Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, whom she dated in the 1980s.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
What’s More Important: Liberty or the Entity That Protects it?
Be Careful How You Answer
Let me ask readers a question. What’s more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government.
Thomas Jefferson — and the rest of America’s founders — believed that freedom was the principal possession, because liberty is a divine — not human — gift. Listen to Jefferson:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” (Declaration of Independence)
Jefferson could not be clearer: America’s founders desired a land in which men might live in liberty. By declaring independence from the government of Great Britain (and instituting new government), Jefferson, et al., did not intend to erect an idol (government) that men would worship. They created a mechanism designed to protect that which they considered to be their most precious possession: liberty. In other words, the government they created by the Constitution of 1787 was not the object; freedom’s protection was the object.
Again, listen to Jefferson: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” In other words, government is not the end; it is the means. Government is not the goal; it is the vehicle used to reach the goal. Nowhere did Jefferson (and the rest of America’s founders) express the sentiment that government, itself, was the objective. Listen to Jefferson once more:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Muslim Man Hits Back in Polygamy Row
A Muslim butcher who could be stripped of his French passport over allegations of polygamy hit back on Monday, insisting that he had not broken the law.
Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born 35-year-old, has been at the centre of a political storm since last week when his wife complained that she had been fined for driving while wearing her “niqab” full-face veil.
The woman has refused to pay the fine and Hebbadj has taken her defence.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux suggested the man could lose his French passport, saying he was believed to have four wives who had borne him 12 children and that each was receiving welfare benefits.
But Hebbadj called a news conference on Monday to contend that, while he has several mistresses, he had not engaged in polygamy, which is illegal in France.
“As far as I know, it is not forbidden to have mistresses in France, nor is it forbidden under Islam,” said Hebbadj, who runs a halal butcher shop in the western city of Nantes.
“Maybe under the Christian faith, but not in France,” he added.
“If you lose your French nationality for having mistresses, then a lot of French men would have been stripped of their citizenship.”
Immigration Minister Eric Besson is investigating whether Hebbadj should lose his French citizenship, which he acquired after marrying a French woman in 1999.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: CDU Chastens New Muslim Minister for Mooting School Crucifix Ban
Just one day before taking her post, Lower Saxony’s new Social Minister Aygül Özkan has apologised to her fellow Christian Democrats for starting a heated political debate by suggesting that crucifixes don’t belong in German public schools.
In an interview over the weekend the 38-year-old — who will be the country’s first Muslim state minister — said that public schools should be neutral places without religious symbols, including both crucifixes and Islamic headscarves.
The statements from the conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) member to Focus magazine sparked outrage within her own party.
On Monday morning Integration Commissioner Maria Böhmer rejected any suggestion of such a ban, saying crucifixes were part of the country’s national identity.
By afternoon Lower Saxony State Premier Christian Wulff, who appointed Özkan to his cabinet, declared the discussion was over.
After a “broad debate” in the CDU state parliamentary group, his new minister had accepted that crucifixes are “welcome and wanted” in the state’s schools, he said as a federal and state-level conference on integration began in Berlin.
“She backs this policy and the topic is finished for us,” he said, calling the situation a “misunderstanding.”
Meanwhile at the integration summit Özkan reportedly apologised for the interview, saying she gave it without adequate knowledge of the state party’s policies.
CDU parliamentary group leader David McAllister emphasised that state laws for religious symbols in schools would not be changed.
“In the eyes of the CDU the cross is a symbol of tolerance, also when applied to other religions,” he said. “The weekend’s irritations and misunderstandings have therefore been dispelled.”
A successful business woman, Özkan joined the CDU in 2004 and quickly rose through the regional ranks of the party to reach the Hamburg city council in 2008.
The debate over religious symbols in schools came as federal and state integration officials planned to gather in Oldenburg on Monday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: A Muslim Christian Democrat’s Crucifixion
Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats had hoped making a Muslim woman a state minister would show how modern and tolerant their party has become. But as Zeit Online’s Christian Bangel writes, a nasty debate over crucifixes in state schools shows how much it hasn’t.
For five days, seven hours and 38 minutes, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) seemed to be just the party Chancellor Angela Merkel has always wanted.
That’s how long it took between the appointment of Aygül Özkan, a Muslim born in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents as the new the social affairs and integration minister of Lower Saxony, and the call by a conservative Bavarian parliamentarian questioning whether she was in the right party.
During that brief period, the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies appeared to be a tolerant, modern political party. A party even gays, Muslims, and career women with children could support. A party that could occasionally put ideology aside while searching for fair solutions for the common good. But Germany’s conservatives have now once again embraced the divisive narrow-mindedness of right-wing hard-liners like Roland Koch and Edmund Stoiber.
How did it come to this? Özkan found it hypocritical that despite Germany’s alleged separation of church and state, the country’s schools are allowed to nail crucifixes to their walls. In a matter of hours, her new boss, Lower Saxony’s state premier Christian Wulff, angrily denounced her comments. The state welcomed crucifixes on its school walls but was against Muslim headscarves for teachers. Full stop. Wulff didn’t even feel the need to explain the glaring double standard he was promoting.
Özkan was even forced to repudiate her call to ban Christian symbols from Germany’s public schools.
But that won’t make the crucifix question go away. In 1995, Bavaria’s top court forbid hanging them in classrooms since it went against both religious freedom and the governments supposed neutrality. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a similar ruling on a case in Italy. So why are we even talking about whether or not crucifixes belong in state schools? Or, even better, why hasn’t the CDU considered the possibility that maybe Özkan is right?
No-one would have suggested a CDU minister with German roots should leave the party after such a comment. But the reaction in this case was so hysterical because it was a seemingly fully integrated Muslim who was asking why Islam — a religion followed by millions of German citizens — is clearly discriminated against no matter what the conservatives claim.
Because this is what we’re really talking about here. There are only two rhetorical possibilities for supporting Christian symbols at educational institutions while banning their Islamic counterparts. Either Christianity is seen as worthy of extra support or Islam is seen as a religion that must be kept out of the schools. Both go against Germany’s basic and clear constitutional principle of separating church and state.
Recently, the CDU had made some important strides in the area of religion. Just by uttering the words, “Islam is part of Germany,” at the start of the so-called Islam Conference, then-Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble did more for integration than millions of euros ever could. Amid all the (justified) calls for Muslims to respect the constitution and learn German, he created a solid foundation for entering talks with them. He made it clear: We respect your faith.
One of the CDU’s most important roles in German history has been its ability to include conservatives with a tendency toward chauvinism and intolerance in the democratic process. In a time when Islam and Christianity desperately need something in common to prohibit open confrontation, the CDU could once again assume this role. But it’s ignoring it instead.
In its place are populist party politics. That the more liberal conservative Christian Wulff — rather than the reactionary Roland Koch — was the one who came to the defence of Christian symbols is worth nothing, just as much as the silence of the party members who recently showed their more tolerant tendencies. Where is North-Rhine Westphalia’s integration minister Armin Laschet? Where is Wolfgang Schäuble? Not a word.
It’s easy to guess why: no one wants to kick off an internal discussion on such an emotional topic this close to the election in North Rhine-Westphalia. The allegedly tolerant party leadership fears that the bulk of the party isn’t ready to follow just yet.
But there are even tactical arguments in favour of the CDU clarifying its position on Islam. Many Muslims would be classic CDU material. The party would benefit from their conservative leanings, especially when it comes to family and social policy.
Wulff is attempting a precarious balancing act. On the one hand, he wants to reach out to Muslims and Germans with Turkish roots with the appointment of Özkan. But then he leapt at the first opportunity to show the more conservative party members that nothing has changed in the CDU’s chauvinistically Christian world view. He’s going to have to pick a side, however.
When Wolfgang Schäuble announced the Islam Conference, he said intolerant corner pub-style populism shouldn’t be allowed to set the agenda. Instead, he said average Germans often wanted leadership on tricky societal issues. Where is Schäuble now when his party needs him? It seems his conservatives could use a little reminder.
This commentary was published with the kind permission of Zeit Online, where it originally appeared in German. Translation by The Local.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: CDU Turkish Minister Appointment ‘Flops’
Aygül Özkan ignited a firestorm in her Christian conservative party when she suggested that crucifixes shouldn’t be allowed in state-run schools.
A Muslim woman’s appointment as the first state minister with Turkish roots was meant to be a coup for Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats. But Aygül Özkan ignited a firestorm by stating that crucifixes should be banned from classrooms. German commentators say the incident has damaged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party.
It has been a very long week for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives. In addition to leading the planned bailout of Greece, the party has had to deal with the fallout from a state-level ministerial appointment that was meant to promote a more cosmopolitan image of her party.
Last Monday, Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was basking in self-approval after announcing that the northern state of Lower Saxony had appointed the daughter of Turkish immigrants to become its minister of social affairs — the first immigrant ever appointed to a state cabinet. But, since then, the decision has triggered a massive uproar within the party itself.
Comments Aygül Özkan made in a interview published on Thursday in the newsweekly Focus spawned the commotion. There, the minister-to-be said that “Christian symbols” — or, more specifically, crucifixes — “do not belong in state-run schools” in the same way, she added, that Muslim headscarves don’t.
Criticism of these comments was immediate and widespread within the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). Christian Wulff, the state’s governor, who had chosen Özden for the spot himself, distanced himself from her, saying that “the state government welcomes Christian symbols — and crucifixes in schools, in particular — as part of a tolerant education based on Christian values.” Leading Bavarian CSU politician Stefan Müller said Özkan should contemplate whether a party with Christian roots is really the right place for her. A spokesman for Merkel said that she considers having crucifixes in the classroom part of a long Christian tradition. And a chorus of other Christian politicians and organizations has demanded that the appointment be cancelled.
On Monday, a day before she is supposed to be sworn into office, Özkan tried to combat the fire by distancing herself from her own comments and apologizing to her party colleagues for any irritation she might have caused. Lower Saxony Governor Wulff stepped in to help smooth things over, too, stating that: “Özkan accepts that crucifixes are welcomed and desired in the schools of Lower Saxony. She is with us on this point. So the matter has been settled.” And, on Tuesday, Armin Laschet, the integration minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and CDU member, worked to tone down the voices of outrage, telling Deutschlandfunk radio that, though he found the criticism justified, he also found it “excessive” and calls for her to not assume the position “exaggerated.”
