EU: Italy’s Women Public Sector Workers to Retire at 65 Says Executive
Brussels, 7 Jun e(AKI/Bloomberg) — Italy must increase the retirement age for women working in the public sector to 65 — the same age as men — by 2012 as foreseen by European Union rules, European justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement on Monday.
Italian had planned a gradual increase in the retirement age for women in the public sector to 65 by 2018 from 61 this year. The country can attach a modification to the pension rules in the budget adjustment that was sent to parliament last month, Reding (photo) said in the statement.
Italy has a low fertility rate, quota-driven immigration policies and a rapidly ageing population. National statistics institute ISTAT has forecast that by 2050 there will be 22 million pensioners — nearly one-third of the population — sparking concerns over how future senior citizens’ pensions will be funded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Government Spokesman Denies Return to Drachma
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JUNE 7 — The spokesman of the Greek government, George Petalotis, today categorically denied the idea that Greece would leave the euro and return to the drachma, as well as the idea of a possible debt renegotiation. “Lately” said Petalotis, “we have heard several rumours regarding an alleged return to the drachma or an alleged debt renegotiation, and various other things that we have heard for the first time. It is clear that these rumours are completely unfounded, they will create confusion and disorientation of the entire Greek community at a time we are trying to get out of the crisis”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Samaras Attacks the Government
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JUNE 7 — Antonis Samaras, the leader of Nea Dimocratia, Greece’s main op position party, has launched a new attack on the Papandreou government and those who have supported the memorandum between the government, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, saying that Greece is experiencing the collapse of a 30-year old system that “bore the hallmarks of the centre-left. Speaking during a meeting of his party, Samaras moved on to the stance of European partners towards Greece, saying: “We do not like being considered Europe’s weak link, and we do not like the fact that Greece is harmed by those who have built their commercial surplus on our deficit.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Weaker Euro May ‘Save’ Monetary Union, Roubini Says
The gradual weakening of the euro toward parity with the dollar over the next year may save the monetary union by helping countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain regain competitiveness, said Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist who predicted the financial crisis.
“An orderly fall in the value of the euro is the only thing that is going to prevent a breakup of the monetary union,” he said Saturday. Over the next 12 months the euro “will go toward parity with the dollar if not weaker than that,” Roubini said in an interview at a conference in Trento, Italy.
Several factors are weighing on economic growth, such as government budget cuts and falling stock prices, and so the euro’s decline may not be enough to prevent another recession, Roubini said. Europe’s single currency plunged below $1.20 on Friday for the first time since March 2006. The euro has dropped more than 16 percent against the dollar this year.
“If you want Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland to stay in the monetary union rather than exiting, the only way of restoring competitiveness is going to be having a weaker euro,” Roubini said.
Lifeline to Greece:
Euro-area ministers agreed on May 2 to provide 110 billion euros ($135 billion) of aid to Greece as the country struggled to control a deficit that reached 13.6 percent of GDP last year, more than four times the EU limit. When that failed to stop the euro’s slide, the EU and International Monetary Fund offered a financial lifeline of almost $1 trillion to member states.
While countries with large debts such as Italy should trim deficits and contain wages, Germany should spend more and raise wages to help fuel demand in the euro area, Roubini said.
“Germany can afford having more stimulus not just this year but next year,” he said. “The stock of public debt is much lower” in Germany than in the euro-region’s “periphery,” the economist said.
The declining euro will make Germany “hyper-competitive” and justifies wage increases, Roubini said. “Germany can afford having slightly faster growth of wages to stimulate not only exports but also domestic demand and demand for European and euro-zone goods,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy
Generations of U.S. Marines have exemplified the motto “No better friend, no worse enemy” with their unstinting dependability in the face of adversity, and their ferocity in combat. To the extent that the country as a whole has hewed to these time-tested principles, the world has been made more stable and American interests more secure.
In its time in office, however, the Obama administration has increasingly turned that formula on its head. The message of its policies and conduct is as unmistakable as it is ominous: Better to be an enemy of the United States than its friend.
Consider, for example, the starkly contrasting treatment associated with two recent episodes at sea. In the first, a North Korean submarine engaged in an act of war when it covertly torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel on March 21, resulting in the latter’s sinking with the loss of 46 lives.
The second occurred last week when Israeli commandoes, acting lawfully in enforcing a declared naval blockade, intercepted a Turkish ship determined to violate it. Upon boarding the vessel, they were set upon by a mob comprised, it turns out, of weapon-wielding jihadists — not humanitarian-minded “peace activists.” The commandoes defended themselves, killing nine of the would-be “martyrs.”
To date, there has been no UN resolution denouncing the first. No calls for an international investigation. No talk of retaliation by the so-called “community of nations” if the perpetrator does not recant and make amends…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Jews Slur Costs White House Reporter Helen Thomas HS Speaking Gig
Iconic White House reporter Helen Thomas was dropped by her speaking agency and booted as a high school commencement speaker Sunday following inflammatory remarks she made about Jews and Israel.
Although Thomas apologized, Nine Speakers Inc. dumped the octogenarian journalist over her videotaped declaration that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back to Germany and Poland.
The principal of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., said in an e-mail to students and parents yesterday that next Monday’s speech was canceled, saying “graduation celebrations are not the venue for divisiveness.”
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Liquid Method: Pure Graphene Production
In a development that could lead to novel carbon composites and touch-screen displays, researchers from Rice University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology recently unveiled a new method for producing bulk quantities of one-atom-thick sheets of carbon called graphene.
When stacked together, graphene sheets make graphite, which has been commonly used as pencil lead for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until 2004 that stand-alone sheets of graphene were first characterized with modern nanotechnological instruments. Since then, graphene has come under intense scrutiny from materials scientists, in part because it is both ultrastrong and highly conductive.
“There are high-throughput methods for making graphene oxide, which is not as conductive as graphene, and there are low-throughput methods for making pure graphene,” said lead co-author Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and chemistry at Rice. “Our method yields very pure material, and it is based on bulk fluid-processing techniques that have long been used by the chemical industry.”
Pasquali said the research team found it could dissolve graphite in chlorosulphonic acid, a common industrial solvent. The researchers had to devise new methods to measure the aggregation of the dissolved graphene flakes, but at the end the team was pleasantly surprised to find that the individual graphene layers in the graphite peeled apart spontaneously. The team was able to dissolve as much as two grams of graphene per liter of acid to produce solutions at least 10 times more concentrated than existing methods.
The researchers took advantage of novel cryogenic techniques for electron microscopy that allowed them to directly image the graphene sheets in the chlorosulfonic acid.
“We applied new methods that we had developed to directly image carbon nanotubes in acid,” said co-author Yeshayahu “Ishi” Talmon, professor of chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. “This was no small feat considering the nature of the acid and the difficulty of specimen preparation and imaging.”
Using the concentrated solutions of dissolved graphene, the scientists made transparent films that were electrically conductive. Such films could be useful in making touch screens that are less expensive than those used in today’s smart phones. In addition, the researchers also produced liquid crystals.
“If you can make liquid crystals, you can spin fibers,” said study co-author James Tour, Rice’s T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry. “In liquid crystals, the individual sheets align themselves into domains, and having some measure of alignment allows you to flow the material through narrow openings to create fibers.”
If the method proves useful for making graphene fibers in bulk, it could drive down the cost of the ultrastrong carbon composites used in the aerospace, automotive and construction industries.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Plasmonic Promises: First Observation of Plasmarons in Graphene
[NOTE: Current state of the art in thin film processes known as physical or chemical vapor deposition is ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition), which is capable of depositing layers one molecule or even one atom thick. ALD films are leading the way past traditional polysilicon and silicon dioxide gate structures as they become too thin to be functional in integrated circuits being designed at the 45 nm node (45 nm refers to the expected half-pitch of a single memory cell for such circuit geometries). Exotic materials such as oxides of hafnium and zirconium must instead be used to provide extremely thin gate layers with electrical insulation of a high enough dielectric constant needed to make this new generation of devices work. This same very-thin-film deposition technology may prove useful in providing the graphene films that are mentioned below. — Z]
Scientists working at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered striking new details about the electronic structure of graphene, crystalline sheets of carbon just one atom thick. An international team led by Aaron Bostwick and Eli Rotenberg of the ALS found that composite particles called plasmarons play a vital role in determining graphene’s properties.
“The interesting properties of graphene are all collective phenomena,” says Rotenberg, an ALS senior staff scientist responsible for the scientific program at ALS beamline 7, where the work was performed.. “Graphene’s true electronic structure can’t be understood without understanding the many complex interactions of electrons with other particles.”
The electric charge carriers in graphene are negative electrons and positive holes, which in turn are affected by plasmons—density oscillations that move like sound waves through the “liquid” of all the electrons in the material. A plasmaron is a composite particle, a charge carrier coupled with a plasmon.
“Although plasmarons were proposed theoretically in the late 1960s, and indirect evidence of them has been found, our work is the first observation of their distinct energy bands in graphene, or indeed in any material,” Rotenberg says.
Understanding the relationships among these three kinds of particles—charge carriers, plasmons, and plasmarons—may hasten the day when graphene can be used for “plasmonics” to build ultrafast computers—perhaps even room-temperature quantum computers—plus a wide range of other tools and applications.
Strange graphene gets stranger
“Graphene has no band gap,” says Bostwick, a research scientist on beamline 7.0.1 and lead author of the study. “On the usual band-gap diagram of neutral graphene, the filled valence band and the empty conduction band are shown as two cones, which meet at their tips at a point called the Dirac crossing.”
Graphene is unique in that electrons near the Dirac crossing move as if they have no mass, traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Plasmons couple directly to these elementary charges. Their frequencies may reach 100 trillion cycles per second (100 terahertz, 100 THz)—much higher than the frequency of conventional electronics in today’s computers, which typically operate at about a few billion cycles per second (a few gigahertz, GHz).
Plasmons can also be excited by photons, particles of light, from external sources. Photonics is the field that includes the control and use of light for information processing; plasmons can be directed through channels measured on the nanoscale (billionths of a meter), much smaller than in conventional photonic devices.
And since the density of graphene’s electric charge carriers can easily be influenced, it is straightforward to tune the electronic properties of graphene nanostructures. For these and other reasons, says Bostwick, “graphene is a promising candidate for much smaller, much faster devices—nanoscale plasmonic devices that merge electronics and photonics.”
The usual picture of graphene’s simple conical bands is not a complete description, however; instead it’s an idealized picture of “bare” electrons. Not only do electrons (and holes) continually interact with each other and other entities, the traditional band-gap picture fails to predict the newly discovered plasmarons revealed by Bostwick and his collaborators.
The team reports their findings and discuss the implications in “Observations of plasmarons in quasi-free-standing doped graphene,” by Aaron Bostwick, Florian Speck, Thomas Seyller, Karsten Horn, Marco Polini, Reza Asgari, Allan H. MacDonald, and Eli Rotenberg, in the 21 May 2010 issue of Science, available online to subscribers.
