Former Nazi Bank to Rule the Global Economy
European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet’s announcement that the Bank for International Settlements is to become the primary engine for global governance is a shocking admission given the fact that this ultra-secretive menagerie of international bankers was once controlled by top Nazis who, in collusion with global central banks, funneled money through the institution which directly financed Hitler’s war machine.
During a speech to the elitist CFR organization earlier this week, ECB head Trichet said that the Global Economy Meeting (GEM), which regularly meets at the BIS headquarters in Basel, “Has become the prime group for global governance among central banks”.
The GEM is basically a policy steering committee under the umbrella of the Bank for International Settlements. In its current form, the BIS, which itself is not accountable to any national government, is comprised of banking chiefs from global central banks, most of which are private and also have no responsibility to their nation states or their citizens.
The board of directors who control the BIS include Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Bank of England head Mervyn King, as well as Trichet himself.
So how did the Bank for International Settlements get started? The BIS was founded in 1930 by Governor of The Bank of England, Montague Norman and his German colleague Hjalmar Schacht, who later became Adolf Hitler’s finance minister.
The bank was initially founded in order to facilitate money transfers related to German reparations arising out of the Treaty of Versailles, but by the start of the second world war, the BIS was largely controlled by top Nazi officials, people like Walter Funk, who was appointed Nazi propaganda minister in 1933 before going on to become Hitler’s Minister for Economic Affairs. Another BIS director during this period was Emil Puhl, who as director and vice-president of Germany’s Reichsbank was responsible for moving Nazi gold. Both Funk and Puhl were convicted at the Nuremberg trials as war criminals.
Other BIS directors included Herman Schmitz, the director of IG Farben, whose subsidiary company manufactured Zyklon B, the pesticide used in Nazi concentration camp gas chambers to kill Jews and political dissidents during the Holocaust. IG Farben worked closely with John D. Rockefeller’s United States-based Standard Oil Co during the second world war.
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Government is Still Just Like an Overtaxing King
These days it takes very little to set me off on yet another rant against the American political class — a proxy for governments the world over.
On occasion, I’m tempted to apologize for these rants. Not so much for the message, but for the frequency.
Unfortunately, when surveying the landscape on which our hovels rest, the king’s castle looms large in the foreground.
I am not an envious person by nature and so wouldn’t begrudge the king his fine trappings, provided they were honestly earned.
But therein lies Ye Olde Rub.
Ever more frequently these days, the drawbridge comes down and a troop of the king’s finest sallies forth to extort from me more than half of my crops, and to read new royal proclamations whose net result is to add to the daily burden of trying to provide sustenance for family and jobs for workers.
Should I protest, say, by grabbing a pitchfork and telling the soldiers to clear off my land, or refuse to fill their wagons with the best of my crops — each leaf of which represents time and investment on my part — they would grab me by the shoulders, drag me to the king’s dungeon, and confiscate my property.
In fact, all that has changed since the days of yore is that the king’s knights tend to no longer rape, as well as pillage.
For a clear understanding of just how poorly ruled this country has been, look no further than the latest budget projections. In his recent article, “America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship,” Stewart Dougherty does just that, analyzing the government’s wanton spending and penning some notable, and quotable, words on the topic.
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
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Greece: EU-IMF Call for 10% Cut to Deficit in 2 Years
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 29 — The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have reportedly asked the Greek government to cut the country’s deficit by 10% in two years and to cut salaries, indicated a union source after a meeting between labour representatives and Prime Minister George Papandreou. According to the source, who asked to remain anonymous, the EU and IMF reportedly called for a reduction to the deficit “of 10 points in two years, 2010 and 2011, and savings of 25 billion euros”. Furthermore “they are also examining the idea of eliminating 13th and 14th month’s pay for civil servants and pensioners”. Another request by the EU and IMF to allow for aid, said another union source at the end of the meeting with the government, is reportedly an increase of one or two points to VAT. “Today we established what we are facing after a deal already made behind the backs of Greek citizens,” criticised the leader of civil servants’ union Ilias Iliopoulos. “This is an extremely harsh package of measures, which go against development and will lead to a recession.”(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Set to Give 5. 5 Bln Euros for Greece
(AGI) — Rome, 30 April — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said “We maintain allegiance to the proposition of helping our neighbour if his house is burning. In the case of Greeceof course, our aid will be provided not only because we both members of the EU but especially to prevent the fire from spreading to the houses close-by.” Berlusconi added that “Italy may give Grecce 5.5 billion euros to defend our common currency against speculation. .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Diana West: Heat & Light
This is a back story, not a story, that I tell to bring my own perspective to an unfortunate episode involving Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer, two major, if very different voices in the anti-jihad movement (such as it is). Bostom is a medical professor who brings a science-based rigor to his wide-ranging scholarly works, The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism; Spencer is an expert author who brings such research to a broad audience in such best-selling books as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and Religion of Peace? Both appeared on Geert Wilders’ initial list of Islam-expert-witnesses for his upcoming trial in the Netherlands (and both were cut by the court). The episode in question played out recently on their respective blogs.
Bostom, writing at his very small blog, cursorily charged Spencer with having plagiarized his work.
Spencer, writing at his very large blog, denied the charge and cited Bostom’s lack of “direct evidence.”
Bostom subsequently added supplementary information to his initial post that did not, in its presentation, clear up the dispute.
What was it all about, and who’s right?
Recently, University of Maryland professor Jeffrey Herf came out with a new book arguing that it was 20th-century Nazism that infected 1,400-year-old Islam with antisemitism. Such an ahistorical notion is easily debunked, which is precisely what Robert Spencer set out to do in the post (here) that Bostom took exception to. That’s because one of the main reasons the thesis is so readily debunked is that Bostom, in the course of producing his massive, academic work, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, amassed necessary research materials to do so.
These included, to convey a sense of the research involved in producing just a few pages out of the 766-page tome with hundreds of detailed footnotes, Bostom’s discovering and then commissioning the first ever English translation of Georges Vajda’s seminal 1937 work in French on the portrayal of the Jews in the hadiths. The process entailed additional Hebrew translation, which was further refined by a contribution from the noted Dutch scholar Hans Jansen.
One Vajda-sourced footnote (#202, pp. 259-260), a small essay in itself, quotes Maimonides on whether it is permisable for a Jew to teach Jewish law to a non-Jew:
[see link for large block of text]
It so happens that the text in bold (above) from Bostom’s book appears in a paragraph of Spencer’s recent post (below)…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
E-Mail on Race Sparks a Furor at Harvard Law
Student regrets questioning the intelligence of blacks
It was a private dinner conversation among three friends. The topic: affirmative action and race. The debate presumably was passionate, given the divergent opinions of the Harvard Law School students.
Stephanie Grace, a third-year law student, felt she had not made her position clear, so she followed up via e-mail, according to a person with direct knowledge of events.
“I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position,’’ Grace wrote. “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African-Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.’’
The lengthy e-mail, sent to her two dinner companions six months ago, ignited an Internet firestorm this week when it was leaked and first reported Wednesday by the legal blog abovethelaw.com, followed by other websites.
Yesterday, Martha Minow, dean of Harvard Law School, condemned the e-mail that suggested blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
“Here at Harvard Law School, we are committed to preventing degradation of any individual or group, including race-based insensitivity or hostility,’’ Minow wrote in a message to Harvard’s law school community.
Minow said she had met with leaders of Harvard’s Black Law Students Association on Wednesday to discuss the hurt caused by Grace’s e-mail. She also said Internet reports alleging the association had made the e-mail public and pressed for the student’s future employer to rescind a job offer were false.
Grace did not respond to a request for an interview yesterday.
Grace, an editor of the Harvard Law Review, is headed for a federal clerkship in California with Ninth Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski. She graduated from Princeton University in 2007 with the highest honors and obtained a degree in sociology, according to the university’s registrar. A Princeton website said Grace conducted research on how the racial composition of one’s freshman year roommates influences behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions in subsequent college years.
In her e-mail to her friends, she wrote that while she could “be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that [black people] are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. . . .
“I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African-Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner,’’ she continued.
She signed off on the e-mail with, “Please don’t pull a Larry Summers on me’’ — referring to the former Harvard president who was pressured to resign after faculty unrest in part because he suggested in a 2005 speech that women lacked the same “intrinsic aptitude’’ for science as men.
On Wednesday, Grace sent an apology to leaders of the Black Law Students Association, the president of the student government, Minow, and several faculty members.
“I am deeply sorry for the pain caused by my e-mail. I never intended to cause any harm, and I am heartbroken and devastated by the harm that has ensued. I would give anything to take it back,’’ Grace said in the apology, obtained by the Globe.
“I emphatically do not believe that African-Americans are genetically inferior in any way. I understand why my words expressing even a doubt in that regard were and are offensive.’’
Leaders of the association declined to comment yesterday on the controversy.
In her statement yesterday, Minow called the incident “sad and unfortunate’’ but said she was heartened by the student’s apology. She added: “We seek to encourage freedom of expression, but freedom of speech should be accompanied by responsibility.’’
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
Levin: SWAT Team Response to Oil Spill is Government Takeover Plot
Radio talk show host and former Reagan cabinet advisor Mark Levin has slammed President Obama’s bizarre announcement that he will be sending SWAT teams to deal with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, alleging that the response is part of a plan to grease the skids for government takeover and nationalization of the oil industry.
In a move that has shocked and dumbfounded political observers in equal measure, Obama said yesterday the “Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWAT teams to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs.”
Obama has also dispatched Secretaries of Interior and Homeland Security as well as Administrator Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency to the site “To ensure that BP and the entire U.S. government is doing everything possible, not just to respond to this incident, but also to determine its cause.”
Reacting to the announcement, Levin expressed his amazement that the Department of the Interior, which he worked under, even had SWAT teams.