In Tuesday’s newspapers, German commentators almost universally chastise the conservatives for making themselves look even worse with their shrill reactions and, as some have it, for being just plain wrong.
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“Özkan is a lawyer by profession. Maybe she believed she was standing on the solid foundation of the constitution paved by Germany’s highest court. Maybe she believed she wasn’t saying anything different from what the Federal Constitutional Court said 15 years ago in its crucifix decision. At that time, the country’s highest-ranking jurists declared that the state cannot make it mandatory to have a crucifix in a classroom. But Özkan cannot invoke the court’s decision because she wanted much more. She wanted to make it mandatory to have crucifixes removed from schools.”
“When the court made its decision 15 years ago, the CDU and CSU massively protested against it and misrepresented it in public to make it seem like it meant exactly what the new minister is calling for today. … As a result, most Germans were of the opinion that the court had ‘taken a hatchet to an important symbol of (German) culture and heritage.’“
“At that time, the court’s crucifix decision caused a political earthquake. And, now, the new minister has caused a tremblor within her party. As a result, now we have her standing next to Governor Wulff to quickly announce that she ‘didn’t mean it that way.’ In the future, she’ll be a bit more careful.”
The Financial Times Deutschland writes:
“Özkan can now be used as instructional material in political textbooks. The flap that she has caused … is a good example of how a push by a party that is in and of itself correct can turn into a flop in terms of electoral tactics.”
“Özkan had only formulated a general principal and in no way called for a concrete ban. She is also not actively pushing the issue but, instead, simply answered a question in an interview, where she put having crucifixes in schools on the same level as having Muslim headscarves.”
“The problem for Özkan and the CDU is something else entirely. As sad as it is, the Christian Democrats can only lose by having an integration minister like Özkan.”
“Wulff may have been hoping that appointing a Muslim woman to a top ministerial position would help the CDU tap new reservoirs of voters. … But this calculation can only work if the chosen minister doesn’t have what she is meant to embody to outside viewers, namely, cosmopolitanism, courage and a mind of her own. Otherwise, the things she says will annoy both loyal voters and conservative Muslims.”
“All of the bigwigs in the CDU, from Wulff to (Merkel), have distanced themselves from Özkan. Even if not all of them are urging her to leave the party or familiarize herself with the party’s platform, having this kind of united front is still a political dressing-down. The fact that the minister who was meant to be a shining example considered it necessary to apologize for her comments strips her of any kind of authority even before she enters into office.”
“We can wish for more politicians like Özkan. But, when we see the way the Christian Democrats reacted to Özkan’s statements, we can’t expect much from those who follow in her wake.”
The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:
“Özkan’s belief that crucifixes … don’t belong in public schools obviously goes directly against what the majority of the people in her party think. So it’s no surprise that she has brought upon herself the harsh criticism of the CSU and people in conservative Christian circles, some of whom are even calling for her to not assume the office she’s been appointed to. It’s also not a pleasant sight to see how the leaders in her party … have distanced themselves from the newcomer. The reason, of course, is that Özkan’s rather casual comments have triggered an overdue debate about state neutrality toward religion — and shown courage to confront popular opinion.”
“This also shows just how courageous it was for Wulff to appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. The initial reactions of some conservatives — which ranged from open disapproval of what was meant to be purely a PR coup to the insinuation that (she) is not qualified to hold this office — show just how far Germany is from a situation where such an appointment would be taken for granted. After her candid words about the crucifix, some of the reservations about Özkan have turned into open hostility, and she has even received death threats from right-wing extremists.”
The center-left Berliner Zeitung writes:
“If a German politician charges that human rights are being violated in Germany and — as the first Muslim woman appointed to a ministerial position in a German state — reminds the federal government of its obligation to maintain a neutral stance toward religious issues, and if, in doing so, the politician can cite verbatim decisions made not only by the European Court of Human Rights, but also by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, it would appear that the real scandal is not the human rights violation that has been charged but, rather, the act of making the charge itself.”
“Granted, it may be that Aygül Özkan wasn’t toeing the party line when she made her comments. But there’s no doubt that they didn’t adhere to the spirit of Germany’s constitution. The lawyer with Turkish roots has understood the meaning and goals of the principle of state neutrality (toward religion) better than all of her critics put together. The principle does not hold that the state must maintain a neutral stance toward all religions — as long as it gives preference to the Christian ones. Rather, it holds that the state must maintain equidistance to all religions. The German state based on the constitution of 1949 is not a Christian state. Whoever understands it to be otherwise has not understood the German state and, even less so, its constitution.”
“The calls within the Union to cancel Özkan’s appointment are becoming loud. If that happens, she should sue it before the European Court of Human Rights. And the grounds for her suit should be that she was discriminated against for defending the constitution’s principle of state neutrality.”
SPIEGEL ONLINE writes:
“The CDU wants to embellish itself with Özkan, and it has clearly enjoyed the praise it garnered for appointing her. But the fact that its poster immigrant has her own opinion is much too much for it to handle.”
“Granted, it would have been a bit much to expect a Muslim in the Union to promote Christian symbols. But instead of viewing Özkan’s stance as one among many in a party that has grown to become very heterogeneous, politicians in the Union reacted in an uptight and inflexible way — fearing, of course, the reaction of conservative Christian voters.”
“In doing so, Wulff & Co. have shown their hand: They only wanted pretty pictures and pleasant headlines.”
“The Union needs to make a decision. If it seriously wants to welcome immigrants into the party, it has to be able to deal with a little fighting within the party — even when it has to do with the crucifix. Otherwise … it’s all just for show.”
— Josh Ward
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Papoulias Talks With UAE Foreign Minister
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 27 — The President of Greece, Karolos Papoulias, today received the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Al Zagient Nachian, who is on an official visit to Greece. Welcoming his guest, President Papoulias spoke of the economic difficulties that are being faced in Greece, while the UAE Minister expressed satisfaction at the promotion of economic cooperation between the two countries, with particular emphasis on the naval sector. “We are pleased that there are investment funds that will come from our country to yours and that you are ready to accept these investments,” the Emirati Minister said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
In Europe, Remorse Has Turned to Masochism
“Nothing is more Western than hatred of the West.” So writes the French novelist and essayist Pascal Bruckner in his book La tyrannie de la pénitence (2006), capably translated into English by Steven Rendall and recently published by Princeton University Press as The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. “All of modern thought,” he adds, “can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter’s hypocrisy, violence, and abomination.”
He exaggerates, but not by much.
He shows how Europeans see themselves as “the sick man of the planet” whose pestilence causes every problem in the non-Western world (what he calls the South). When the white man set foot in Asia, Africa, or America, death, chaos, and destruction followed. Europeans feel themselves born with stigmata: “the white man has sown grief and ruin wherever he has gone.” His pale skin signals his moral defectiveness.
These provocative statements undergird Bruckner’s brilliant polemic arguing that European remorse for the sins of imperialism, fascism, and racism have gripped the continent to the point of stifling its creativity, destroying its self-confidence, and depleting its optimism.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Two USA Orders for Fincantieri
(ANSAmed) — TRIESTE, APRIL 26 — Two orders for a total value of 130 million dollars have been acquired by Marinette Marine Corporation (MMC), subsidiary of Italian military ship construction company Fincantieri. The contracts are for an ichthyological and oceanographic research unit (73 million dollars) to build for the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 30 boats for the American Coast Guard (63 million dollars). The research unit (63.5 metres long and 15.2 metres wide, provided with advanced navigation systems including acoustic multifrequency sensor and richly equipped laboratories) is financed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; it will be built in the Marinette (Wisconsin)’s plant and will be delivered in 2012 in San Diego, where it will be based for use by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC), NOAA’s research institute in the United States’ southwest. The units for the American Coast Guard (13.5 metres long, 4 metres wide, with a draught of almost a metre, and a 42 knots maximum speed) will be built in the Aluminum Center of Excellence (ACE) Marine plant in Green Bay (Wisconsin). The first boats will be delivered in the third quarter of 2011. This is MMC’s 97th order out of 250. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Crucifix Appeal to be Filed June 30
Italy optimistic on getting ECHR ruling changed
(ANSA) — Rome, April 26 — Italy will officially file its long-awaited appeal over a European court ruling against crosses in Italian classrooms on June 30, Cabinet Secretary Gianni Letta said Monday.
The appeal against last year’s sentence will be presented to the 17-strong governing panel of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the Grand Chamber. On April 30, two months before the official submission of the plea, the Italian government will submit a detailed dossier to the ECHR, Letta said.
“The issue of religious symbols is the subject of increasingly frequent polemics and interventions in the whole of Europe,” Letta told a press conference here Monday.
The government has asked an expert in ecclesiastical law, Carlo Cardia of Rome University, to marshall arguments in support Italy’s appeal, Letta said.
Cardia, flanking Letta at the press conference, said “the conditions exist” for the ECHR ruling to be “revised”. The Strasbourg court, which represents the 47-nation Council of Europe, ruled on November 3 in favour of a petition filed nine years ago by a Finnish-born mother of two who argued crosses in classrooms restricted pupils’ religious freedom.
Italy’s right to appeal was granted by a five-strong ECHR panel on March 2.
The committee agreed that Italy had a case against the verdict, which sparked strong criticism from Italian politicians and the Vatican.
Appeals are judged admissible when the issue “raises serious problems of interpretation or application”.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini hailed the March 2 decision as a first step in getting the ruling reversed or adjusted. Italy’s “numerous and well-motivated” arguments had been upheld, he said at the time.
Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said “this is a great success for Italy in reaffirming respect for Christian traditions and the country’s cultural identity”.
The Vatican City’s top judge, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, said “the fact that the appeal has been admitted by the Grande Chambre means that the arguments used against the first ruling were more than well-founded”.
The Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) called the decision “a step in the right direction”.
“A much wider consensus than might have been imagined” had already been created on the issue, it said.
Several MPs from across the political spectrum said the ECHR had shown “common sense”.