Graphene is most familiar as the individual layers that make up graphite, the pencil-lead form of carbon; what makes graphite soft and a good lubricant is that the single-atom layers readily slide over one another, their atoms strongly bonded in the plane but weakly bonded between planes. Since the 1980s, graphene sheets have been rolled-up into carbon nanotubes or closed buckyball spheroids. Theorists long doubted that single graphene sheets could exist unless stacked or closed in on themselves.
Then in 2004 single graphene sheets were isolated, and graphene has since been used in many experiments. Graphene sheets suspended in vacuum don’t work for the kind of electronic studies that Bostwick and Rotenberg perform at ALS beamline 7.0.1. They use a technique known as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES); for ARPES, the surface of the sample must be flat. Free-standing graphene is rarely flat; at best it resembles a crumpled bedsheet.
Using electrons to draw images of composite particles
“One of the best ways to grow a flat sheet of graphene is by heating a crystal of silicon carbide,” Rotenberg says, “and it happens that our German colleagues Thomas Seyller from the University of Erlangen and Karsten Horn from the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin are experts at working with silicon carbide. As the silicon recedes from the surface it leaves a single carbon layer.”
Using flat graphene made this way, the researchers hoped to study graphene’s intrinsic properties by ARPES. First a beam of soft x-rays from the ALS frees electrons from the graphene (photoemission). Then by measuring the direction (angle) and speed of the emitted electrons, the experiment recovers their energy and momentum; the spectrum of the cumulative emitted electrons is transmitted directly onto a two-dimensional detector.
The result is an image of the electronic bands created by the electrons themselves. In the case of graphene, the picture is x shaped, a cross-sectional cut through the two conical bands.
[See article for explanatory illustrations — Z]
“Even in our initial experiments with graphene, we suspected that the ARPES distribution was not quite as simple as the two-cone, bare-electron model suggested,” Rotenberg says. “At low resolution there appeared to be a kink in the bands at the Dirac crossing.” Because there really is no such thing as a bare electron, the researchers wondered if this fuzziness was caused by charge carriers emitting plasmons.
“But theorists thought we should see even stronger effects,” says Rotenberg, “and so we wondered if the substrate was influencing the physics. A single layer of carbon atoms resting on a silicon carbide substrate isn’t the same as free-standing graphene.”
The silicon-carbide substrate could in principle weaken the interactions between charges in the graphene (on most substrates the electronic properties of graphene are disturbed, and the plasmonic effects can’t be observed). Therefore the team introduced hydrogen atoms that bonded to the underlying silicon carbide, isolating the graphene layer from the substrate and reducing its influence. Now the graphene film was flat enough to study with ARPES but sufficiently isolated to reveal its intrinsic interactions.
The images obtained by ARPES actually reflect the dynamics of the holes left behind after photoemission of the electrons. The lifetime and mass of excited holes are strongly subject to scattering from other excitations such as phonons (vibrations of the atoms in the crystal lattice), or by creating new electron-hole pairs.
“In the case of graphene, the electron can leave behind either an ordinary hole or a hole bound to a plasmon—a plasmaron,” says Rotenberg.
Taken together, the interactions dramatically influenced the ARPES spectrum. When the researchers deposited potassium atoms atop the layer of carbon atoms to add extra electrons to the graphene, a detailed ARPES picture of the Dirac crossing region emerged. It revealed that the energy bands of graphene cross at three places, not one.
Ordinary holes have two conical bands that meet at a single point, just as in the bare-electron, non-interacting picture. But another pair of conical bands, the plasmaron bands, meets at a second, lower Dirac crossing. Between these crossings lies a ring where the hole and plasmaron bands cross.
“By their nature, plasmons couple strongly to photons, which promises new ways for manipulating light in nanostructures, giving rise to the field of plasmonics,” Rotenberg says. “Now we know that plasmons couple strongly to the charge carriers in graphene, which suggests that graphene may have an important role to play in the merging fields of electronics, photonics, and plasmonics on the nanoscale.”
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Strange Discovery on Titan Leads to Speculation of Alien Life
By Charles Q. Choi
New findings have roused a great deal of hoopla over the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan, which some news reports have further hyped up as hints of extraterrestrials.
However, scientists also caution that aliens might have nothing to do with these findings.
All this excitement is rooted in analyses of chemical data returned by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. One study suggested that hydrogen was flowing down through Titan’s atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Astrobiologist Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center speculated this could be a tantalizing hint that hydrogen is getting consumed by life.
It’s the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,” McKay said.
Another study investigating hydrocarbons on Titan’s surface found a lack of acetylene, a compound that could be consumed as food by life that relies on liquid methane instead of liquid water to live.
“If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth,” McKay said.
However, NASA scientists caution that aliens might not be involved at all.
“Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed,” said Mark Allen, principal investigator with the NASA Astrobiology Institute Titan team. “We have a lot of work to do to rule out possible non-biological explanations. It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results.”
“Both results are still preliminary,” McKay told SPACE.com.
To date, methane-based life forms are only speculative, with McKay proposing a set of conditions necessary for these kinds of organisms on Titan in 2005. Scientists have not yet detected this form of life anywhere, although there are liquid-water-based microbes on Earth that thrive on methane or produce it as a waste product.
On Titan, where temperatures are around minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 degrees Celsius), any organisms would have to use a substance that is liquid as its medium for living processes. Water itself cannot do, because it is frozen solid on Titan’s surface. The list of liquid candidates is very short — liquid methane and related molecules such as ethane. Previous studies have found Titan to have lakes of liquid methane.
Missing hydrogen?
The dearth of hydrogen Cassini detected is consistent with conditions that could produce methane-based life, but do not conclusively prove its existence, cautioned researcher Darrell Strobel, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., who authored the paper on hydrogen appearing online in the journal Icarus.
Strobel looked at densities of hydrogen in different parts of the atmosphere and the surface. Previous models from scientists had predicted that hydrogen molecules, a byproduct of ultraviolet sunlight breaking apart acetylene and methane molecules in the upper atmosphere, should be distributed fairly evenly throughout the atmospheric layers.
Strobel’s computer simulations suggest a hydrogen flow down to the surface at a rate of about 10,000 trillion trillion molecules per second.
“It’s as if you have a hose and you’re squirting hydrogen onto the ground, but it’s disappearing,” Strobel said. “I didn’t expect this result, because molecular hydrogen is extremely chemically inert in the atmosphere, very light and buoyant. It should ‘float’ to the top of the atmosphere and escape.”
Strobel said it is not likely that hydrogen is being stored in a cave or underground space on Titan. An unknown mineral could be acting as a catalyst on Titan’s surface to help convert hydrogen molecules and acetylene back to methane.
Although Allen commended Strobel, he noted “a more sophisticated model might be needed to look into what the flow of hydrogen is.”
Consumed acetylene?
Scientists had expected the sun’s interactions with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene that falls down to coat the Titan surface. But Cassini mapped hydrocarbons on Titan’s surface, it detected no acetylene on the surface, findings appearing online in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Instead of alien life on Titan, Allen said one possibility is that sunlight or cosmic rays are transforming the acetylene in icy aerosols in the atmosphere into more complex molecules that would fall to the ground with no acetylene signature.
In addition, Cassini detected an absence of water ice on the Titan surface, but loads of benzene and another as-yet-unidentified material, which appears to be an organic compound. The researchers that a film of organic compounds are covering the water ice that makes up Titan’s bedrock. This layer of hydrocarbons is at least a few millimeters to centimeters thick, but possibly much deeper in some places.
“Titan’s atmospheric chemistry is cranking out organic compounds that rain down on the surface so fast that even as streams of liquid methane and ethane at the surface wash the organics off, the ice gets quickly covered again,” said Cassini team scientist Roger Clark based at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. “All that implies Titan is a dynamic place where organic chemistry is happening now.”
Speculation ‘Jumping the Gun’
All this speculation “is jumping the gun, in my opinion,” Allen said.
“Typically in the search for the existence of life, one looks for the presence of evidence — say, the methane seen in the atmosphere of Mars, which can’t be made by normal photochemical processes,” Allen added. “Here we’re talking about absence of evidence rather than presence of evidence — missing hydrogen and acetylene — and often times there are many non-life processes that can explain why things are missing.”
These findings are “still a long way from evidence of life,” McKay said. “But it could be interesting.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Where is Bernie Madoff Still a Hero? Prison
Bernard Madoff may wear the same standard-issue khakis as the other inmates at North Carolina’s Butner Federal Correctional Complex, but to them, he isn’t just prisoner No. 61727-054. The $65 billion Ponzi schemer is considered a hero and a celebrity among fellow convicts, solicited for autographs and business advice, New York magazine reports in a feature story on newsstands Monday.
Citing interviews with more than two dozen current and former Butner inmates, writer Steve Fishman describes a brazen Madoff who boasts about his crimes to a gaggle of admiring prison “groupies.”
“F—- my victims,” Madoff, 71, retorted after being ribbed by a fellow inmate, prison artist K.C. White told the magazine. “I carried them for twenty years, and now I’m doing 150 years.” [emphasis added]
[Yet one more reason, among many, why I will not lament Madoff getting shanked. — Z]
According to the magazine, when another convict told Madoff that stealing from old ladies was “kind of f- — -ed up,” Madoff “coolly replied, ‘Well, that’s what I did.’“
Madoff’s attorneys did not respond to AOL News’ request for comment on the magazine story.
The inside look at Madoff’s life in prison paints him as a titan among the “soft” prisoners, including pedophiles and “rats,” in his housing unit at Butner, where there are windows without bars overlooking landscaped yards, one inmate said. According to the feature, Butner inmates trailed Madoff as he walked a gravel track during recreational time and even pressed him for his autograph. He has refused to sign them, the magazine said, because he believes they will end up on eBay and does not want inmates making money off his name. (He made an exception for a prison artist who sketched him.) [emphasis added]
[Why is this scum bag being allowed to enjoy a room with a view? Some of his victims are already in their graves while he lives and breathes. — Z]
“He enjoyed being a celebrity,” Nancy Fineman, an attorney who interviewed Madoff shortly after his arrival at Butner.
One prisoner, John Bowler, recalled sitting next to Madoff as both watched a “60 Minutes” segment about Madoff’s con.
“?’Bernie, you got ‘em for millions,’“ Bowler recalled he said to Madoff. “‘No, billions,’ he told me.”
Fishman writes that Madoff’s celebrity transcends the traditional prison cliques, as he hangs out with “lifers” as well as black and gay inmates in his cellblock, nicknamed “Camp Fluffy” for its gym, library, pool tables and sweat lodge.
“A hero,” lifer Robert Rosso wrote on a website he founded called convictinc.com, New York magazine reported. “He’s arguably the greatest con of all time.”
The New York report said Madoff is exalted even by Butner’s other high-profile prisoners, former mob boss Carmine Persico and former Navy intelligence analyst-turned-spy, Jonathan Pollard. Both men are identified as being part of Madoff’s “prison family.”