Levin labeled the response to the oil spill “a stunner,” asking, “What are these SWAT teams going to do….doesn’t this sound like Hugo Chavez to you — we have an environmental problem, we have a leak, and we’re sending SWAT teams to the platforms and the rigs — SWAT teams are not environmentalist experts, they’re not scientists, they’re not engineers, they’re law enforcement — so why are we sending SWAT teams to all the platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico?”
Levin alleged that the response was a precursor to government nationalization of the oil industry via the back door. “I think those SWAT teams are there in coordination with the attorney general’s office, the Interior Department, Homeland Security, maybe the EPA….to seize records at these sites and to lay the foundation for more government takeover,” he stated.
Levin added that he was stunned with the media’s nonchalant reaction at Obama’s flagrant abuse of power.
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No Proof: Part II of an Investigative Series
In the first part of this investigative report, background was provided to identify the core legal and constitutional arguments in the matter of Barack Hussein OBAMA II’s eligibility to hold the office of President of the United States. Using my investigative experience, I performed this investigation in compliance with the same “industry standards” that apply to performing background investigations of individuals selected for corporate positions by Fortune 100 companies.
As noted in my initial report, the primary intent of this investigation has been to establish whether Barack Hussein OBAMA has indeed furnished the necessary proof to confirm his eligibility to assume the position of the President of the United States, and whether that proof has been properly authenticated. In other words, this investigation sought to determine whether there are any legitimate questions or concerns over the eligibility issue, or whether the matter has been sufficiently resolved. Or to put it yet another way, is there a legitimate reason to mock, belittle, marginalize, or otherwise consider the so-called “Birthers” as kooks living on the fringe of conspiracy?
Despite assertions by politicians, media pundits and others, this issue is far from having been resolved. Investigation found that those who will not discuss this issue or mock the questions and those asking the questions either do not fully understand the issue, or have agendas that conflict with the truth being disclosed. This part of the investigation will provide detailed information outlining how that conclusion has been reached, and will offer additional information of relevance pertaining to the narrow scope of the issue of eligibility itself. Additional investigative results in the form of supplemental reports will address the methods being presently employed — and identify those who are employing them — to keep the truth from being made known to the American people.
It is the conclusion of this investigator that Barack Hussein OBAMA II has not only failed to provide proof of eligibility, but has and continues to fight efforts to release the proof necessary to confirm that he is legally eligible to occupy his current position as the president of the United States.
To be clear, it is important to understand that there is a vast and significant difference between the meaning of the words evidence and proof, although most people use the terms synonymously. While Black’s Law Dictionary offers the legal definition of both terms, they can be easily summarized for the purpose of this investigation as follows: Evidence is something that offers the basis for belief or disbelief, or knowledge on which to base belief, while proof is the establishment of facts by evidence.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Lower House Votes to Ban the Burka
Brussels, 30 April (AKI) — Belgium’s lower house of parliament on Thursday banned burka-type Islamic dress in public and must now go to the Senate where the bill may encounter resistance. Lawmakers in Belgium’s Chamber of Deputies voted almost unanimously to ban face veils.
Until recently, analysts say, approval in the Belgium Senate seemed certain. But Christian Democrats and Liberals in the upper house on Thursday questioned the phrasing of the law, which states that no one can appear in public “with the face fully or partly covered so as to render them no longer recognisable.”
Critics say the law restricts freedom of religion and expression, while supporters assert a burka is incompatible with basic public security as the wearer is unrecognisable. They also claim the burka clashes with the principles of an emancipated society that respects the rights of all.
In January, Denmark’s centre-right government called the burka and the niqab out of step with Danish values. It held off on a ban after finding that only a handful of women in Denmark, a nation of 5.5 million people, wear burkas and perhaps 200 wear niqabs.
In France, a nation of 65 million people, the government estimates 1,900 women cover their faces with niqabs, a scarf that exposes only the eyes, or sitars, a filmy veiled cloth thrown over the head to cover the entire face.
France banned Muslim head scarves as well as Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses from schools in 2004.
President Nicolas Sarkozy says the burka “is not welcome” in France, but questions have been raised about the constitutionality of a ban.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France: 1 Year in Prison for Forcing Burqa on Women
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 30 — A 150-euro fine for women who choose to wear the full Muslim veil, while men — who force them to cover themselves from head to toe — risk one year in prison and a 15,000-euro fine. This is what is reportedly contained in a draft law on a complete ban to the burqa in public places put together by the French government, reports Le Figaro today. Article 1 of the measure drafted by Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, writes Le Figaro, says that “no one can wear clothing able to conceal their face in public places”. Article 2, reportedly will introduce a new crime — “instigation to conceal one’s face based on gender”. Anyone who forces someone to wear this sort of garment, continues the regulation, “with violence, threats, abuse of power or authority, will be punished with prison time and a fine of 15,000 euros”. This new crime, continued the daily, will be integrated with chapter 5 of the French penal code, pertaining to offending the dignity of an individual. “It was decided,” said one of the sources on the draft law cited by the French daily, who asked to remain anonymous, “to impose light penalties on women who wear the full veil, because they are often victims.” The measure will be examined by the council of ministers on May 19, while the debate in the national assembly will begin in July. Before the measure goes into effect, the French executive hopes for a “educational phase” in which the women involved stop wearing full veils on their own. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Religious Jew Attacked With Knife, Iron Rod in Strasbourg
A practicing Jew was hospitalized with serious injuries after being attacked with a knife and iron rod in the center of Strasbourg, the capital of the French Alsace region, media outlets reported on Friday.
According to eyewitness reports, the 42-year-old man was wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap when he was attacked by two men wearing djellabas, robes traditionally worn in North Africa.
One of the men hit the victim in the back with the iron rod, while the other wounded him in the chest with a knife, media reports said.
One of the attackers was reportedly mentally deranged.
The motive for the attack was not known. But a representative of the umbrella association for Jewish organizations in Alsace, Pierre Levy, called the incident a “serious anti-Semitic act.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
French Journalist Spends Week as a Muslim Woman
A French journalist who posed as an Islamic woman and wore a full-length niqab in public for five days to report on the experience says she felt isolated, humiliated, and disgraced.
Elizabeth Alexandre, who reports her findings in this month’s issue of the French publication Marie Claire, wrote the article in an effort to deal with with the controversy surrounding the niqab, or Islamic face veil, that is raging in France.
“I wanted to feel the fabric on my cheeks and forehead and see the world from this tiny slit. I also wanted to know how the world would see me,” Alexandre writes. “I felt as if I am inside a tent. I couldn’t see my feet and when I walked the garment rolled around my legs and I had to slow down. I was terrified I was going to fall on my face.”
She drew three conclusions from her experience…
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Germany: Scientists Create Men With Emotional Sensitivity
Women be assured: it’s not men’s fault. They just don’t have enough Oxytocin. All it takes, according to German scientists, is a healthy dose of the hormone linked to female reproduction and men can be as caring, sensitive and empathic as women.
Oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that floods a woman’s system while she is giving birth and is also involved in triggering milk production for breast feeding, can also improve men’s ability to empathise with other people.
It also sensitises men to so-called “social indicators” such as approving or rebuking facial expressions — the faces that might appear, respectively, when flowers are purchased or the toilet seat is left up.
The scientists from the University of Bonn, along with colleagues from the Babraham Institute at Cambridge University in Britain, gave 24 male subjects an Oxytocin nasal spray and another 24 subjects a placebo.
They then showed the subjects a series of emotionally charged pictures, such as a weeping child, a girl hugging a cat, and a man grieving. The men then had to say to what extent they identified with the people in the pictures.
“The Oxytocin group recorded significantly higher emotional empathy values than the placebo group,” said René Hurlemann from the University of Bonn’s Psychiatry Clinic.
Although the placebo group was perfectly able to rationally interpret the expressions on the faces of the people pictured, the shot of Oxytocin gave the other men greater emotional empathy — in fact allowing them to reach the considerably higher levels of empathy usually seen in women.
In a second experiment, the subjects had to solve a simple perception test. When the right answer was given, an approving face appeared on the monitor, while for a wrong answer, a disapproving face appeared.
Alternatively, the answers were followed by the display of colours — green for a right answer and red for a wrong one.
“The rate of learning for both groups was higher when the facial expression feedback followed,” said Keith Kendrick from the Babraham Institute. “But once again, the Oxytocin group clearly responded better to the facial expression feedback than the placebo group.”
The amygdala, a part of the brain that deals with emotional situations — including fear — seems to play a key role, the researchers said.
Oxytocin is a hormone that plays an important role in triggering cervical dilation during childbirth and is instrumental in the formation of the emotional bond between a mother and a newborn child. It is also thought to be connected to such emotions as love and trust. Large amounts of it are also produced when a woman has an orgasm.
“Our study shows for the first time that emotional empathy is modulated by Oxytocin and that something similar also applies to the learning process for social indicators,” Hurlemann said.
The study was published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Neuroscience.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Northern Biker Gangs Banned Amid Deadly Feud
In the wake of a bloody biker feud across Germany, the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein has outlawed chapters of the notorious Hell’s Angels and Bandido gangs, the regional government announced Thursday.
Interior Minister Klaus Schlie announced that the Flensburg chapter of the Hell’s Angels and the Neumünster chapter of the Bandidos were being banned on the grounds they were a threat to the constitutional order.
Some 300 police officers, including crack special forces commandos, raided 10 properties of gang members along with the club houses of the two chapters in Flensburg and Neumünster.
“The searches were for the purposes of investigation, seizure and recovery of the clubs’ property,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The two clubs had “the essential aim of setting up criminal mastery over a specific region and to enforce the claim to power against the other club with violence using weapons,” Schlie said.
“This isn’t about harmless motorcycle clubs whose members meet peacefully on the weekends,” he said.