Earlier, when the petition for right of appeal was filed on January 29, Frattini said Italy was determined “to defend a very deep sentiment of the Italian people, a fundamental principle which affects the identity of our country”.
Frattini noted that the Lisbon Treaty protected religious minorities such as Muslims but does not cite Europe’s “Christian roots”.
This, he argued, was a form of “reverse racism”.
If it eventually upholds Italy’s case, the ECHR’s Grand Chamber will not simply strike down the original ruling but will say what action the Italian government should take to avoid future suits.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Food: Campania Products in Greece With ‘Sapori & Saperi’
(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, APRIL 26 — The third edition of “Sapori & Saperi”, the food and wine event held in the exhibition space of the Pompei Sanctuary (Naples), which came to a close yesterday after three days, has allowed local products from Campania to be exported onto the Greek market. A number of companies from Campania (two individual producers and two groups made up of 5 and 7 companies respectively), making use of the convention stipulated by the events organisers and by the Italo-Greek Chamber of Commerce in Athens, will take part in workshops organised in the Greek capital aimed at promoting the excellence of Campania’s food and wine on Greek soil. The companies that in the next few months will take part in planned ventures in Athens belong to the wine, pasta, cheese, confectionery and frozen sectors. “We are sure that we will obtain excellent results,” said Sabrina Brevetti, representing the Italo-Greek Chamber of Commerce, “because over the next few months many companies that have taken part in the fair will come to Athens to meet Greek operators”. Around 100 food sector businesses (pasta, cured meat, dairy and bread producers, wine companies, chocolate and dessert makers, breeders and oil crushers) from all 5 provinces of the Campania region took part in “Sapori & Saperi”, along with companies from the regions of Calabria, Sicily, Puglia, Basilicata and Molise. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi and Putin Endorse Plan for Nuclear Plant
Lesmo, 26 April (AKI) — Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met in northern Italy on Monday for bilateral talks, including plans for a new nuclear plant to be built in Kaliningrad. Executives from the Italian power giant, Enel, and Russian energy company Inter RAO signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on future projects including the possible nuclear plant during Putin’s official visit.
Putin and Berlusconi met at Villa Gernetto in Lesmo, in the northern province of Monza outside Milan.
At a joint media conference after the talks, Berlusconi said he had renewed his “esteem, affection and friendship” for the Russian prime minister.
“It is always a great pleasure to talk to him about international political issues,” Berlusconi said. “He is always perfectly informed on issues in Europe and around the world.”
Italian minister for education, Maria Stella Gelmini, and head of the Italian civil protection agency, Guido Bertolaso, joined deputy Russian prime minister, Igor Sechin and Russian energy minister Sergei Shmatko at the talks.
Berlusconi said that bilateral trade had fallen by 30 percent because of the economic crisis.
“Prime minister Putin and I want that to return to levels of 2008,” Berlusconi said. “We are working towards that.”
Fulvio Conti, chief executive of Enel and Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Eni, and other industrialists also took part in the bilateral talks.
Russia will donate 7.2 million euros for the reconstruction of Palazzo Ardinghelli and the church of San Gregorio Magno, that were badly damaged in last year’s devastating earthquake in the central Italian city of L’Aquila.
“I told Putin that he absolutely must accept an invitation to come and listen to the first mass when the church of San Gregorio Magno is reopened,” Berlusconi said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Pensions Institute Posts Surplus in 2009
Reforms guaranteeing future pensions, INPS chief says
(ANSA) — Rome, April 27 — Pension spending rose 3% last year but the system was still able to post a surplus of nearly eight billion euros, according to the balance sheet for the national pensions institute INPS presented to parliament on Tuesday.
INPS said it spent 173.127 billion euro in 2009, up 5.071 billion euros from 2008, equal to 11.32% of Italy’s GDP compared to 10.69% the previous year.
Pension contributions last year rose 2.3% over 2008 and despite the rise in spending INPS said it had a budget surplus for 2009 of 7,961 billion euros.
“Last year was probably the worst ever for our economy and the fact that INPS posted a surplus is a clear success,” INPS President Antonio Mastrapasqua said in presenting the 2009 report.
Thanks to the budget surplus, he added, “Italians can look at the pension system with greater confidence knowing that INPS’ accounts are in order” and that adopted reforms “are ensuring pensions for the future,” he added. The 2009 INPS report showed that half as many Italians who had qualified for a pension, based on the number of years paying contributions, actually applied for one before reaching the retirement age.
The report also confirmed that the cost of disability pensions continued to rise, up 4.9% over last year, but that over 200,000 checks on people benefiting from these pensions resulted in 15% being revoked because of fraud.
At the same time, Mastrapasqua said INPS had drastically reduced the time necessary to obtain a disability pension “from an average of one year, and a scandalous maximum of two years, to a maximum of 120 days”.
“We did this by cutting red tape and reducing the number of steps needed to obtain a pension from over a dozen to just three,” he explained.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Paedophile Irish Priest Worked With Expats in Rotterdam
An defrocked Irish priest who has served seven years in a US jail for child abuse, has been living an working in Rotterdam, Irish paper the Sunday Tribune reported at the weekend.
Rotterdam expats attending the Church of the Holy Heart, Christ Our Redeemer, had no knowledge of the past of the man who called himself Brother Francis, the paper said.
He also volunteered at a homeless shelter and worked at a fast-food restaurant in Rotterdam where he helped organise children’s parties.
Dublin
Oliver O’Grady, whose crimes include the sexual abuse of over 20 boys and girls, including a nine-month-old baby, recently returned to Ireland and is living in a hostel in Dublin city centre.
He was recognised by parishioners after the broadcast of a 2006 documentary, Deliver Us From Evil, in which O’Grady relates how he preyed on children.
Authorities at the church said they had no idea about his past.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Bishop ‘Ready to Resign’ Over Sex Abuse Silence
Bishop Anders Arborelius has said that he is “prepared to take the consequences” over the failure to investigate the alleged abuse of two sisters by a paedophile priest, first brought to the Catholic Church’s attention in 1990.
On Sunday the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily published an interview with one of the alleged victims, who claims the Church kept quiet on her case for the past two decades despite repeated attempts to obtain justice.
“As a bishop I take full responsibility for that and am prepared to face the consequences,” Anders Arborelius, the bishop of Stockholm, Sweden’s only Catholic diocese, said in a statement.
He called for “a thorough investigation of this tragic case.”
The woman, now in her 60s, told DN she contacted the previous Stockholm bishop, Hubertus Brandenburg, in 1990 to report claims of abuse she and her sister suffered in the late 1950s and 1960s.
“The answer I got was in essence ‘We’ll do our own investigation within the Church, and it’s not something we will talk about’,” the woman, who was not identified, told DN.
DN reported that the woman later contacted a Catholic newspaper, which did not take her allegations seriously.
Brandenburg died in 2009, according to the Stockholm diocese.
In 2003, the woman says she met with his successor Anders Arborelius to confront him about the abuse, allegedly committed by a priest who she claims had a sexual relationship with her mother.
When no action was taken, she emailed the Church detailing the allegations, to which she got a reply referring her to a therapist.
She then contacted a high-ranking official in Sweden’s Catholic Church to no avail, DN said.
It was only this month, after the Swedish Catholic Church admitted that it had received reports of two other cases of clerical abuse, that the woman’s allegations were finally heard out.
She was granted a meeting last week with Bishop Arborelius, who has ordered an investigation.
The woman told DN the bishop was understanding and meant well.
“But I didn’t get an answer as to why they only started talking about this now,” she said.
The Stockholm Diocese said in Sunday’s statement it would not comment further on the case, since the Church was now investigating the matter.
But Arborelius, who was on his way to Rome, later told Sveriges Radio (SR) the case had been “incorrectly handled from our side.”
“If it is due to me that it was not investigated, I am ready to face the consequences and ask the pope to relieve me from my work as a bishop,” he told the public broadcaster.
The diocese said the priest accused in the allegations was still alive but no longer lived in Sweden, and that he had not been employed in the Swedish Catholic Church since the mid-1990s.
The Roman Catholic Church is reeling from a string of damning revelations concerning child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland, Austria, Belgium, the United States and Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Eco-Terrorists ‘Plot to Blow Up IBM Headquarters’ Thwarted in Routine Traffic Stop
A routine traffic-stop in Switzerland has allegedly thwarted eco-terrorists from blowing up the site of the £55million nano-technology HQ of IBM in Europe.
The three members — two men and a woman — of the Italian terrorist group Il Silvestre were stopped just a few miles from their target with their explosive device primed and ready to go.
Italians Costantino Ragusa and Silvia Guerini, together with Italian-Swiss Luca Bernasconi, were arrested and jailed after a search of their vehicle revealed the bomb.
Guerini and Constantino — the 33-year-old leader of Il Silvestre — already have convictions for eco-terrorism offences and have served jail terms.
The group describes itself as anarchist and is opposed to all forms of micro-technology as well as nuclear power and weapons.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Case Against Coalitions and Consensus
By Daniel Hannan
The single most important feature of democracy is this: that voters regularly get a chance to turn the rascals out. Think for a moment about the countries that don’t enjoy representative government — Cuba, say, or Iran — and you’ll see why it matters.
Conversely, the chief argument against coalitions, and electoral reforms that give rise to coalitions, is this: that they tend to ensure that most parties are in power most of the time.
The Westminster system, as favoured in most Anglosphere countries, encourages a clear division between government and opposition. This division helps keep the state small and the citizen free. The party that is out of office has every reason to resist the expansion of state powers, while the party in office is wary of building a government machine that must one day fall into the hands of its opponents.
Across much of Europe, by contrast, proportional representation allows defeated politicians to bargain their way back into office. Some parties, especially liberal and centrist parties, are almost always in power, however small their share of the vote. Such factions have no interest in reducing the prerogatives of government or the privileges of politicians. Opposition falls by default to protest parties such as Belgium’s Vlaams Belang or Austria’s Freedom Party, which exist mainly as expressions of public discontent rather than as alternative administrations.
At the same time, party lists protect politicians from the consequences of their unpopularity. As long as MPs are near the top of their lists, their jobs are secure. This naturally encourages legislators to suck up to their party leaders rather than to reflect the wishes of their constituents. The political class as a whole becomes snugger and smugger.