Madoff reportedly impressed his fellow inmates with tales of his world travels and his expensive watch collection, though he now wears a Timex purchased from the Butner commissary for $41. His A-list status prompts convicts who are are aspiring entrepreneurs to solicit business advice from him.
“If I’d lived that well for 70 years, I wouldn’t care that I ended up in prison,” one told the magazine.
Leaving behind the life of luxury he once led in Manhattan, the magazine says Madoff now subsists on $290 per month, purchasing mac and cheese (60 cents) and cans of Diet Coke (45 cents) from the commissary. Inmates told Fishman he returns from visits with his wife, Ruth, appearing “wistful” and telling them she was “off to play golf.”
Madoff earns 14 cents an hour sweeping the commissary floor but his bid to manage the budget of the prison-landscaping crew was rejected, according to New York magazine.
“Hell, no,” an amused supervisor told another inmate of Madoff’s application. “I do my own budget. I know what he did on the outside.”
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Britons Link Islam With Extremism, Says Survey
Most people in the UK associate Islam with extremism and the repression of women, a survey has suggested.
The online YouGov poll found 58% of those questioned linked Islam with extremism while 69% believed it encouraged the repression of women.
The survey of 2,152 adults was commissioned by the Exploring Islam Foundation.
The organisation has launched a poster campaign on London transport to combat negative perceptions of Muslims.
BBC home editor Mark Easton says the survey, conducted last month, paints a negative picture of British attitudes to Islam.
Asked if Muslims had a positive impact on British society, the YouGov poll found four out of 10 disagreed with the statement.
Half linked Islam with terrorism, just 13% thought it was based on peace and 6% associated it with justice.
Some 60% admitted they did not know much about the religion, but a third said they would like to know more.
Social responsibility
The Exploring Islam Foundation hopes to challenge the negative views of the religion with its Inspired By Muhammad project.
It will feature posters of Muslim professionals, displayed in central London locations such as bus stops and tube stations, alongside messages emphasising the ways in which Muslims balance religious tradition with contemporary human rights and social responsibility.
Remona Aly, campaigns director for the foundation, said many Muslims were concerned about the way their faith was perceived by the public.
“We want to foster a greater understanding of what British Muslims are about and our contribution to British society. We are proud of being British and being Muslim,” she said.
A spokesman for the Quilliam Foundation , the counter-extremism think tank, welcomed the campaign, describing it as a “timely step to help improve relations and foster deeper understanding between British citizens”.
“This campaign is important because it can help non-Muslims to better understand the faith that inspires and guides their Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues.
“This initiative also helps British Muslims reclaim the Prophet Muhammad as a time-honoured guide for peace, compassion and social justice from those who seek to twist his teachings.”
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Eric Zemmour Provokes France’s Elite With Claims of National Decline
France has been thwarted in its destiny of greatness by the English and is now doomed to collapse into civil war between Christians and Muslim “barbarians”.
You might think that such a prophecy — articulated by one of the country’s top thinkers — would banish its author to the lunatic fringe. Yet Eric Zemmour is earning fame and fortune charting his country’s decline, with his latest gloomy book Mélancolie Française flying off the shelves.
Zemmour, 51, has emerged this spring as the hero of the ordinary bloke, and a villain to the left-of-centre Establishment. Millions tune in to radio and television to hear him breaching taboos over race, immigration, abortion and, his pet subject, perfidious Albion. On Saturday night, two million people watched Zemmour clash with Georges-Marc Benamou, a leftish writer and adviser to President Sarkozy, on France 2 television.
Benamou, who is of Algerian-Jewish background like Zemmour, treated him to the ultimate insult: “You are a fascist. You are further to the right than [Marshal] Pétain.”
The celebrity thinker shrugs off the charge with a laugh. “I say what people think,” he told The Times.
“A lot of people feel, in a confused way, the things that I talk about. They have this fear, but the French elite forbids them to express it. The elites impose a political correctness that the people cannot stand.”
Exasperation with Zemmour has reached a peak since April, when RTL, the most popular radio network, gave him a daily two-minute slot on its breakfast programme to voice his contrarian ideas. Dominique Sopo, head of the SOS Racism group, has called Zemmour “a person from the extreme Right, in disguise, who gives legitimacy to extremist and hateful thought”.
When an opinion poll showed a sharp rise in racial prejudice last week, the French Jewish Students’ Union directly blamed Zemmour.
The writer argues that France was destined for glory but everything went wrong when King Louis XIV lost to England. By inventing free trade and parliamentary democracy, the British outmanoeuvred the French on all fronts. “We always finish losing,” he said. “England managed to make out that Napoleon Bonaparte was the aggressor, when I believe that England was the aggressor.”
He said, however, that he admires Britain, and that he thinks that his ideas could be aired freely on the other side of the Channel.
British supremacy in the 19th century led to catastrophe, he said. “I profoundly believe that the English provoked the two world wars.” The US took up the role of global adversary, while Britain has concentrated on demolishing France in Europe, with the help of the French elite, he added.
The European Union was originally a French idea for controlling the continent, but British entry sabotaged the plan, he said. “When you talk to the Euro-enthusiast elite, they tell you ‘our adversary is England, they are stopping us uniting the continent, along with the Germans’.”
The thesis that lands Zemmour in the hottest water is his belief that France sealed its fate when it abandoned its tradition of assimilating immigrants, and embraced the concept of ethnic diversity. “French culture is not Muhammad,” he says. “It is François, it is Christian.”
The result is a new “barbarism”, with the emergence of Muslim ghettos that have broken away from society, he argues in his book. To back his thesis, he quotes Charles de Gaulle as saying that mixing Muslims and French Christians is “like blending oil and vinegar”.
While Zemmour is deemed beyond the pale by much of the Establishment, he enjoys public backing.
Two months ago, supporters demonstrated outside Le Figaro, the most conservative newspaper, after Étienne Mougeotte, the Editor, tried to sack him as a staff columnist.
His offence had been to claim on television that the majority of French drug dealers were of Arab or African origin. Mougeotte backed down and Zemmour kept his job.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Media Defends Democracy and Helps Citizenship, Zapatero
(ANSAmed) — SPAIN, JUNE 4 — “A Europe that goes forward needs genuine European public opinion, at the service of European citizenship”. This is the view of the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was speaking at a European meeting on new challenges facing the media, which was called as part of the Spain’s term as president of the EU, and held at Madrid’s Cervantes Institute. The debate was opened by the Institute’s director, Carmen Caffarel and by the deputy chairman of the European Commission and Industry Commissioner, Antonio Tajani, and was also attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, Maria Teresa de la Vega, and by the Ministers Miguel Angel Moratinos, Miguel Sebastian, Angeles Gonzalez Sinde and Cristina Garmendia. Zapatero said that future challenges could be traced back to one single challenge: “To make sure that means of communication continue to be an irreplaceable pillar of European democracies, in the emerging digital society of information and knowledge”. “We will not sit and watch the end of media, or the end of quality journalism,” he observed. “We will see their transformation to the new digital era of a globalised, enterprising and multi-polar world”. It is a dizzying change, that “obliges us to reinvent ourselves” at the impact of new technology. What remains is “the continuation of values such as rigour and journalistic professionalism”. Zapatero pointed out that, two centuries ago, Spain was the pioneer in Europe in terms of regulating the freedom of the press and protecting its right to exist in the Constitution, even though it took another 168 years to come into force. He also highlighted that “the defence and strengthening of something as brave and fragile as freedom of speech” relies on everyone, “governors and editors, political officials and journalists, the media and public and private institutions”. The Prime Minister mentioned the initiatives presented by the Spanish Presidency of the EU, such as the digital agenda and the definition of a European code for users of electronic communication services. He also referred to the need to defend intellectual property and ownership rights by fighting piracy on one side, and guaranteeing universal access to internet and digital technology on the other. A Europe that “communicates with itself” is a Europe of greater integration. Quoting the third President of the United States, Jefferson, Zapatero also ensured that “between a country with a government but no press and a government with a press but no government” he would have no hesitation in “choosing the latter”. The vice-President of the EU Commission Tajani insisted on the need to “read more newspapers, watch more television, and listen to more radio from other European countries”. Euro-barometer figures in hand, Tajani said that 97.6% of 500 million Europeans watch television — in order of viewing, television news, current affairs programmes, films, documentaries and sport — while 60% listen to the radio every day, especially music, news, current affairs and sport; and almost half of Europeans (46%) read the press every day, while 60% read a magazine at least once a month. “At any rate, the importance of foreign information compared to domestic information is greatly reduced,” Tajani observed. In the absence of global figures, the deputy chair said that the relationship in France in 2008 was of 99% domestic to 1% foreign. He added that only 7% of Europeans regularly watch television from other countries, especially those with a language in common, though this practice is less common in Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gambling With Geert Wilders
By Alan Fisher
He is easy to pick out in a crowd. He is tall, with his dyed blond hair swept back; he carries a patrician air which is slightly diminished by the white tracksuit top he wears emblazoned with his Freedom Party’s initials, the PVV.
The fact that he is constantly surrounded by bodyguards, a legacy of the numerous death threats against him, makes him that bit more noticeable.
Geert Wilders is loved by some, loathed by others but rarely ignored.
Before his arrival in the town of Spijkenisse, a 90 minute drive from Amsterdam, there is a buzz of excitement. He is, after all, one of the best known figures in the Netherlands.
Suddenly there is a shout as he emerges, walking through the weekly market, stopping to shake hands and pose for pictures. Ahead his party workers, clad in the same white tops, pave the way, handing out pictures of their leader.
Free speech
The 47-year-old began his political career as a speech writer for the right of centre Dutch Liberal Party, the VVD. He was elected as an MP in 1998, but split with his party because of its support for Turkish entry into the EU.
His profile increased dramatically in 2004, following the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a radical Islamist. Van Gogh had produced a controversial short film called Submission which featured an actress in see-through clothing with Quranic script on her body.
Even though he had no involvement in the film, overnight Wilders’ security was increased, with a permanent protection team assigned because of his outspoken views on Islam.
Last year, the British government tried to ban him from the UK on the grounds that he posed a threat to public security. The decision provoked outrage among supporters of free speech and the ban was later overturned by the courts.
Later in the year he returned to show his controversial movie Fitna — roughly translated as ‘strife’ in Arabic — which links the Quran to terrorism.
Politically, Wilders scored his biggest success in the 2006 Dutch general election when his party picked up nine seats.
Now, he could be on the verge of a big political breakthrough. The latest polls suggest that with his strong anti-immigration message, he could win up to 20 seats in the country’s June 9 election. This would put him in a strong position to be included in any right leaning coalition government if, as expected, the Liberals top the poll.
‘Red lines’
As he makes his way around the market, I manage to push my way through the local media and almost past the security with their permanently attached earpieces, smart suits and bulky jackets.