The image of respectable, motorcycling fathers who simply liked to ride in their spare time was a “public relations myth of these clubs,” Schlie said.
Two clubs erupted into open warfare last year after the Bandidos tried to get a foothold in Germany’s northern-most state, where nine Hells Angels clubs and crews are located.
In June, police responded to a shooting at a house in Neumünster. Four shots were fired into the living room window but no one was hurt.
The clubs were to be dismantled without delay, Schlie added.
“Any activity, or the formation of replacement organisations, is forbidden to them,” he said. “The clubs badges must no longer be used or displayed in public.”
However, he could not rule out further violence between the clubs’ members, despite the ban.
The Hells Angels were banned in Hamburg in 1986, but have continued to operate under different names, including “Red-White,” the club’s colours, or “Harbour City.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Police Save 15-Year-Old Girl From Forced Marriage
Police saved a 15-year-old Hamburg girl from a forced marriage this week, freeing her from the family home of her husband-to-be, a spokesman told The Local on Friday.
“We were informed by Hamburg police that a girl was being held against her will,” Berlin police spokesman Guido Busch said. “We were able to secure her and hand her over to emergency child protection services.”
The girl, whose family comes from Serbia, had been taken to the home of another Serbian family in Berlin, where she was to marry their son on May Day.
Hamburg police have taken over the investigation and plan to question the girl’s parents and other witnesses on Friday, spokesperson Andreas Schüpflin told The Local.
“The danger has been averted,” he said. “She is uninjured and doing well.”
According to Schüpflin, on Monday the girl informed her school teacher that she feared she would be forced into marriage by her parents. When she did not show up for school the following day, he called police.
Later the girl was able to let a friend know via internet chat the Spandau district address where she was being held, which he then passed on to police.
Neither Berlin or Hamburg police said they knew the girl’s family religion.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How the French Revolution Gave Sweden Its Royals
The French Revolution was bad news for France’s royal family, but Sweden’s 200-year-old Bernadotte dynasty would not have existed without it, explains The Local’s royal correspondent Juan Navas.
It is nearly impossible to escape the fact that there will be a royal wedding in Sweden this year. The marriage of Crown Princess Victoria to Daniel Westling is in the news almost daily and pictures of the happy couple beam down from billboards at passengers arriving at Arlanda Airport.
What has not been so widely discussed is that this royal wedding coincides with the 200th anniversary of the election of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte as Sweden’s Crown Prince. One can only speculate over whether the timing of the wedding is merely coincidence or careful and thoughtful planning to help commemorate the foundation of the current Bernadotte dynasty.
So how did it come to be that an ambitious middle aged man from southern France was able to be proclaimed Crown Prince of Sweden? Ironically, it was thanks to the revolution in France, and the overthrow of their monarchy, that the Bernadottes became Sweden’s royal family.
By the first decade of the 19th century the face of Europe had been scarred by war and revolution. Borders and territories had shifted and in what seemed like a strategic game of chess the Emperor Napoleon played his pieces by installing his own family members on many of Europe’s thrones. At the same time the once mighty war machine of Sweden was but a faded memory. Sweden’s King Karl XIII’s two children had died in infancy and his adopted son, and successor, Prince Karl August also died suddenly. The country was in political turmoil and without an heir.
In a feat that would have been impossible before the French revolution and the fall of the Bourbon monarchs, the non-aristocratic Bernadotte rose in the ranks of the French military to become an officer. His military expertise brought him to the attention of Napoleon who eventually made Bernadotte a Marshal of France. This was one of the highest honors of the time.
There is however a parallel storyline to the life of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte which may also explain his rise in the ranks. In 1798 Bernadotte married Désirée Clary, the daughter of a wealthy silk merchant from Marseille. She also happened to be the first love of Napoleon. Despite Napoleon’s love for the young Désirée their relationship came to an abrupt end when he married the widow Joséphine de Beauharnais.
Being a man of strategy Napoleon knew that a woman of society, such as the aristocratic Joséphine, would help him to realise his ambitions. Napoleon however always kept an eye on Désirée, even after her marriage to Bernadotte. This was simplified by the fact that his own brother Joseph Bonaparte married Désirée’s sister Julie.
No matter which way you look at it, Bernadotte became a well regarded man during the French Republic and later Empire. His reputation spread all the way to Sweden where a dynastic crisis was occurring. There is a lot of speculation on how the name of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte ever made it into the running, but most historians agree that it was in fact a lone Swedish nobleman who encouraged Bernadotte to contend for the position of Crown Prince.
The choice was not immediately popular, and the nobleman was actually imprisoned for a short time because of his tactlessness in suggesting the position to a mere French marshal. In time, Bernadotte became more accepted and in 1810 he was proclaimed Crown Prince by the Swedish Parliament meeting in Örebro. A few months later the country’s heir apparent arrived in his new home. Eight years later Bernadotte became King Karl XIV Johan of Sweden and Norway.
The acceptance of Bernadotte as the new ruler of Sweden by Europe’s other monarchs was not instantaneous. The new Swedish monarch was not of royal birth, and the turmoil the now exiled Napoleon had thrown the continent into was not forgiven. Napoleon did not install Bernadotte on the Swedish throne, but their names were still closely associated. It was through a marriage that Europe’s royal families finally would acknowledge their new cousins in the North.
In 1823 the son of King Karl XIV Johan and Queen Désirée, Crown Prince Oscar, married Joséphine of Leuchtenberg. The German Princely House of Leuchtenberg helped bring legitimacy to the House of Bernadotte. The affiliation to the Napoleonic Dynasty was however never completely severed. Joséphine of Leuchtenberg also happened to be the grand-daughter of Napoleons former wife, the ex-Empress Joséphine. Needless to say Désirée kept a close eye on her daughter-in-law.
Today the Bernadotte Dynasty is closely intertwined with Europe’s other ruling houses through a series of dynastic marriages. Amongst other notable ancestors, Sweden’s future Queen can claim Britain’s Queen Victoria. After two hundred years the royal legitimacy of the Bernadottes is no longer an issue.
Besides the Royal Wedding the Bernadotte bicentenary will also be commemorated in the late summer and autumn. On August 21 the Royal Family will visit Örebro to commemorate the election of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte as Sweden’s Crown Prince. On October 20 the Royal Family will visit the port city of Helsingborg — where Bernadotte first stepped onto Swedish soil.
Juan Navas, a journalist and former information secretary at the Royal Court, will be writing a series of articles about Swedish royalty in the run up to the royal wedding on June 19th. From next week he will also be writing a royal wedding blog.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: New Immunity Bill Ready
Constitutional measure will cover top political figures
(ANSA) — Rome, April 28 — The government is ready to present a constitutional law to give top political figures legal immunity while in office to replace a stop-gap measure which lasts 18 months, Senate sources told ANSA on Wednesday.
The measure will apply only to the president, the premier and cabinet ministers, the sources said.
It would not cover the speakers of the House and the Senate because in that case it would have to be extended to all parliamentarians.
It would replace the so-called ‘legitimate impediment’ law which allows Premier Silvio Berlusconi not to attend two ongoing trials against him in Milan on corruption and fraud charges because they interfere with his duties.
Announcing plans to draft a constitutional measure, Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said earlier this month that the legitimate impediment law gave the government ample time to obtain parliamentary approval, a lengthy process in the case of constitutional bills.
The bill would in part revive the so-called Alfano law, approved by parliament in 2008, which froze trials against the premier, the president and House and Senate Speakers while in office.
Striking down that law, the Constitutional Court said it denied the fundamental principle that everyone is equal before the law and was therefore unconstitutional.
Unlike the Alfano law, the draft of the constitutional bill the government is set to present to the Senate would not freeze trials until parliament gives its okay.
It would halt proceedings only while the defendant holds office, the sources told ANSA.
According to the government, the legitimate impediment law was a “necessary measure” because Milan courts had so far disregarded the importance of Berlusconi’s official engagements when asked to postpone hearings.
The opposition has blasted the law as “shameful, unfair” and unconstitutional since, they claim, it too goes against the principle of equality.
Responding to the leaks on the new measure, the centre left said the government was again set to present laws which are tailor-made to help the premier deal with his legal woes.
Antonio Di Pietro, leader of the opposition Italy of Values (IdV) party, said it was “disgraceful that despite all the problems facing Italy, with people struggling to make ends meet and businesses shutting down, parliament is forced to deal with tailor-made measures whose only aim is guaranteeing the premier everlasting immunity”. Berlusconi is on trial in Milan for bribing British corporate lawyer David Mills to withhold testimony in two previous trials.
The second Berlusconi trial concerns alleged tax fraud in the sale of film rights by his Mediaset group.
The premier, who denies all wrongdoing, says he is the victim of persecution by a politically inspired judiciary.
His trials, which all regard his activity as an entrepreneur before entering politics in 1994, have never produced a definitive conviction although in some cases he has been cleared because of law changes.
The judges in both trials have asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the legitimacy of the stop-gap measure.
They claim it should have been approved by parliament as an amendment to the constitution and said that as it stands, the legitimate impediment law probably contravenes Article 138 of the 1948 Constitution which regulates the approval process for constitutional laws.
They believe it may also contravene Article 3 of the constitution on the equality of citizens.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Hundreds of Local Muslims to Meet in Sicily
Ragusa, 29 April (AKI) — Around 700 Muslims from across Sicily are expected to gather in the southern city of Vittoria on Sunday to focus on the Muslim family and its role in society. Leaders from Italy’s largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic Communities of Italy (ICOII) will attend the event, including president Ezzedin el-Zir and former president Nour Dachan.
“This is the seventh meeting that we have organised as Muslims in Sicily,” local Muslim, Abdel Hafith Kheit told Adnkronos International (AKI).