Political scientists call the phenomenon “cartel democracy”. Austria is a fine example of the genre: its Christian Democrats and Social Democrats prop each other up like two exhausted boxers. Under a system known as the Proporz, Austrian public sector posts are carved up between the Black and Red factions, ensuring that neither party wants to reduce the government payroll.
Italy used to be an even more extreme case. In the old days of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, an Italian party membership card was a gorgeous artefact, medalled and beribboned. Everyone understood its purpose: it was an IOU, to be cashed when the relevant party took power. Silvio Berlusconi’s popularity owes much to the fact that he brought an end to that racket, and introduced a voting system designed to ensure a Westminster-style pendulum.
How perverse, then, that just as others find merit in the Westminster model, Westminster itself might ditch it. If the newspapers are to be believed, voters want a hung parliament.
I’m not sure the newspapers are right. What I’m finding on doorsteps — and I’ve spent a lot more time on them than most columnists — is what G K Chesterton called “our scorn for all men governing”. People feel, with reason, that their politicians have become a caste apart; that Parliament fails to reflect their views; that MPs have become spokesmen for their parties in their constituencies instead of the other way around.
A coalition government would formalise they very abuses to which voters object. If the problem is that Parliament ignores public concerns on such issues as immigration and Europe, the solution is not to make the Liberal Democrats a permanent fixture of government. If the grievance is that MPs are too remote from their constituents, the redress is not a party list.
A ministry of all the talents, an end to partisan bickering, a national consensus — such have been the justifications of every dictatorship in history, from Bonaparte’s onwards. A free country must have the ability to sack its leaders, cleanly, peaceably and decisively. Unless I am mistaken, we intend to exercise that right on May 6. Let’s not surrender it immediately thereafter.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
The Trouble With Belgium
The surrealism of its linguistic, economic and social problems will soon become very real.
by Marc De Vos
Brussels
The country that gave surrealism to the art world is now turning political surrealism into an art form. Last week, Belgium’s Prime Minister Yves Leterme tendered his resignation for the fifth time since his Flemish Christian-Democratic party romped to victory in the federal elections of June 2007. At the behest of a weary King, the leader of the francophone conservatives, Didier Reynders, engaged in a last-ditch mediation effort. It proved as utterly pointless as the previous three years of constant internal crisis. The government has fallen and early elections loom.
Belgium’s problems have deep and intricate roots. Situated on the murky borderline between the Latin and German cultures in Europe, Belgium was formed almost by accident in the 19th century as a then-strategic buffer state between France and Great Britain. Artificial in its origin, Belgium’s profound cultural differences—symbolized by different languages and an international capital whose identity is to have no identity—have been compounded by its own history. The newly born Kingdom of Belgium committed the original sin of imposing French as the official language on its Flemish majority. This historic discrimination constitutes the bedrock of the Flemish autonomy movement that first fought for equal rights and since 1970 has fueled the gradual evolution from a unitary kingdom to a federal country, with ever more regional autonomy.
Along its decades-long tortuous but peaceful path of devolution, Belgium has acquired a linguistic border, formally separating the Dutch-speaking north (Flanders) from the French-speaking south (Wallonia). Brussels is an officially bilingual enclave in Flanders, surrounded by a string of Flemish communities with special rights for French-speaking inhabitants. In reality, however, Brussels is cosmopolitan, with French as the dominant language and Dutch marginalized, while its surrounding Flemish communities have become increasingly francophone through internal Belgian migration. The reverse never happens. In an apparent testament of cultural inferiority, Flemings who move south learn or speak French, to become francophone after a couple of generations.
The problem that has gridlocked the Belgian political scene for the last three years is part of this unholy quagmire. Known in Belgium as “BHV,” the acronym for Brussels and the two Flemish cities Halle and Vilvoorde, it represents the only election constituency that ignores Belgium’s linguistic border. French-speaking inhabitants of both Flemish cities can vote for Walloon political parties that can normally only present themselves in Wallonia or in Brussels…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Thieves Break Into Dutch Prison to Rob Inmates
Thieves have broken into a Dutch prison to steal the inmates’ televisions.
A number of prisoners from prison Het Keern in Hoorn were victim of a crime.
The thieves targeted a “modestly protected” minimum-security prison twice in the town of Hoorn. The thieves struck when the prisoners were on weekend furloughs, a justice ministry spokesman said. They broke open some cells and stole the prisoners TV screens.
The first burglary was in the weekend of 6 and March 7. The burglars climbed over the fence, forced a window next to an emergency staircase and called for the building. Despite a warning signal allowed the thieves escaped.
During the weekend of April 11th 1910 they did it again. The burglary was only discovered Monday when the prisoners were back in their cells. The guards had not noticed the crime before. Police suspect that the thieves had inside help.
Meanwhile, police have arrested one suspect, who himself is detained at the prison.
The government has been unable to say how the thieves managed to get inside the prison.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Age of the Plutocrat: How Britain is in Thrall to Billionaires With a Pernicious Influence on Public Life
It’s well known that the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich owns Chelsea FC, while Topshop is in the hands of Sir Philip Green, a retail colossus who controls an astonishing 12 per cent of Britain’s High Street. But what about the others?
Volvo is in the hands of Chinese billionaire Li Shufu; Jaguar and Tetley were snapped up by the Indian oligarch Ratan Tata; Stella belongs to the Brazilian financier Jorge Paulo Lemann; while Boots is controlled by the secretive Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina.
More and more of our lives are in the hands of a small band of super-rich individuals. And they’re getting richer all the time.
According to figures published at the weekend, the collective wealth of Britain’s 1,000 richest individuals increased by £77billion in the past year — a jump of 30 per cent at a time when most of us have seen any savings or pensions hit hard by the recession and Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes.
Small wonder that, according to a report last month, London has become the most unequal city in the Western world, with the gulf between the super-rich and the poor creating a wealth gap not seen since the days of a slave-owning elite.
[…]
In each country it was the same story: an entrepreneurial group of insiders lobbied and bribed officials for government contracts, tax exemptions, subsidies and protection from foreign competitors to become very rich, very quickly.
The result was that by 2008 a third of the world’s new billionaires came from Russia, China and India.
Many of them made their money from unfashionable industries that the West was moving away from: Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal from steel; Russian magnate Oleg Deripaska from aluminium; and Chinese tycoon Li Ka-shing from shipping.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Diplomat Disciplined Over Pope Memo is Named
The diplomat who has been disciplined over a Foreign Office memo mocking the Pope was accused last night of being “clueless” about the Catholic faith.
Anjoum Noorani, 31, was the leader of the Papal Visit Team which drew up a document suggesting the Pope should launch his own range of “Benedict” condoms, open an abortion clinic and stay in a council flat in Bradford.
Mr Noorani, whose identity has until now remained secret, was moved to “other duties” after he gave authorisation for the memo to be sent to Downing Street and three Whitehall departments.
The memo, which was leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, threatens to overshadow the Pope’s entire four-day visit in September after it prompted fury in the Vatican and among Catholics in Britain.
Senior members of the church have described Mr Noorani and his team as having “not the slightest understanding of Catholicism”. None of the four-strong group is thought to be a practising Catholic.
The memo, which also called for the Pope to bless a homosexual marriage, was emailed around Whitehall by Steven Mulvain, a 23-year-old Oxford graduate who describes his sexual orientation on a social networking website as “gay”.
Mr Mulvain has not been disciplined for his role in the fiasco.
Mr Noorani, who, like Mr Mulvain, is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, chaired the “brainstorm” session which led to the “Ideal Visit” memo, which also proposed that the Pope should sing a duet with the Queen and sponsor a network of Aids clinics.
He worked as press secretary at the British Embassy in Russia between 2002 and 2007, where he dealt with all Russian media inquiries about Britain’s response to the murder of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. He was unavailable for comment last night and his mother, who lives in Windsor, said she “can’t say anything”.
Although the Vatican is now trying to draw a line under the memo fiasco, Papal aides believe the Government’s choice of non-Catholic staff typifies the “lack of respect” being shown towards the first ever state visit by a Pontiff.
One source said: “The most striking thing about the Foreign Office team has been how ineffectual they are. They have been disengaged and, frankly, clueless.
“I have never had the impression that any members of the team were informed or even sensitive to the Catholic Church or Catholicism generally.”
One senior source at the Catholic Church in England and Wales said: “This does beg the question of how seriously this visit is being taken by the Government.
“All of our dealings with this Foreign Office team have suggested they don’t have any understanding of Catholicism and that’s how this issue seems to have come about.
“Why did they even have this brainstorming session in the first place? The Pope’s itinerary was decided a long time ago, so it’s not as if there was much room for extra events to be laid on.”
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “This whole episode was utterly unacceptable.
“A Conservative-run Foreign and Commonwealth Office would put a stop to such pointless time-wasting and insulting activities. Visits by international leaders should be handled with the respect they deserve and that we would expect to be extended to us.”
The Foreign Office declined to comment on the religious beliefs of the members of the Papal Visit Team.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nursing Chief: Give Addicts Free Heroin to Stop Them Turning to Crime
Drug addicts should be prescribed free heroin on the NHS, a nursing leader has claimed.
Dr Peter Carter, head of the Royal College of Nursing, also believes surgeries should set aside so-called ‘shoot-up’ galleries — rooms laid out with needles so users can inject in private.
He said making the Class A drug available would reduce crime as addicts would not need to steal to fund their habit.
Dr Carter added that such a service could be available on the NHS ‘within a few years’.
The NHS is piloting a scheme to give addicts free diamorphine — the medical name for heroin — in clinics in Brighton, Darlington and London.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Revealed, The Papal Visit Chief Who Wrote Memo Mocking Pope
Hands in his pockets in a casual pose, this is the Foreign Office diplomat who wrote the memo mocking the Pope.
Anjoum Noorani was in charge of a team who came up with ‘seriously offensive’ proposals for Benedict XVI to open an abortion clinic and launch a brand of his own condoms.
He presided over the disastrous ‘brainstorming’ meeting at which he and other Whitehall officials cooked up the outlandish list of things the Pope could do when he visits Britain in September.
The extraordinary memo was written on March 5 and leaked last week, triggering a diplomatic storm and Vatican fury at ‘dark forces’ within the Government.
