Iraq: Financial Crisis Forces Patriarchate to Rent Out the Courtyards of Churches in Baghdad
Economic aid from Kurdistan interrupted, collection money halved due to emigration of the faithful, Mgr. Warduni sets out the Chaldean Churches’ plan “to help pay the salaries of priests and catechists”.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) — Facing a critical economic situation, to the point where it can’t even pay its’ priest’s salaries, the Chaldean Church in Iraq is obliged to rent a private space adjacent to its parish in Baghdad. Branded as “dangerous lies” rumours of the sale of the church of Our Lady of Sorrows (the first cathedral of Iraq, where the patriarchs are buried, of priceless historical value,-ed), the Auxiliary Bishop of the capital. Shlemon Warduni explains to AsiaNews how the Church in Iraq is coping with this crisis.
A number of factors explain the current difficulties facing the Chaldean Patriarchate. “For about 10 months, the finance minister of Kurdistan, Sargis Agajan, halted all funding to the Christian community, which in recent years had ensured a stable income. Not only that: “With the massive migration of our people — says the bishop — the revenue coming from church collections have halved, while the government gives us absolutely no help.”
Thus, a Patriarchate committee — composed of four lay people, of which Warduni is supervisor with Card. Emmanuel III Delly in charge — is studying plans to utilise Church property to generate revenue to help pay the salaries of priests, to cover the cost of running parishes and catechesis (such as the transport of children and books). This emphasizes the bishop of Baghdad, is an important point: “The Protestants are taking our young people away and say they are evangelizing in our place, we must safeguard our children and our catechism.”
For now, it has been decided to “rent the land adjacent to the former cathedral of Baghdad (outside the walls of the church itself) for 15 years, to a private party who will build stores there.” At the end of the contract everything will return to the Patriarchate. The area surrounding “Our Lady of Sorrows” is the first Christian neighbourhood of Baghdad, “the Haqid Nasara” (in English “the meeting place of Christians”). Here, until the ‘70s, all Christian denominations in the country were focused. Now it has become a very commercial area filled with markets and shops, the heart of the city, where the value of buildings and land has increased a lot. For logistical reasons — the church is situated in an alley that cannot be accessed in a car — the Chaldean cathedral was transferred some years ago to the Church of St Joseph in the neighbourhood of Karada. Despite the security problems faced by the Christians in the capital, “Our Lady of Sorrows” is still open: “A priest has also been appointed to say mass on some occasions” says Bishop. Warduni.
“The diocese of Baghdad, — the auxiliary bishop concludes, — is studying and working on projects that can bring economic help to the other dioceses of Iraq.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Finance Bill Will Allow Seizure of Companies
President Barack Obama has taken the United States one more giant step towards socialism by ramming through the Senate his financial regulation bill.
The bill authorizes the secretary of the Treasury — a political appointee — to seize any financial company (bank or nonbank) simply because, in his opinion, it is too big to fail and in danger of insolvency.
This power can be used for political retribution, pressure for campaign funding, or any other abuse bureaucratic whim or partisan politics can conceive. It is a power Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez would love to have!
The legislation also requires that any business that extends credit, in any form, to clear the loan instrument in advance with the new consumer protection agency. The backlog of pending applications will strangle consumer credit.
And the bill fails to do the one thing it must do — regulate derivatives and make them transparent. Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., bowed to pressure from his sponsors on Wall Street and deleted the regulatory provision and set up a commission to study the situation for two years!
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., protested the cop-out with a no vote against the legislation.
So how did it pass?
Four Republicans sold out, that’s how!
Among the RINOs were, of course, Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine. But, surprisingly, Scott Brown, R Mass., the newly elected Massachusetts miracle defected as did the normally stalwart Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Deficit Cuts to Reduce GDP Growth by Half a Point
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 21 — The planned cuts approved yesterday by the council of Ministers to reduce Spain’s public deficit by a further 15 billion by 2011 will take half a percentage point off economic growth, which will drop next year from 1.8%, the figure initially predicted by the government, to 1.3%. The announcement was made by the deputy Prime Minister, Elena Salgado, who was quoted in the media today. For 2010, the government has confirmed predictions of a 0.3% fall in GDP, which leaves the Spanish economy at the bottom of the pile, with regard to the recovery registered in other Eurozone countries. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Government Plans Property Tax Beyond 1 Mln
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 20 — The Spanish Government is to approve, by two weeks time, a special new property tax on individuals whose income, savings, shares and companies are amply in excess of one million euros, according to anticipations by various media. The Executive plans to accelerate its approval by the Cortes, so that it may become effective as soon as possible, by the end of the year. The new levy, which Europe Press sources say should be similar to the cancelled property levy, will only concern tax-payers whose earnings are above the one million mark. This will be in addition to further cuts for 15 billion in public spending by 2011, announced a week ago by Premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and to be approved in this evening’s Cabinet meeting. The objective is to reduce the 11.2% 2009 deficit by about 5.2 points by 2011, to reach 3% in 2013, by means of 5% salary cuts for 2.8 million public-sector officials, pension freeze, cancellation of the 2,500 Euro baby-cheque for each newborn child, and an over 6 billion reduction in investments in public works. Government sources, cited by Efe, assure that the new tax is in an advanced phase of preparation, but that it will not be approved in today’s Cabinet meeting. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The 750 Billion Euro Bluff
The Germans recently approved their portion of the €750bn European bailout fund, and I think that’s all the money we will see. It’s highly unlikely that the EU has the capital to pull off the entire thing, unless the ECB starts printing money à la full-blown quantative easing. They are just trying to bluff the speculator vultures, so that they won’t start circling Portugal, Ireland and other weak EMU economies. But I think eventually the vultures will smell blood.
More likely it’s a race to the bottom. The EMU governments want to devalue the euro to make euro denominated debt interest payments cheaper and make the euro more competitive as Germany recently got overtaken by China as the largest exporting nation. Actually China has been doing this for a while now, holding the reminbi under the water by pegging it to the US dollar. But unfortunately that’s not the ECB’s official policy, and when Germany joined the EMU they promised their citizens that the euro would be a stable currency, so that the Germans would not lose their savings to inflation, again. Germany already lost everything to hyperinflation, twice. I think they wouldn’t want to do that a third time. But now because of the Greek crisis the euro has devalued, and without severe sociopolitical reprecussions in Germany as Merkel can put some blame on the Greeks. Outright quantative easing would probably not have been as well received in Germany as the current theatrics have been .
The €750bn bailout is likely a hoax to deter speculators and stabilize the euro devaluation, in the short-term. At best Merkel bought some time for Germans (who have large euro savings) and other euro holders, to get rid of their euros and put them in something more solid, like gold or other precious metals, before the ECB starts quantative easing and euro inflation takes a turn for the worst. Which seems to be happening as recently billions of euros flew out of German banks to Switzerland. Because if the euro starts to deflate, it’s likely the weaker economies will default on their debts, which would be a death knell for the euro, and thus possibly the EU aswell. This is of course unacceptable for the eurocrats, whatever it takes. That being said, gold sales in Germany have been soaring recently, and coin/bullion shops there are running out of the stuff. Same thing is happening in China.
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Brentwood Mosque Not Alone in Defeat
The plan to derail a proposed mosque in Brentwood was simple but effective.
Through e-mails, blogs and word of mouth, opponents told friends and neighbors they were suspicious of the mosque and feared its leaders had ties to terrorist organizations. They encouraged citizens to write letters to the city commission expressing their concerns, including worries about traffic and flooding.
It worked.
On Wednesday night, the mosque’s organizers admitted defeat. They withdrew their application to rezone 14 acres on Wilson Pike for a house of worship. Community opposition and the $450,000 cost of building a turn lane made the project untenable.
“There comes a time when you have to say, ‘We can’t do this anymore,’ “ said Jaweed Ansari, a Brentwood physician and spokesman for the Islamic Center of Williamson County.
Every year, hundreds of new houses of worship are proposed around the United States. A growing number face resistance from neighbors and government officials who see places of worship as a nuisance because they don’t pay taxes, often ask for special exceptions to zoning rules and cause traffic congestion. But religious liberty advocates say these objections can trample the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
Ansari admits the mosque plan wasn’t perfect. Most of the 14 acres is on a flood plain, a problem exacerbated by Middle Tennessee’s recent storms. Only about 4 acres was needed for the mosque, so organizers didn’t see that as a problem. They also felt the site, which borders a park and has neighbors only on one side, would be fairly unobtrusive.
“We realized going into this that nobody wants anything in their backyard, regardless of whether it is a church or a Walmart or whatever,” he said.
To allay neighbors’ fears, the Islamic Center agreed to a series of restrictions on the site. The mosque would have been relatively small, with a prayer hall for about 325 people and a fellowship hall and kitchen for meals and gatherings. The mosque would not have had outside loudspeakers to broadcast a call to prayer and few outside lights.
“We started this in very good faith,” he said. “We had a neighborhood meeting, and we thought this would be a friendly thing. Instead of that, it turned out to be a very angry thing.”
‘No one can predict’
Matt Bonner, who lives in Nashville but is a member of Brentwood United Methodist Church, helped organize resistance to the mosque.
“Not enough people understand the political doctrine of Islam,” he said in an interview before the mosque project was withdrawn. “The fact is that the mosques are more than just a church. No one can predict what this one will be used for.”
Bonner said his suspicions about Islam were shaped in part by the writings of Bill French, a former physics professor who now runs the Nashville-based Center for the Study of Political Islam. The center is a for-profit book publisher run by French, who writes under the pen name Bill Warner. He argues that Islam is not really a religion. Instead, Warner says that Islam is a dangerous political ideology.
Bonner also accused the Islamic Center of trying to bully the city of Brentwood into accepting its proposal. During a May 5 meeting, the center’s attorney pointed out that federal and state law gives religious institutions special protections when it comes to zoning.
Ansari says the center’s lawyer was at the meeting to protect the rights of the families who were trying to organize the mosque. Bonner didn’t see it that way.
“The impression is that they are seeking special treatment,” he said. “What kind of neighbor is that who comes in threatening lawsuits?”
The accusations of bullying and ties to terrorism mystify Ansari. The organizers of the mosque are a small group of Muslims, who live in Williamson County, pay taxes and love their community, he said.
“We are trying to build a place where God’s name will be glorified,” Ansari said. “The same God that the Christians and Jews worship.”
None of the organizers has any ties to extremists and they are no threat to anyone, he said.
“We are a small group of 40 people, and no matter where we want to build, thousands of people can come in opposition,” he said.. “What does that mean? Does that mean that minorities have no right? If they don’t want us to have the mosque, does that mean we can’t have a mosque?”
Despite the opposition, mosque organizers have no plans to sue. That would defeat the purpose of the mosque, Ansari said.
“For us, to be good citizens and to have good will is more important,” he said.
Common objections
Other religious groups have found that a lawsuit is the only way to get their buildings approved, said Eric Rassbach, director of litigation for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Rassbach has represented Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religious groups in zoning fights. More than 100 houses of worship nationwide are involved in lawsuits over land use, he said.
“That’s because many communities are hostile to houses of worship,” Rassbach said. Zoning, he said, is often used as an excuse for religious discrimination.
“The problem is that zoning codes allow governments a lot of leeway to inject discriminatory purposes in ways that are hard to detect,” he said.
The most common objections are what Rassbach calls the holy trinity of religious land use lawsuits — complaints about noises, traffic and congestion.
In 2006, he represented a Zen Buddhist group in New York whose zoning application was denied.
“Neighbors complained that this silent meditation center would make too much noise,” he said.
A federal law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act — or RLUIPA — protects churches from such complaints, Rassbach said. Under that law, governments can’t impose substantial burdens on houses of worship when it comes to zoning. That means they can’t deny zoning unless they have a compelling reason to do so. And governments must use the least restrictive means possible when they limit zoning, Rassbach said.
Rassbach said that requiring the $450,000 turn lane may have violated federal law but he could understand why the mosque was reluctant to sue.
Hedy Weinberg, director of the ACLU of Tennessee, said that laws like RLUIPA protect everyone’s rights to worship.
“You can’t keep someone out just because you don’t like their religion,” she said.
Some of the proposed mosque’s neighbors were saddened to hear the project was canceled.
“We’re very disappointed,” said the Rev. Randall Dunnavant, rector at Church of the Good Shepherd, whose property is across the street from the proposed mosque site.
Dunnavant said that Brentwood has strict zoning codes, something he supports.
The Episcopal priest believes the zoning issues at the mosque site could have been resolved. The hostility of some mosque opponents is another matter.
Rabbi Laurie Rice at Congregation Micah said the failure of the mosque project showed that Brentwood still has a long way to go when it comes to interfaith relations.