“The meeting will be open to the public and many non-Muslim Italians are expected to take part in the event.
“We are renewing our community’s commitment to cultural exchange and the integration of our community in Italian society.”
The mayor of Ragusa, Giuseppe Nicosia, will join special guest and television preacher Ragheb Sarjani who is also due to attend an event organised by the non-government organisation, Islamic Relief, in Milan on Saturday.
Several mosques are taking place in the event which will be closed by former Algerian industry minister, Abdel Qader Semmari.
There are between one million and 1.5 million Muslims in Italy and 130 mosques linked to the UCOII across the country.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Naples to Enter Vesuvius’ Red Zone
Civil protection agency chief Bertolaso says volcano is Italy’s biggest problem. Threat to city affects one million residents
ROME — For the time being, Vesuvius is, as the expert say, dormant. The mighty volcano has not been active since March 1944, when Allied military newsreels documented the soaring lava fountains and the ash showers that killed 26 people. The 1944 eruption palls in comparison with the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii in AD 79 but experts warn that in terms of Vesuvius’ normal cycle, the return of volcanic activity is long overdue. That’s why preparations are necessary. The head of the civil protection agency, Guido Bertolaso, said so in no uncertain terms to foreign journalists who asked him for an assessment of Italy’s volcanic risk after the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland. Mr Bertolaso said: “Vesuvius is the biggest civil protection problem we have”. If the volcano became active again, Naples itself would be affected by the eruption. Part of the city could be included among the “red zone” municipalities this year and at least one million residents are reckoned to be affected by the new evacuation plan, almost twice as many as are involved today.
For some weeks, leading scientists from the Vesuvian observatory, including Marcello Martini and Gianni Macedonia, from the Federico II university in Naples, and Professor Franco Barberi from the major risks commission have been analysing possible scenarios and updating in progress emergency plans. Mr Bertolaso pointed out: “Currently, there are 18 municipalities in the red zone, officially with 500,000 residents, but in fact there are 650-700,000 people living there. A volcanic explosion would produce a column of smoke and lapilli up to 20 kilometres high and the area affected by falling ash could extend from Salerno to the Lazio border”. Any new eruption would be preceded by earthquakes “with effects comparable to those at L’Aquila.” “There will be a week at most, more likely only three or four days”, in which to evacuate everyone before the disaster strikes. However, these are not scenarios “that should be taken as gospel”. Prevention, not alarmism, is the watchword. In contrast, Mr Bertolaso was highly critical of the Campania regional law (“a total failure”), which sought to encourage residents to move out of the danger zone around Vesuvius. “In the event, many people built homes in safe zones with public money and rented out the ones in the red zone”. According to Mr Bertolaso, there is only one solution to the problem of unlicensed building today: “What’s there is there. But anything new that goes up must be demolished”.
It seems that after the Icelandic eruption, volcanoes are back on the agenda. Vesuvius apart, monitoring of Italy’s 13 submerged volcanoes in the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Sicilian Channel will soon get under way. “It will take at least two or three years and the budget is ten million euros”, said Mr Bertolaso, who then addressed an appeal to Europe: “The ash cloud-related cost to airlines over the past few days has been estimated at roughly 2.5 billion euros, which rises to three billion if you factor in the impact on tourism. If just one tenth of that sum, say 250 million euros, had been invested in a more advanced radar control system, the emergency could have been managed much more effectively. That’s why I would like to see an international forecasting and prevention network set up for such risks”. Mr Bertolaso added: “If I had to name the volcano in Italy that is most likely to erupt today, I wouldn’t say Vesuvius. I’d look at the island of Ischia. The last eruption of Mount Epomeo took place in the 14th century and in the intervening years, its cone has risen by 800 metres. The magma chamber is getting ready to blow”.
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Defence Minister May Use Troops to Fight Mafia
Rome, 29 April (AKI) — Italian troops may be sent to boost security forces in mafia strongholds, as part of the government’s war against organised crime, defence minister Ignazio La Russa said on Thursday. Some 3,000 soldiers have already been deployed in Italian cities to bolster security, which is a top priority for the centre-right government.
The army was deployed during the 1990s after the murder of anti-mafia judges in Sicily in 1993.
“When we deploy our soldiers, it’s not because they have a better attitude, greater efficiency or capability than our (paramilitary) Carabinieri force or our police,” La Russa told Italy’s Radio Anch’Io station.
The Berlusconi government also deployed the army to the southern city of Naples during its rubbish crisis in May 2008 soon after it took office.
During the 1990s, the Italian government deployed some 1,200 soldiers and Carabinieri to fight the mafia during the six-year Sicilian Vespers operation.
It was launched after the assassination of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in the Sicilian capital Palermo in 1993.
“We may repeat this operation, because when there’s an area of the country with intense criminal activity, we need to reinforce security forces there,” La Russa said.
Crime has fallen by 40 percent in troubled areas such as the northern city of Milan’s central station since the deployment of troops and the introduction of foot patrols in the ‘Safe Cities’ operation, he claimed.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Two Moroccan ‘Terror Suspects’ Deported
Rome, 30 April (AKI) — Two “dangerous” Moroccan terrorism suspects were deported from Italy, interior minister Roberto Maroni said on Friday. The two unnamed suspects, who attended Italy’s University of Perugia, had links to Islamist extremists and were prepared to carry out “extremist acts”, according to the interior ministry.
The pair was sent back to Morocco late on Thursday on a direct flight from Rome to Casablanca.
The deportations followed an investigation begun by anti-terrorism police last October into a group of radical Muslim foreign students in Italy,most of whom came from the Moroccan city of Fez.
The interior ministry said the two deported Moroccans belonged to this group.
Anti-terror police also searched the homes of several foreign students at Perugia, including four Moroccans, a Tunisian and a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, who had in recent months had contact with the two deported Moroccans.
Investigators established that one of the two deported Moroccans, who was studying international communications at Perugia’s language and culture faculty, had become increasingly radicalised and drawn to Jihad or Muslim holy war.
In conversations with friends, he repeatedly stated that if he got the opportunity he would like to carry out jihadist attacks.
The second deported Moroccan student, had been studying at Perugia’s mathematics and physics faculty.
The expulsions came the same day that a radical Egyptian cleric, Abu Imad, was reported to have arrested in the northern Italian city of Milan.
Italy’s highest appeals court on Thursday confirmed a jail sentence of three years and eight months handed to Imad for conspiracy to carry out a terrorist act.
Imad and his co-defendants had allegedly set up a Salafite cell that was active in Milan and elsewhere in the northern Lombardy region.
The cell’s mission is believed to have been recruiting suicide bombers, trafficking illegal immigrants and indoctrination.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Former Bishop Questioned Over ‘Cold Case’
Rome, 30 April (AKI) — The former archbishop of the southern Italian city of Potenza, Ennio Appignanesi has been questioned by police investigating the murder of schoolgirl Elisa Claps in 1993. Elisa’s mummified remains were discovered last month at Potenza’s Santissima Trinita church and forensic pathologists said she was repeatedly stabbed and strangled during a suspected sex attack.
Appignanesi was bishop of Potenza at the time of Elisa’s disappearance on 12 September 1993.
Her skeletal remains were reportedly first discovered by cleaners and an assistant priest in the eaves of the church in January.
The current parish priest Don Ambrogio and Potenza’s bishop Agostino Superbo denied knowing her body was in the church until its ‘official’ discovery two months later by workers on 17 March which was then reported to police.
Police in Rome — where the Claps murder enquiry is headquartered — were expected to have asked Appignanesi why Claps’ body was first discovered in January but only reported to police in March.
Appignanesi may also have been able to give police information on what the Santissima Trinita’s late priest Mimi Sabia had told investigators.
Sabia said he left Potenza early the morning Claps disappeared to travel to a health spa some three hours drive away even though he only arrived there late that afternoon.
Claps’ mother, Filomena Iemma has accused Sabia, who died in 1998, of hindering the investigation into her daughter’s murder.
“Don Mimi Sabia never allowed me to look around inside the church, where I was always certain Elisa was: this makes me suspicious,” she said on an Italian TV show earlier this month.
Sabia also refused to allow a box to be placed inside the church where people could leave information on her daughter’s disappearance, Iemma said.
The only suspect in Claps’ murder, 38-year-old Danilo Restivo, was the last person to see Claps alive.
He has admitted meeting Claps at the church the day she vanished.
Restivo, who now lives in the southern English coastal town of Bournemouth, has always denied any involvement in her murder.
He is also the prime suspect in a grisly 2002 slaying of Bournemouth seamstress and mother-of-two Heather Barnett.
He still lives in the same street where Barnett was stabbed, beaten around the head, mutilated and left to die in her home.
Police investigating Barnett’s murder have for the past six years been working with Italian investigators probing the Claps case.
Police from Dorset, the country surrounding Bournemouth reportedly travelled to Italy on Thursday.
The pathology report on Claps’ death is due to be released next week and prosecutors have until the end of May to submit the findings of DNA and other tests on 100 ‘specimens’ recovered from the church.