Mr Noorani, 31, is far more senior than the Foreign Office has made out. Officials desperate to limit the damage have tried to play down his role, insisting he was merely a junior worker who acted without any authority.
But in fact Mr Noorani’s title is ‘Head of Papal Visit Team’ and he is in charge of the staff preparing for the visit.
Until 2007, he was the press secretary at the British embassy in Moscow, trusted to handle delicate relations during the crisis over the poisoning of dissident Alexanda Litvinenko.
None of the Foreign Office’s Pope memo team is understood to be Catholic, according to senior sources within the Church.
They have privately expressed dismay that they were having to arrange the papal visit with officials who ‘seem to know next to nothing about Catholicism’.
Mr Noorani is understood to be British Pakistani — but colleagues say he is not a Muslim.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Student Faces a £60 Fine Every Time He Tries to Park on His Own Driveway
With a busy road packed with commuter traffic and a pedestrian crossing just yards away, simply driving to and from his house can be a major headache for Maxwell Cannon.
Whether he goes in forwards or backwards, a breach of the Highway Code is almost inevitable — and so yesterday the chemistry student achieved the unwelcome distinction of being fined £60 for reversing into his own driveway.
The 25-year-old, who lives with his mother, a Labour Parliamentary candidate, was spotted by police waiting for a break in heavy traffic so he could back up the drive of the family’s terraced home in Harrington, Cumbria.
They told him he was committing an offence because he was stationary on the zigzag markings of the crossing and told him to move on.
But when they returned after driving a mile up the road he was still there, waiting for his chance to reverse into the house, a court was told.
He was fined £60 but lodged an appeal, and yesterday a judge was told it ‘offended common sense’ that someone was not allowed to reverse into his own driveway.
However the argument was rejected, and afterwards the Manchester University student said he and his family had now been placed in an impossible situation.
‘It’s ridiculous, but I’ve taken it as far as I can,’ he said. ‘It leaves us with the threat of being prosecuted every time we try and get into our own driveway.
‘I understand the policeman has a job to do, but he could have showed some discretion.
‘I think he was just throwing his weight around, and as motorists we’re easy targets for them to get their crime figures up.’
[…]
Upholding the £60 fixed penalty notice, the judge, Recorder Ahmed Nadim, said: ‘We accept that he has intended to conduct his driving in a manner designed to mitigate the inconvenience to other traffic, but that does not afford him an exemption under the regulations.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Video: ‘Toxic Sofa’ Customers to Receive Up to £20m
Hundreds of customers who were injured [by chemical burns] after buying “toxic” sofas [that were made in China] look set to receive a total payout of up to £20 million.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Serbia: Scajola; Important Market, Ready for EU
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 26 — Serbia, “is an important market”, because it has a free trade agreement with Russia and also with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which have a customs union agreement with Moscow. This is one of the reason that, Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola explained, have pushed Italy to make commitments in Serbia with various initiatives. One of these is the creation of a Italy-Serbia business council, introduced today in Belgrade with the signing of a joint declaration between Scajola and Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinkic. “It is an initiative,” explained Scajola, “designed to develop and facilitate economic relations between the two countries, which I am certain will be able to provide a positive contribution to a better knowledge of our entrepreneurial systems and to the development of new joint projects”. Italy, announced Scajola, quoting Serbian data, “today became this country’s top partner”, “with various companies that operate here and others that want to come here”. The Berlusconi government, continued Scajola, “believes that Serbia is an essential country, the centre of gravity of a region that is historically and culturally close to Italy. A country which has undergone a long and difficult period of history, with times of difficult with Italy, but, which has had the ability to look ahead”. Scajola then underlined that the time has come to accept Serbia into the European Union, hoping that their entrance “be further accelerated”, because “the process cannot end with some of the Balkans in the EU and the heart of the Balkans, Serbia, not part of the EU”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Milan’s First ‘Egyptian Culture Week’
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, APRIL 27 — Four evenings dedicated to contemporary Egyptian cinema, debates, music and artistic performances in celebration of Milan’s Week of Egyptian Culture, starting tomorrow and lasting until Sunday to provide a taste of the culture of this great country. Opening the event, on Thursday April 29 (6.30pm), at Milan’s Gnomo Cinema, there will be a performance by internationally renowned artist, Gamal Meleka. This will be followed, at 7.30, by a meeting with the title “Egypt’s role in modern and contemporary Mediterranean culture” and then at 10.30pm there will be a screening of the film “Avenue of Madness” (Darb el Mahabil, 1955) in Arabic with Italian subtitles. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Egyptian Nobel Prize winning writer, Naguib Mahfouz. Friday, 29, at 6.30pm, the stage will be given over to Italo-Egyptian cultural relations, thanks to a presentation of the cultural itinerary “Luxor Calling Turin — Turin Calling Luxor”. At 7.30, there will be a showing of the dramatic film by famed director Youssef Chahine, “The return of the prodigal son” (Awdat Al-Ibn Al-Dal, 1976). May 1 (at 6.30pm) there will be a chance to be transported to the sophisticated and mellow atmosphere created by Egypt’s best-loved all-time singer, Oum Kalthoum (1904-1975), with a presentation created by Walid Shousha. This will be followed by Anwar Wagdy’s film, Ghazal El Banat (1949). The event closes on Sunday May 2 at 5.00pm with the film “One to Zero” (Wahed-Sefr) by director Kamla Abu Zekry (2009). Presented at Venice in the Horizons section, the film portrays modern Egypt in all its faults and idiosyncrasies. The event, which is supported by Egypt’s Culture Ministry, will be realised in collaboration with the Egyptian Cultural Office and Milan Council, among others, and will be opened by Egypt’s Consular General in Milan, Amr Abbas. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Facebook Used by 1.4 Million
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 27 — Facebook is used by 1.4 million Tunisians, 14% of the country’s population. According to the most recent surveys, their numbers are rising constantly. This percentage makes Tunisia Africa’s main Facebook user, followed by South Africa and Morocco with 5% and Egypt with 3.7%, all countries with a much higher number of inhabitants. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Tale of Two Palestinian Authorities
by Jonathan Spyer
Four years after the Hamas victory in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and three years since the movement’s successful coup in Gaza, the split in the Palestinian national movement has an increasing look of permanence about it. This has major implications for the currently frozen diplomatic process.
This week, Dr. Salah al-Bardawil, a leading Hamas official, said that efforts toward Palestinian reconciliation are “frozen.” In an interview with Quds press, Bardawil stated that communication between Hamas authorities in Gaza and the government of Egypt on the issue of reconciliation had ceased. Talks were now restricted to “matters such as permission for patients to leave Gaza for treatment or the return of deceased Palestinians across the Rafah crossing.”
Bardawil’s message was confirmed on Monday by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in a speech in Damascus. Mashaal said Hamas had been urged by Arab officials to accept Quartet conditions, including recognition of Israel, in return for changes to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement. He said that Hamas had reiterated its refusal. Addressing “the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone,” he asserted that Hamas would not “succumb to your terms. We won’t pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory.”
These statements indicate that there is now no process under way toward ending the Palestinian political divide. On the ground, meanwhile, the rival Ramallah and Gaza Palestinian authorities are entrenching themselves.
PARALLEL TO the rise of Hamas in Gaza, and its ongoing popularity in the West Bank, Fatah is currently in a process of severe decline. The movement failed to embark on a major project of reform following its election defeat in 2006. As a result, it remains riven by factionalism and corruption. It is also, increasingly, irrelevant.
The key Palestinian leader in the West Bank today is Prime Minister Salam Fayyad…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Abu Mazen: NATO Troops to Guarantee Deal With Israel
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 27 — The deployment of NATO troops under American command could guarantee the stability of a future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. This statement was made last night by PNA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in an interview on commercial network Channel 2. He explained that an agreement on this point has already been reached with the United States and Israel, in negotiations with Premier Ehud Olmert. Abu Mazen added that he is not principally against an exchange of land between Israel and the future Palestinian State, though the size and location of this land has not yet been defined. “An agreement must be based on the borders as they were before the Six-Day War (1967). The exchange of land must be of similar size and importance. I’ve shown Olmert the maps and he has returned other ones to me. But then Olmert became the object of accusations (which forced him to resign, editor’s note) and the question stopped there” Mazen continued. Abu Mazen said that he has personally nothing against the current Premier of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, because he expresses the democratic will of the Israeli people. “It is my duty to work with him” he pointed out. The Palestinian President distanced himself from the plans set out by his Premier Salam Fayad regarding the proclamation of an independent Palestinian State by 2011. “We are not in favour of unilateral moves” he explained. Abu Mazen guaranteed the Israeli viewers that he is able to resolve the political crisis with Hamas. He also offered to mediate an exchange of prisoners that will lead to the release of Ghilad Shalit, the Israeli corporal who has been held prisoner in Gaza for four years. Regarding the possibility of a rapid resumption of indirect talks with Israel, Mazen said that he will submit the ideas that have been presented to him by US envoy George Mitchell to the Arab League on May 1. “I hope their reaction will be positive”, he concluded.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Gospel Trail’: Green Tourism on Jesus’ Footsteps
(ANSAmed) — CAPERNAUM (ISRAEL), APRIL 26 — For the Christian pilgrims who are tired of travelling in crowded coaches in the Holy Land’s chaotic traffic, Israel has created a new service: the ‘Gospel Trail’, a network of Gospel-inspired paths and routes for bike riders and travellers in the midst of Galilee’s nature and most picturesque sites. The Vatican Institute and main Holy Land trip organiser Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi (ORP) had the honour of inaugurating the Gospel Trail today. Israeli Tourism Minister vice director Raphael Ben Hur and ORP’s chief executive Father Cesare Atuire started an 18-kilometre bike race organised also by the Italian sports centre. The race crossed through corn fields, dried wadis, mango and banana plantations, and up and down hills between Magdala and Capernaum, where Jesus and his apostles spent most of their lives. The initiative includes the creation of a large bike and walking area going from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee. Throughout 2010, Israeli organizers promise, the Gospel Trail programme will be “integrated by the creation of new and different routes including traffic signs, information centres, resting areas and tourist services.” The project was studied by the Israeli Tourism Minister with several Israeli environmental organizations and the Cultural Heritage authorities. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Airports: Anything But Low Cost, Turkish Puts Chefs Onbord
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Anything but sandwiches and soft drinks brought from home to save while onboard low-cost airlines that even make you pay to use the restrooms. In a move that completely goes against market trends, where the philosophy is to fill airplanes at increasingly lower costs, while not taking the comfort of the passengers into account, Turkish flagship company Turkish Airlines (THY) has decided to offer a luxury food service care of expert chefs of the highly-regarded international restaurant and catering chain Do&Co. The “Flying Chef” service is included in the price of a first or business class ticket on intercontinental flights and is already up and running on the Istanbul-New York route. “But we intend to extend it soon to flights to Chicago and Tokyo,” said the head of the company’s press office, Ali Genc, while speaking to ANSAmed. “The basis of this initiative,” explained Genc, “is the idea of offering our clients better service and the quality of a luxury restaurant in the sky with the precious addition of a touch of smiling Turkish hospitality.” The dishes, promised Genc, will be international haut cuisine with special attention paid to a rich and varied Turkish cuisine and will be proposed and presented to passengers personally by the chefs who will travel onboard the aircraft side by side with flight attendants and hostesses. Rather, specified Genc, chefs and flight crew will be in close collaboration from the meticulous preparation of the dishes to the smallest details of precise service, which has the complete satisfaction of the passenger as its final objective. THY’s new initiative, which brings passengers back in time at least 30 years (when meals were still served with a first and second course and metal silverware was used instead of plastic utensils), is certainly due to the company’s excellent economic situation. In 2009, THY reported profits amounting to 387 million euros, and in the first two months of this year, the company — which is one of the group’s with the highest growth rate in all of Europe — reported a 25% increase in passenger numbers compared to the same month last year, for a total of 3.9 million. In the same period, the rate of seat occupancy increased by 69.1% Moreover, in recent months, as part of the brand expansion of the group, which still has the government in Ankara as its majority shareholder (49%), THY has become the main sponsor of two of the most important football clubs in history, England’s Manchester United, and Spain’s Barcelona, in addition to Maroussi, a basketball team in Greece’s top division. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Murder on the Curriculum
[This is the second article in a two-part series. In his first posting Ibn Warraq explained how the Saudis failed to remove hate speech from textbooks used in wahabbi-financed Islamic schools in the US — as pointed out in a 2008 report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and despite promises to comply with human rights standards. (ed.)]