I introduce myself but cannot get close enough to shake hands. He stops. And people gather around wondering what he is about to say.
I ask about the polls. He tells me: “We are on course for a very good result. We hope to govern. We can achieve more if we govern but we will have many more MPs.”
His security team would like to move on — but having the Netherland’s most controversial politician face-to face is too good a chance to pass up.
I ask what a good performance will mean for the minority communities and the Muslims across the country. The answer is well rehearsed.
“We want less Islamisation. We want to stop immigration. For the people here, they have nothing to fear as long as they abide by our laws, but we want to stop the Islamisation of Europe and of our country.
“We are not against the people but we are against Islam which is a fascist ideology. We have red lines. If you don’t abide by our laws, with our way of life, we will do what we can to remove you. We have to protect our society, the Dutch way of life.”
Curbing immigration
Wilders was riding high in the polls in March, when in local elections his party won the most seats on two councils. But as the economy has grown to dominate the election, and other parties have followed with measures to curb immigration, some of the life has been sucked out of the campaign.
His critics say he identifies what he sees as problems but never offers solutions. Asked to offer some, he says he has identified that immigration costs the Netherlands more than $8bn a year. He insists curbing it would save the country money.
And then he is off, moving through the crowd, kissing babies, smiling widely and acknowledging the odd cheer.
As he makes his way through a shopping centre, I see a man collect his picture from a party worker, throw it to the ground and stamp on it. One young shop assistant gives the thumbs down as he walks by. I catch her eye and she smiles, almost embarrassed to have been caught.
As he leaves town, on the way to his next campaign stop, he is handed a bunch of flowers by a party worker. It is a moment staged for the cameras. He smiles, gets in the back seat of his large car, and he is off.
A big gamble
Even though he will appear in court later this year on race hate charges because of his comments about Islam there are many here who support him and his policies.
One middle aged couple tell me they were pleased to shake his hand. “Many people will not say they support Wilders. They are scared. People call them racist. We are not racist.
“This country has problems and he has the answers.”
But one man who was born in Turkey but has lived in the Netherlands for 50 years is angry Wilders came to town. In a reference to where the politician’s mother was born, he tells me: “Wilders is one half Indonesian and one half Satan. He is trying to divide the country.”
For so long the political outsider, his electoral support could make Geert Wilders a very attractive coalition partner. But it would be a big gamble for any mainstream party to welcome the Netherland’s most divisive politician and his views into government.
| — Hat tip: MB | [Return to headlines] |
Hearst Heiress Demands Helen Thomas be Fired
‘She has poured mud all over my family’s name’ with anti-Semitic remarks
In the wake of widely condemned anti-Semitic comments by long-time White House reporter and Hearst newspaper columnist Helen Thomas, Hearst heiress Victoria Hearst is demanding that the corporation bearing her family’s name fire Thomas immediately.
“She has poured mud all over my family’s name,” Hearst told WND. “I’ve never heard any Hearst family member make an anti-Semitic remark, and none of them would be in agreement with Helen Thomas.”
Thomas, on hand for a Jewish Heritage Celebration held at the White House May 27, told Rabbi David F. Nesenoff on camera that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.” (Watch video below)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Palermo Police Arrest Illegal Garbage Dump Operator
Palermo, 5 June (AKI) — Italian police on Saturday arrested a man for operating an illegal rubbish dump near Palermo as Sicily’s biggest city struggles to overcome a garbage crisis and angry residents set piles uncollected of refuse alight.
The 64-year-old suspect was arrested after being surprised by police as he dug holes to bury the unwanted bodies of automobiles, and car batteries and tyres.
Waste disposal in Italy has long been in the grip of organised crime.
The months-long refuse crisis in Palermo, has received far less media attention than a similar emergency two years ago in the southern city of Naples, when hundreds of thousands of tonnes of stinking rubbish piled up on the city’s streets for months.
A report released Friday by Legambiente, Italy’s biggest environmental group, said that Italy’s mafia-dominated business in so-called ecological crimes, that includes clandestine waste disposal, was worth 20.5 billion euros in 2009.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Drunk’ Moroccan ‘Tries to Steal’ Ambulance
Reggio Calabria, 7 June (AKI) — A drunk Moroccan immigrant tried to make off in the ambulance that was called to help him in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, according to police. Abdelmjid El Ouadi was already known to police for holding illegal arms and drug dealing and had been issued with an expulsion order from Italy in 2008.
El Ouadi allegedly threatened ambulance workers with a screw-driver and damaged the ambulance, attempted to drive away in it. Police said they captured and arrested him after he tried to escape on foot.
The 44-year-old faces charges of attempted robbery and damage to a public vehicle, armed threats to medical and security personnel and resisting arrest.-
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: E.ON-GDF Suez Agreement Brings Nuclear Nearer
Italian government is reviving atomic programme after ban
(ANSA) — Rome, June 7 — E.ON Italia and Paris-based energy multinational GDF Suez brought nuclear power’s return to Italy nearer on Monday by signing a memorandum of understanding on Monday for the development of atomic energy in the country. Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government passed a law last year authorizing the return of nuclear energy, which was rejected by a referendum after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. “E.ON and GDF Suez will examine all the key areas concerning new investments in nuclear plants, such as technology, the identification of sites and industrial partnerships,” the groups said in a statement.
“They will work in talks with national and local authorities to promote a stable, clear, predictable regulatory framework”.
Monday’s deal comes after Italy struck an accord with France last year for the joint construction of four nuclear plants in Italy and five in France.
This in turn led to a series of company accords signed in April, including one between Italian power utility Enel, Ansaldo Energia and the French energy giant EdF which established the areas of potential cooperation in the development and construction of at least four reactors in Italy using the advanced third-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) technology developed by EdF.
E.ON Italia, part of a huge German-based energy titan, and GDF Suez stressed that between them they have experience from involvement in 30 nuclear plants in Germany, Belgium, France and Sweden.
The move to revive Italy’s atomic energy programme met fierce opposition on safety and environmental grounds, but the government said it was necessary to reduce Italy’s reliance on imported energy. Italy’s business lobby earlier on Monday urged the government to press ahead with plans for the construction of new plants, which should start by 2013 with completion scheduled in 2020.
Italian employers’ association Confindustria is worried this schedule may not be respected following the resignation last month of industry minister Claudio Scajola after a graft probe.
“We expect the government to go ahead at full steam on nuclear, without the changes at the helm of the industry ministry causing uncertainty or delay,” Confindustria chief Emma Marcegaglia said.
“We are ready and we want to proceed. The (nuclear safety) authority should be set up now and the sites (for plants) identified.
“Let’s not waste time because wasting time increases the gap between Italy and other developed countries”.
Berlusconi has not yet named a replacement for Scajola and has personally taken in the industry minister’s duties for the time being. Opinion polls suggest the wider Italian public does not share the business leaders’ enthusiasm for the nuclear revival, with between 50% and 60% said to oppose atomic energy, which was entirely phased out by 1990. Italy’s opposition parties are against it too. The head of Italy’s Green party, Angelo Bonelli, called for another referendum in February when the cabinet approved a set of measures that paved the way for the return of nuclear power.
He also accused the government of carrying out a “sensational fraud against the Italian public because nuclear power is not only dangerous for the environment and health but unsustainable from an economic point of view”.
The government said the concerns are unfounded.
“The government’s nuclear measures will focus on the utmost security and the most careful safeguards for the environment,” Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia: Voters Back Border Deal With Croatia
Ljubljana, 7 June (AKI) — Slovenians have voted to solve a border dispute with Croatia through international arbitration, eliminating the last major barrier for Croatia’s membership of the European Union. Slovenia had blocked Croatia’s advances towards EU membership in a border dispute over tiny Piran Bay in the northern Adriatic for fear that it would lose access to international waters.
Slovenia is the only state among the former Yugoslav republics and Croatia expected to join the EU in 2012.
Under pressure from Brussels, the parliaments of both countries agreed last year to solve the dispute through international arbitration, but Slovenian opposition forced a referendum on the issue.
In a low turnout of only 42.28 per cent, 51.48 per cent voted in favour, and 48.52 per cent against the deal on Sunday.
Slovenian president Danilo Turk said that Ljubljana had confirmed its desire to resolve disputes withits neighbours through arbitration.
“We expect a just solution from the arbitration, based on arguments of justice without blackmail,” he said.
EU officials in Brussels hailed the outcome of the referendum and see it as a model for solving other outstanding disputes in the Balkans through arbitration, especially in Kosovo and Bosnia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Prisoners Convert to Islam for Jail Perks
Inmates are converting to Islam in order to gain perks and the protection of powerful Muslim gangs, the Chief Inspector of Prisons warns today.
Dame Anne Owers says that some convicted criminals are taking up the religion in jail to receive benefits only available to practising Muslims.
The number of Muslim prisoners has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s — from 2,513 in 1994, or 5 per cent of the population, to 9,795 in 2008, or 11 per cent. Staff at top-security prisons and youth jails have raised concerns about the intimidation of non-Muslims and possible forced conversions.
Dame Anne’s report, Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences, published today, says that, although several high-profile terrorists have been jailed recently, fewer than 1 in 100 Muslim inmates have been convicted of terrorism.
She says that prison staff are suspicious about those practising or converting to the faith and warns that treating Muslim inmates as potential or actual extremists risks radicalising them. The report says: “Many Muslim prisoners stressed the positive and rehabilitative role that Islam played in their lives, and the calm that religious observance could induce in a stressed prison environment. This was in marked contrast to the suspicion that religious observance, and particularly conversion or reversion, tended to produce among staff.”
All prisons offer a halal menu, which some inmates see as better than the usual choices. Muslims are excused from work and education while attending Friday prayers. Some converts, who are known as “convenience Muslims”, admitted that they had changed faith because they got more time out of the cells to go to Friday prayers. One quoted in the report said: “Food good too, initially this is what converted me.”
In some of the most secure jails, the size of the Muslim population is well above average. Two years ago, Muslim inmates accounted for a third of prisoners in Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, and a quarter of inmates in Long Lartin in Worcestershire.
The report says that inmates converted after learning about Islam from other inmates or their family, to obtain support and protection in a group with a powerful identity and for material advantages. One inmate quoted in the report said: “I’ve got loads of close brothers here. They share with you, we look out for each other.”
Muslim prisoners tended to report more negatively on their prison experience and were also more likely to fear for their own safety or complain of problems in their relations with staff. In high-security prisons, three-quarters of Muslims said they felt unsafe.
Dame Anne said that unless staff engaged effectively with them there was “a real risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy: that the prison experience will create or entrench alienation and disaffection, so that prisons release into the community young men who are more likely to offend, or even embrace extremism”.
Tom Robson, vice-chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said that some impressionable prisoners were converting because they wanted status and protection. “What we have got at the moment is an upward trend,” he said. “It is worrying.”
Phil Wheatley, director-general of the National Offender Management Service, said: “Our clear policy is that all prisoners are treated with respect and decency, recognising the diverse needs of a complex prison population, and that the legitimate practice of faith in prison is supported.”