Meanwhile, friends and relatives of Claps have expressed indignation at the recent removal of banners and posters calling for “truth and justice” placed in the Santissima Trinita church after her death.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Greece: Living Beyond Our Means, Writer Markaris
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 30 — “We lived beyond our means and in doing so, we have fallen into debt, both as a state and as individuals,” said Greek writer Petros Markaris, commenting on the crisis in his country while speaking with ANSA. “We could have avoided a worsening of the situation,” underlined the 73-year-old writer, playwright and screenwriter, “if the right measures were adopted from the beginning, as they were in Ireland. Other Greeks have told me that the measures were full of sacrifices: well, they will be even harsher now and this is the result of a delay in adopting them.” His most famous character is Inspector Kostas Haritos, called the ‘Greek brother’ of Maigret or the Montalbano of Athens, but Markaris also contributed to many screenplays for films by Theo Angeloupoulos, like “Ulysses’ Gaze”, “Eternity and a Day”, both award winners at the Cannes Film Festival. Markaris, speaking again today, also accused Europe: “The EU should have acted earlier, not to help us as Greeks, but to avoid this difficult situation from spreading to other nations like Spain and Portugal”. In his view, there are two lessons that can be learned from the current situation: “The first: Greeks must learn to live according to what is possible and based on the GDP. The second: Europe must think more like a family and less like a union of independent states in which each country follows their own interests. We must assume responsibility for the situation, in one way or another. And we must understand that we must live for a long time with measures that concern us, but which have been decided by others”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi: Fini No Longer One of US
(AGI) — Rome, 29 April — Silvio Berlusconi, talking to a group of senators at his Rome residence of Palazzo Grazioli, traced out the history of his relationship with Gianfranco Fini, commenting: “The signs were there long ago, at the end of the Prodi government, with the launch of the PDL, but I didn’t expect such a betrayal. I feel as if I’ve been stabbed.” Berlusconi continued: “The rift is irredeemable, irreversible.” “Fini is now looking to Casini and Rutelli.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Upping the Antifa: Leftist Riots Feared for May Day
A recent surge in politically motivated violence by leftist radicals has German authorities holding their breath ahead of May 1, the traditional day of worker protest. David Wroe reports on the simmering anger on the far left.
In radical left-wing circles they’re known as “sport groups” — teams of young men whose game is beating up neo-Nazis.
“Maybe a punch in the face … then I’d say, ‘Okay, he’s lying on the ground, that’s enough.’ I don’t want to kill anybody,” explains Lukas, 25.
Lukas sits drinking a beer in a bar that’s a popular hangout for Berlin’s leftist scene. He wears a jacket of the popular white-bread Jack Wolfskin brand. Indeed there is nothing that readily identifies him as a radical anti-fascist — often shortened to Antifa in German.
Yet Lukas was in many such brawls in his younger days. Well-built and trained in martial arts, he survived them unscathed, though a friend once caught a broken bottle in the face and still has a thick scar to prove it.
Although he has retired from “sport” and moved into more organised political activity, Lukas says he’s still comfortable justifying violence against neo-Nazis — which is why he doesn’t want his full name used.
“A friend once told me, ‘You have to speak the language that people understand.’ Those guys, the neo-Nazis, they don’t understand any other language. Why should we be the only ones to refrain?”
Violence, it seems, is increasingly the language of Germany’s estimated 6,300 hardcore leftists. Last month, Germany’s Interior Ministry announced there were 9,375 left-wing crimes committed in 2009 — a 39.4 percent rise on the previous year.
Violent crime — which includes arson — rose even more sharply, jumping 53.4 percent to a total of 1,822 offences.
Flashpoint Berlin
In Berlin, which along with Hamburg is the main leftist flashpoint, the figures are more dramatic still: an 87 percent jump in crime and a 144 percent rise in violent crime, according to figures supplied to The Local by the capital city’s domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz.
For the first time since the current system of record-keeping began in 2001, assaults committed nationally by the left outnumbered those by the right — 849 against 800. Virtually all of the left-wing assaults were directed either at police during rallies or at neo-Nazis.
Meanwhile, hundreds of cars have been torched and attacks launched against big companies and property developments in gentrifying neighbourhoods. In the most brazen attack, about 10 masked attackers set upon a manned police station in Hamburg, setting a patrol car on fire and hurling stones through the windows.
With the traditional left-wing day of protest, May Day, coming up on Saturday, authorities are bracing themselves.
Not only are there more attacks and more people prepared to use violence, there is also a new daring to the militancy, said Heinz Fromm, director of the federal Verfassungsschutz agency.
“Violence on the street and attacks planned in secret are rising, and in some cases go beyond the kind of attacks commonly seen before, such as the use of gas cartridge incendiary devices,” he told The Local.
“The attack on a police station in Hamburg in December is indicative of a new standard. These demand the heightened attention of the security services.”
Gentrification a cause?
The causes of this surge are complex, but the gentrification of previously poor and working class neighbourhoods, which brings the wealth gap into stark relief, is clearly playing a role.
“Look around you,” says self-proclaimed leftist radical Florian Laumeyer, 32, eating ice cream in Lausitzerplatz in the heart of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. “Three or four years ago, it was only immigrants or poor people living here. Now there’s no one of an immigrant background. It’s all middle-class white people.”
Once a scruffy part of West Berlin butting up to the Iron Curtain, Kreuzberg has a tradition of May Day riots stretching back to the 1980s and is now one of the front lines in the city’s gentrification battle. Wealthier residents are moving into leftist and anarchist heartlands such as Kreuzberg and neighbouring Friedrichshain, pushing up rents and fuelling the clandestine attacks on cars, offices and upmarket property developments.
The tactic is working, according to Florian Herbs, 26, an unemployed graphic designer and member of the radical group Antifascist Revolutionary Action Berlin (ARAB). While he admits that car-burning has become a fashionable “cult,” he maintains that attacks on the upmarket property developments in Kreuzberg are a legitimate expression of anger — and are a real deterrent to gentrification.
“Now nobody wants to buy one of those apartments,” he says.
At the other end of the scale from such local battles, the banners for the radical left are broad, even nebulous concepts: anti-militarism, anti-repression, anti-fascism.
“The left-wing extremist scene is made up of a very heterogeneous group of people with different ideological views,” says Stefan Ruppert, an expert on extremism and an MP for the pro-business Free Democratic Party.
“Only the vague goal of overthrowing our existing social order serves as a unifying effect. This complexity … makes it all the more difficult to grasp the problem as a whole and work out solutions.”
Parsing violence
Leftists bristle at the suggestion that increasing violence is in danger of making them as bad as the neo-Nazis they hate. As Lukas the former “sportsman” puts it: “The difference is that we don’t go around beating immigrants. And I don’t see a problem with attacking people who do.”
Yet left-wing radicals’ defence that they only attack property, neo-Nazis or symbols of the state — including police during demonstrations — is fiercely rejected by authorities and by the police union.
“Last year on May 1 in Berlin, police were deliberately attacked to a degree that could have had fatal consequences,” police union head Rainer Wendt told The Local.
“In their expressions of violence, the extreme left and extreme right are barely distinguishable from one another.”
The number of left-wing attacks on Berlin security authorities such as police climbed from 156 in 2008 to 209 last year, according the city’s Verfassungsschutz officials.
And with incendiary gas cartridge assaults on government buildings, police stations or symbols of capitalism such Berlin’s Economy House, which was bombed in February, attackers “knowingly accepted endangerment of human life,” said a spokeswoman for the Verfassungsschutz.
No one is sure what to expect on Saturday, though both sides have been talking up the tension. The police union’s Wendt said he feared there would “serious rioting.”
Left-wing activists are celebrating their success in February for blockading a far-right march in Dresden commemorating the 1945 allied bombing of the city. They will try the same when neo-Nazis march on Saturday, forcing the police to intervene.
“Maybe there will be clashes,” says ARAB activist Florian Herbs. “Maybe some people will start throwing things. There is a dynamic to the moment that we can’t control.
“We hope it will stay peaceful, but with the capitalist crisis and gentrification, people are very angry. We’ll see what happens.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Filming Animals in the Wild ‘Is a Breach of Their Privacy’
Animals filmed in their most intimate moments by wildlife documentary makers are having their ‘right to privacy’ breached, a leading academic has claimed.
Dr Brett Mills, of the University of East Anglia, said broadcasters treat all wildlife as ‘fair game’ and deny them privacy from prying human eyes.
He argued that just like people, animals have a basic right not to have their most private behaviour — such as mating, giving birth and dying — broadcast.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Grandmother Forced to Wear a Tag for Selling a Goldfish Has Sentence Quashed
A grandmother branded a criminal for selling a goldfish to an underage boy yesterday had her sentence overturned.
Joan Higgins, 66, had been caught in an undercover sting by trading standards officers, hauled before a court, and forced to wear an electronic tag.
Her plight caused widespread astonishment, with supporters calling the case against her ‘ludicrous’.
Yesterday she won her legal battle to have the electronic tag removed and an overnight curfew scrapped.
A judge described the punishment as ‘inappropriate’ for ‘a respectable lady with no previous convictions’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Daubs War Memorial With ‘Islam Will Dominate the World’ — But Walks Free After CPS Says He Was Not Racially Motivated
But the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that graffiti proclaiming future world domination for Islam, glorifying Osama Bin Laden and calling for the assassination of the British Prime Minister, ‘was not religiously or racially motivated’.
Tohseef Shah, 21, admitted a charge of criminal damage to the memorial, outside Burton College in Burton on Trent, when he appeared at Burton Magistrates Court.
Shah admitted spraying the words ‘Islam will dominate the world — Osama is on his way’ and ‘Kill Gordon Brown’ on the plinth of the East Staffordshire Borough Council-owned memorial, on December 10 last year.
He was given a two-year conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £500 compensation to the council, plus £85 costs.
Prosecutor Andrew Bodger said information about Shah and photographs of the graffiti were sent to CPS headquarters in London, for a review by senior lawyers.
They found there was insufficient evidence that the criminal act was racially or religiously motivated — which could have led to a more serious charges and a harsher sentence.
The graffiti was discovered by a council street cleaning manager, who reported the incident and photographed the damage.
The pictures of the desecration were shown in court.
CCTV footage showed two figures spraying the slogans on the memorial. Although they could not be clearly identified, the footage showed one of the vandals discarding the spray can.
Shah, Horninglow, Staffordshire, has no previous convictions.
He was later identified from DNA on the spray can and admitted his actions.