by Ibn Warraq
By 2008 the Saudi government was yet to remove extremist statements from textbooks used in Saudi-financed schools in the United States. USCRIF clearly illustrated the problem in its June 2008 report:
“In a twelfth-grade Tafsir (Koranic interpretation) textbook, the authors state that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam), an adulterer, or someone who has murdered a believer intentionally: ‘He (praised is He) prohibits killing the soul that God has forbidden (to kill) unless for just cause. …’ Just cause is then defined in the text as ‘unbelief after belief, adultery, and killing an inviolable believer intentionally.’ (Tafsir, Arabic/Sharia, 123)”
“A twelfth-grade Tawhid (monotheism) textbook states that ‘[m]ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible,’ which in Islamic legal terms means that a Muslim can take the life and property of someone believed to be guilty of this alleged transgression with impunity. (Tawhid, Arabic/Sharia, 15) Under the Saudi interpretation of Islam, ‘major polytheists’ include Shi’a and Sufi Muslims, who visit the shrines of their saints to ask for intercession with God on their behalf, as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.’“
“The overt exhortations to violence found in these passages make other statements that promote intolerance troubling even though they do not explicitly call for violent action. These other statements vilify adherents of the Ahmadi, Baha’i, and Jewish religions, as well as of Shi’a Islam. This is despite the fact that the Saudi government is obligated as a member of the United Nations and a state party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and other relevant treaties to guarantee the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The statements include the following:…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar to Build USD 1bn Power Plants in Syria
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, APRIL 27 — Qatar has signed an agreement to build two new power plants in Syria at an estimated cost of USD 1bn, as Arabian business.com reports. Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWC) will build the two 450 MW gas-fired power plants in collaboration with Syrian Qatari Holding (SQH). Located close to the oil fields in the North Eastern Syria, the work is expected to begin before April 2011, QEWC general manager Fahad Hamad al Mohannadi, adding: “It provides QEWC with an opportunity to expand its base outside Qatar. QEWC, which earned QR2.6 billion in 2009, is keen to expand its operations in Europe, Asia and the GCC countries, through new projects and acquisitions. The plant is expected to be fully operational by June 2013. Last week, Qatar signed contracts worth QR4.28bn (USD 1.17bn) as part of its bid to meet future demand for electricity in the Gulf state. The agreements included the setting up of 18 new substations, the upgrade of 11 others, in addition to the construction of a 400kV substation to support GCC power interconnection project.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudis Welcome Italian Investment
Venice, 26 April (AKI) — Saudi Arabia, the country with the world’s biggest oil reserves, aims to attract Italian businesses to invest in the desert kingdom’s infrastructure, according to Usamah M. Al-Kurdi, chairman of the Saudi-Italian Development Company (SIDCO).
“It’s a country with a solid economy and one of the few that benefited from the economic crisis with 4.5 percent economic growth last year and is forecast to expand 6 percent in 2010,” he told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Monday during a Venice conference on relations between Saudi Arabia and Italy.
Al-Kurdi’s organisation SIDCO is a joint venture firm for consultancy services based in Riyadh with the aim of promoting business activities and facilitating technology and know-how transfer between Italy and Saudi Arabia.
“The development is in infrastructure, particularly of airports, highways, ports and railways, but also in logistical and mining industries. And of course in developing oil,” he said.
Italy is Saudi Arabia’s sixth largest trading partner and has 80 companies working in the country. In 2008 Italian exports to Saudi Arabia totalled 3.3 million euros, rising 9.4 percent over the year before, according to the Italian Institute for International Commerce. At the same time, Italy’s imports from Saudi Arabia rose 16.7 percent, to 4.2 billion euros.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Head of the Religious Police in Mecca, Men and Women Can Pray Together
Ahmed al-Ghamdi says that the strict separation between the sexes that exists today did not exist at the time of Muhammad. Conservatives respond harshly: a fatwa says that he “must be killed.” The official Saudi news agency reports his removal and a few hours later deletes the story. The issue also has economic implications.
Riyadh (AsiaNews) — The Saudi official news agency, SPA, had reported his dismissal only to delete all reports a few hours later, a fatwa says “he should be killed,” the Grand Mufti has denied his authority to speak about Islamic law. He, Ahmed al Ghamdi (pictured), head of the religious police in Mecca, the first holy city of Islam, confirms his convictions: men and women can pray together and meet freely, even if only in public.
The episode has been strictly censored by Saudi Arabia, monitored by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the official name of the muttawa, the religious police. Of which Ghamdi is a senior official.
The question of the possibility of men and women “mixing” — in public, never in private — has for weeks been at the centre of a debate between scholars and politicians. Thus, the Saudi newspaper The National, has devoted a long article to the story, recalling the words of the Justice Minister Muhammad al Issa who warned against confusing public promiscuity, which he believes is allowed by Islam, with meetings in private between men and women who are neither married nor related by kinship, which is prohibited.
The problem is not merely one of religious tradition, it also has economic implications. The ban has in fact heavy negative influences on women’s employment and foreign investment since it requires gender division even in the offices of international companies.
So, since December, when Ghamdi first spoke out on the issue, the question has occupied newspapers and television programs. A debate which is due to the climate of moderate reforms that King Abdullah is introducing into the country in an attempt to modernize it.
But the reaction of conservatives has been very hard. If Ghamdhi argues that the division did not exist at the time of Mohammed his opposers cry of violations of Sharia and apostasy. Sheikh Abdulrahman Al Barrak has issued a fatwa which says that promiscuity “as supported by modernists” is prohibited because it allows “the sight of what is forbidden and prohibited conversations between men and women.” Anyone who facilitates such promiscuity is an infidel”, and if not retracted “should be killed”. And finally, anyone who allows his daughter, sister or wife to work with men or to attend a mixed school is guilty of “a kind of prostitution”.
On Sunday, the case seemed closed. The Commission’s website published a statement from its Chairman Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Humain according to which Ghamdhi had been replaced. The statement was picked up and reported by SPA. Soon after, however, the agency wrote that the news was to be “deleted and not used”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Brings Israel’s Nukes to NATO’s Attention
Amid efforts to mediate between Iran and international powers over Tehran’s nuclear program, Turkey brought Israel’s nuclear arsenal to NATO’s attention during a meeting last week.
“We want full implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]. No country should be exempted from joining this treaty,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in his address to NATO’s foreign ministers late Thursday at a working dinner session of the Tallinn meeting, according to diplomatic sources. The session was about how NATO would approach its future nuclear weapons policy.
Turkey repeatedly criticized Israel for not joining the treaty, which limits the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also voiced Turkey’s concerns during a Washington-initiated nuclear summit on April 12-13, and Davutoglu followed him at the NATO gathering.
“Turkey aims for its region and the world to be fully clear of nuclear weapons. It long ago declared it would never try to develop these sorts of weapons,” Davutoglu said, adding that Turkey was seeking full nuclear disarmament in its region.
Israel is believed to possess some nuclear warheads although the country has neither confirmed nor denied the claims.
“This treaty should be implemented everywhere in the world, and its rules should also be amended to adopt today’s realities. It should come forth with a new campaign of full nuclear disarmament. This new order should not create new privileged countries,” Davutoglu said in his address. “And until this day comes, NATO should keep its nuclear deterrence.”
Alongside Israel, two other nuclear countries, India and Pakistan, are also refraining from signing the treaty.
“It’s only natural for NATO to continue its deterrence. But there has to be a balance between keeping the deterrence and nuclear disarmament. We should not give up our disarmament programs in the name of remaining as deterring,” he said.
The nuclear element of the U.S. defense commitment to Europe takes several forms: the potential use of U.S.-based long-range nuclear missiles; the capability to quickly move U.S.-based, short-range nuclear weapons to Europe in a time of crisis; and the storage in five European countries of an estimated 200 nuclear bombs designed to be dropped by short-range attack jets.