“We have great work to do in our Brentwood community,” she said in an e-mail to colleagues. “It is only through knowing one another, seeing our own face in the face of the other, that we can cut through the misconception and fear that often leads to bigotry.”
Since 2000, Brentwood has received 15 rezoning requests from religious institutions. Ten passed, three failed, and two were withdrawn.
Ansari said that he and other organizers are worn out from working on the failed Wilson Pike proposal, which took months of planning and cost thousands of dollars.
“We’ll look for another place,” he said. “What else can we do? All of us cannot pack up and leave. We are here to stay. We have the same rights and freedoms as anyone else. So we’ll look for someplace else — hopefully something that will not evoke such a furor.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Chrysler May Look at Share Offer ‘Next Year’
Toronto, 21 May (AKI) — Fiat chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne said on Thursday that a part of the Fiat-run Chrysler business may be sold in an initial share offering next year. Fiat has a 20 percent stake in Chrysler, which Marchionne said it plans to increase to 25 percent this year.
“Probably 2011,” Marchionne (photo) told reporters in Toronto on Thursday when asked about the timing of the stock sale.
May is “turning out to be a good month” for sales and the US market is “on the mend,” he said.
Marchionne said investor demand is strong enough for both General Motors and Chrysler to have share sales.
“I think there is enough appetite, and I am always respectful of the bigger guy,” he said, referring to GM.
Fiat acquired a 20 percent stake in Chrysler last year after the company reorganised with 15 billion dollars of government support.
Fiat was granted managerial control of the company as part of the deal when it acquired its stake.
The Michigan-based carmaker exited bankruptcy last June with government aid. Fiat can boost its Chrysler share up to 35 percent, according to the terms of last year’s deal.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
From the State Department to Apple: Making the World Safe for Sharia
by Diana West
From the May 20th press briefing at the State Department:
QUESTION: Do you have any comment on Pakistan’s blockage of — Pakistan’s — to YouTube and other web — internet sites?
MR. CROWLEY: I do. Obviously, this is a difficult and challenging issue. Many of the images that appear today on Facebook were deeply offensive to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We are deeply concerned about any deliberate attempt to offend Muslims or members of any other religious groups. We do not condone offensive speech that can incite violence or hatred.
The page at issue was posted anonymously at the website of a private company. It is now a legal matter between Facebook and the Government of Pakistan. But that said, we also believe that the best answer to offensive speech is dialogue and debate, and in fact, we see signs that that is exactly what is occurring in Pakistan. Governments have a responsibility to protect freedom of expression and the free flow of information.
The best antidote to intolerance is not banning or punishing offensive speech, but rather a combination of robust legal protections against discrimination and hate crimes, and proactive government outreach to minority religious groups and the vigorous defense of both freedom of religion and expression. Those last words came from the Secretary’s internet freedom speech last year.
So I think that this is a difficult issue. Pakistan is wrestling to this issue. We respect any actions that need to be taken under Pakistani law to protect their citizens from offensive speech. At the same time, Pakistan has to make sure that in taking any particular action, that you’re not restricting speech to the millions and millions of people who are connected to the internet and have a universal right to the free flow of information.
QUESTION: But who’s to say that Pakistan isn’t simply playing to the more conservative religious factions in order to maintain political viability?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, no, as I said, we — there are actions that Pakistan can take under Pakistani law. We respect those. But there needs to be a balance to make sure that in rightly restricting offensive speech, or even hate speech, that Pakistan continues to protect and promote the free flow of information.
QUESTION: But blocking an — you know, this website or that website doesn’t seem to go toward promoting free flow of information. I mean, I have colleagues whom I cannot reach via Facebook right now because of this.
MR. CROWLEY: Right. And what we’re saying is that Pakistan, as it works through these issues, has to try to find that difficult balance. But we certainly fully understand how material that were posted on this particular page were offensive to Pakistanis and members of other Muslim majority communities around the world. But at the same time, we do in fact support the universal principle of freedom of expression, free flow of information, and we will continue to promote internet freedom as the Secretary outlined in her speech.
Also on May 20, Apple removed an app called iSlam Muhhamadfrom the iPhone App Store. PCmag.com reports:…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Mosques Going Up Where Islamists Brought World Trade Center Down
A $100 million project, called the Cordoba initiative, is building a mosque in a New York building adjacent to the Twin Towers and damaged in 9/11. The Majid Mosque project appeals for funds to build a second mosque nearby. “In fact, the website appealing for donations boldly states that it plans to “build the ‘House of Allah’ next to the World Trade Center. Help us raise the flag of ‘LA ILLAH ILLA ALLAH’ in downtown Manhattan.” [http://goo.gl/qrq0].
Hebron has the Cordoba Girls’ School, where children learn that murdering Jews earns their place in Paradise.
Cordoba was the capital of Islamic Spain for 500 years, one of Europe’s biggest cities. They named the mosque project Cordoba. Why? Probably so as not to forget and in anticipation of restoring Islamic control. The al-Qaeda affiliate that confessed to bombing Spanish trains in 1994 explained, “This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader…” [http://goo.gl/SOBg]. Islamic groups still blame Christian Spain for ending the Caliphate hundreds of years ago in Cordoba (Hebron Jewish Community, 5/21)
(One of my readers thought that Islamists have forgotten the old desire to recapture lost conquests.)
Since the U.S. offers freedom of religion, and does not treat Islam’s Islamist offshoots as a subversive political movement, Muslims have a right to build mosques where they buy property. But people who keep telling America to be soft toward Muslims “sensitivity,” should give some consideration to defending New Yorkers’ sensitivity. There is an element here of “in your face” defiance.
This kind of affront is not unique to New York. In Jerusalem, Muslims built a mosque alongside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with bathrooms overhanging it, as if to show superiority. In Bethlehem, Muslims tried to usurp the public plaza needed to accommodate pilgrims to the Church of the Nativity, for another mosque. As it is, churchgoers sometimes have to run a gauntlet of hostile Muslims, there.
A similar do-one-better aspect characterizes a mosque project in Rome. By contrast, In Saudi Arabia, churches are not allowed to bear outward identification. In Egypt, churches (and not mosques) are not allowed to be built or be renovated except with government permission, not readily granted. Some people ask why not ban mosques in the West, until churches are not banned in the East.
The question really is whether the West is wise to let in a people with a political movement, masked as religion, whose political ideology is to conquer the West.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Pentagon’s Cyber Command Prepares War Against the American People
NSA Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April that he would work to protect the privacy rights of Americans online. It was an interesting comment from a man who heads up an organization responsible for a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.
“NSA is the only place in the U.S. government that has the capabilities we need for defense of the private networks,” James A. Lewis, a senior fellow and cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the CIA’s favorite newspaper last year. “We need to find a way to use those capabilities without putting civil liberties at risk.” CSIS is an insider think tank dominated by the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft. Henry Kissinger and other freedom lovers.
Threats against computer networks in the United States are grossly exaggerated. Dire reports issued by the Defense Science Board and the Center for Strategic and International Studies “are usually richer in vivid metaphor — with fears of ‘digital Pearl Harbors’ and ‘cyber-Katrinas’ — than in factual foundation,” writes Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born researcher and blogger who writes on the political effects of the internet.
Morozov notes that much of the data on the supposed cyber threat “are gathered by ultra-secretive government agencies — which need to justify their own existence — and cyber-security companies — which derive commercial benefits from popular anxiety.”
It is not merely anti-war and patriot activists and organizations the government is targeting. Bloggers and journalists who are not part of the Mockingbird corporate media have also fallen into the sights of the government.
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Police Called to Calm Angry Crowd Outside Louisville Mosque Friday Night
(WHAS11) — Police had to be called in to a Louisville mosque as an angry crowd gathered outside.
video link: www.whas11.com/news/Police-called-to-mosque-protest-94653524.html
Evangelists from Emanual Baptist church started the conflict as they waved bibles and questioned the religion of Muslim faithful as they left services Friday night.
There were no injuries or arrests during the incident.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Socio/Communists Obama and Clinton Want to Strip Our Weapons Protections Away
TCU Nation posts an article written by J. Mark Foreman II in The Townhall, on May 19, 2010 that states that our ever-growing anti-American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has actually signed the U. N. Small Arms Treaty which will ban all privately held semi-automatic weapons in America.
You know of course that Ms. Hillary does not do one thing without the concurrence and direction of the Grand Messiah, AKA, Barack Hussein Obama; so don’t blame it all on the compliant Secretary of State.
In the article, reference is given to a Reuters article posted on the Internet. My initial thoughts on this piece of distressing news was that Obama and Clinton, in their socialist/communist control-seeking ways have come full circle and have become full-fledged, anti-American, officials in control of the Administration of our country.
Yes, there is no question anymore that the entire Obama Administration and somewhere around eighty to ninety percent of the liberal Democrats in our Congress are basically Socio/Communist and slowly sucking the freedom loving republic of the United States into that swamp along with them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US National Security is Targeted by Al Qaeda and Iran’s Strategic Threats
Based on my work with members of Congress sitting on relevant defense and national security committees and on my interaction with many strategic and tactical analysts across the Government and private sector fields for many years, the consensus reached so far is that the two main (and active) threats against US national security in the post Cold War era are and continue to be the Salafi-Jihadi global networks including al Qaeda and a plethora of webs and organizations all marching in the same direction on the one hand; and on the other hand what I coin as the “Iranian-led axis” which incorporates the Tehran Khomeinist regime, Hezbollah, the radical pro-Iranians in Iraq and in other Arab countries and the Syrian regime’s Mukhabarat.
During my continuous interventions in Arab (and international) media I am frequently asked about America’s perception of the threat against its own national security. Arab Governments, intellectuals, legislators and opinion makers are divided as to their readings of US strategic perception. Unfortunately American messaging in Arabic has been confusing over the years. Thus when US-based researchers and commentators have an opportunity to help Arab audiences understand what are the fundamental threats that determines US perception, they must engage in educating Arab readers and viewers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Yours is a Peaceful Faith’
At Muslim forum, Patrick vows action to combat prejudice
Governor Deval Patrick told more than 1,100 Muslims at a Roxbury mosque yesterday that he knew many have encountered discrimination and racial profiling since Sept. 11 and that he would do everything in his power to combat those problems.
Speaking at what Muslim activists described as the first such forum with a Massachusetts governor, the 53-year-old Democrat pledged to take seven steps to help Muslims in the state.
The measures ranged from urging businesses and governments to allow Muslims to take time off to attend Friday afternoon prayers to publicly denouncing discrimination and racial profiling against believers of Islam.
Although he responded “yes” when asked pointedly whether he was committed to each measure requested, Patrick sometimes broadened his pledges to recognize that other religious and ethnic groups deserved the same protections and accommodations.
“Yours is a peaceful faith, and I know that, and I know you are worried [about whether] others know that,” Patrick said after several Muslims joined him on the platform at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center to recount stories of epithets hurled at them on Boston streets and FBI agents visiting their houses.
“I know that people have been afraid and angry, and sometimes that fear and anger is randomly directed at you,” he said.
The audience, which comprised Muslims from across the state, including many women who wore hijab head coverings and men who wore kufi caps, frequently interrupted Patrick with cheers and chants of “Allahu Akbar!” which means “God is great!”
Patrick, who noted that he has lived in Sudan and northern Nigeria and spent considerable time with Muslims, greeted the gathering upon his arrival with “Assalamu alaikum,” meaning “peace be upon you.” He drew loud cheers when he spoke a bit of Arabic.
The governor, who could not personally attend the official opening of the $15.6 million Roxbury mosque last year and was fulfilling a promise to visit, has appointed a liaison to the Muslim community. Patrick introduced the liaison, Ron Bell, one of his advisers for community affairs.
Patrick also promised to try to visit two more Muslim institutions by the end of the year, encourage public schools to be more sensitive to the needs of Muslim students, foster sensitivity training for law enforcement officials, and regulate banks that ignore the state’s usury cap law.
Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a representative who promised to use a $50,000 grant to increase sensitivity training for law enforcement officials.
Organizers of the forum said it was designed to get Muslims more involved in politics, repudiate extremism, and educate other Massachusetts residents, too many of whom hold negative stereotypes about Muslims.
“In general, we’re only recognized as terrorists,” said Dr. Syed Asif Razvi, a surgeon who is president of the Islamic Council of New England, in an interview before the event began.
He said recent news stories about the arrests of three New England men on immigration charges as part of the investigation of an attempted car bombing in Times Square has made many law-abiding Muslims feel “here we go again.”
“We work very hard to build bridges, and it kind of wipes out all we’ve done for a period of time,” he said.
While some Muslims at the event said they have been harassed since 9/11, others said the problems they face are subtler, such as hiring discrimination.
“When [employers see] Muslim names, we don’t think we’re getting an equal chance to compete for jobs,” said Sameer Abu-Alsaoud of Cambridge. Abu- Alsaoud, 49, said he has been jobless for at least a year, even though he holds a master’s degree in management from Cambridge College.