Dame Anne’s study was based on 85 jail inspection reports and in-depth interviews with 164 Muslim prisoners in eight jails. It follows reports of Muslim inmates seeking to assert their authority on the wings of prisons.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Economic Operators Discuss Med Union Opportunities
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JUNE 3 — More than 400 operators in the public and private economic sector, investors and entrepreneurs from Europe and both sides of the Mediterranean, participate today and tomorrow in the Mediterranean Economic Leaders Summit and the third annual Invest in Med conference in Casa Lotja del Mar, Barcelona. In the light of the slogan ‘Taking the initiative, shaping the Union of the Mediterranean’, the two Catalan days want to explore the opportunities for business, partnerships and investments generated by the priorities that have been selected by the Union for the Mediterranean, which has its headquarters in Palazzo de Pedralbes in Barcelona. Organised by Anima, Ascame, BusinessEurope, BusinessMed and Eurochambres, under the aegis of the Catalan government and the Invest in Med programme, the summit aims to find a series of instruments to facilitate business cooperation in the Mediterranean area. After the welcoming speech by chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Barcelona, Miquel Valls, the opening ceremony continued with speeches by Senen Florenza, general director of Iemed; by Rafael Conde de Saro, general director of international economic relations of the Spanish Foreign Ministry; by Jean Louis Ville, head of the Unit centralised operations for Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East of the European Commission; by the secretary of industry and business of the Catalan Generalitat, Antoni Soy. The initiatives that have been developed within the framework of Invest in Med have been presented by Emmanuel Noutary, director of the European Commission’s co-funding programme. The two days in Barcelona will also be used to discuss Euro-Mediterranean business cooperation between small and medium-sized companies, thanks to the presence of 300 sector operators, members of MedAlliance, which groups organisations for economic development and SME confederations. International experts have led today’s four workshops on economic initiatives of the Union for the Mediterranean, in the context of renewable energy and the Mediterranean Solar Plan, of land infrastructures and sea highways, of the development of SMEs and the management of water resources. Regarding land infrastructures, the need was underlined to favour collaboration between governments and the private sector and to promote sub-regional cooperation with the countries in Eastern Europe; but also the need to involve the countries on the southern side of the Mediterranean Sea in the creation of the European agency for marine security. Regarding small and medium-sized enterprise, the main problems are found in the access to funds. Therefore the need was stressed to create a regional agency for SME development to advise these companies through courses and agreements between the Universities of the Euro-Mediterranean area. Regarding water management, the need was underlined to define a shared strategy for Mediterranean countries, selecting a plan of action and shared priorities, but also creating credit lines. The second day of the event will be opened tomorrow by advisor of Innovation, Universities and Business of the Generalitat, Josep Huguet, and by the vice president of the European Investment Bank, Philippe de Fontaine Vive. The summit will be closed with the signing of a joint statement, the Barcelona Mediterranean Private Sector Declaration. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: 3 Policemen Killed, 5 Injured Near Bejaia
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JUNE 7 — Two rudimentary bombs were remotely detonated in a village in the Bejaia region (250 kilometres east of Algiers), killing three policemen and injuring another five, newspaper Al Khabar reports. The newspaper specifies that the two bombs went off at 8.00 a.m. when a patrol of the municipal Guard passed by. A third bomb exploded three hours later at the same place, amid several security agents. Some of them were mildly injured. Bomb disposal experts defused two more bombs, planted along the same road. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Burns a Young Copt Alive and Murders His Father Because of a Rumor!!!
A Muslim man set fire to a Coptic young man, murdered his father and wounded his younger brother, after it was rumored that the young Copt allegedly had a relationship with the Muslim man’s sister!!
The events took place in the small village of “Dmas” Meet-Ghamr, after a rumor spread around of a relationship between the 25-year-old Copt Shihata Sabri, and the sister of a Muslim man named Yasser Ahmed Qasim.
Yasser went to Coptic Shehata, holding a gasoline canister, poured it over him and set him on fire, as bystanders looked on in horror. The young Copt threw himself into the adjacent canal to try to put out the flames from his burning body. The fire left burns all over his body, leading to his death.
Following this incident, people in the village rallied and when the 60-years-old Sabri Shehata, father of the Coptic victim arrived, he was attacked by a group of Muslims stabbing him with knives and daggers; one stab penetrated his back to come out of his abdomen below the rib cage, resulting in his death, after being transferred to hospital.
A Coptic witness said that Yasser Ahmed, who is reputed to be a thug, and others have also beaten the Coptic victim’s younger brother, 22-year old Rami Sabri Shehata, causing a deep injury to his head.
The security forces moved into the village of Dmas, which has a population of 60,000 people, including over 1000 Copts, surrounded the victims’ house and deployed extra forces throughout the village.
The offenders were arrested together with the accused Yasser Ahmed Kassem and his friend, as well as the Copt Shehata Sabry who was held in custody in Dmas Hospital. The offenders were charged with deliberate homicide.
The body of Coptic victim Sabri Shehata was released for burial after prayers took place at the Church of Our Lady in the village of Dakados, which lies 20 kilometers from Dmas, amid a tight security siege.
A Muslim villager portrayed the incident as an honour killing stressing that it was because of Coptic Shehata Sabri teasing Yasser about a relationship he has with his sister, which prompted him and his friend to pour gasoline all over the Copt before setting him on fire. He denied that this incident will have an impact on the relations between the Muslims and Copts in the village.
The prosecution and the State Security Services are still investigating the incident amid media blackout.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Plain Truth About Israel
In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas’s demand that the Jews “get the hell out of Palestine,” and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke.
In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait three days to criticize her.
In other times, the White House Correspondents Association would have expelled her. In other times, her employer — Hearst Newspapers — would have fired her.
But in our times, it took days for anyone other than Jews and conservatives to condemn Thomas’s vile statements to Rabbi David Nesenoff. And she was not fired. She was allowed to retire…
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Daily Hürriyet Publishes Photos of Bloodied Israeli Soldiers
Pictures showing bloodied Israeli commandos being overpowered by activists aboard an aid ship targeted in the deadly raid May 31 were published Sunday by daily Hürriyet after being recovered from a digital camera’s memory card.
Israeli forces seized the cameras belonging to activists and journalists onboard the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara and erased their memory cards after the raid, which killed eight Turks and one American of Turkish origin, the daily said.
One of the photos that was recovered, published on Hürriyet’s front page, shows an Israeli soldier holding the back of his head with one hand; blood is on his face and the front of his shirt is torn open.
Another image shows the same soldier holding his nose while blood streams down from a head wound; as a cameraman records the incident, the soldier is led down stairs by an activist.
A third photo shows another soldier, wearing a black woolen cap, lying on his back on the deck of the ship, held down by his arms by an activist. A bloodstain is visible on the commando’s pants.
Other pictures show a commando falling down stairs and another soldier being assisted by medics aboard the ferry.
Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe, a U.S. Gulf War veteran who was aboard the ferry, said he was among the activists who overpowered three Israeli soldiers, according to the Anatolia news agency.
“[The soldiers] looked at us… They thought we would kill them, but we let them go,” O’Keefe said, adding that he took the weapon of one of the soldiers and emptied it, according to the Anatolia report.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Israeli Navy Kills Palestinian Frogmen
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JUNE 7 — Between 3 and 5 Palestinian frogmen have been killed by a unit of the Israeli navy while the former were allegedly preparing an attack. The news was announced by an Israeli military spokesperson. The Palestinians were wearing scuba suits and were armed with combat rifles, added military radio. It said that the incident took place at dawn off the Gaza coast near the refugee camp of Nusseirat. The Israeli unit suffered no losses. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IDF: 5 on Flotilla Linked to Terror
At least five of the activists aboard the ‘Mavi Marmura’ have links to terror organizations, the IDF announced on Sunday night.
The five were named as Fatima Mohammadi, Ken O’Keefe, Hassan Ansey, Hussein Orush and Ahmed Omemun. It was unclear whether the activists were specifically involved in the violent clashes with Navy commandos last week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Ankara Builds New Links With Palestinian Leaders
Istanbul, 7 June (AKI) — Turkey signed an agreement to establish closer links with the Palestinian National Authority on Monday. Foreign ministers representing Turkey and the Palestinians signed the agreement as Turkish president Abdullah Gul and president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas were to meet at a conference in Istanbul.
The agreement was signed by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad El-Maliki and aims to create a framework for Turkey’s aid and support to the Palestinian state, Turkish media reports said.
A joint committee will convene at least twice every year in order to determine areas of cooperation and lay down action plans.
Turkey will provide political consultation to Palestinian officials, provide training for its diplomats and techical training.
The committee also aims to increase investment in water resources and agriculture. and increase cooperation in culture, education, health and science.
The new accord was endorsed a week after nine people, mostly Turkish activists, died when Israeli navy commandos stormed a ship trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Uzi Dayan: If Turkish PM Comes in Warship Kill Him
IDF Reserve General Uzi Dayan, a leader in the fight to free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, said Monday on army radio that if Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan fulfills his threats to accompany another Gaza flotilla in a warship, the IDF should destroy the vessel and kill Erdogan.
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Air Arabia Takes Off for First Iraqi Destination
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, JUNE 7 — Air Arabia has announced its first destination in Iraq with twice-weekly flights to Najaf, 150km south of the capital Baghdad. The route will be active from tomorrow and will bring the number of routes covered by the airline to 64. The budget airline based in Sharjah is the first and largest low cost carrier in the MENA region with offices in the UAE, Morocco and Egypt. “Iraq has great potential as a business destination,” said the CEO of Air Arabia, Sharif Attia, who described the opening of the Sharjah-Najaf route as “a milestone in the history of the airline.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Amil Imani: The Turkish Conundrum
Baffled by the strict secular culture of their modern state and the European Union’s opposition to Turkish membership, at least not until a decade from now, more Turks feel nostalgia for the glory days of their lost Ottoman Empire. In the recent flotilla incident, off the coast of the Gaza, “a hardcore of 40 Turkish jihadists on board the Mavi Marmara was responsible for the violence that led to nine deaths and dozens of injuries on the flotilla taking aid to Gaza, the Israeli government claimed.”…
| — Hat tip: Amil Imani | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Using Dubai to Smuggle Nuclear Components
Iran is using the Gulf port of Dubai to smuggle sophisticated electronic and computer equipment for its controversial uranium enrichment programme that are banned under United Nations sanctions.
In the latest deal, an Iranian company associated with the regime’s nuclear programme has acquired control systems from one of Germany’s leading electronics manufacturers. The deal was negotiated with a prominent Dubai trading company, which then sold Iran a range of electronic equipment for use at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Details of the deal have emerged amid mounting concern in the West that Tehran has ended its self-imposed suspension of its nuclear weapons programme. A National Intelligence Estimate issued by US intelligence agencies in late 2007 concluded that Iran had suspended its attempts to build an atom bomb in 2003.