The U.S. government as a matter of policy will not confirm the location of U.S. nuclear weapons, but it is well known that sites in Europe include Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The U.S. has had nuclear arms in Europe since the 1950s. It will not officially say how many remain, but private experts think it is about 200, down sharply from the 1980s.
Germany was considering appealing for the removal of the nuclear weapons located on its soil, but the NATO decision on the matter prohibits countries from taking individual decisions. Davutoglu’s address to NATO also made clear that Turkey will not be demanding the withdrawal of these sorts of weapons from its territory unless a global deal is reached.
“We should evaluate our nuclear future with these principles and include it in NATO’s currently debated New Strategic Concept,” he said. NATO will review its strategic concept at a summit that will take place this fall in Lisbon.
Missile shield
Regarding the controversial missile shield proposed by the United States to its European allies in possible range of hostile countries’ nuclear weapons, Turkey has defended that the move should be a NATO project that includes all allied countries. “We are not entirely against a missile shield. But we believe it has to be built on some principles,” a senior Turkish diplomat said.
One of the most important principles is that the project should not be developed against any country. The other thing is that the missiles should protect all members in an equal way, and no country should be left undefended, officials said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Popularity Government Party AKP Falling in Poll
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 27 — The main reasons for the falling popularity of the pro-Islamic Justice and Development party (AKP, party of Premier Tayyip Erdogan) are unemployment and high cost of living, according to a poll carried out by the Turkish company Sonar. According to the secular newspaper Cumhuriyet, which printed the results of the poll, the AKP’s popularity has fallen to 25% from 38.39% at the local elections in March 2009. The Turkish opposition parties are on the rise. According to Sonar, support for the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social democratic party led by Deniz Baykal) has risen from 23.08% to 26.7%, and support for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP of Devlet Bahceli) has climbed from 15.97% to 21.15%. The poll also shows that only 20% of the interviewed expect to see Turkey’s economic situation improve; 80% have hope for the future. These results are confirmed by a poll carried out by the Turkish statistical institute (TurkStat), which found that only 15.6% of Turks see the country’s economic situation as “good”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab: Christians Protest Boy’s Death, Police Charge Protesters
A stray bullet kills Adil Masih, 13, during a shootout between two rival Muslim gangs. Christians demand justice. Police responds with tear gas and truncheons. For the second time in just a few months, a “mysterious” fire ravages a Christian school for girls in Punjab.
Gujranwala (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Hundreds of Christians clashed with police during a demonstration that followed the death of a 13-year-old boy, Adil Masih, who was killed during a shootout between two rival Muslim gangs. According to Assist News Service (ANS), the fatal incident occurred last Friday in Dullay, a village in Gujranwala District (Punjab). The Christian boy died from a gunshot wound caused by a stray bullet.
News of the death spread among local Christians, who took to one of the village’s main streets. They blocked road and train traffic, demanding justice. The crowd shouted anti-government slogans, but remained peaceful.
However, when police moved in, tensions rose. Law enforcement used tear gas against the demonstrators, used truncheons to beat people up and fired warning shots in the air. Five people were injured, including two journalists.
Eyewitnesses told ANS that when police began shooting in the air, protesters became angry and started pelting vehicles and shops with stones and bricks.
“Some women fell unconscious from tear gas,” one eyewitness said. “Some police officers were also injured after being hit by the stones hurled by the mob.” The standoff lasted about three hours.
A high-ranking police official tried to reassure the local Christian community, saying, “Justice would be served”; Adil Masih’s killers “would be nailed down, prosecuted and penalised.”
In the meantime, elsewhere in the country, anti-Christian violence continues unabated. On Sunday, fire broke out in a girls’ hostel in Murree, a hill station in Punjab, under “mysterious circumstances”, the Pakistan Christian Post reported. About 100 Christian girls were staying at the facility when the incident occurred. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed.
The hostel is part of the St Deny’s Girls High School. It is the second time that a fire breaks out at the facility under suspicious circumstances. On 4 November 2009, the school, which is owned and run by the Catholic Diocese of Lahore, suffered significant damages. The cause of that blaze was never determined.
Areas where the influence of Islamic extremists is strongest, especially in the North West Frontier Province, women’s and girls’ educational facilities are coming increasingly under attack. Buildings are set on fire and students are attacked with acid.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Support for Hatoyama Government Plummets
Popularity rating drops from 71% to 25%. The Japanese disappointed incapacity of government and Prime Minister and problems with the U.S.. But the opposition is also at its lowest popularity: 14%. It is a crisis of politics.
Tokyo (AsiaNews) — “When public support of a government falls below 30%, it means that the government is in a bad way,” writes a renowned analyst in Asahi newspaper. The euphemistic expression implies that the Japanese government appears close to collapse: an investigation conducted by the same newspaper on April 18, shows that the popularity index of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stands at 25%, only seven months ago, when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), of which Hatoyama is president, opened its government, the popularity index was 71%: one of the highest enjoyed by any previous government.
Is it simply a case of precarious public opinion? Not really. Sometimes, comments another analyst, popular opinion is “brutally honest”. Most of the media indicate the reason for the drop in public support for Hatoyama in his inability to govern. It seems that the prime minister’s indecision is only the cause of the crisis. The reasons which reveal its significance and unfortunately, its severity are political in nature: in the last 10 years, both the political class — and opposition — as well as the people themselves did not realize that Japan was changing rapidly both in internally and in its international relations, responding effectively.
I will try to isolate and place them in a historical framework outlined by three events: the election of 31 August 2009, won with an overwhelming majority by the DPJ, the journalistic investigations of mid-April, which revealed the weakness of the government; the end of May , which is the time limit indicated by Hatoyama for a decision on the relocation of the Futenma U.S. military base on the island of Okinawa.
A democratic dream, but without programs
Yukio Hatoyama (63) was one of the few politicians who knew how to read the “signs of the times” for Japan. Rather than ambition, “genealogy” led him to embrace his political career. His grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama (1883-1959) was the first popularly elected post-war prime minister. He was also a cofounder of the LDP, (1955), he’ ruled for decades with an absolute majority, encouraging the economic development of Japan. Moreover his father Iichiro (1918-1993) was foreign minister. Yukio, joined the LDP (1986), leaving its ranks in 1996, having sensed that the political party no longer met the needs of the times, He, then, with others founded the DPJ, which presented itself as the party of “historic change of regime.” Noting the negative result, a critic wrote: “The (Hatoyama) government in virtual free-fall, has made a hoax of the motto ‘historic regime change”.
It was a beautiful dream, and in fact it found extraordinary electoral support. But it was too beautiful and has not been transformed into reality through a workable program. The people have turned their backs on the government because it has not kept its promises as set out in the so-called “Manifesto”, (party program), where among other things, they committed themselves to restoring policy making to the government taking it away from the bureaucrats. But competence is not created by simply replacing protagonists along idealistic lines.
The military base at Futenma and tension with the United States
“Japan is no longer on Obama’s list of priorities”. So read an article in The Korea Times from their correspondent in Washington. “When president Barack Obama took office”, the Korean newspaper comments, “he was quick to show his commitment to Japan inviting the then Japanese prime minister as his first guest to the White House, but ten days ago when Hatoyama went to Washington for a summit on nuclear safety, the American president only granted a private interview of 10 minutes during lunch. Instead he found time for official talks with 13 other leaders including Chinese President Hu Jintao, whom he entertained for 90 minutes. “
George Packard, president of the United States-Japan Foundation said: “I found it absolutely shocking that the two nations failed to schedule a meeting”.
The friction between the two governments are the result of the Japanese Prime Minister’s Diplomatic ‘naïveté’ and his slowness to work together to solve the problem of relocation of the U.S. military base at Futenma.
Interviewed by the Times Hatoyama said: “Japan has always acted in response to what the U.S. said. For us it is time to seek a more equal relationship. “
Much more problematic is the delay in response to the problem of Futenma base which is located in the city of Ginowan on the island of Okinawa, where there were the most deadly battles of the Pacific War. Twenty years after the end of that war, the U.S. returned the island to Japan, but keeping the military base for obvious strategic reasons: to control China and defend Taiwan and Japan. In 2006 the governments of Washington, and Tokyo have signed an agreement with mayors of local people to transfer the base near the city of Nago in the north of the island. But even here the population and mayor oppose the move. Hatoyama has promised to do everything possible to meet the desires of the people.
Hatoyama is on the ropes
It is not just a matter of policy. A cooling of relations with America is not well regarded by many Japanese. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the pact of mutual security between the U.S. and Japan (1960). This pact enshrined Japan’s threefold antinuclear principle (not to produce, possess and not to introduce nuclear weapons) meaning Japan can not have nuclear weapons, rather it makes use of anti-nuclear umbrella of the United States. And so it was able to use its prodigious energies and money on economic development, of which everyone is aware. In this context, in March Sadakazu Tanigaki, chairman of the LDP, now in opposition, asked Hatoyama about his intentions regarding the issue of Futenma. The Prime Minister committed himself to expressing his decision by the end of May. A promised he confirmed during his brief meeting with President Obama in Washington. Pursuant to this commitment Hatoyama can no longer delay the decision beyond that date. He is on the ropes.
Severe government paralysis looms
With the self-imposed ultimatum, the Prime Minister has gambled with his political life. If he fails to find a satisfactory solution he will have to resign. But then the crisis will be even more serious because it is not clear how early elections can create a more stable government. It has emerged from the Asahi that popular support for the DPJ, Hatoyama’s party,is at ‘23%,but support for the LDP, the party ousted from government in August, has also dropped to 14%.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) must urgently rewrite its “Manifesto” to an achievable dimension and reconfigure the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. If political parties do not wake up, then people will increasingly abandon them. a serious governmental stasis is looming.