Mr Bodger said: ‘Shah wouldn’t give an explanation as to why he had done it and had shown no remorse for this very sensitive matter.
‘The words were cleaned off without difficulty at a cost of £500.
‘The CPS specialist unit was sent the pictures, as well as his mobile phone records, to see if there was a racially or religiously motivated connotation.
‘It was decided there was not enough evidence to prove this, and they decided it was politically motivated. It has caused great offence to the community.’
Defending solicitor Mumtaz Chaudry dismissed any belief that Shah held extremist views.
He said: ‘This is nothing to do with his religious beliefs, his family’s beliefs or his cultural beliefs. He is just an ordinary guy.
‘He is remorseful but, at the time of his interview, he was simply answering questions and didn’t realise that was the right time to show remorse.
‘He has no extremist views, his action doesn’t help the bad reaction in the community.
‘It was uncalled for, but we make mistakes. It was a stupid mistake and he is determined not to repeat it.’
Presiding magistrate Vivien Patterson told Shah: ‘This was a mistake, but I hope this is the first and last mistake you will make.
‘Although the damage is in the lower band, we view this in the upper end because it was highly visible to the community, in the town centre.
‘Your conditional discharge for two years means if you come back here again for another offence, you will be charged with this offence too.’
| — Hat tip: SF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Researchers Spy on Bittorrent Users in Real-Time
Researchers have devised a way to monitor BitTorrent users over long stretches of time, a feat that allows them to map the internet addresses of individuals and track the content they are sending and receiving.…
| [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: 22% of Tunisians Have Never Read a Book, Report
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 30 — Tunisians do not love to read. This was highlighted in a study by the Culture Ministry, made public for the International Book Fair of Tunis, which is currently taking place. The study says that 75% of Tunisians do not go to public libraries, 22% have never read a book and 18% do not like reading. “The fact that three of four Tunisians have never been to the library,” said literary critic Khemais Khayati bitterly, “makes an in-depth and complete examination of cultural and education policies necessary. Tunisian spend more than three hours per day in front of the television, many hours in cybercafe’s and even more time in cafe’s playing cards and smoking hookahs.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
BBC Bias: An in-Depth Analysis
[video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EohB29SbsVQ]
Our latest study reveals the BBC’s selective focus on negatively portraying Israel while ignoring Palestinian incitement and glorification of terror.
Why doesn’t the BBC pay attention to the Palestinian Authority’s constant glorification of terrorism and other violations of its treaty obligations?
Why does every story about Israel seem to be written from a negative angle and give prominence to unreliable sources that are critical of Israel?
Find out by reading HonestReporting’s In-Depth Media Analysis of the BBC.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
US Might Allow UN Condemnation of Israel, Guardian
(ANSAmed) — LONDON, APRIL 30 — The United States have reportedly secretly expressed their commitment to the Palestinians, stating that if they go back to the indirect peace negotiations Washington might consider the possibility of not vetoing a UN condemnation against new settlements in the Territories. A report covered exclusively by The Guardian, explains that the commitment came a week ago during a meeting between a high-ranking US diplomat and National Palestinian Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). After the conversation, the newspaper added, it looks like a significant step forward has been made towards resuming indirect negotiations. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, denied the news: “It’s not true. Wére still talking to the Americans.” he said. But according to a Palestinian source interviewed by The Guardian, David Hale, deputy to US special envoy George Mitchell, told Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu reassured the USA that an expansion project for the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem (the one announced during U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit) will not go forward for now. Hale supposedly added that if ‘significant and defiant’ settlement expansion activities take place, Washington might consider allowing a UN condemnation against Israel, abstaining from the vote. A possibility of a de facto moratorium already surfaced a few days ago in the Israeli press but Netanyahu denied the news. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Angry Mob of Lebanese Villagers Lynch Murder Suspect in Town Centre in Gruesome Vigilante Attack
A mob of angry Lebanese villagers stabbed to death an Egyptian man and then lynched his naked body in the centre of town over allegations he killed four members of a local family.
Mohammed Msallem, a 38-year-old Egyptian who worked as a butcher in Ketermaya, had been arrested a day earlier on suspicion of shooting to death an elderly couple and their two young granddaughters, aged seven and nine.
He was leading police investigators through a re-enactment of the killings when dozens of residents attacked him with sticks and knives, security officials said.
Police rushed Msallem to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital, but residents broke in, dragged him out and pounded him with sticks.
A security official said police at the scene could not stop the attackers, who blocked streets in the village to prevent police reinforcements from reaching the scene.
After killing Msallem, the attackers stripped his bloody body down to the victim’s underwear and drove it through town on a car hood, with several local men standing on the hood cheering.
They then hanged the body from a pole in the centre of town as hundreds of residents cried ‘Allahu Akbar,’ or God is great. Some villagers even took photos of the dead man with their mobile phones.
His body hung from the pole for about ten minutes before Lebanese army troops took him down and drove him away in a jeep.
The rare mob attack shocked many, and security officials said police who were escorting the man at the time were unable to prevent the killing in the Chouf mountain town of Ketermaya.
Interior Minister Ziad Baroud ordered an investigation and said such vigilante justice was ‘extremely dangerous’.
Security officials said Msallem had confessed to killing the four family members, but the motive was not immediately clear.
One official said Ketermaya residents also believed Msallem had raped a 15-year-old local girl a month earlier, but that report could not be independently confirmed.
There was no immediate word of arrests in the attack.
Crime has been on the rise in Lebanon but such vigilante mob killings have been rare since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, during which political violence was common.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Lebanon: Cooperation on Tripoli Qubba Steps Restoration
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, APRIL 30 — The end of the renovation works to the Qubba Steps, the monumental entry road to the city’s old centre, bringing them back to their ancient splendour thanks to Italian Cooperation funding, was celebrated today in Tripoli in Northern Lebanon, with an official ceremony. The Italian ambassador Gabriele Checchia, Tripoli’s Mayor Rashid Jamali, the Italian Cooperation manager Fabio Melloni and the president of the local Safadi Foundation, involved in the project as well, attended today’s ceremony, marking the end of a year-long renovation. The project, which began in April 2009 for a total cost of 115,000 euros, saw also the local residents’ involvement in the renovation project. They worked under the supervision of technicians and engineers from Tripoli’s city council. Starting today the steps of this monumental road will be walked on again by more than 4,000 people that use the road daily to go, among other places, to the nearby Lebanese University and to other services of the main port of Lebanon. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Copycat Weapons a Threat to Russia’s Economic Security
[Alternate Title: Live by the Military-Industrial Complex, Die by the Military-Industrial Complex — Z]
Edited 27 April, 2010, 06:20
Pirate production is among the key problems of the global weapons market. Superpowers that used to help their allies establish their own defense industries during the Cold War now face the consequences of that help.
Many countries have created successful copies of foreign weapons and do not need to import arms any more. Furthermore, weapon clones are offered for export, which poses an immediate economic threat for major players in the arms market.
Copying weapons is a worldwide policy favored by countries whose scientific potential and defense industry are not up to the task of producing this or that type of weapons or lack a certain technology. As early as during World War II, combating countries did their best to get hold of the most successful weapon models. For example, Germany was trying to produce something similar to the USSR’s Katyusha MLRS, but their multiple-launch systems were still inferior to the Soviet original. Also, the Wehrmacht recognized the advantages of the T-34 tank, whose efficient sloped-armor design was used in Germany’s Panther tank.
The USSR, too, copied Allied equipment. By the end of the war, the USSR began working on a strategic bomber project, and the Americans involuntarily assisted Soviet designers in that. In 1944, B-29 Superfortresses made numerous emergency landings on Soviet Far East airfields after bombing missions in Japan and Manchuria. According to the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, the aircraft and their crews were subject to internment. Aircraft designers carefully studied the bomber and created its copy: the Tu-4, which was hard to tell from its American original.
Today, the main victim of weapons piracy is perhaps the famous Kalashnikov assault rifle. During Soviet times, licenses to produce the AK were granted to most Warsaw Pact countries, Cuba, China, Libya, Egypt, and Finland. In most cases, the deals were politics-driven, their goal being to ensure that all friendly armies field uniform weapons. Despite the expiration of the licenses, the Kalashnikov rifle is still manufactured in Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, and even the US. Rosoboronexport is trying to change the situation by claiming royalties or seeking new license agreements. However, according to the company, only China has so far obtained a new license to manufacture the world’s most popular assault rifle.
The pirate parade
China is the world-recognized leader in arms copying. [Imagine that! — Z] This is largely due to the fact that the entire Chinese economy is based on borrowing foreign technology. [Another BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious) — Z] Besides this, the country has a well-developed defense industry, so its copycats are quite good. The scale of “reproductions” was obvious at the military parade commemorating the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese leadership made a point of the fact that only Chinese-made vehicles and equipment took part in the parade.
In reality, many models presented that day clearly had foreign origins. The FT-2000 surface-to-air missile system is a carbon copy of Russia’s S-300. China never obtained a Smerch multiple rocket launcher from Russia, but fields its own look-alike PHL-03 system. The People’s Liberation Army has a “carbon copy” of the Russian-made Msta self-propelled howitzer under the designation of Type 88. A clone of Russia’s BMP-3 is an infantry fighting vehicle with a Russian turret mounted on Chinese ZBD-05 chassis.
Sometimes, Chinese designers create hardware blending two foreign origins at once. [One from column A and one from column B] For example, the PGZ-04 self-propelled air defense system features 25-mm cannons taken from Italian SIDAM-25 AD system and four QW-2 missiles that copy Russia’s Igla-1. Quite often, Chinese copies, upon permission by China, are further reproduced in other countries. France’s Crotale short-range air defense system has become HQ-7 in China, but that same system, under the designation of Shahab Thaqeb, is now produced in Iran.