But a detailed assessment of Iran’s recent declarations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has led Western officials to conclude that Iran has ended its self-imposed suspension, and has now resumed work on its military programme.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Saddam General: WMDs in Syria
Another former confidant of ex-dictator makes claim, also links Iraq to al-Qaida
A former general and friend of Saddam Hussein who defected but maintains close contact with Iraq claims the regime supported al-Qaida with intelligence, finances and munitions and believes weapons of mass destruction are hidden in Syria.
Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, southern regional commander for Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia in the late 1980s, spoke with Ryan Mauro of WorldThreats.com.
[…]
“If you look in Iraq today, you are witnessing Arab nationalist terrorist organizations and Islamist terrorist organizations working together to fight the United States.”
Al-Tikriti dismissed the commonly heard claim that the U.S. helped bring Saddam to power, calling it “absolutely ludicrous.”
The Baathist revolution, he said, was backed by the Soviet Union because of the shared socialist ideology.
[…]
Al-Tikriti says he knows Saddam’s weapons are in Syria because of contingency plans established as far back as the late 1980s, in the event either Damascus or Baghdad were taken over.
“Not to mention, I have discussed this in-depth with various contacts of mine who have confirmed what I already knew,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Backs Turkey Over Gaza Blockade
Istanbul, 7 June (AKI) — Syrian president Bashar Assad said on Monday that Damascus would stand by “every decision” made by Turkey in pressuring Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.”We are not just about condemnation, we are about actions,” Assad said, according to media reports.
At a joint media conference in Istanbul with Assad, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his government was prepared to supply the Gaza Strip with “everything it needs”.
Referring to the deaths of nine aid activists during the Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla a week ago, Erdogan stressed that Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory must end immediately.
“What happened on the flotilla is a crime against humanity,” Erdogan said.
“Palestine and Gaza are a giant prison and this situation cannot continue,” he said. “We can no longer remain silent and we will not be silent any more regarding anything having to do with Gaza.”
Assad also criticised the flotilla raid, calling it not “just another crime, but a crime that shows Israel’s true face.”
Earlier on Monday, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the normalisation of Turkey’s relations with Israel would depend upon Jerusalem’s acceptance of an international inquiry into the event.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: What is Assad Hiding in His Backyard?
Satellite photos of secret Syrian site depict at least five guarded installations whose purpose is unclear.
Which Western intelligence agency requested satellite photographs of secret Syrian military installations near the border with Lebanon over the past two years?
A small patch of territory in northwest Syria has been photographed on at least 16 occasions. The images were procured by satellite imaging service DigitalGlobe, which the Western company hired.
[…]
The images depict at least five guarded installations whose purpose is unclear. In the center is a new residential complex with at least 40 multistory buildings whose shape and structure are distinct from the architecture in the rest of the town.
A number of Google Earth users said they saw passageways to bunkers leading to installations underneath the mountains surrounding Masyaf.
Other users noted that Syrian journalist and human rights activist Nizar Nayouf told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in 2004 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein smuggled his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons into Syria just prior to the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In the interview, Nayouf claimed that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were stashed in three separate sites in Syria, including an underground military base beneath the village of AlBaida, one kilometer south of Masyaf. Nayouf was imprisoned by Syrian authorities for 10 years. In 2001, he was granted political asylum in France.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey — Vatican: Funeral of Mgr. Padovese. Murderer, “I Killed the Great Satan!”
The bishop was stabbed in the house and beheaded outside. He cried help before he died. The murderer shouted “Allah Akbar!”. The alleged insanity of the murderer is now to be excluded. There is no medical certificate to prove it. Murat Altun accuses the dead bishop of being a homosexual. Turkish minister of justice condemns the murder and promises to shed light on the incident.
Iskenderun (AsiaNews) — Today at 4pm local time the funeral will take place of Msgr. Padovese, killed by his driver, Murat Altun, strangely “crazed” last June 3. Meanwhile, new details have emerged on the dynamics and motives of the killing that has prostrated the Turkish Church.
The funeral ceremony will be held in the Church of the Annunciation, with the participation of the apostolic nuncio, Mgr. Antonio Lucibello, the Latin bishops of Istanbul and Izmir, the Armenian Catholic Bishop of Istanbul, as well as the priests in Turkey and representatives of international embassies.
There will also be a delegate of the Conference of Bishops of Europe present. The presence of bishops from other countries, particularly Italy, are not expected: After the funeral, in Iskenderun, the body of Mgr. Padovese will be brought to Milan, Italy, where he will receive other funeral. The funeral in Italy is likely to take place on Monday, June 14. The delay is due to the fact that the Italian courts have asked to do an autopsy on the body of the martyred bishop.
As the days pass, new details emerge on the story of murder and the alleged “insanity” of the assassin.
The doctors who performed the autopsy reveal that Mgr. Padovese had knife wounds all over his body, but especially in the heart (at least 8). His head was almost completely detached from his neck, attached to his body by only the skin of the back of the neck.
Even the dynamics of the killing is clearer: the Bishop was stabbed in his house. He had the strength to go out the door of the house, bleeding and crying for help and there he was killed. Perhaps only when he fell to the ground, was his head cut off.
Witnesses said they heard the bishop cry out for help. But more importantly, is that they heard screams of Murat immediately after the murder. According to these sources, he climbed on the roof of the house shouted: “I killed the great Satan! Allah Akbar! “.
This call coincides perfectly with the idea of beheading, making sense that it is like a ritual sacrifice against evil. This correlates with the murders of ultranationalist groups and Islamic fundamentalists who apparently want to eliminate Christians from Turkey.
Moreover, according to a Turkish newspaper, Milliyet on June 4, the murderer had told police that he his actions were the result of a “ divine revelation.”
Faced with these new chilling details perhaps the statements by the Turkish government and the first views expressed by the Vatican need to be revised. They had claimed that the killing did not have political or religious implications. Notwithstanding that, as Benedict XVI said in the plane en route to Cyprus, this murder “can not be attributed to Turkey or the Turks, and should not obscure dialogue”.
Adding to the pontiff’s justifiable concerns, are the increasing demands of Catholics and some Turkish NGOs that police should not stop the investigation at the presumed “insanity” of Murat, but proceed and delve deeper into his possible links with organizations of the “Deep State”, even beyond the Turkish government.
The alleged insanity of the 26 year old who for more than four years lived next to the bishop is now indefensible. Ercan Eris, the church’s lawyer, argues that the murderer can not become depressed in a day and that there is no medical report which declares that. Now it is certain that the young man is sane. There is no medical certificate attesting to his mental disability. Recently he said he was depressed, but now it is thought that this was all a strategy to defend himself later.
Yesterday in the Ministry of Justice came directly from Ankara to Iskenderun and explicitly condemned the act and ensured that he will do everything possible to shed light on what happened.
Establishing the truth is necessary for the Turkish State, because it shows its modernity and ability to guarantee rights, but it is also necessary for the Church. According to police sources, it seems that Murat is offering a new justification for his action: Mgr. Padovese was a homosexual, Murat, 26, was the victim, “forced to suffer abuse.” The killing of the bishop was not martyrdom, but an act of “legitimate defence”.
But according to experts of the Turkish world, the killing of Mgr. Padovese shows an evolution of organizations of the “Deep State” being the first time they aim so high. So far they had targeted ordinary priests, but now they have attacked the head of the Turkish Church (Mgr Padovese was president of the Episcopal Conference of Turkey). At the same time, their actions are becoming more sophisticated, less crude than before. There not only limit their defence to claims of “insanity”, already used for the murder of Father Santoro, but offer more explanation to confuse public opinion nationally and internationally.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican — Fr. Samir: Christians Together, The Small Flock and Hope in the Middle East
A masterful commentary of the Instrumentum Laboris made public by Benedict XVI in Cyprus. The urgent issues for Christians in the Middle East (survival, emigration, immigrant Asian Christians, religious freedom): unity with orthodox witness in the Jewish and the Islamic worlds, shaping contemporary society in modernity and peace.
Cyprus (AsiaNews) — The Instrumentum Laboris (IL) released by the Pope in Cyprus, from the perspective of its overall structure has in general remain unchanged from that of the Lineamenta. The internal development of each point, however, is different because they include at least 100 responses received from all the entire region: Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the emigrant church: from Paris, America, ….
Some sections are almost identical but overall at least two thirds of the IL is new, having to meet different requests and criticisms.
The situation of Christians has changed dramatically in recent decades
The structure is the same as the one initially envisaged: the first relatively well developed part, deals with the status questionis, where a general overview is given of the situation of Christians today and why they emigrate. It is explained that often the reasons are dictated by the changes that have taken place in Middle Eastern society in recent decades:
- In first place, widespread Islamization (especially in Egypt); the worsening political situation in all countries, subject to authoritarianism and dictatorship, or the civil war in Lebanon and the Christians consequent loss of influence;
- The prolonging of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has a direct affect on the lack of regional stability;
- The recent war in Iraq, which has augmented the anxiety of Christians.
In the Middle East, what happens in one country affects others. Moreover, many Iraqi immigrants, for example, are now in other Arab countries, especially Jordan, Syria (many), Lebanon, Egypt …
The emigration of Christians
The internal development of Christianity is marked by slow but continuous emigration, the result of which, after almost 30-40 years, are there for all to see.
In Lebanon, for example, at the time of the Constitution in ‘46, about 60 years ago, there was a small Christian majority when compared to Muslim and Druze. Now nobody wants to carry out a census, but Christians have fallen below 40% (perhaps 35%). And this makes a big difference, even in political terms.
In Lebanon it is said: “If this phenomenon continues, in a few years from now we will be less than 30%. Will we still have the freedom to decide on the future of the country? Will we still be a Christian-Muslim state? “. Many Christians say: “I would stay in my country, but would my children still be able to live their faith?”.
This applies even more to other countries, where the percentage of Christians do not exceed 10%, such as in Egypt. Elsewhere it is 6, 5, 3%. In other countries in the region, like Turkey, we see the presence of Christian plunge, in less than a hundred years, from about 20% to 1%.
Ecumenism
This leads us now to address these problems not only as “Catholics” but as “Christians”. And this is a feature of the current Synod.
In May I was invited to Munich to the “2. Ökumenischer Kirchentag “, the largest ecumenical meeting with about 100,000 people, to speak of the Synod of Churches for Middle East. With me was a Lebanese Greek Orthodox professor who teaches in Münster. He said “This Synod is important to us Orthodox, like nothing else in the world.”
We must really consider the Orthodox presence at Synod, making sure they are not just there at a representational level, but really a working part of the Synod, present in large numbers, all working together.
The question of unity among Christians disappear, the social challenges; political and religious freedom that does not exist in the Middle East (there is freedom of worship — not always — freedom of expression is denied in Algeria, Tunisia, etc.). these are all issues that must be addressed together.