This should concern everyone, because Japan is not a developing country. A recent survey conducted jointly by the BBC World Service and the Yomiuri Shimbun (Japanese newspaper) on world influence among 16 nations and the European Union, Japan, ties in second place with the EU, preceded by Germany.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Catalonia People’s Party, Away With Romanians
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 26 — “We do not want Romanians”: the Catalonia People’s Party (PPC) has apologised, “if anyone was hurt”, by a xenophobic statement contained in a picture published on a promotional leaflet for the People’s Party of Badalona (Barcelona). In a press conference, PPC President Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, cited by EFE, expressed “admiration, support and respect” towards Romanians who come to Spain to work “legally” and who “contribute to the wealth of Catalonia”. “Crime has no nationality,” observed Sanchez-Camacho. Nonetheless, the head of the Catalonian PP assured that she will not ask for the resignation of Badalona’s PPC secretary Xavier Garcia Albiol, who supported the promotional leaflet, which associates a lack of security with the presence of illegal immigrants. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finnish Ministers Blast Heinäluoma’s Tougher Immigration Views
Finnish ministers on Saturday strongly rejected the criticism of government immigration policy voiced by Eero Heinäluoma (soc dem) in an interview published in the Saturday edition of Swedish language daily Hufvudstadsbladet.
Mr Heinäluoma, chair of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group, asserted that the government’s assessment of the need for employment-based immigration was completely wrong.
According to Mr Heinäluoma, there will not be enough work left for Finns if the government holds on to its objectives of increasing employment-based immigration. This in turn would lead to more racism, Mr Heinäluoma added.
Mr Heinäluoma also defended those Finns who thought immigration should not be increased. “This is not racism, but rather a sensible reaction to us having 300,000 unemployed people in the country,” Mr Heinäluoma claimed.
Matti Vanhanen (centre), Finland’s prime minister, responded by calling Mr Heinäluoma’s views “repulsive” and accusing the Social Democratic Party of inciting confrontation and political passions.
Finland’s foreign minister, Alexander Stubb (cons), admitted that the recession had influenced the overall need for additional workforce, but added that it would be strange to conclude that there would not be enough work for Finns if foreigners arrived in the country. According to Mr Stubb racism is not fanned by increased immigration but rather comments that suggest foreign workers are somehow worse than Finnish ones.
However, Mr Heinäluoma’s views also received some support from the ranks of the opposition. Timo Soini, chair of the True Finns, lauded the Social Democrats for coming round to their traditional immigration policy.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Arrest 31 in Rosarno Probe
‘Rebellion against exploitation’ by Calabria farm hands
(ANSA) — Rosarno, April 26 — Police on Monday arrested dozens of people in connection with a probe into violent clashes between foreigners and locals in Calabria earlier this year. A multi-force operation targeted 31 individuals linked to an organization accused of exploiting foreign workers employed as farm labourers in the area around the town of Rosarno.
The investigation into the causes of January’s riots, during which 53 people were injured, concluded that the appalling treatment of farmhands was to blame.
“Operation Migrantes makes it clear once and for all that there was no sudden explosion of racism in Rosarno on January 7,” said provincial police chief Carmelo Casabona. “The violence was instead a rebellion by foreigners against exploitation”.
Thirty-one warrants were carried out on Monday, said judicial sources, some against foreigners but most against local Italians linked to organized crime. Nine people have been taken into custody and 22 have been placed under house arrest. The charges include criminal conspiracy, labour law violations and agricultural fraud. Prosecutors also ordered the seizure of 20 farms and land worth 10 million euros acquired with profits generated by the criminal operation. The probe, under way since January, discovered an extensive organization that placed immigrants desperate for work with local farmers in need of temporary assistance.
The labourers were forced to work between 12 and 14 hours every day for which they received around 20 to 25 euros, said the report.
The workers had to pay between 6 and 10 euros of this to their agent, who also received a commission from the farmer. Immigrants were subjected to regular threats and abuse in order to stop them going to the police, investigators found. News of the arrests was welcomed by politicians on all sides. Interior Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano expressed his gratitude “for the excellent work” of judicial and police investigators. “This confirmed the clashes were a cause for alarm because they indicated a complete disregard for the law rather than because there was a sudden racist upsurge among locals”. Labour Minister Maurizio Sacconi praised the police for the successful operation, saying labour law violations were a government priority, particularly “the systematic subjugation of farm labourers, which is a loathsome form of exploitation”. Marco Minniti, an MP with the largest opposition group the Democratic Party (PD) said the results were “excellent”. PD House whip Rosa Villecco Calipari voiced dismay at an “evil situation in which unscrupulous men force others to live in conditions of near slavery, with no respect for their dignity and violating their most basic rights”.
She criticized Interior Minister Roberto Maroni who she said blamed the violence on “too much tolerance for immigrants”.
Opposition Italy of Values MEP Luigi De Magistris blamed “the government for failing to deal with modern slavery”. Italy’s two largest agriculture organizations thanked the police for their efforts but called for more action, warning that farmers who paid their workers fair wages struggled to compete in such a cutthroat market. “Such exploitation not only damages the weakest groups of farm workers, such as immigrants, but also the many honest farmers who are placed in extremely pressured situations,” said Coldiretti President Sergio Marini. The Italian Farmers Confederation (CIA) called for “a strong stance” against “loathsome” exploitation. But it also implied that a government immigration crackdown was aggravating the problem, as foreigners no longer able to enter the country through legal means were increasingly forced to turn to criminal organizations. Farmers were finding a ready supply of legal labour drying up and were more likely to get help any way possible, it said. “We need a serious discussion on immigration, seeking appropriate solutions to restore justice, while at the same time providing clear and transparent answers to the needs of farmers that use foreign workers,” it said. Over 50 people were injured during the violence, which exploded in early January after local youths shot at three African labourers.
Two days of clashes between locals and foreigners saw cars set alight and at least four more immigrants shot at. Others were beaten with iron bars or run over.
The unrest concluded with hundreds of foreign workers being bussed out of town to migrant centres across Italy and their makeshift dwellings bulldozed.
At the time, a number of opposition politicians and several international sources, including United Nations representatives, suggested a rising current of racism was to blame. Around 2,500 foreign workers were living in Rosarno and the surrounding area before the clashes, in conditions that one humanitarian group described as “subhuman”. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said conditions were “far below the minimum standards needed for survival”. “They were living in perpetual damp, with minimal, often non-existent hygiene, all of which spread infection”.
MSF has issued repeated warnings about the living conditions of migrant farm labourers in southern Italy since it started monitoring the situation in 2003.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Bishops: Opportunity, Not a Threat
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 27 — Immigration “is not a problem, a threat or an invasion, but an opportunity for the Church and for society”. This is the line stressed by Spain’s bishops during today’s presentation of the 8th Congress of the European Episcopalian Conferences, opening this afternoon in Malaga, in the south of Spain. From today until Saturday, around one hundred delegates of the European Episcopalian Conferences, representing civic society and their dioceses, will be taking part in a congress on the spiritual care of migrants, with the theme: ‘A Europe of persons in transit. Overcoming fears. Indicating outlooks”. In his introduction to the themes of discussion, Jesuit José Luis Pinilla, Director of the Spanish Episcopalian Conference for migrations, said it was importance to change the way in which “some moral panics over immigration” are perceived. In Pinilla’s view, the current transit of migrants “is an opportunity” in that it “improves people’s freedoms and lives” and “there is no barrier that can prevent migration”. The Jesuit stressed the importance which the Church lays on hospitality and welcoming. The bishop condemned the existence of a tendency “to marginalise and criminalise immigration” and stressed the need for action in three directions: in the countries of origin of migrant flows, in transit countries and in countries of destination. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Gay Church Marriage Gets Approval From One in Three
Around one in three of Finns interviewed for a new opinion poll say that they would allow same-sex couples to have church-sanctioned weddings.
The figure came from a survey by the pollster Taloustutkimus that was commissioned by the Tampere-based newspaper Aamulehti. The poll also found that over 60% of those surveyed are in favour of some type of church blessing for same-sex unions. The highest levels of support were found among young women.
On the basis of the poll, nearly half of all Finns also think that opponents of women clergy within the Lutheran Church should establish their own religious community.
The Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is scheduled to convene soon to make a decision on its stand concerning gay and lesbian couples. The Church’s episcopal conference recently suggested recognizing such unions with prayer only.
The Aamulehti-published poll was based on telephone interviews with 1000 people in mid-April.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Marriage-Absence is America’s Greatest Problem
Phyllis Schlafly’s article “America Becomes a Two-Class Society” contains a breakthrough realization for conservatives: where 47% of citizens have a tax-free ride, the precipice of collapse is not far away. I spoke with Phyllis and asked her if she knew who the two classes are. Without hesitation, and as I expected, she said “Married and not married.” After adjusting for disability, joblessness, and retirement, this remains an unequivocal truth.
Phyllis’s discovery proves my long-held hierarchical assessment: “Marriage-absence is America’s greatest problem.” Let us examine the reasons why this is true.
Social expenditures (which arise primarily due to marriage-absence) increased last year to perhaps $1-trillion — still the largest federal budget line-item for many years.
National health care — an additional $230-billion annual cost — came about predominantly because of marriage-absence. Read: National Health Care in some form, even if ObamaCare, would not be a problem if less than 20-percent of the population needed free health care.
Perhaps as much as 40% the home-loan default financial collapse was precipitated by marriage-absence. 46% of the poor own their own homes. Two-income married households fare far better making ends meet when joblessness strikes home.
Nothing will painlessly balance government budgets and reduce poverty for women and children faster than restoring the institution of heterosexual marriage. At least forty percent of children live outside of marriage. Robert Rector pointed out that “Nearly two thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three quarters of the nation’s impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty.” This, in turn, drives freewheeling social spending and class-warfare against those who are married.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden to Join Germany in Persecuting Homeschoolers?
Legislative proposal ‘would essentially ban’ freedom in education
Members of Sweden’s parliament are being warned to drop plans to change their homeschooling laws or they soon could be on par with Germany, where persecution over homeschooling recently prompted a family to flee to the U.S. for asylum.
The warning comes from the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, the premiere homeschooling advocacy organization in the world.
The group sent a letter today to each member of Sweden’s lawmaking body noting the recent case of a German family that fled to Tennessee. The letter cited U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence Burman, who wrote, “No country has a right to deny these basic human rights.”
“He refers to the right of parents to decide the best form of education for their children, which includes the right, even if regulated, to educate their own children themselves,” the HSLDA letter says.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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