Bilal Kaleem, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Boston and one of the organizers of the gathering, said beforehand that Patrick generally has been viewed as sensitive to the concerns of Muslims in Massachusetts.
Kaleem attributed that in part to the governor’s experience as an assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration. “He comes from a civil rights background, so he understands the issues at a deeper level,” Kaleem said.
Patrick met with organizers of the event several weeks ago at the mosque and appeared to be well-prepared for the commitments sought by the community.
Patrick, who is running for reelection this year, has attended similar forums with people of different faiths, including Christian and Jewish residents, his spokesman Kyle Sullivan said Friday. A number of attendees yesterday belonged to other faiths, including Christianity and Judaism.
The 1,100 Muslims at the event represented at least 25 Muslim institutions across the state, including 15 mosques. Many also came from a wide range of backgrounds, including Somali, Moroccan, Sudanese, African-American, Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, Palestinian, and West African.
The event came at the end of a three-month campaign during which activists held more than 15 community meetings that solicited the opinions of at least 500 Muslims.
The activists found that the community’s biggest concerns included the treatment of Muslims by law enforcement officials and a lack of awareness of Muslim customs and culture in public schools.
There are conflicting numbers about the size of the state’s Muslim population, but various national religious-interest groups put the figure at about 70,000.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Islam Movement Reaches Poland
Eastern Europe has had fewer tensions over Muslim immigration than western Europe, but that could change.
WARSAW, Poland — European anxiety over the presence of Muslims in traditionally Christian societies has arrived in Poland, where the capital has been blanketed in anti-Islamic posters and several hundred protesters recently showed up to denounce the construction of a mosque.
Demonstrators waved signs proclaiming “Stop Islamization,” galvanized by posters put up around Warsaw showing a woman clad in a black chador, with menacing minarets that looked like missiles peering out behind her. Counter-demonstrators, separated by a line of police, denounced them as “fascists” and “racists.”
What makes the demonstration surprising is that unlike western European countries where there are millions of Muslims, Poland, a country of 38 million, has only about 30,000 Muslims.
But at a time when Switzerland has voted to ban the construction of new mosques, when France and Belgium are considering restrictions on women covering their faces in public, and Italy’s nationalist Northern League wants to keep mosques at least a kilometer away from any churches, Islam as a political issue has arrived in Poland.
“We wanted to start a public debate,” Piotr Slusarczyk, one of the demonstrators’ leaders, told the Rzeczpospolita daily. “We are warning against radical Islam in Europe.”
Samir Ismail, a Kuwaiti Palestinian doctor who has lived more than 20 years in Poland and is the leader of the newly formed Muslim League, said that for the capital’s 10,000 Muslims, the mosque would simply be a place to pray. He pointed out that the community has been careful not to offend, opting for a 16-yard high minaret instead of the 25-yard one approved by the building permit.
“We don’t want to create misunderstandings,” he told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. “We are aware that we have a problem with being accepted.”
The friction around Poland’s still tiny Muslim minority is a sign of the country’s growing normalization and integration into the European Union. Immigrants were almost unknown in communist times, but as Poland becomes wealthier, it is starting to attract outsiders, from Ukrainians working on construction or as domestic help, to Muslim Chechens escaping Russian repression in their homeland.
In one sense, Poland’s growing diversity is a return to the past. Before World War II, Poland was a multinational stew, with ethnic Poles making up only about two-thirds of the population. The country had large numbers of Ukrainians, Jews and Germans, as well as a small Muslim minority — Tatars descended from the hordes of Genghis Khan who had terrorized Europe in the Middle Ages.
Several thousand Tatars had settled in Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century, and, despite losing their language, never lost their religion.
World War II left Poland a very different country. The Jews had been mostly murdered by the Germans, and most of the survivors left after the war. Germans were expelled, and by shifting Poland’s borders hundreds of miles to the west, there were no large Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities. After 1945, Poland was almost completely monoethnic — one of the only minorities left were the Tatars, who have two villages in northeastern Poland, each with a small mosque.
New Muslim migrants, like Samir Ismail, have very little in common with the Tatars, who have been well integrated into Polish life for centuries — they even had their own cavalry unit before the war. Ismail and other Muslims formed their own organization in 2003, designed to advocate for the interests of new immigrants, including the need to build themselves a place to worship.
From that time they have been trying to build a mosque in Warsaw with the help of Saudi sponsors. As the project has neared completion, it has begun to arouse the ire of some Polish nationalists, who fear that their country could soon have the same issues with Muslim minorities as countries in western Europe.
“We have the example of other countries where the idea of freedom of religion is abused,” said Slusarczyk.
But Poland’s laws do not allow for any religious discrimination.
“The decision permitting this investment has been taken long ago,” said Tomasz Andryszczyk, a spokesman for the Warsaw city government. “What are we supposed to do? It would be bad if this project ran into any troubles.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Cannes: Hors La Loi, The Riots in May ‘45 in Setif
(ANSAmed)- PARIS, MAY 21 — This is a short history of the riots in May 1945 in Setif, Algeria, at the centre of the controversy regarding the film “Hors la loi”, which competes in the Film Festival of Cannes. On May 8 1945 around ten thousand people were celebrating the victory of the allies in Setif. Next to the flag of the French colonists, for the first time the Algerian flag was waved, and the “hurrah for the allied victory” was accompanied by crowds singing “hurrah for Algeria’s independence”. The subprefect ordered to remove banners and placards, the scout Bazid Saal refused to lower the Algerian flag, a shot was fired in the commotion and the boy was killed (according to French historian Benjamin Stora, he was not killed by mistake). The crowd panicked and while on the run, some demonstrators, around one hundred, maybe more, attacked the French colonists. A curfew was imposed, but aggressions and looting increased for the next two days. Around a thousand French were reportedly killed. The interim government of General De Gaulle responded with a ruthless repression carried out by General Duval; martial law was proclaimed in the whole area; nationalist leaders were arrested, villages taken under fire by the air force and the navy. The military courts sentenced 99 people to death. At least 45 thousand people were killed by the French, according to Algerian historians and politicians, still discussed after 60 years. Other sources, including Western historians, speak of 15-20 thousand victims, of which 103 Europeans. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Erotic Magazine for Women Hits German Newsstands
A new erotic magazine for women called “Alley Cat” hit German newsstands this week, with publishers targeting young women who have “grown up with sex,” according to the editor.
The 26-year-old Ina Küper has produced the 10,000-circulation magazine from her home beginning in 2008, but publisher Burda recently made her their youngest editor-in-chief ever.
On Thursday 150,000 copies of the first edition — featuring a cover of a woman in a cat mask — went on sale. Topics include environmentally friendly sex toys, erotic fantasies, “Hot Boys,” and “Skin-tight looks for hot days.”
“Alley Cat is aimed at a generation that very obviously grew up with the theme of sex,” Küper said.
The glossy magazine, aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds, doesn’t shy away from showing naked buttocks or genitalia, and the language is at times explicit. But there is “nothing sleazy,” about the content, and there will never be nudity on the cover, Küper said.
She said some of her inspiration came from the US series “Sex and the City.”
“I think without this series we wouldn’t be where we are now,” she said.
If the first edition is successful, Burda plans to publish the magazine monthly, and also has high hopes that of gaining a “fair number of men” as readers too.
“We said right away that this magazine had potential,” Burda head Ulrike Zeitlinger said, saying the publisher had been particularly impressed by Küper’s “unbelievable passion.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Milan to House ‘New Mafia Assets Agency’
Varese, 22 May (AKI) — The government will set up a new agency in the northern business capital of Milan to oversee property and cash seized from the mafia and fight its infiltration of companies, Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni said on Saturday.
“We want to prevent organised crime, especially the Calabrian mafia, getting its hands on an important event such as the Expo 2015 trade fair,” said Maroni.
He was speaking at a gathering of police in the northern city of Varese.
In January, the government set up a new agency in the southern region of Calabria’s capital, Reggio Calabria, to oversee some 9 billion euros of mafia property and cash recovered during its first 18 months in office as part of a continuing crackdown against the mafia.
The agency is headed by interior ministry official Alberto Di Pace. As well as the new branch in Milan, the agency will open branches in other cities in the south — the mafia’s heartland — Maroni said.
The Calabrian mafia or ‘Ndrangheta has become one of the most powerful criminal organisations in Italy and is reported to have extended its power base through the European drug trafficking market.
The ‘Ndrangheta has links to South American drug cartels and criminal organisations in Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.
The Sicilian mafia, the Naples mafia in the southern Campania region are Italy’s other two main organised criminal groups. There is also the Sacra Colonna Unita in the southern Puglia region.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Defiant Over Phone Tap Bill
Rome, 22 May (AKI) — Italy’s justice minister Angelino Alfano has defended a controversial Italian bill that drastically curbs the freedom of investigators to bug telephone conversations and imposes possible jail terms and heavy fines for reporting on criminal probes before charges are filed.
“There has a been a lot of misunderstanding over our bill, which is in keeping with three articles of the Italian constitution,” Alfano stated.
“Phone intercepts can be carried out for the same type of crime as under current law. No further restrictions have been introduced. For mafia crime and terrorism, the whole legal framework remains unaltered and there is no change to the wiretaps allowed in the case of fugitives from justice.”
Alfano’s comments came after a top US justice official said US prosecutors did not want any measures that would cut off the flow of what he called “extraordinarily helpful” information from Italian organised crime prosecutors.
US assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer, who oversees the US justice department’s criminal division, declined to comment directly on the bill.
But speaking to reporters in Rome on Friday, Breuer said: “From a prosecutor’s point of view, we don’t want anything to occur that would hamper the Italians from doing their job in fighting organised crime.”
He called electronic eavesdropping “an essential part” of such investigations.
After Bruer’s remarks, Alfano issued a statement saying: “There is full agreement with Washington on the ways and objectives to cooperate against organised crime.”
But the bill, which is currently being debated in the Italian Senate, has drawn sharp criticism from Italian prosecutors, media and journalists’ unions, which are holding a series of protests and planning a strike against it.
Sicilian prosecutors have said the bill would make it nearly impossible to catch mafia fugitives or uncover their crimes.
The Italian centre-left opposition claims media mogul Berslusconi is looking out for his own interests and that of his political allies, several of whom have been targeted by anti-mafia and other criminal probes.
Berlusconi, 73, owns Mediaset, the country’s biggest private television broadcaster, and Arnoldo Mondadori, the largest magazine publisher. He is currently on trial for bribery and tax fraud.
Mondadori refused to sign a joint statement promoted among Italian publishers denouncing the bill, which foresees a penalty of as much as 465,000 euros for printing information on criminal investigations.
But Italian journalists working for Mediaset’s Tg5 news and several other Media programmes will reportedly join in the protests against the bill being held by press unions.
Italy’s national association of journalists will also challenge the law at the European Court of Human Rights if it is passed, according to a statement on its website.
The US-based democracy watchdog Freedom House has said the bill breaches international standards of press freedom.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Extortionist’ Family Arrested in South
Messina, 22 May (AKI) — Anti-mafia police arrested a man, his wife and son near the Silician port city of Messina Saturday on suspicion of extortion. The family allegedly belongs to the Batanesi clan and used threats and violence against a company building a local wind farm to force it to hire the son as a night watchman and the mother as a cleaner.
The Italian government has adopted a tough approach to organised crime and has stepped up arrests since in took office in May 2008.
Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni last week said 5,300 mafia members had been arrested in the past two years.
During that period the government seized 11 billion euros worth of mafia assets and arrested 360 mafia fugitives, including 24 of the 30 most wanted Italian criminals, Maroni said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Turin Police Raid Scientology Chapter
Sect suspected of inappropriately using sensitive personal data
(ANSA) — Turin, May 20 — Police raided a local Scientology chapter here and discovered a hidden archive which contained not only information on the group’s members but also on the sect’s ‘enemies’, the Turin daily La Stampa reported on Thursday.
Police were acting on a warrant issued by magistrates who have opened a probe into the religion which is suspected of violating laws governing the handling of personal information.
According to La Stampa, police searched the chapter on Via Bersezio for some nine hours and in the basement, behind a locked door, found the sect’s secret archive which had files on magistrates, policemen, journalists and relatives of former members. La Stampa said magistrates were now examining these documents which were “chock full” of sensitive information dealing with sexual habits, health and political inclinations.
In 2000, the Italian supreme Court of Cassation recognised Scientology as a religion but said it was organised as a business and thus subject to taxation.
Member are said to pay high fees for counseling or ‘auditing’ to advance through the religion’s various ‘levels’.
Scientology has been at the center of controversy because of its nature as a sect, which has led to accusations of fraud, and many countries do not qualify it as a religion.