But Muslims need to be present too, in order to understand that it is time for them to evolve without losing their personality, but by addressing human rights, which are more important and come before that of religion.
International Christian Immigration
Another common problem that the churches have not yet fully addressed is the International Christian immigration from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Ethiopia, Sudan … to the countries of the Middle East.
Days ago in Beirut, I was listening to the Lebanese minister for justice on the radio who emphasized the urgent need to address the problems facing foreign domestic workers in Lebanon, that they must be treated with justice in accordance with human rights. This awareness is undoubtedly due to the many Christian activists who work in defence of these people.
Across the Middle East domestic workers count over 1 million people. Many of them are Catholic and are treated like slaves. There is now a growing awareness of this and its thanks to the commitment of Catholics. Although a minority, we are among the most attentive to the problems of human rights, of the individual and society.
This emphasis on Christian immigrants from the East is also important in another sense. They are a vital witness and support for local Christians. They are living communities, full of song and joy. Emphasizing their presence is also important for the case of Saudi Arabia, where the more than one million Christians who work there are denied the right to their religion, and the state can not indefinitely refuse to find a solution to this situation.
The relationship with the Christians of the West
Little is mentioned in the IL about communion with the Churches of the West, instead it asks their help to seek solutions to the political and social situation in the Middle East by influencing their Western governments (where applicable).
It must be said that the relationship between churches of East and West has changed since the Crusades or Lebanese protectorates. We realize that the West is no longer Christian. France was once called “the eldest daughter of the Church” today is rather defined as “the daughter who has disowned her mother!.
On the other hand there is the growing realization that we, Christians of the East, have our own identity. And I must say that is not a single line on colonialism, on the wounds produced by the West, etc., in the entire document. We do not have this complex, we do not even reject the West. We have a clear identity in dialogue with it.
On the one hand we think that the West still has much to give to the East, even from the spiritual point of view. The speeches of the pope (the various popes) are listened to with respect and esteem by many Christians and others, their spirituality and their attention to a proper evolution of society. During a course in Beirut, an Eastern Orthodox professor told me that she and her Church consider Synod important and see it as something that personally regards them.
Catholic Church infrastructure in Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere in the East, is maintained thanks to the financial and personnel assistance of Catholic missionaries, both Eastern and Western. The same can be seen in hospitals and schools.
Social work in favour of unions, workers’ rights, and gender justice, came about thanks to the influence of Western religious. In Egypt, social work is also carried out by Muslims, and they themselves acknowledge that they learned this from Western Christians.
Communion
Turning then to the subtitle given by the Pope to Synod, “Communion and witness”, two other parts emerge.
The second part speaks of the communion among believers in the Catholic Church, and between believers and clergy, while the third part speaks of witness to other churches and non-Christians (Jews and Muslims).
Personally, I would have included in this second part on communion, sections on catechesis, on the renewal of the liturgy in fidelity to particular Traditions (which should be done together with the Orthodox) and Ecumenism (which are now in the third part) because these areas are instruments of true communion between Catholics and other Christians. Jesus Christ at the Last Supper prayed for Christian unity. And if Christians are divided, the witness loses meaning.
The witness to Jews and Muslims
The third part, focuses mainly on witness toward non-Christians (Jews and Muslims) and to the commitment in cities to build a society that is more humane, more worthy of Man.
There are sections in this part on religious and theological dialogue with Judaism and Islam.
This part has been thoroughly revised, especially with regards Judaism. Other parts deal with the political question, in view of a peace founded in justice. But in these sections we wanted to address the theological question.
In the Middle East, neither Muslims nor Jews distinguish between politics or religion, and in general, hate is the common denominator. Among Christians, some make this distinction, others project their political reality onto theology. There are Christians — even Catholics — who claim that the Old Testament text is “ugly, that it does not come from God”, just like Muslims, who in theory recognize its divine inspiration, but then say that these texts were manipulated (tahrîf).
The document insists on the theological basis in our bond with Judaism, on the relationship between the New and Ancient Israel: this is a challenge for Eastern theology. Many churches are closed within the horizon of the Arab world. Yet, especially those of the Holy Land, they must confront themselves in their daily life with the Jewish world.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem has made an important contribution to this opening. The contributions that arrived from Jerusalem say: for us the problem is not Islam, but religious Israel, which in everyday life has many aspects similar to Islam.
Attention to the Jewish world and the Jewish roots of the Christian faith is essential: there are Christians who refuse to read the Old Testament because it speaks of Israel. Not long ago in Palestine the idea was put forward to “purge” all the psalms of the parts which spoke of “Israel”, reciting an incomplete prayer, due to the ambiguity with which the Jews themselves used this word.
Some Muslims collaborators have complained that the section on Islam is short. From one point of view this is true, but the essential is covered. For the rest, when speaking of witness in the cities (the last part of the IL), the ambiguity of modernity and the need for collaboration to address it in religious and spiritual terms, it refers not only to Christians but to Muslims as well.
The issue of witness in the cities can not be separated between us and them. Moreover, a source of inspiration for the IL were 10 documents of the Patriarchs of the East, rich in ideas, two of which are exclusively devoted to Islam.
[MORE TO FOLLOW]
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: Amnesty Alleges ‘US Role in Al-Qaeda Attacks’
London, 7 June (AKI) — Human rights group Amnesty International has released images of what it claims is US involvement in air strikes on an alleged Al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen late last year. It also criticised Washington for allegedly using cluster munitions and failing to prevent civilian casualties.
The 17 December 2009 attack targeted the community of al-Majalah in southern Yemen killing 55 people including 14 alleged members of Al-Qaeda, the rights group said.
A Yemeni parliamentary committee confirmed that 41 civilians were killed in the attack.
“A military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful,” said Philip Luther, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Amnesty said 14 women and 21 children were among those killed in the strikes.
The organisation said it was “gravely concerned” by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen, when most states had committed to comprehensively ban these weapons.
“The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions,” Luther said in a statement.
The Yemeni government has said its forces alone carried out the attack on al-Ma’jalah but Amnesty has questioned this claim.
“Based on the evidence provided by these photographs, the US government must disclose what role it played in the al-Ma’jalah attack, and all governments involved must show what steps they took to prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries,” Luther said.
Neither the United States nor Yemen has yet signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty designed to comprehensively ban such weapons which is due to enter into force on 1 August 2010.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
57 Pakistani Hindus Convert to Islam ‘Under Pressure’
ISLAMABAD: Over 50 Pakistani Hindus have converted to Islam in the Sialkot district of Punjab within a week (between May 14 and May 19) under pressure from their Muslim employers in a bid to retain their jobs and survive in the Muslim-dominated society.
As many as 35 Hindus converted to Islam on May 14, another 14 on May 17 and eight on May 19, 2010.
All the 57 Hindus who have converted belong to the Pasroor town of Sialkot.
According to some Pakistani electronic media reports, Mangut Ram, a close relative of some of the new converts, who lives in Sialkot, said that these Hindus had to embrace Islam because they were under pressure from their Muslim employers.
He said four Hindu brothers along with their families lived in the village of Nikki Pindi. Mangut Ram said that Hans Raj, Kans Raj, Meena/Kartar and Sardari Lal along with his nephews and sons worked at an eatery in Karachi.
According to Mangut Ram, his co workers often used to speak against Hindus in Karachi where his family worked. “The owner of the shop where I worked said that after a few months of his employing me the sales dropped drastically because people avoided purchasing and eating edibles prepared by Hindus. Many people opposed the large presence of Hindu employees at his shop and my boss felt pressured to change the situation,” he added.
Ram said Sardari Lal and his brother Meena/Kartar had worked at the sweets shops for several years and made a decent living that allowed them to support their families.
He said other Muslims employees of the nearby shops discriminated against them and persecuted them. The shop owner was forced to think about their future at his establishment. “That was when the two brothers and their families decided to embrace Islam in order to keep their jobs and be secure,” he added.
Ram confirmed that 13 family members of Sardari Lal, 12 members of Meena/ Kartar, their nephew Kans Raj’s son Boota Ram along with three adults and several children of these families embraced Islam on May 14, 2010.
He said that Sardari Lal’s older brothers Hans Raj and Kans Raj remained Hindus. Hans Raj too has said that he might consider converting to save his job. He said that life was ‘just easier if one was Muslim’ and he wouldn’t be discriminated against.
Ram said that 14 Hindus of the Tapiala village had embraced Islam on May 17 because they were extremely poor and could not get jobs because no one would employ the large Hindu family.
He said that another relative of his, Parkash, who lived in the village of Seowal, along with his eight family members had embraced Islam in order to save their lands.
“After embracing Islam, Parkash Ram told me that Muslim neighbours had been mistreating him and had forced him to convert,” Mangut Ram said.
| — Hat tip: Anestos Canelides | [Return to headlines] |
China: Foxconn to Raise Wages for the Third Time
After a wave of suicides among employees, Taiwan company raises wages by 65 per cent. Rise is indicative of major shift in China’s workforce.
Shenzhen (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Taiwan-based Foxconn announced that it would raise wages by almost 70 per cent on 1 October. The company, which makes components for Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, has seen a rash of suicides among employees in its Shenzhen plant in recent months.
The company’s founder, Terry Gou, made the announcement. Monthly salaries for workers employed by Foxconn Technology in Shenzhen will go from 1,200 to 2,000 yuan (US$ 290). At the start of May, the basic salary was 900 yuan.
The pay rise was offered to workers who “successfully pass a performance evaluation lasting three months”, the firm said. If employees pass the probation, they will be eligible for the increase.
“This wage increase will reduce overtime work as a personal necessity for some employees and make it a personal choice for many workers,” the company added.
The new wage policy, which is similar to that of Honda, is indicative of an important shift in the local workforce.
A new generation of migrant workers, born in the 1980s, is no longer willing to accept slave-like working conditions. High workplace mobility makes it easier for them to quit overtaxing jobs.
Employment among industrial workers has grown in China in the last five months at the highest rate in the past five years. This has raised consciousness among workers of their importance in the production cycle.
These workers belong to the one-child generation and have grown up in an environment where they were indulged by the entire family. Unlike the predecessors, they are unwilling to work only for a salary, but also want a life that is not tied to the assembly line.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Imam Calls on Muslims to Break Gaza Blockade
Sydney, 7 June (AKI) — An Australian imam has called on local Muslims and supporters of the Palestinian cause to volunteer for the crew of an Australian boat he wants to send to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Speaking at a special prayer meeting in Sydney, Sheikh Taj El-Din Al Hilaly, a controversial imam from the Lakemba mosque, asked for expressions of interest from people wanting to sail on a ship carrying aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Speaking in Arabic, Sheikh Hilaly denounced the “Zionist aggression” and “Zionist terrorism” of Israel, whose commandos killed nine activists when they attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza last Monday.
“Blood that has been shed is blood that will not go cheap,” Sheikh Hilaly said, cited by local daily, The Sydney Morning Herald. “We will stand together and fight together”.