According to experts, China has made great progress in copying missile technology. Having purchased the X-55 missile from Ukraine, the Chinese created their own DH-10 cruise missile.
License with no guarantee
Quite often, a license to manufacture military equipment is not protection from copying but quite the opposite: a rather legal way to obtain samples for the development of similar weapons.
Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Strategy and Technology Analysis Center, says software codes are not transferred under military equipment supply agreements. Also, there are restrictions on essential and most complex components and systems of the armaments in question; such items are usually supplied assembled by the supplying country. However, sales of equipment without sales of technology are impossible, Mr. Pukhov says; some countries (e.g. India) flatly refuse to consider offers that do not provide for production technology handover.
China uses production licenses to create helicopters and airplanes. France’s helicopter SA-365 Dauphin 2 has been upgraded to the WZ-09 combat chopper. However, the clearest example of “licensed copying” is the Chinese J-11 fighter jet, based on Russia’s Su-27. In 2006, Moscow and Beijing struck a deal on licensed production of the Su-27SK (Chinese designation J-11A). The agreement only provided for licensed assembly of components provided by Russia. The Chinese, though, studied the aircraft while assembling it and ended up producing a similar fighter, the J-11B, only with a Chinese-made engine and avionics.
Tehran is keeping up
[Mad Mullahs Main Manufacturing Method Mimics Moscow Military Materiel — Z]
Iran, spurred by its aspiration to become the leader of the Islamic world yet strangled by numerous sanctions, is forced to develop an independent defense industry of its own. Evidently, the easiest way to achieve such a goal is to upgrade and copy foreign armaments instead of developing weapons from scratch.
However, Tehran, upon permission of friendly powers, often copies the already-copied weapons. Its Sayyad-1A missile is based on the Soviet S-75, supplied by China. Procured during the Iran-Iraq war, those missiles became the base for the development of Iran’s tactical ballistic missile Tondar-68. With the help of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iranian factories were able to launch production and assembly of SCUD-B missiles (Iranian designation Shahab-1). North Korea also supplied the longer-range version SCUD-C (Shahab-2), with a range of 500km. The North Korean missile Nodong-1 later became Iran’s Shahab-3, capable of hitting targets at ranges of up to 1000km.
Such approaches to creating and upgrading missile armaments now prevail in the development of other missile classes. Iran currently produces anti-tank guided missiles based on American TOW (Toophan and Toophan 2) and Dragon (Saeghe and Saeghe-2) systems, and its I-RAAD-T missiles is nothing else than the Soviet Malyutka ATGM.
Another sphere where Iran is attempting to copy is shipbuilding. Few countries today would sell Tehran warships for use in the Gulf without facing negative reaction from the US. Iranian shipyards are currently busy building small frigates (copies of Britain’s Alvand frigates) and missiles boats (copies of French La Combattante II). The originals were, of course, procured before the complication of relations between Iran and Western countries. [No mentioned of how Iran is essentially copying decades old outdated boats — Z]
Still unresolved is the issue of possible deliveries of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran. Such a system can significantly strengthen Iran’s air defense. The US and Israel are strongly against the sale of the S-300 to Iran. All “technical difficulties” hampering the sale of the missile system to Iran are purely diplomatic problems.
In the meanwhile, General Heshmatollah Kasiri said recently that Iran is about to field an air defense complex that is superior to the S-300. According to the general, the new complex is the brainchild of Iran’s defense industry. The unit has yet to be shown to the public, yet experience shows that Iran’s military developments often have Chinese and North Korean roots.
The solution
“There is only one way we can prevent the copying of Russian armaments in other countries, and that is to sign intergovernmental intellectual property agreements,”
Rosoboronexport chief Anatoly Isaikin told reporters recently. But the results of that work are scarce so far.
First, licensing and various agreements are complicated bureaucratic procedures that not all Russian companies can cope with. For example, for many years the Russian armored personnel carrier Tigr has had its Jordan-made clone Nimr (which means “tiger” in Arabic).
Second, not all countries are willing to extend existing, or sign new, agreements regarding the production of Soviet military equipment, considering them to be past their expiration date. In the meanwhile, copying of Russian military technology means colossal economic losses for Russia. For example, the United Arab Emirates have purchased the Jordanian-made vehicles for their army, not the Russian “Tigers.” The Malaysian Armed Forces have bought Polish PT-91 tanks, which are a modification of the Russian T-72.
In the future, China may be the key threat to Russia’s arms exports. It is China’s cheap yet quality clones of Russian military products that have aroused the interest of Pakistan and a number of states in Africa and Southeast Asia.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Corruption Undermines Counter-Terrorist Activities — Russia’s Prosecutor General
29 April, 2010, 22:08
Russia’s prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, has slammed law enforcement officers in the northern Caucasus, naming corruption and terrorism as the nation’s two greatest evils.
[North Caucasus? Is that anywhere near Beslan? Go figure! — Z]
The criticism was made in a report on the state of law and order in Russia.
According to the prosecutor general, unlawfulness and widespread bribery are thriving in the northern Caucasus. The prosecutor cited some shocking cases when unsolved crimes were being pinned on militants who had previously been killed in counter-terrorism operations.
Apart from this, Chaika highlighted the problem of “cooking the books” — that is, trying to make statistics look better than they are, including crime figures.
Summing up, Chaika suggested that law enforcement officers were poorly trained to deal with the situation in the northern Caucasus, and that from now on everything will be looked at more stringently. [In other news, barn door shut tight after equine escape — Z]
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Falls to 153rd in Press Freedom Index
[Moscow Management Methods Manacle Media Moguls — Z]
21:5020/10/2009
PARIS, October 20 (RIA Novosti) — Russia fell to 153rd place in the latest Reporters Without Borders report on press freedom, published on Tuesday.
Russia has dropped 12 places since 2008, and is now below neighboring Belarus for the first time.
“The reasons for this fall, three years after Anna Politkovskaya’s murder, include the continuing murders of journalists and human rights activists,” the organization said. “They also include the return with increasing force of censorship and reporting taboos and the complete failure to punish those responsible for the murders.”
Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden are joint top of the press freedom index.
Turkmenistan (173), North Korea (174) and Eritrea (175) occupy the last three places, and are described as countries “where the media are so suppressed, they are non-existent”.
Despite the U.S. moving from 36th to 20th place, “the attitude of the United States towards the media in Iraq and Afghanistan is worrying,” Reporters Without Borders said.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Silicon Valley to be Corruption Free
[The circuitry may be small but the cost of doing business sure isn’t — Z]
30 April, 2010, 12:00
President Dmitry Medvedev is pledging unprecedented privileges for companies joining the International Innovation Centre in Skolkovo, adding that corruption will be stamped on.
Russia’s making moves to develop a hi-tech economy. At a meeting on modernization, Medvedev offered big incentives for innovative firms to join a new hub.
“Tax breaks are a key issue for business. Skolkovo residents will pay no profit tax, VAT or property tax for ten years.”
The Russian government will fund the lion’s share of the site, including housing for 30,000 residents. But the track record isn’t good — with previous efforts ending in failure. Dmitry Medvedev admits the billions of dollars thrown at hi-tech so far have not produced a single world-class product. So this time they’re being more careful. [emphasis added — Z]
Only the most promising proposals will be bankrolled, Russia’s Finance Minister told this channel. In charge of the project will be Victor Vekselberg, a successful businessman rather than a bureaucrat. He pledged Skolkovo will avoid the kickbacks common in state projects.
“Corruption is a big problem for Russia, but I believe Skolkovo will be able to escape from that environment.”
Medvedev’s colleagues say he’s set on making Skolkovo work. The President himself is helping to draw up the bill creating the project, which goes to parliament next month.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
India: Karnataka: Christians Attacked by Hindu Extremists, Arrested by Police
A group of women and children coming home from a peace festival are attacked and insulted by a gang of youth from the Bajrang Dal. Instructed by the extremists, police take the Christians into custody in a local police station and continue humiliating them overnight. For Christian activists, the incident is a sign of India’s “talibanisation”.
Karkala (AsiaNews) — A gang of Hindu extremists affiliated with the Bajrang Dal attacked a group of Christian women and children who were coming from a peace festival. The incident occurred last night around 11.30 in a village in the State of Karnataka. During the attack, the Hindu extremists called in police who instead of stopping the attackers arrested the women and children. The latter were kept in jail overnight and released only this morning at 8.30. Christian activists slammed this latest example of anti-Christian discrimination and violence, which represents further evidence of the progressive “talibanisation” of India.
The incident began at 11.30 pm in the village of Kawdoor, not far from the city of Karkala (Udupi District), in Karnataka. A group of Christian women and children were going home after attending the three-day “Festival of Peace 2010” organised by the Bharatiya Christa Okoota, a Christian movement, at a high school in the city of Udupi. About 3,000 people took part in the event.
About 20 people affiliated with the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a rightwing Hindu extremist political movement, took part in the punitive expedition led by three of the organisation’s top leaders, Suresh Shetty, Suresh Poojari and Ganesh Shetty.
The young Hindus attacked 16 Christian women and children who were on their way home after a joyful day spent at the festival. They beat them with sticks, molested them under the cover of darkness and using abusive and vulgar language mocked the women as women and Christian. They also claimed that the State’s home minister was their patron and that “no one can touch us”.
Around half past midnight, the Hindu extremists called in the police. When the agents arrived at the scene, instead of arresting the attackers, they took into custody the Christian women and children.
Police Inspector Ramachandra Naik and his men diligently followed the instructions of the Hindu extremists and brought the women and children to Karkala Police Station, where their humiliation and abuse continued all night long, until their release in the morning at 8.30.
Sources close to the local Christian community said that the women and the children were in a state of shock as a result of their traumatic experience, which is the 19th such event endured by Karnataka Christians in recent months.