Aside from charging high fees to its members, Scientologists have drawn criticism for aggressively reacting to critics and their opposition to psychiatry, which they consider to be destructive and abusive and say should be outlawed.
Scientology, which claims to focus on spiritual rehabilitation, was founded in the early 1950s by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and evolved out of his self-help program Dianetics.
Despite its controversy, it has drawn a number of high-profile celebrities including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta and musicians Isaac Hayes and Chick Corea.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Wiretaps ‘Essential’, US Says
Justice Department official says ‘excellent job’ must continue
(see related story on site).
(ANSA) — Rome, May 21 — A United States anti-Mafia official on Friday voiced concern over plans to limit the use of wiretaps by Italian police.
At present, Italian anti-Mafia prosecutors can use wiretaps for as long as they want.
Under a bill currently moving through parliament, they would be authorised for a maximum of 60 days.
Italian prosecutors also claim the new draft legislation would make it harder to obtain wiretaps in the first place.
But Silvio Berlusconi’s government says the fight against the Mafia would not be affected by the new norms, and on Friday Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said “Nothing needed to fight the Mafia will be touched”.
However, US Justice Department Undersecretary Lanny A.
Brauer told a press conference at the US embassy later Friday that “we would never want anything to happen to prevent Italian magistrates from continuing to do the excellent job they have been doing up till now”.
Brauer, who holds the organised crime portfolio at the justice department, stressed that “wiretaps are an essential tool for investigations”.
“Italian legislation has been very effective thus far. We wouldn’t like to see anything happen to hinder efforts”.
Brauer stressed the “excellent collaboration” between the US and Italy in the fight against organised crime.
“Italy has made great progress in the investigation and prosecution of Mafia groups operating inside its borders,” he said, while adding “I am aware we can and must do more”.
Italy and the US have scored several recent successes against international drug trafficking by Cosa Nostra and other groups.
In March Italian police and the FBI arrested 26 suspects in an operation against a powerful Cosa Nostra clan in Palermo and US affiliates including three Gambino family ‘capi’ in New York.
Agents said the two-year operation showed how the Italian and US branches of the Sicilian Mafia were still working “closely” together.
Italy’s chief of police, Antonio Manganelli, said Friday that “wiretaps are one of the tools at investigators’ disposal and if (the government) intends to cut them or regulate them in a different way, we must be given the possibility of using other instruments”.
“And in Italy there is no set of other instruments to resort to, as there is, for example, in the United States,” he said, referring to sting operations and undercover activities. Italian prosecutors have claimed that they would not have been able to capture the last two Cosa Nostra kingpins, Salvatore (Toto’) Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, if the upcoming wiretap rules had been in force.
The government has rejected these claims but there have been unconfirmed reports that Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party is weighing changes to the bill.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anchor Makes Political Waves by Quitting Flagship Show
Busi unhappy with allegedly pro-government editorial line
(ANSA) — Rome, May 21 — Italian anchor Maria Luisa Busi made political waves on Friday when she quit state broadcaster RAI’s flagship evening TG1 news show in protest at its allegedly pro-government editorial line.
Busi gave her reasons for withdrawing in a letter pinned to the editorial notice board after a series of clashes with TG1 editor Augusto Minzolini, who was reportedly hand-picked for the job by Premier Silvio Berlusconi last year.
“All our solidarity goes to Maria Luisa Busi, a great professional and the umpteenth victim of an abuse of power by the mercenaries who answer to the orders of (Berlusconi’s Rome residence) Palazzo Grazioli,” said Antonio Di Pietro, the leader of the Italy of Values opposition party.
“What’s happening at RAI is unacceptable,” he added, claiming that Busi’s move comes after several other RAI reporters had been marginalised.
“Upstanding journalists are being mortified and penalised to make way for sheep controlled from Palazzo Grazioli.” Government supporters, however, suggested Busi was unhappy at the balance they say Minzolini has brought to the show’s political reporting.
“I express my solidarity with Minzolini and the majority of the TG1 reporters, who had to suffer a surreal sermon from Maria Luisa Busi today,” said Daniele Capezzone, the spokesman for Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party.
“This protagonism from someone who feels untouchable is unacceptable to those who pay the RAI licence fee and had to put up with biased reporting in the Left’s favour for years without it upsetting Busi.
“Today TG1 is being rewarded in the ratings and maybe someone doesn’t like it”.
The show and its main rival on Berlusconi’s Mediaset network, TG5, were fined for “greatly” under-reporting the Democratic Party, the main opposition group, in favour of the PdL in the run-up to March’s regional elections.
TG1’s editorial committee said Busi’s unprecedented gesture was a “call for reflection” as it expressed the unease of “part of the editorial team about the direction Augusto Minzolini has made TG1 take.” Minzolini, who is under investigation with Berlusconi on suspicion of trying to pull the plug on a purportedly government-hostile talk show on RAI, rejected accusations that he was pro-Berlusconi.
“My news programme has never been biased,” he told ANSA. “I have always given voice to everyone and the ratings vouch for me. The accusations made against me by my colleague are false.
“I don’t agree with a line of her letter.” Minzolini also suggested Busi may have quit to anticipate a switch from the evening slot that he was considering making anyway.
Italy’s journalists union called on RAI’s management to intervene after the development and the broadcaster’s president agreed that the situation should be looked into.
“Maria Luisa Busi’s decision is another worrying signal of a situation that requires maximum attention from the company’s top management, Paolo Garimberti said, “attention that for some time I’ve been calling for at the appropriate venue, the board of directors”. Michele Santoro, the presenter of Annozero, the show Minzolini is suspected of trying to pull, resigned this week, reportedly in exchange for a multi-million-euro deal to produce different kinds of programmes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Briatore Probed for Dodging Yacht Duties
Flamboyant ex-F1 boss ‘broke EU rules’
(ANSA) — Genoa, May 21 — Former Formula One motor racing boss Flavio Briatore has been placed investigation on suspicion of dodging European Union duty on fuel for a luxury yacht.
The 62-metre yacht, Force Blue, was seized by Italian tax police off La Spezia on the Ligurian Riviera Thursday.
The CEO of the company that owns the yacht, registered in the British Virgin Islands, has also been placed under investigation.
The yacht itself is registered in the Cayman Islands.
Briatore, former boss of F1 team Renault, is said to have been the main user of the yacht in EU waters.
According to police who have been monitoring the yacht’s movements for over a year, Briatore and the company, which was not identified, may be liable for more than half a million euros in unpaid fuel duties.
According to EU regulations, police said, yachts registered outside the EU may only avoid paying duty if they leave EU waters within eight hours of refuelling.
Briatore and the yacht’s owners are also liable for about four million euros in unpaid VAT on the yacht’s estimated worth of some 20 million euros, police said.
The flamboyant Briatore, who is famed for his celebrity parties, is believed to have used the yacht mainly to travel to his exclusive Sardinian night club The Billionaire.
Briatore was banned from F1 last year for race fixing at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix but the ban was later overturned.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morales on Anti Climate Change Campaign in Finland
Bolivian President Evo Morales is perhaps the most radical voice raised in opposition to the evils of climate change. During a visit to Finland, the Bolivian President continued his anti climate change campaign.
The socialist president received an extremely warm welcome when he arrived in Finland on Friday. A member of the Aimari indigenous group, he is the first politician of indigenous background to have been elected to his country’s highest political office.
Following his arrival in Finland Friday, the Bolivian President held talks with President Tarja Halonen, in which he discussed climate issues and the bilateral transfer of clean technology. He also met with Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
A central theme of the discussions was climate change and its remedies, with Pachamama — mother earth — a recurring figure in the Bolivian’s discourses.
“The best way to defend human rights is to defend the rights of mother earth. Brothers and sisters, I am convinced that the earth can exist without man, but that man cannot survive without the earth,” he declared.
Along with other Latin American socialist countries, Bolivia chose not to underwrite last December’s Copenhagen declaration and its watered down agreement to combat climate change, forged at the climat summit in Denmark. It doesn’t mean that he’s not concerned about climate change. On the contrary, Morales is currently the most radical voice in the struggle to keep the planet healthy.
“Global warming must be limited to one degree, not the two degrees called for by the industrialised countries, or the three or four degrees that our current lifestyles will lead to,” he demanded.
At the Copenhagen summit, Morales announced his own parallel conference on climate change, dubbed “The People’s Conference”, which took place in Bolivia in April. Some 35,000 participants from more than 150 countries attended the event.
Morales’ summit declaration was pointed: the conference agreed to set up a global climate justice tribunal and to outline a declaration on the rights of mother earth. Next year there will be a worldwide referendum against climate change.
According to Morales, mother earth’s worst enemy is unbridled capitalism.
“There are two alternative routes: we can either save capitalism or we can save mother earth,” said the Bolivian president, who over the past four years has nationalized some of his country’s most important productive sectors, including as gas and oil.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Paolo Flores D’Arcais’s Campaign Against the Vatican
MicroMega 12.05.2010 (Italy)
Philosopher Paolo Flores d’Arcais continues his campaign against the Vatican. This time he answers a letter which the former spokesman for John Paul II, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, wrote in Repubblica, outlining the central role that religion plays in Italy today. “For Navarro, Italy is clearly the promised land in which he can experiment with the hierarchical Catholicism that he has chosen as his lobestar: ‘A democracy must recognise the value of the truth of human religiosity. It should be recognised as a universal right which, for the common good, cannot be relinquished.’ Very papal indeed. But arguments like these shut out the atheist, the sceptic and the non-believer is shut out and make them feel like second-class citizens. Atheism not only has no place in this universal right, it is implicitly regarded as a obstruction to the common good. And to make sure no one could misunderstand his message, Navarro added, ‘that it is practically impossible to ignore the political and social value of religion, without also questioning the legitimacy of state jurisdiction.’ Oh really?”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Woman Offered ‘£200 to be Sterilised’
A woman has claimed she was approached near a health centre in Glasgow by three women who offered her £200 if she agreed to be sterilised.
Deborah Wilson said the offer was made as she left Possilpark Health Centre with her nine-year-old son on Friday.
Ms Wilson said the women told her they were from Project Prevention, a US group which pays drug addicts to be voluntarily sterilised.
Police advised anyone approached in a similar way to contact them.
Ms Wilson, a mother-of-two, said she was shaken by the incident.
“As we left the health centre I saw three ladies coming out of a car and they told me there was this new scheme, offering £200,” she said.
Barbara Harris is the founder of Project Prevention “Then I saw a bit of paper in her hand and it had drug addicts written on it.
“I’m not a addict. I think I was approached because I was in the Possilpark area — it’s a well-known area for drugs — but that’s where my doctor is based.”
Ms Wilson said she was particularly angry because the women had asked her in front of her son.
“I’m very hurt and angry that someone could approach me in the street and ask me those sorts of questions at all, let alone when I had my nine-year-old with me,” she said.
An argument
“I asked her to leave me alone but she kept going on and on so I had an argument with her and got on the bus to go home.
“My son knew they were asking me questions, and he asked me what it meant to be sterilised.”
Ms Wilson, who said she also saw the women approaching others after she had left, said she contacted Strathclyde Police when she returned home.
A Strathclyde Police spokesman said they believed it had been an isolated incident but advised anyone similarly approached to contact their local police station.
Project Prevention’s website states that its aim is to reduce the number of “substance-exposed” births to zero.
The group was not available for comment.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Spain-Morocco: Madrid, Sovereignty of Enclaves Not Questioned
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 18 — The “sovereignty” and the Spanish roots of Ceuta and Melilla are not in question in any way,” assured Deputy Premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, speaking to the media today, responding to a request made to the Spanish government by Moroccan Prime Minister Abas El Fasi on “opening a dialogue” to put an end to the “occupation” of the two Spanish enclaves in the North African country. According to de la Vega, Spanish dominion is not up for discussion and “Morocco understands this position,” observed the Deputy Premier, who focussed on the “very good” relations that currently exist between the two countries. Relations which, she pointed out, have intensified during the Spanish presidency of the EU, with the organisation of the EU-Morocco summit, recently held in Granada. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Aragon Approves Shared Custody of Children
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 20 — The Aragon Parliament has today passed a ground-breaking law for Spain, setting up the shared custody of children for separated or divorced couples as the default rule in the absence of any legal impediments which would bar either of the parents. The regulation was passed by practically every one of the parties in parliament: Psoe, PP, Chunta Aragonesista and Par, while the IU opposed a part of the text. As Maria Herrero, the law’s promoter, explained, it aims at inverting the current trend whereby in 90% of separations or divorces, children are placed in the custody of the mother. It indicates that shared custody should be preferred in the absence of any alternative arrangements between the former couple, in order to promote the interests of minors and equality between parents. Shared custody does not necessarily lead to alternating residence with the mother or the father for equal amounts of time, but sets up “an adequate amount of time” to attain the objectives of shared custody. It also provides that the family home be assigned to the most needy of the partners. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Launches Inquiry Into Forced Marriage
The Swedish government has announced the launch of an inquiry aimed at tightening legislation banning forced and child marriages, which it identified as a continuing problem.