In a public statement, the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) has strongly condemned “the attack and molestation of women and children”. The Council slammed the collusion between extremists and police, calling it an example of the progressive “talibanisation” of India. In their view, the country is increasingly becoming like Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“In both cases,” the GCIC said, “religion has been politicised to infringe upon the rights of women and minorities.” Even if “they were trying to protect our culture,” what they did does not correspond to “our culture.”
This morning, the CGIC filed charges against a number of Hindu extremists, five of whom were arrested for their acts of violence against Christians.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona’s Fight for America
by Diana West
Three cheers aren’t enough for Arizona. It’s the first state to defend American citizenship on the basis of identity, and American sovereignty on the basis of borders. In an age of blurred identities and undefended borders, Arizona has put itself in a good, old-fashioned state of revolt against the postmodern, global-minded state of being foisted on us by internationalist elites up to and including President Barack Hussein Obama.
That’s the effect, anyway, of Arizona’s new immigration law, which, as George F. Will has aptly pointed out, “makes what is already a federal offense — being in the country illegally — a state offense.” Only in our time, with identities blurred, borders undefended and elites internationalized, could this be controversial. Among other things, the new law requires state law enforcement to verify a person’s immigration status in the course of “lawful contact.”
Far from heralding the deployment of jackbooted terror squads among the tumbleweed and sprinklers, Arizona’s new law acknowledges that American citizenship does and (wow) should exist, and affirms that sovereignty, ignored at the federal level, is the responsibility of a state overrun by illegal aliens mainly from neighboring Mexico.
Given our psycho idea of “normal” — alien-strained schools, bankrupted hospitals, advancing bilingualism and “sanctuary cities” — this new immigration law has aroused Establishment wrath. Moving across the spectrum from Right(ish) to Left, this ranges from the tense chorus of tut-tutting from the pro-amnesty Republican underbelly (Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Tom Ridge), insta-calls for boycotts of Arizona from California officials, denunciations from Left-wing national pols and pundits (Nancy Pelosi, E.J. Dionne) a possible Justice Department investigation from President Obama, and, of course, much razzing from La Raza and other Che-idolizing open-borders and Reconquista agitators.
There’s another reason. Arizona suddenly poses an unexpected threat to the status quo of permissible lawlessness, the illegal demographic transformation of this country into a linguistic and cultural extension of Latin America. This out-of-control movement has been tolerated if not facilitated by our political leadership for several decades under the dangerous influence of what we know as multiculturalism, the school of thought that has widely delegitimized U.S. identity altogether. Maybe more than anything else, Arizona’s law restores a civic sense that there exists such an identity, and it is, and should be, legally protected. Thus, the multiculti rage.
A second bill pending in Arizona concerns another legal aspect of American identity, namely the constitutional requirement that our presidents be “natural-born” and not “naturalized” Americans…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Biometric National ID Card Included in Democratic Immigration Bill
Democrats pushed forward on an immigration overhaul on Thursday evening with no Republican support, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) continues to hold out, arguing that the divisive issue will make progress on climate change legislation impossible.
The Senate is also in the middle of debating Wall Street reform, which is expected to take up the next few weeks of floor time. Reid, however, said that the chamber would be able to handle the task. “We can do more than one thing at once,” he said.
The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID — which is dubbed a “biometric social security card.” Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.
| [Return to headlines] |
Italy: TV Hosts ‘Must be Trained in Sex Ed’
Gynecologists ready with ‘ten commandments’ for showbiz stars
(ANSA) — Rome, April 27 — Italian TV hosts should be trained to talk about sex properly so young people get the right information, the Italian Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (SIGO) believes.
SIGO said that more youngsters get their first info and impressions about sex from the TV than from their family, friends or school.
“We believe it is indispensable to train TV presenters, who have such a big influence on their younger viewers,” said SIGO President Giorgio Vittori.
The organisation has drawn up “ten commandments” or recommendations about the way to discuss sex so that youngsters are properly informed, he said.
It is set to send its tips to public broadcaster RAI, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset network, Italy’s fourth terrestrial channel La7 and satellite station Sky.
Most Italian schools do not have sex education on the curriculum and Italian parents are not that keen on discussing sex with their kids, Vittori said.
According to a SIGO survey, he said, “64% of students want sex ed at school and 44% would like to be able to talk about it with their parents”.
As well as hosts, TV guests should also be told how to approach sexual topics, Vittori added.
SIGO is ready with training courses for both, he said. A recent study showed that Italian teenagers are the worst informed in Europe about contraceptives.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Same-Sex Kissing Photo Show Ban
Images could upset kids and elderly, says Bergamo mayor
(ANSA) — Bergamo, April 27 — Photographs of same-sex couples kissing designed to tackle homophobia are at the centre of a row in this northern Italian city, after Bergamo authorities decided they could not be displayed in public. The images were scheduled for a one-day open-air exhibition to mark next month’s International Day against Homophobia but will now be restricted to an indoor viewing following a vote on Monday by Bergamo council. Explaining the reasons for the move, which was fiercely contested by centre-left opposition councillors, Mayor Franco Tentorio said he believed the images of same-sex couples kissing might upset some members of the public. “We considered the requests in depth and we have given permission for an [anti-homophobia] conference,” he said. “But the exhibition worried us. On the basis of the organizers’ presentation it seemed to us that the contents were too strong. “An exhibition in the middle of town seemed inappropriate to us. We gave priority to the sensibilities of children and the elderly”. The exhibition Baci Rubati (Stolen Kisses), which will now go on show for two days in the Piazza della Liberta Auditorium, features a series of photographs submitted by members of the general public.
The images are a mixture of sexual and platonic displays of affection, between gay, lesbian and straight couples, as well as between relatives and friends. Representatives of the local gay and lesbian community expressed bewilderment and anger at the council’s decision on Tuesday.
The head of the Bergamo chapter of Italy’s largest gay association, Arcigay, said it reflected “an intolerant attitude towards gays and lesbians”.
“It’s possible that the exhibition might have drawn some criticism but our aim was simply to show that certain images are entirely legitimate and certainly not inappropriate”, said Luca Pandini. “We wanted to show the normality of affection between gay and lesbian couples through images of same-sex kisses but the exhibition also included photographs showing affection between men and women, mothers and daughters, and the elderly”. Giulia Lorenzi, the local leader of lesbian association Arcilesbica, said there was “absolutely nothing indecent about any of the images”.
“Apart from anything else, the council hasn’t even asked to see the images, or it would know they contain nothing inappropriate,” she told a local daily. A string of gay hate crimes in Italian cities last year prompted several protest demonstrations and a bill aimed at increasing penalties for acts of violence motivated by homophobia.
However, the bill was thrown out by senators, who argued it gave unequal protection to gays in violation of the constitution.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Transgender Cellblock ‘Halted’
Tuscany facility would have been Italy’s first
(ANSA) — Florence, April 28 — Italy’s first cellblock exclusively for transgender inmates has been “halted” for unknown reasons, Florence city council’s pointman for inmates rights said Wednesday.
Franco Corleone said the transgender wing in Empoli, which would have been one of the first in Europe, “was supposed to have been up and running last March 4” but authorities have “apparently changed their minds”.
Justice Minister Angelino Alfano has backtracked on the idea, Corleone claimed.
“I don’t know whether it was for moralistic reasons, or what,” he said, adding that the facility “will probably now become a women’s prison”.
“I’ve heard there was a meeting in Rome yesterday to decide what to do but they couldn’t make their minds up,” Corleone said. The cellblock at the Pozzale penitentiary at Empoli, 20 km (12 miles) west of Florence, was previously a low-security facility for women.
Activists had greeted news of the block’s reported creation enthusiastically in January.
Creating a separate cellblock was a “brilliant idea” which would end years of isolation, said the head of Italy’s national transgender movement (MIT), Regina Satariano.
“Women inmates don’t want them and, to avoid problems, transgenders are kept away from male prisoners. Thus special areas have been created in prisons, amounting to isolated confinement. They even have separate outdoor air hours,” the MIT chief said.
According to former MP and transgender activist Vladimir Luxuria, the reported development was “a good thing which gives the inmates dignity”.
“As an MP I visited many penitentiaries and in every one, with the exception of the one in Belluno (northeastern Italy), transgenders were discriminated against and punished not only for the crimes they committed but also their sexual identity”.
Gay activist Paola Concia, an MP for the opposition Democratic Party (PD), had hailed the Tuscan initiative as “an act of civility towards transgenders, who often have great problems in prison”.
Most of Italy’s hundreds of transgender inmates are serving time for prostitution or drug-related convictions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
30,000 Anti-Global Warming Scientists Can’t be Wrong
The so-called global warming “scientific consensus” is a complete fabrication and does not exist.
Nature Magazine, the academic journal that introduced the world to X-rays, DNA double helix, wave nature of particles, pulsars, and more recently the human genome, is set to publish a paper in June that shows atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for only 5-10% of observed warming on Earth.
As explained by the paper’s author Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, “The climate is warming, yes, but not because of greenhouse gases.”
For the preeminent scientific journal in the world to publish Kauppinen’s work shows conclusively that Al Gore’s much touted “scientific consensus” supporting human-caused global warming is a myth. Eco-censors and the global warming hoax
For years scientists have been trying to get out the message past the eco-censors that there are thousands and thousands of them who do not buy into the global warming hoax.
Since 2009 more than 238 physicists including Nobel Prize winner Ivar Giaever and professors from Harvard, MIT, Princeton, UCLA and dozens of other top universities and research institutions have signed an open letter addressed to the Council of the American Physical Society saying the scientific data did not support the conclusion that increased CO2 concentrations are responsible for global warming.
In 2009 over 700 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC members, joined with Senator Inhofe in a Senate Minority Report to express their doubts over man-made global warming claims.
In the report U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg was quoted as saying “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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