“Many times these types of marriages are entered into abroad and often affect girls and boys, young women and young men, who often live in a reality of honour-related violence and oppression,” integration and equality minister Nyamko Sabuni and justice minster Beatrice Ask said in a joint statement on Thursday.
The ministers said the investigation, which will be led by the former chancellor of justice, Göran Lambertz, will seek to gather more information on forced marriages and marriages involving minors, with the aim of “suggesting measures to bring about a strong protection against such marriages.”
“We know that for some young people the summer holidays are a cause of concern. We know that every summer a number of young people are forced to travel to their parent’s home countries for marriages against their will,” the statement read.
On May 1st 2004, Sweden changed its marriage laws to make marriage under the
age of 18 illegal, even if the marriage was entered into abroad. The government wants to see if further restrictions are required and enforceable such as against so-called proxy marriages to try to ensure that marriages are entered into voluntarily by all parties.
Until then, it was possible for citizens of countries were the legal marrying age was under 18 to marry in Sweden from the age of 15 and up without requesting special permission.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Killer Migrants: 40 Per Cent of Murder Charges Go to Foreigners
UP to 40 per cent of murder suspects in parts of Britain last year were immigrants, the News of the World can reveal.
And a staggering one-in-three of those charged with RAPE in other regions of England and Wales also came from abroad.
These worrying statistics provided by police forces will fuel political debate about Britain’s porous borders and the link to serious crimes.
In London’s Metropolitan Police area last year, out of 602 people charged with rape, a total of 183 — or more than 30 per cent — were from outside the UK. They included 10 Romanians, nine Poles, four Afghans, four immigrants from the Congo and two Kosovans.
Of 197 charged with murder, 46 were foreigners — more than 23 per cent. This included seven Jamaicans and three each from India, Lithuania and Nigeria.
The murder trend was highlighted again in Hertfordshire, where four of the ten people on murder charges were foreigners — 40 per cent of the total. And in the Thames Valley four out of 13 murder suspects were immigrants, or 31 per cent.
Gerard Batten, Euro-MP for the UK Independence Party, said: “Basically, we let anyone in and these new figures show many of them are criminals of the worst kind.
“The victims are paying the price for successive government failures to control immigration.”
Our shock figures were disclosed when 26 forces responded to a Freedom of Information request. The rise in immigrant suspects poses a problem for police, who face an estimatedA325million a year bill for translation.
Earlier this year the prison service revealed that one in seven inmates is now foreign, coming from 160 of the 192 UN countries.
Nationalities making up the majority of the 11,546 prisoners were Jamaica, Nigeria, Ireland, Vietnam, Poland, China and Somalia.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK’s Child Mortality Rate Falls Behind Other Countries
[Note the complete lack of attribution with respect to an increase in immigrant population. This, despite the fact that Pakistanis in Britain experience a rate of birth defects some THIRTEEN times higher than that of the regular populace. Experts have attributed this to the practice of consanguineous marriage (between cousins) that is common in Muslim cultures. — Z]
The UK is lagging behind other high income countries on cutting child mortality, international figures show. Along with the USA, New Zealand and South Korea, child deaths in the UK have not fallen as quickly as expected.
The research confirms the UK has the highest child mortality rate — 5.3 per 1,000 live births — in Western Europe.
But new global estimates published by The Lancet show that in many poorer countries, the decline in deaths in the under-fives is speeding up.
The analysis done by a team at the University of Washington in Seattle found stark differences in child deaths between high-income countries.
As well as having the worst child mortality in Western Europe, globally the UK fell from 12th best in 1970 to 33rd best in 2010.
The UK has reduced its mortality by three quarters since 1970, and by almost half since 1990, but Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Spain have all overtaken the UK in the past four decades.
Global targets
Overall, the researchers found that deaths in children under the age of five are actually lower than the latest estimate provided by Unicef.
Worldwide mortality in children younger than five years has dropped from 11·9 million deaths in 1990 to an estimated 7·7 million deaths in 2010.
A third of those deaths occur in south Asia and half occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
The researchers said the latest data show that cuts in child mortality have been faster than projected in many poorer countries.
In 13 regions of the world, including all regions in sub-Saharan Africa, the figures suggested faster declines from 2000 to 2010 compared with the previous decade.
Study leader Dr Christopher Murray said the apparent acceleration of progress in poorer countries was encouraging evidence that it was worth intensifying efforts further.
He said improved education for women, the lessening negative impact of HIV, and expansion in programmes such as bed nets and vaccination had all played a part in the improvements seen in developing countries in the past decade.
Dr Murray agreed that the UK had seen a “big slide” in its ranking in terms of child mortality.
“When you get to these low levels of child mortality seen in high income countries, healthcare probably is an important component in the variation.
“Most of the deaths in places like the UK will be neonatal and you would have to look in more detail at what aspects of healthcare might explain that difference.”
A Department of Health spokesman said infant mortality in the UK is at its lowest ever level.
“However, the death of any child is one death too many and we must continue to do all we can to prevent those we can.
“This is why every child death is now subject to a detailed review to understand why children die and what steps can be taken to protect other children.”
[See article for graphs]
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Al Jazeera Launches in Bosnia
(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, MAY 21 — Representatives of the Al Jazeera television network will be arriving in Sarajevo next week to sign a contract to buy local TV station TV-99, reports today’s edition of the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni avaz. Although it is to be based in Sarajevo, the new network of the pan-Arab broadcaster will be viewable beyond Bosnia, whether via cable or via satellite, in countries such as Serbia and Croatia. It will probably go under the name of ‘Balcani-Al Jazira’. Which is why talks are already under way with famous names on the journalistic scene of the three countries, and 600-800 hours of productions by the Qatar-based network are being translated into local languages. According to the paper, start of broadcasting has been set for November, following Bosnia’s parliamentary elections, which are due to take place on October 2. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Police Arrest Five Radical Islamists
Pristina, 22 May (AKI) — Kosovo police have arrested five members of the fundamentalist Wahabi Islamic movement who are suspected of “criminal activities, “police spokesman Hazir Berisa said on Saturday. He did not specify if those arrested were suspected of recruiting terrorists or plotting attacks.
Berisa said the five suspects were associated with a humanitarian organisation called Iskrenost (Sincerity).
The arrests took place late on Friday in the southwest city of Prizren in an operation in which 120 police officers were deployed. Berisa said police confiscated a large quantity of weapons during the operation, including automatic rifles, pistols, ammunition and uniforms.
The Wahabi movement originated in Saudi Arabia in the 17th century. Wahabi ideology preaches a ‘pure’ form of Islam. It was brought to the Balkans by Arab ‘mujahadeen’ fighters who fought on the side of local Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.
Many former ‘mujahadeen’ remained in the region after the war indoctrinating local youths and even operating terrorist training camps, according to foreign intelligence sources.
Tensions between Wahabis and mainstream Muslims have been simmering in the Balkans for some years as the Wahabi ideology preaches religious intolerance towards other religious groups, including moderate Muslims.
Wahabis have sought to gain influence in Bosnia-Heregovina and also in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.
Since the Bosnian war, radical Islamists have often operated under the guise of humanitarian organisations from Islamic countries and several such charities have been banned in Bosnia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece-Libya: Papandreou Meets Premier Al-Mahmudi
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MAY 21 — Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has met his Libyan counterpart Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmudi in Athens today, during the latter’s official visit to Greece. The meeting included talks on matters such as cooperation, especially in the energy sector, renewable energy sources, construction and tourism. “We are most satisfied that the international community has recognised the important role played by Libya and is on good terms with her” Papandreou said, recalling the traditionally good relations between the two countries. Meanwhile, the Libyan Prime Minister referred to Papandreou as a “friend and brother” stressing the close relations between Libya and Greece. “In Libya,” Ali al-Mahmudi noted, “we have a clear political line as regards cooperation with Greece and we are equally clear about helping her to overcome the financial crisis”. Al-Mahmudi has invited Papandreou to Tripoli for the signing of economic agreements.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cannes: ‘Hors La Loi’ Looks at Algerian Reasons
(ANSAmed) — CANNES, MAY 21 — The Rachid Bouchareb film “Hors la Loi”, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, was presented today amid imposing security measures. The security worries are due to the content of the film, which tells the story of the Algerian liberation movement (FLN, the National Liberation Front), beginning in 1945 with the massacre of French colonists in Setif, through to 1962, the year of liberation. Without having seen the film, the French deputy Lionnel Luca (from the right-wing UMP party) has accused the film of negationism, and of falsifying history, accusing the director of being “irresponsible and lighting the blue touch-paper”. Such an accusation is certainly unfair, because the film is honest in showing the violence from both sides, though it remains unusual to see a feature film today in which the Arabs are portrayed as good (even if, in truth, Gillles Pontecorvo previously achieved this in his 1966 film “The Battle of Algiers”). In some quarters, it is thought that this could ignite terrorist activity. The Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb (who previously directed “Indigenes” which in 2006 won the prize for the best cast) has used the same extraordinary line-up four years later, using brilliant actors such as Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila, who play three brothers expelled from Algeria by the French in 1925 along with their mother and father, and who arrive in the 1950s in the most squalid of Parisian slums. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: 23 Foreigners Deported for ‘Proselytising Christianity’
Rabat, 21 May (AKI) — Moroccan authorities have deported 23 foreigners accused of proselytising Christianity, Moroccan daily al-Tajdid reports. It was the second group of foreigners to be expelled from Morocco for alleged missionary activities.
Around 40 foreigners, mainly Americans, were allegedly evangelising in Morocco for Protestant churches in the United States.
A source at the US embassy in Rabat said British, French, Spanish and Canadian citizens were among those expelled.
Moroccans who convert to Christianity can face persecution, according to a source at a church in the western Moroccan city of Marrakech.
“At the moment, people are staying away from church for fear of reprisals after the action taken by authorities against foreign missionaries,” the source said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Property Fair in Paris, To be Spoilt for Choice
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 20 — The old cities are being restored, the riads are more and more attractive, new seaside resorts are sprouting up like never before, the whole of Morocco is a building site, and there is a chance to purchase a pied-a-terre in the country of sun and hospitality with any budget. This is according to the organisers of the Moroccan Property Fair, which is being held from tomorrow until May 24 at the Palais des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles in Paris, where, they say, visitors will be “spoilt for choice”. Almost all of the country is accessible with any budget, from the imperial cities to the seaside towns. The rapid growth of transport hubs and the extension of big cities, as well as the creation of new ones, provide a wide and varied range of possibilities. The seventh edition of the fair will be an opportunity to discover the Plan Azur, which will see the creation of six new seaside resorts (Mogador, Lixus, Taghazout, Plage Blanche, Saidia and Mazagan) inaugurated in 2009 and 5 projects for new towns currently being built, including Tamansourte, 14 km from the centre of Marrakech, and Tamesna, which will reduce the oressure on nearby Rabat by being able to house around 250,000 people. There is also the Plan Biladi, which will see the creation of tourist residencies, villages for family holidays and camping in the country’s main tourist regions. The Plan Madain launches a number of building sites for new spaces in Fes, Agadir, Tangiers, Tetouan and Casablanca, the economic capital, for which a development plan is expected to oversee profound changes in the coming decades. For Marrakech, the favourite city of the French, around 1,600 projects have been approved for the next five years, of which about three out of four are geared towards tourism. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
With 2009 Growth, Morocco Top of North Africa List
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, MAY 20 — Of all North African countries, Morocco is the nation that best stood up to the international crisis, maintaining important growth even in 2009, the blackest of years for the world’s economies.
According to the Economic Report on Africa (ERA-2010), Morocco registered a 5.3% rise, which compares favourably to the +4.7% in Egypt, +3% in Tunisia, +2.3% in Mauritania, +2.1% in Algeria and +1.8% in Libya. As a while, North Africa recorded growth of 3.5% in 2009, compared to 4.1% in 2008.
According to the report, “in Morocco and Egypt, the retreat of external demand was compensated by strong internal demand stimulated by anti-cyclical budget measures and by good monetary conditions”.
In Morocco, growth was favoured by exceptional agricultural production, while in Egypt it was the result of the intensification of construction and telecommunications activity. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Fresh Incident, Israeli Soldier Injured
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MAY 21 — Another incident has been reported from the borders of the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli television station Channel 2, an Israeli soldier has been hurt this evening by shots fired by a Palestinian sniper from within the Strip. The soldier’s condition does not appear to be serious. Close to the border with the Strip, Israel’s military authorities have imposed a state of high alert following the killing of two Palestinian militia who had infiltrated some hundreds of metres into Neghev. According to reports from Gaza, the two were members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. In the Israeli villages close to the Gaza Strip, many have decided to spend the night in bunkers.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Family Strife Blamed for High Suicide Rate Among Turkish Women
A new initiative aims to lower the disproportionately high number of suicide attempts among young German-Turkish women thought to be caused by familial conflicts.
While a nationwide study has yet to be undertaken, regional data from Cologne and Frankfurt shows that young women of Turkish background try to kill themselves twice as often as their German counterparts, daily Die Weltreported on Friday.
But a cooperation between Berlin’s Charité hospital and the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf that began in early 2009 aims to find out the reasons behind the disturbing numbers.
Both facilities are now monitoring the statistics for suicide attempts by young women from Germany’s largest immigrant population that are treated in their emergency rooms — in particular the reason the patients say they wanted to die, the paper said.
“We surmise the reason for the increase in suicide rates are conflicts within the family,” Charité study leader Meryam Schouler-Ocak told the paper. “For example the girls perhaps want a boyfriend, or they want to go out to clubs with their circle of friends. Or imagine when a girl is supposed to marry someone she doesn’t want to marry.”
Papatya, an help centre for young female immigrants in Berlin, told the paper that it frequently helps women who already have already attempted suicide in the past.
“Often it’s a desperate attempt to give the family a sign that something must change that isn’t being heard, or that the family doesn’t want to believe,” a spokeswoman said. “Sometimes the girls have told us, ‘I’d rather kill myself than let my brother do it’.”
Charité’s Schouler-Ocak said that many of the women who try to kill themselves are completely dependent on their family or husband — particularly those young those who have come directly from Turkey as “import brides.”
Because family problems within the Turkish community are traditionally handled privately, Schouler-Ocak said study organisers are working on distributing information on places for women to get help where they are most likely to see them.
The new intervention efforts, set to begin in Berlin this June, are focussed on posters and flyers in a media campaign to promote a new Turkish-language, anonymous crisis hotline within the community. Key community members such as teachers and doctors will also be trained to spread the word.
But the campaign will not be undertaken in Hamburg so that the two cities can compare the effectiveness of the measures, the paper said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Slate Asks Why Paul Berman is Not Being Discussed by Arab Intellectuals
Slate 13.05.2010 (USA)
Michael Young, opinions editor of the Daily Star in Beirut wishes that Arab intellectuals would read Paul Berman’s book on Tariq Ramadan, “The Flight of the Intellectuals”, because his particular brand of hypocrisy is widespread. “In demanding clarification from Ramadan, Berman effectively demands that all Arabs and Muslims, particularly those purporting to be liberals, clarify where they stand on the major issues affecting the Middle East and Islam. It is not enough to hide behind Israeli brutality and denunciations of American imperialism. You cannot speak with a forked tongue on violence, anti-Semitism, brutality toward women, and much else, and still claim to embrace humanistic values. Paul Berman has not been offered a seat at the table of so-called specialists on the Middle East. For them, his fault is to take words at their value in a region where the truth is said to lie in the nuances. But his fault happens to be a liberal one; clarity alone can bring on genuine dialogue.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Strasburg Court Condemns Turkey
(ANSAmed) — STRASBURG, MAY 21 — The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for having banned a US academic from returning to the country. According to the Strasburg judges, the decision taken by Ankara was unjustifiable. During the 1980s, Norma Cox was working as a lecturer at two Turkish universities. The country’s Interior Ministry expelled her in 1986 for some statements the academic allegedly made to her colleagues and students on matters concerning the Kurds and the Armenians. Cox returned to Turkey and was arrested in 1989 while distributing leaflets against Martin Scorzese’s film, “The Last Temptation of Christ”. She was expelled once again. In 1996, following a trip to Turkey, the authorities wrote on her passport that she may no longer enter the country. Cox challenged this decision, but the ban became definitive in 2001 following a ruling by Turkey’s Supreme Administrative Court. According to the judges in Strasburg, however, the Turkish authorities were not able to demonstrate the grounds for their ruling and in particular they did not supply any arguments as to why Ms Cox constituted a danger to the nation’s security. The Court ruled that Ms Cox should receive compensation of 12,000 euros from Ankara for moral damages incurred. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Defies Western Pressure Over Hezbollah
DAMASCUS (Reuters) — Syria defied Western pressure on Sunday over its support for the militant group Hezbollah and said it will not act as a policeman for the Jewish state to prevent weapons from reaching the Lebanese Shi’ite movement.
“Did Israel ever stop arming itself, did it stop instigating violence or making military maneuvers, why are arms forbidden to Arabs and allowed to Israel?” Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said after meeting his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle.
Citing Israeli occupation of Arab land and the technical state of war between Syria and Israel, Moualem said the Damascus government “will not be a policeman for Israel.”
“Israel is beating the drum of war. In the absence of real peace everything is possible,” he added.
Syria, a country Washington says is critical for Middle East peace, has shown no signs of withdrawing backing for Hezbollah, which is also supported by Iran, although the issue has clouded a rapprochement between Damascus and Washington.
The row intensified when Israeli President Shimon Peres last month accused Syria, which borders Lebanon, of sending long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah.
Syria said it only gives Hezbollah political backing and that Israel may be using the accusation as a pretext for a military strike.
“A Scud missile is as big as this room. How could it be hidden and smuggled with Israeli planes and satellites all over the region?” Moualem asked, adding that cumbersome Scuds were not suited to Hezbollah’s guerrilla tactics.
Hezbollah’s weapons have been a focus of Western diplomacy toward Syria in the last several months. Senator John Kerry, who had raised the issue with President Bashar al-Assad last month, met Assad again in the Syrian capital on Saturday.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also met Assad earlier.
France had led Western moves to rehabilitate Syria, but Kouchner said on May 2 that Hezbollah’s array of weapons made the situation “dangerous” and that France wants Syria to “guarantee the security” of the Syrian-Lebanese border.
Hezbollah used hundreds of shorter-range rockets against Israeli in a 2006 war that cost Lebanon a heavy civilian toll but failed to neutralize Hezbollah as a fighting force.
Israel said then Hezbollah’s supplies were coming through Syria, but it chose not to widen the war.
The United States has avoided giving a view on whether the Scud transfer happened.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said senior U.S. officials have raised the issue of the suspected transfer of more sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah with Assad who “was making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region.”
A U.S. official said President Barack Obama is likely to raise U.S. concerns about Syria arming Hezbollah when he meets Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Yemeni Cleric: Kill US Citizens
New al-Qaeda video features US-born cleric
(AP) — American-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have inspired the Fort Hood shooter and would-be underwear bomber, is advocating the killing of American civilians in an al-Qaeda video released today. “The American people, in general, are taking part in this and they elected this administration and they are financing the war,” he said. The US-born al-Awlaki is on the CIA’s assassination list, despite his US citizenship; the White House responded that it is actively hunting “murderous thugs” like al-Awlaki.
Al-Awlaki used the 45-minute video to justify civilian deaths—and encourage them—by accusing the United States of intentionally killing a million Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Speaking of Nidal Hasan, the cleric said, “What he did was heroic and great. … I ask every Muslim serving in the US Army to follow suit.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Is Putin in Trouble?
Prime Minister Putin’s party, United Russia, loses support in regional elections.
MOSCOW, Russia — Is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s all-powerful prime minister, in trouble?
Anti-government protests, a rare thing indeed, have begun to draw thousands of people across the country. And on Sunday, United Russia, the party created with the sole purpose of promoting Putin’s agenda, fared far worse than it hoped in regional elections, losing a key mayoral seat and its majority in half of the regions where votes were held.
“Society is tired of United Russia, tired of its dominance, and tired of the dictatorship of bureaucracy,” said Alexander Kynev, a political analyst.
The public mood has perceptively shifted.
Near daily scandals, many involving corrupt police and officials, have only heightened the anger of a people languishing under an economic crisis that shows few signs of easing. Official unemployment stands at 10 percent (independent observers think it is much higher) and a New Year’s rise in utility payments, as part of a slow post-Soviet desubsidization, have hit Russia’s poor particularly hard.
After a smattering of anti-government protests around the country that drew, on average, about 2,000 people each, voters in some of Russia’s most provincial backwaters went to the polls on Sunday to vote for mayors and representatives to local and regional legislatures, or Dumas.
Despite widespread electoral violations — independent elections monitor Golos noted cases where United Russia officials handed out vodka and money, held voting in malls where free gifts were offered, and forced university students to vote — United Russia still failed to sweep the vote with the average 60 percent rate that it has long been used to. That’s the result it got in regional elections held as recently as October.
This time around, the ruling party only managed to take a majority in four of eight regional legislatures, slipping below 50 percent in Far Eastern Khabarovsk, Altai and Kurgan in Siberia and Sverdlovsk in the Urals, according to preliminary results.
Because of vote-rigging, the party’s true showing was much lower, critics say.
“They can’t falsify 50 percent of the votes,” said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and one of the leaders of Solidarity, an umbrella opposition group. He estimated that from 10 to 15 percent of votes are forged.
“There haven’t been elections in this country — in the normal, human way of understanding them — for many years. No debates or competition, with falsifications and mechanisms of fake voting,” he said. “It’s a farce. It’s idiotic.”
Sergei Mitrokhin, head of Yabloko, the only liberal party registered in Russia, agreed. Yabloko was barred, as it has been in the past, from participating in most regional votes it had applied for. Yet where it did take part, in the city of Tula outside Moscow, it managed to take more than 11 percent of the vote, winning representation.
“This was thanks to protest votes against United Russia,” Mitrokhin said. “Everyone is sick of them.”
The ruling party itself doesn’t seem to think so, saying it received more support than ever and holding rallies around the country on Monday to celebrate its victories.
“People made their choice and showed again that they support the president, Dmitry Anatolievich Medvedev and the prime minister, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the party’s secretary general, said at a meeting at party headquarters on Sunday night, after results started coming in.
“Our support has risen 1.5, sometimes even two times higher,” beamed Boris Gryzlov, another party leader and speaker of the State Duma.
United Russia’s greatest loss came in Irkutsk, the picturesque city near Lake Baikal that is one of Siberia’s biggest. The city has seen several anti-Putin protests in recent weeks, thanks in part to government plans to re-open a paper mill suspected of spewing waste into Baikal. On Sunday, it elected a mayor who ran on the Communist Party ticket.
Viktor Kondrashov took over 62 percent of the vote, while United Russia’s candidate took 27 percent.
“We thought we could win,” Gryzlov acknowledged. “[Kondrashov] is a businessman. He’s not a poor man and could probably put appropriate financing into his campaign. Our candidate was from a regular milieu.”
That milieu is, apparently, very popular with prisoners. The respected Vedomosti business daily reported on Monday that the United Russia candidate won a majority of votes in just one Irkutsk district — the site of the local jail.
Gryzlov also acknowledged the vote was marred by violations, but put the blame on “dirty techniques” used by opposition parties.
What happens now? That’s something few opposition politicians can answer.
Putin remains popular. His latest approval rating, by the state-linked VTsIOM pollster, stands at 73 percent. But calculated using an index that compares his approval to past ratings, that number falls to 49 percent, notes VTsIOM’s Olga Kamenchuk. The Levada Center, an independent pollster, puts his approval at 48 percent, according to their last poll, taken in January.
No party or politician has emerged to challenge Putin’s strength. Even President Dmitry Medvedev, who during a state of the union speech in November promised to liberalize voting in regional elections, continues to fall below Putin in opinion polls.
Yet Nemtsov and Mitrokhin have promised to keep up the pressure through demonstrations. A day of protest will be held across Russia on March 20, from Moscow to the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok.
“We have learned that mass protest actions are possible if there’s a united opposition,” Nemtsov said. The biggest rally so far came last month in Kaliningrad, a small Western exclave that has the misfortune of being located just north of Germany, where downtrodden Russians have a clear view onto the heightened living standards of their European neighbors. Some 10,000 people turned out to protest the policies of Putin and the local governor.
“In our country, there will be another Kaliningrad,” Nemtsov said.
United Russia has been visibly shaken by the increasing discontent. It has launched a loud campaign to lower utilities prices, and scrambled into action to prevent another protest in Kaliningrad.
“They don’t understand how to behave or what to do,” said Kynev, the political analyst. “They’re in hysterics, and lying like madmen.”
“They’re trying to say all is well, but it’s clearly not. Numbers are numbers.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Referees Have Been Bribed, Beaten and Even Murdered… Corruption is Still at a Very High Level
Lord Triesman’s World Cup bribery allegations have been given credence by Russia’s leading football analyst, who claims his country is unfit to host the tournament.
In a startling twist to the former Football Association chairman’s controversial comments, Alexander Bubnov, a former player turned TV pundit, said Russian referees are no longer used in major competitions because of suspicions about match-fixing.
And he claimed the scale of corruption surrounding the game in his country has made its bid to stage the finals in 2018 ‘unrealistic’. There were no Russian officials at Euro 2008 and none has been selected for next month’s World Cup.
Sources have told The Mail on Sunday that Russian referees are also expected to be absent from the Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: A New Type of Radical Islamist
Outlook India 24.05.2010 (India)
In the cover story, Pranay Sharma describes a new type of radical Islamist. They live in the west, have degrees from western universities, they are integrated and affluent. Sharma lists the example of the Pakistani-American finance analyst Faisal Shahzad, who placed the bomb on Times Square, or the American psychiatrist Nidal Makik Hasan who shot 13 people in Fort Hood last November. What role does Osama bin Laden play for these men? He provides them with a wide spectrum of justifications for their acts of terrorism, Sharma says, in which religion plays only a marginal role. Then there are the US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East conflict and now “Al Qaeda’s agenda has expanded to include the cutting-edge issues of politics: environment and globalisation. In his last few public pronouncements, Osama has accused the West of polluting the world, of resorting to globalisation to exploit the underdeveloped world. Experts feel he did this to appeal to those sections which have converted to Islam, or are secular Muslims who can’t hitch themselves to an exclusive Islamic agenda.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: Islamic Finance Growing, Looking to Non-Muslims
The sector, which is worth more than a trillion dollars, is growing rapidly. According to Moody’s, it could grow fivefold. Participants at the World Islamic Economic Forum hear how it could become an instrument for long-term economic stability.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies) — In the midst of a world crisis, Islamic financing is growing. “In some countries, growth is as much as 10-15 per cent annually,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in opening the annual World Islamic Economic Forum in Kuala Lumpur.
Forum participants encourage Muslim countries to back Islamic financing, counting on the positive trend of the sector, which could also interest non-Muslims. “The time is right for this,” Razak said.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Islamic finance is a fast-growing sector, and that it should strive to attract all investors including non-Muslims. “Muslim nations have a good opportunity to achieve greater growth,” he said.
Moody’s Investors Service has forecasted Islamic finance has a market potential of five trillion dollars.
Muslim countries must continue to play a leading role in transforming this sector from being considered niche banking into something that is widely accepted as central to long-term economic stability around the world
Islamic banking, a booming trillion-dollar industry, prohibits the payment and collection of interest, and bans gambling, so highly complex instruments such as derivatives and other creative accounting practices are banned.
The sector also shuns investments in gambling, alcohol and pornography in favour of ethical and socially useful investments.
Real assets must back transactions, whilst the customer and the institution share the risk of any investment and divide any profits between them.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Extends Hand to Taliban… Taliban Bombs US Bases in Afghanistan
Obama announced plans on May 13th that he may offer a peace deal to the Taliban. The Taliban responded this week with 3 attacks in 6 days, striking at the heart of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: We’re in Village, There’s Nothing You Can Do About it…
Last words of ‘honour killing’ father gunned down in wedding day massacre
The British couple and their daughter killed in a bloody family feud in Pakistan were gunned down in an apparent ‘honour killing’ after two armed security guards hired to protect them fled the scene.
The hired hands shot dead one assailant, but ran off when three more appeared.
Furniture manufacturer Mohammad Yousaf, 51, died with wife Pervaze, 49, and daughter Tania, 22, in a hail of bullets from the three gunmen in the Gujrat region of north-east Pakistan.
Mr Yousaf, from Nelson, Lancashire, had hired the two guards before visiting a graveyard in Murirya with his wife and daughter.
Last year he was warned never to set foot in the village, which is home to the family of his son Kamar’s estranged wife Nabeela.
When Kamar and Nabeela, who lived in Nelson and have two children, split up last year, it triggered the feud which led to her brothers warning Mr Yousaf he faced ‘grave consequences’ if he ever returned to their home village.
Mr Yousaf defied the warning after returning to Pakistan with his wife and daughter for the wedding of another of his sons in a village 15 miles away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Arrests Over Times Square Bomb Plot
Pakistan has arrested several suspects in connection with the failed bombing in New York City, officials say.
One of the arrested is the co-owner of a prominent catering firm used by the US embassy in Islamabad, Pakistani officials told news agencies.
It is not clear when the arrests were made. They follow a visit to Pakistan by two senior US security officials.
[…]
The news of the arrests in Islamabad came after the US embassy posted a notice on its website that the catering firm co-owned by one of the arrested men and his father may have links to “terrorist groups”.
The embassy named the company as the Hanif Rajput Catering Service and warned US citizens and firms in Pakistan not to use it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Relatives: 3 Pakistanis Innocent in Times Sq. Case
Relatives of three Pakistanis detained for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing protested the men’s innocence, saying their fervent religious beliefs do not mean they are Islamist extremists.
The family members demanded Sunday that the government either officially charge the men, who have been in custody for at least two weeks, or release them. Pakistan has a history of holding people for months, if not years, without charging them.
The trio are among at least six men who have been detained in Pakistan for alleged ties to Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States two days after the failed May 1 attack in New York. Like Shahzad, the detainees are all from their country’s urban elite, including several who were educated in the United States.
But their relatives expressed concern that the men were being mistakenly targeted because they are devout Muslims who pray five times a day and fast during the holy month of Ramadan — a contrast to some Pakistani elites who live a more Westernized lifestyle.
“Saying prayer is his crime, fasting is his crime, being Muslim is his crime,” said Saima Shahid, whose 32-year-old husband Shahid Hussain is alleged to have helped arrange money for the Times Square suspect.
Both men studied at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, but Shahid did not know if they were at the school at the same time. Hussain returned to Pakistan in 2004 and worked for the courier company DHL and the cell phone company Telenor, she said.
The uncle of another one of the suspects, Ahmad Raza, was equally adamant that his nephew’s religious beliefs did not translate into extremism.
“He sports a beard. He is religious in the sense that he says his prayers and fasts,” Afzal Inayat said about Raza. “That doesn’t mean that he is an extremist.”
Raza, who has an MBA from a private university in Islamabad, worked at an upscale catering company co-owned by the third suspect, Salman Ashraf, whose family also spoke Sunday, .
Pakistani intelligence has said that two of the suspects wanted Ashraf to help bomb a foreign party his company was catering.
But Rana Ashraf Khan, Ashraf’s father and co-owner of the catering company, said his son never displayed any signs of extremism. He was critical of U.S. policies in the region, but that is quite common in Pakistan, he said.
“He is a normal, business-minded person,” he said about Ashraf, who studied hotel management in Florida and computer science in Houston before he returned to Pakistan in 2001.
The other three suspects detained in Pakistan include a former army major and his brother and the owner of a computer dealership in Islamabad, Shoaib Mughal, who is alleged to be a go-between for Shahzad and Pakistani Taliban in their hide-outs close the Afghan border.
Shahzad is accused of leaving an SUV rigged with a homemade car bomb in Times Square on May 1 that failed to explode. The 30-year-old son of a former air force officer was born in Pakistan and lived a privileged childhood before moving to the U.S. when he was 18.
Shahzad has claimed that he received financial support from the Pakistani Taliban for the Times Square attack, according to U.S. law enforcement officials close to the probe.
Two of the suspects detained in Pakistan, Mughal and Hussain, have admitted with pride that they helped Shahzad and don’t believe they did anything wrong, said a Pakistani intelligence official who is part of the team questioning the men.
The other four suspects have also expressed their hatred for the West and the U.S., but have not admitted any links with Shahzad, the official said earlier.
Hussain’s father, Mohammad Ramzan, insisted his son was innocent and demanded that the government officially press charges against his son if they have evidence of wrongdoing.
“It is just a shame, just a shame that our sons are being picked up right in our own country,” said Ramzan, a 75-year-old retired bureaucrat. “I do not have any indication that my son had links with any (militant) group. If there is anything like that, please tell us his crime.”
Rights activist and lawyer Zia Awan said law enforcement agencies in Pakistan are bound by law to present citizens before a court within 24 hours of detaining them to register their case.
With that in mind, Raza’s uncle, Inayat, demanded the government obey the law.
“Provide us justice,” he said. “Provide us fair play.”
Hussain’s 4-year-old daughter Aiza Shahid had a similar request.
“When will I see my father?” she asked after Sunday’s news conference. “I do not know where he is.”
Investigators said Shahzad had several more terror plots planned against American targets. Sources tell CBS 2HD Shazad was also willing to carry out other attacks in Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, the World Financial Center, and at Sikorsky, the Connecticut-based helicopter manufacturer and defense contractor.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Gives U.S. Afghan Drugs Data, Criticizes NATO
Reuters — Russia’s top drugs official gave a list of Afghan and Central Asian drug barons to U.S. anti-drugs tsar Gil Kerlikowske Sunday, but criticized U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan for failing to stem opium output.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Earn $2,372 for Each NATO Soldier Killed
LONDON (The Sunday Times) — Taliban rebels are earning a bounty of up to 2,372 U.S. dollars (£1,640) for each NATO soldier they kill, according to insurgent commanders.
The money is said to come from protection rackets, taxes imposed on opium farmers, donors in the Persian Gulf states who channel money through Dubai and from the senior Taliban leadership in Pakistan.
So far this year 213 NATO soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, including 41 British troops, bringing the potential rewards for the Taliban to 42,600,000 Pakistani rupees or 505,200 U.S. dollars (£349,237).
Taliban commanders said the bounty had more than doubled since the beginning of last year.
The insurgents, who employ “hit and run” tactics against foot patrols and convoys, use paid informants, media reports and the local population to confirm the deaths of NATO soldiers.
“We can’t lie to our commanders: they can check to see if there was a fight in that area. We get money if we capture equipment too. A gun can fetch $1,000 (£690),” said a commander from Khost province who controls about 60 fighters.
The money usually reaches commanders via the traditional hawala transfer system found in many Muslim countries. They then share it among their men and sometimes celebrate with a feast.
“It’s a lot of money for us. We don’t care if we kill foreigners: their blood allows us to feed our families and the more we kill, the more we weaken them. Of course we are going to celebrate this,” said a commander from Ghazni province.
The increase in rewards for Taliban fighters comes as the Afghan government prepares to present its strategy for ending the insurgency. This aims to lure less senior insurgents away from the fighting by offering them jobs in farming and engineering, vocational training in carpet weaving and carpentry, education and assimilation into the Afghan security forces, including the secret police.
President Hamid Karzai hopes that a peace jirga (tribal council) in Kabul next weekend will rally support for this peace and reintegration program (PRP).
The PRP says little about the government’s approach to negotiations with senior Taliban, but suggests that exile in a third country is one option.
“We are weary of war and division and we have shed too many tears. Out of division let us build unity,” says the draft strategy. In January a conference in London attended by the Afghan government and its international backers raised £110 million to fund the reintegration strategy.
Insurgents who are willing to lay down their weapons and join the government will undergo a 90-day cooling off period in “demobilization centers”, where they will be vetted and given biometric identity cards.
After that they will be granted amnesty provided they sever any links with Al-Qaeda and renounce violence. Fighters will be sent to “deradicalisation” classes taught by mullahs and for psychological counseling and psychiatric treatment.
The government’s proposals have received a mixed reaction from Taliban commanders, who are referred to as “our upset brothers” in the draft.
“I think our leaders are trying to find ways to counter the government’s proposals. The extra cash (bounties) will encourage more people to join us and will get inactive groups to fight,” said a deputy district commander from Kandahar.
A minority said they would be willing to surrender their weapons in return for jobs. “But the government and international community should know that they can’t solve the problem by giving jobs only to us fighters. They must consider all the poor people; otherwise those who don’t get jobs will take up arms,” warned a low-level commander from Ghazni who said he had joined the Taliban four years ago to feed his family.
Most Taliban commanders deny any financial motive. In a dozen interviews over the past four months, low and midlevel Taliban commanders from provinces where the insurgency is fierce have set out their conditions for ending the violence.
“We are not fighting for money or power. We are fighting to end government corruption, to rid this country of foreign troops, and we want a return to sharia law,” said a Kandahar commander.
NATO’s reintegration group in Kabul acknowledges the insurgency is driven by local factors: inept governance, predatory politics, malign and manipulative power brokers, poverty and tribal feuding. “There will always be the hard core that will continue fighting for ideological reasons but there’s an awful lot of people who are tired of fighting and who we can bring in,” Major-General Phil Jones, the unit’s British commander, said.
Some analysts believe reintegration fails to address the underlying causes of the insurgency in thousands of villages that are among the worst afflicted. “Reintegration addresses the symptoms rather than the disease itself,” said Matt Waldman, a Harvard analyst.
Several NATO soldiers were injured yesterday when insurgents fired rockets at Kandahar airfield, the Alliance’s main military base in southern Afghanistan, writes Richard Beeston in Kandahar.
Photo: U.S. Army soldiers with the 1st platoon, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, patrol in Langar village in Arghandab valley in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, May 9, 2010. U.S.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Links Reveal Rising Pakistani Terror Hub
In a dimly lit room, in a private apartment in central Karachi, a local security official barked at eight young men summoned at short notice. The Thursday night encounter was just one of many interrogations based on leads into Islamic militant activity in this booming city of 18 million.
“You must remember, if I ever found you hiding crucial information, I will personally come to your homes and beat you up. You will not find any place to hide, so you must always be forthright and honest,” the official warned his attentive audience.
Drills such as this are now commonplace as the Pakistani police and intelligence services widen their network of informants in a cosmopolitan center increasingly under the spotlight for possible links to the nexus of global Islamic militant groups.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al Shabaab Ask Kenya to Keep Off
Somali insurgent group al Shabaab has once again warned Kenya to stop interfering in the affairs of Somalia.
The rebel group’s spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Raghe alias Sheikh Ali Dhere, said Kenya was among Christian (non-Muslim) forces opposing his movement’s Jihad (holy war) against the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu.
“We know that Kenya is supporting few cowards around its border,” he said at a passing out parade for rebel fighters in the port city of Kismayu.
“You Jihadists are going to crush those elements and move beyond into Kenya,” he added.
Kenya, he said, is in a glass house and should not start throwing stones.
“Kenya should learn from what happened to the mightier Ethiopian forces,” said Sheikh Ali Dhere. “Thousands of Ethiopians had to stream to the border in total defeat.”
He asked the trainees to remain morally and spiritually equipped to confront any threat against Islam.
The militants, he said, were in Jihad against non-Muslims anywhere around the world.
“The jihad is for the liberation of all Muslims around the world,” said Sheikh Ali Dhere. “When we succeed in this part, we will to move to other parts until we ensure only Allah is worshipped in this world,” he added amid chants of Allahu Akbar (God is Great).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dirk Kuyt Reveals ‘Terror’ Over Al Qaeda World Cup Plot
Dirk Kuyt has revealed his “absolute terror” after being told about an Al Qaeda plot to attack Holland’s World Cup clash with Denmark.
The Dutch FA have banned players’ families from travelling to South Africa after Iraqi security forces discovered that Islamic terrorists have targeted the Group E game that will take place at Johannesburg’s Soccer City on June 14.
Liverpool striker Kuyt admitted that many of his Dutch team-mates, whose wives have now been banned from the tournament, have been affected by the threat.
Kuyt said: “It is terrifying. Some players don’t want to pick up the news, but I do. And my first thought is this whole thing is terrifying. But I must put my faith in the security people.
“The positive thing, I keep telling myself, is that an Al Qaeda terrorist has been arrested. I want to tell myself the World Cup will be a well protected event. They have to monitor every situation.”
Then plot was discovered when Al Qaeda terrorist Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani, a Saudi citizen, was arrested in Iraq on May 3. Under interrogation he admitted there was a plot to target both the Dutch and the Danes in South Africa.
The terrorists want to avenge the production of an anti-Islamic film made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Denmark have also been targeted due to the publication depicting cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.
There have been suggestions England’s game against the United States on June 12 has also been targeted.
An FA source said: “We’re taking every step we can to ensure we have the best information to ensure it’s a safe tournament and our strategies are constantly reviewed.”
| — Hat tip: The Frozen North | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Questions Over Alleged Obama Funds for Kenya Vote
Christian groups claim outside interference to enshrine abortion, Shariah in constitution
Allegations by Kenyan churches that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is funding the government-backed “yes” campaign for a constitutional referendum in the East African country are being raised by American lawmakers.
In a letter to inspectors general of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office, legislators Chris Smith of New Jersey, Darrell Issa of California and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida have outlined their concerns.
The three U.S. legislators are calling for a probe into the issue, Kenya’s Star daily newspaper reported on 16 May. The report follows two week of allegations by Kenya’s churches, which are advocating a “no” vote in the referendum scheduled for 4 August.
Kenya’s churches say the draft law opens the door to the legalisation of abortion and also back the provision of special Islamic courts.
[…]
The U.S. lawmakers wrote, “The Obama Administration’s advocacy in support of Kenya’s proposed constitution may constitute a serious violation of the Siljander Amendment and, as such, may be subject to civil and criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Mystery of Sh164bn Smuggled Into Kenya
Mystery money exceeds export earnings from coffee, tea, horticulture combined
A massive Sh164 billion in hard currency has found its way into the Kenyan economy — and the government is unable to explain its source.
The $2.1 billion inflow has left government statisticians and donors scratching their heads for answers, fuelling concerns that Kenya may be turning into a money laundering destination by Somali pirates.
The large foreign currency injections are captured in the latest balance of payments statistics published by the Central Bank of Kenya.
Ransom money
It is all happening against a backdrop of intense speculation that millions of dollars in ransom money paid to Somalia-based pirates end up in Kenya. Profits from smuggling and other suspect foreign funds in the economy of the lawless state may be another source of the money.
In addition, the large Somali Diaspora around the world could be remitting the money, which ends up in the property sectors of Nairobi and other major towns in Kenya. In January this year, the matter prompted the Office of the President to order investigations into trends in property purchases in Nairobi.
On paper, the massive figure is reflected in the books of the government as ‘errors and omissions’ on the capital and financial accounts. But in reality, this huge figure is the total of the large foreign currency inflows, whose sources the Central Bank of Kenya cannot explain.
Even more intriguing is the fact that there has been a massive increase within one year of foreign exchange whose sources cannot be traced. The statistics show that as at January last year, the figure for ‘errors and omissions’ in the country’s balance of payments accounts was at $1.1 billion.
Export earnings
Having risen to $2.1 billion, the current level represents a massive 100 per cent increase within a year. The mysterious billions are over and above the combined last year’s export earnings from coffee, tea and horticulture. As a matter of fact, the line ‘errors and omissions’ has grown into the single largest item in the economy’s balance of payments statistics.
The riddle of the mysterious billions has quickly become a major talking point within both Nairobi’s financial community and donor circles. Central Bank of Kenya governor Njuguna Ndung’u conceded that the strange inflows had become a big worry. He said the cash was “artificially driving the country’s balance of payments surplus”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Government Runs Threatening Ad… In the Arizona Republic Newspaper
As if having their president bash our laws in front of the US Congress was not insulting enough… Now the Mexican government in Sonora is running threatening ads in Arizona newspapers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Burleson Tea Party Schedules Hispanic Speakers Who Support Arizona Law
Three weeks after nationwide protests showed that many Hispanics oppose Arizona’s new immigration law, a local Tea Party group hopes to provide a different perspective.
The Burleson Tea Party is hosting a “Keep America Free” town-hall meeting featuring Hispanic speakers who support the law, which allows officers to ask people for documents to prove that they are in this country legally.
Among the speakers Sunday will be Bert Hernandez, vice president of the Hispanic Republican Club of McLennan County.
“As a Hispanic, as a Mexican-American and as an immigrant, I am not alone in saying that I support Arizona,” Hernandez said. “I think Arizona did the right thing.”
Hernandez, general manager of a Ford dealership in Waco, said his family entered the country legally when he was young. He didn’t become politically active until last year, when he grew concerned about President Barack Obama’s plans for healthcare reform.
“I can understand why the citizens of Arizona want to take the law into their hands and do those things that the federal government won’t do,” Hernandez said. “They don’t want the culture of corruption that’s in Mexico to infect our states.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Dozens of Illegal Immigrants Deported
Roma, 22 May (AKI) — The Italian government deported 29 illegal immigrants this week, the interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Most of those deported were Moroccan, Senegalese and Egyptians, the ministry said.
Italy’s conservative prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to crack down on illegal immigrants, who many Italians perceive as responsible for rising crime rates.
Most illegal immigrants enter Italy by land or air and stay on after tourist visas expire. But migrants trying to enter the country illegally from the Mediterranean packed aboard rickety people smugglers boats attract far more publicity.
The government has drawn criticism from the United Nations, rights groups, the Catholic church and the Italian centre-left opposition for its controversial policy of repatriating illegal migrants who attempt to reach Italy by sea from North Africa.
In a damning report last month, Europe’s top human rights watchdog the Council of Europe accused Italy of violating Europe’s human rights convention by turning back boatloads of migrants to Libya, where it said they faced the risk of mistreatment.
The report by the watchdog’s committee for the prevention of torture urged the Italian government to immediately review its policy of turning back migrant boats.
It called on Rome to guarantee that migrants receive care and assistance, including the right to request asylum and other forms of international protection.
Coastal patrol vessels have turned back thousands of illegal migrants aboard people smuggling boats in the Mediterranean since the Italian and Libyan governments signed a pact last year.
Prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Siracusa in April sent for trial two senior police officials for their roles in intercepting and turning back 75 migrants in the Mediterranean in late August 2009.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Abortion Pill to be Available in Rome
Rome, 21 May (AKI) — The RU486 abortion pill will be dispensed in the Italian capital Rome and surrounding region, its conservative governor, Renata Polverini said on Friday. The controversial drug became available in Italy in April and has already been given to several women in hospitals the northern Lombardy region and southern region of Puglia.
“Taking the abortion pill is equivalent to a surgical abortion that is permissible for medical reasons. For this reason, the Lazio region will administer RU486 in its hospitals,” said Polverini, during an address to a pro-life meeting.
“We want to stress that the drug must be dispensed in hospitals,” Polverini said, urging adequate counselling for women considering terminating their pregancy.
“For a woman, there’s no worse option than an abortion,” she said.
The abortion pill is a highly emotive issue in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy, one of the last countries in Europe to introduce the drug.
The Vatican has censured RU486 and about 70 percent of Italian doctors say they are unwilling to perform abortions on religious grounds.
Two newly elected conservative governors, Roberto Cota in the northern Piedmont region and Luca Zaia in the northeastern Veneto region have openly opposed the abortion pill being made available in local hospitals.
The Italian pharmaceutical authority AIFA in July 2009 authorised the administration of RU486 in hospitals under medical supervision as an alternative to surgical abortion up to the 49th day of pregnancy.
Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978 in the first 90 days of pregnancy and until the 24th week if the life of the mother is at risk or the foetus is malformed.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Interview: Administrator Says ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ Facebook Group ‘Decided to Draw the Line’
The “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” event on Facebook, organized by a group bearing the same name, attracted 80,000 members for its May 20 online campaign, resulting in more than 4,000 cartoons being uploaded to the site.
Islam prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous, and some Muslims rose up in protest over the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers in 2006, with some of those protests turning violent.
Supporters of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” said they were uniting against Islamic extremists who threaten those responsible for controversial speech concerning Islam. They also said they were taking a stand against self-censorship in the West, pointing to the controversial South Park episode that recently featured the Prophet Muhammad but was subjected to severe editing after Comedy Central, the television channel that aired the program, said it had received threats.
Pakistan responded to the May 20 campaign by banning Facebook on May 19.
An administrator of the Facebook group “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” spoke with RFE/RL about the online campaign, in which users were asked to submit cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. Speaking from Germany, 28-year-old Andy Freiheit, a German citizen using a pseudonym for safety reasons, discusses freedom of the press, religious sensitivity, and the global attention given to the Facebook campaign. The interview was conducted by RFE/RL Central Newsroom correspondent Kristin Deasy and RFE/RL Radio Mashaal correspondent Maliha Amirzada…
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Modern Liberalism & Islam: An Uncanny Resemblance
Both Neo-Liberalism and traditional Islam present unmistakable hallmarks of Fundamentalist thought. (Neo-Liberalism defined here as the early 20th century attempt to hide socialism behind the term “liberalism.”) Arguably, the main fixation behind both ideologies is controlling others, seeing to it they obey all the rules. In other words, both have a predilection towards totalitarianism. This is clearly seen in regimes like Saudi Arabia, China, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Both socialists and Islamic fundamentalists assume a judgmental, condescending tone when preaching. Such doctrinaire attitudes result from accepting a false fundamentalist world view.
Socialism is easily differentiated from true, ie “Classical” Liberalism. The latter was the default world view of freedom-seeking Europeans during the American Revolution, based on the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Paine, Calvin, Puritan Revolutionaries, etc. These convictions center on self-reliance, limited government defending the rights of man, and bolstering freedom — wherever possible. The world view of Classical Liberalism is well-represented by Locke’s observation that the task of government is increasing people’s freedom.
In the following essay is examined the strange resemblance between the totalitarian regimes of Islam and socialism in the areas of politics, law, economics and freedom. (This paper differentiates between traditional Islam and modern Muslim states accepting Western ideas on human rights, law and politics.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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