The prayer meeting, held to commemorate the activists’ deaths, brought together Muslim leaders from the Turkish, Lebanese and Afghan communities in Australia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Megafauna Cave Painting Could be 40,000 Years Old
Scientists say an Aboriginal rock art depiction of an extinct giant bird could be Australia’s oldest painting.
The red ochre painting, which depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched, could date back to the earliest days of settlement on the continent.
It was rediscovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land plateau about two years ago, but archaeologists first visited the site a fortnight ago.
A palaeontologist has confirmed the animals depicted are the megafauna species Genyornis.
Archaeologist Ben Gunn said the giant birds became extinct more than 40,000 years ago.
“The details on this painting indicate that it was done by someone who knew that animal very well,” he said.
He says the detail could not have been passed down through oral storytelling.
“If it is a Genyornis, and it certainly does have all the features of one, it would be the oldest dated visual painting that we’ve got in Australia,” he said.
“Either the painting is 40,000 years old, which is when science thinks Genyornis disappeared, or alternatively the Genyornis lived a lot longer than science has been able to establish.”
Mr Gunn says there are paintings of other extinct animals right across the area including the thylacine, or tasmanian tiger, the giant echidna and giant kangaroo.
“It does give you a window back to a time that you can pinpoint, and in the case of the Genyornis it’s a very long picture,” he said.
The traditional owners of the land in the Northern Territory say they are excited the painting could be Australia’s oldest dated rock art.
The Jawoyn Association’s Wes Miller says the painting is one of thousands rediscovered across Arnhem Land in recent years.
“It verifies that the Jawoyn people were living in this country for a very, very long time,” he said.
“People say it, but once again this is clearly a demonstration of how long Jawoyn people have been in this country and other Indigenous groups. It’s great from that point of view. It’s pretty exciting stuff.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona Leaders Lament as State’s Image Takes Beating With New Immigration Law
PHOENIX — When state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) travels outside Arizona, she hears the same question over and over: “What’s wrong with your state?” She notes Arizona’s new immigration law, its ban on ethnic studies classes and its prohibition on creating animal-human hybrids.
The other day, Sinema sent a note to her Twitter followers that might as well have been accompanied by a heavy sigh. “Just one day,” she tweeted, “I’d like Arizona to be in the news for something good.”
Sinema is a liberal Democrat in a largely Republican state, but her sense of disheartenment is shared across party lines. Dean Martin, state treasurer and conservative GOP candidate for governor, said national opinion on Arizona is “polarized. That’s counterproductive.”
Arizona finds itself at the vortex of an immigration debate that is increasingly bitter and, figures on both sides say, increasingly unwinnable. Opinions are split, with fear of harassment rising among Hispanics and worry about an economic boycott growing among the state’s leaders.
Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has appointed a committee and allocated $250,000 to re-brand the state’s image, while 13 Arizona chamber of commerce executives appealed to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to keep the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix after he faced pressure to change locations. They said it would preserve jobs for “innocent citizens, including our Hispanic community.”
Musical performers such as Sonic Youth, Kanye West and Rage Against the Machine have said they will boycott the state. Phoenix City Hall calculates that Arizona has lost nearly $100 million in convention commitments. Meanwhile, supporters and opponents of the immigration law are taking to the streets weekly.
The national focus on the state has grown since April 23, when Brewer, facing a primary election challenge, signed the bill known as SB1070, giving police wide latitude to check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally. The governor met last week with President Obama at the White House, pressing her point that federal inaction forced Arizona to act.
“Both sides are definitely set in their positions. Probably no one’s going to change anyone’s mind,” said Grant Woods (R), a former state attorney general, who worries that an image of the state as intolerant will take hold. “I think it sticks until we rise above it.”
In Arizona and beyond, the law has many supporters. A CBS News poll last month found that 52 percent of respondents nationally think the Arizona law is “about right” in its handling of illegal immigrants. Seventeen percent said it does not go far enough. Twenty-eight percent said the law goes too far.
Although the law is not due to take effect until July 29, Hispanic families that include undocumented immigrants are lying low. Some are planning moves to other states, said the Rev. Vili Valderrama, who lives in Nogales, near the border with Mexico. “People feel discouraged, they feel powerless,” he said.
Natividad Lopez Rubio, known as “Natty,” said his Nogales-to-Phoenix shuttle business is suffering. A few months ago, his minivans made 14 round trips a day and were often full. Now, he is lucky to make five trips with a few passengers in each.
“Most of the people we carry are Mexican. People are scared,” Lopez Rubio said outside his office, one block from the busy border crossing. “It’s totally a consequence of the law.”
In lamenting the state’s increasingly bitter divisions, Laura Briggs, who teaches women’s studies at the University of Arizona, cites a painful example of ethnic strife. “It feels like what people said about Sarajevo,” said Briggs, whose daughter is Mexican American. “I used to be part of a community that was mixed. People lived in the same neighborhood, people intermarried. Now there’s this unleashing of this horrible anti-Latino racism that I can’t even understand.”
Opponents of the immigration law may be frustrated, but “boycotts are absolutely the wrong way to go,” said Garrick Taylor, a spokesman for the state chamber of commerce. Boycotts hurt Arizonans, “particularly in the tourist industry, who had nothing to do with the law.”
Taylor is especially annoyed with state and local governments that are canceling deals with Arizona businesses or calling on others to do so. “If they were truly invested in the immigration issue,” he said, “they’d be pressing Washington for comprehensive immigration reform.”
The last time Arizona’s image suffered such a blow was in the 1980s, when many Republicans, including then-U.S. Rep. John McCain, opposed a national holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Woods, the former attorney general, said the moment inspired his winning campaign as a GOP promoter of civil rights. This time, he is counting on “intelligent, compassionate people from all sides” to find a compromise.
“There are some states that are pretty much lily-white. That’s not our state,” Woods said. “To be an Arizonan is to be a part of Mexico. It’s to be a part of the various Native American tribes. That’s part of our culture, the diversity. I think the people’s hearts are there, but the leaders don’t always respect that.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Linnanmäki Disturbance Highlights Tensions Between Somalis and Kurds in Finland
Representatives of two immigrant minorities believed to have been involved in Sunday’s group fight at Linnanmäki have sharply condemned the melee. The incident has highlighted tensions that sometimes emerge between Somalis and Kurds in Finland. Some Somalis have taken issue with the dress and habits of Kurds, who are often fairly relaxed in their interpretation of Islam.
Dozens of young people with immigrant backgrounds took part in Sunday’s melee — mainly Somalis and Kurds. Kurds have said that there have been tensions between the groups before, because some of the Somalis, many of whom are devout Muslims, have been known to chide Kurds for their more worldly dress and behaviour.
A woman, interviewed by the late-edition newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, said that one of Sunday’s fights started with an argument over the use of head scarves. According to the 25-year-old woman, the Somalis denounced Kurdish women for not wearing scarves.
Kurds interviewed by YLE were not surprised to hear about tensions with the Somalis. They say that some Somalis have previously taken issue with the habits of secularised Muslims. One Kurdish woman spoke of an incident in which a Somali took issue with listening to music at a Finnish language course.
“When I was on a Finnish language course, we had the same problem. One Somali prevented us from listening to music, saying that it is banned under Islamic law.”
The woman did not want her name mentioned, because she did not want to hurt the feelings of her Somali colleagues.
Friendship Society Condemns Violence
Sabah Abbas Ali, the chair of the Finnish-Kurdish Friendship Society, says that there have been similar cases before.
“Unfortunately, this is not unique. What happened at Linnanmäki has happened before.”
Ali mentions a case at a public swimming pool in Vuosaari, where a bikini worn by a Kurdish woman sparked a conflict. Ali is occasionally told of cases in which a devout Muslim will take issue with the dress or activities of a worldlier Kurd.
“Both sides have behaved badly,” Ali said, commenting on Sunday’s news.
Ali is quick to add that not all Somalis in Finland take issue with the religious habits of other Muslims, adding that he has close Somali friends himself.
“More about Self-Esteem than Scarves”
Youth worker Mohamed Xadar Mukhtar Abdi, himself of a Somali background, is surprised at the experiences reported by Kurds.
“Muslim girls have been friends with each other even though some wear scarves and others do not. I think that they have gotten along quite well in spite of this.”
Abdi believes that Sunday’s events were more about self-esteem and adherence to a group than about head scarves. He noted that stupid ideas tend to prevail in large groups.
“If two people do not understand each other, then naturally, friends and groups of friends will come to the aid of their own.”
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Brainwashed in Norway
The heat is generated by Harald Eia, a TV-comedian turned science reporter, who is exposing social scientists and gender researchers in a not very flattering manner in a TV series called “Brainwashed”. The uproar started already last summer, more than half a year before the series was ready. Some social scientists who had been interviewed by Eia, went out in the press to say they felt they had been fooled, tricked to expose themselves by “dubious” tactics.
What Eia had done, was to first interview the Norwegian social scientists on issues like sexual orientation, gender roles, violence, education and race, which are heavily politicized in the Norwegian science community. Then he translated the interviews into English and took them to well-known British and American scientists like Robert Plomin, Steven Pinker, Anne Campbell, Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Lippa, David Buss, and others, and got their comments. To say that the American and British scientists were surprised by what they heard, is an understatement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Legalizing Euthanasia in Belgium Unleashes Nurses to Do Doctor-Ordered Non Voluntary Killing
Belgium has followed the Netherlands in jumping off a vertical moral cliff by embracing legalized euthanasia. The awful consequences that I predicted are now coming to pass; a steady increase in the number of cases, inadequate reporting, and a large percentage of non voluntary euthanasia deaths. Thus, I am anything but surprised by the study I analyze below, which echoes an earlier one reported here at SHS, that nearly as many Belgian euthanasia killings are non voluntary as of those that are voluntary (the concept of “voluntary” in this context being highly problematic, but let’s not deal with that here).
Why might that be? Euthanasia consciousness rests on two intellectual pillers— that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, and radical individualism in which we all own our bodies and have the absolute right to do what we wish with it, including make it dead. But interestingly, the latter idea—often reduced to that most effective of all soundbites, “choice”— turns out to be far less robust than the acceptance of active killing as a proper method of ending suffering. In other words, once a society accepts killing as the answer to suffering, the request element becomes increasingly less important as doctors assume they are doing what is best for the patient by extinguishing their lives.
This has been the case in the Netherlands for for decades. Amazingly, the phenomenon of “terminations without request or consent” is even worse in Flanders, Belgium. In the present survey of nurses, not only were nearly as many patients euthanized without no request—120 in this survey—as those who asked to die—128 in this survey—but often doctors have nurses do the dirty work—and they aren’t supposed to engage in euthanasia at all. From a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (download the PDF to see whole article):
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal: First Wedding Between Two Women
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JUNE 7 — Helena Paixao and Teresa Pires this morning where the first same-sex people to get married in Portugal in a civil wedding ceremony, the online edition of Publico reports. Four years after the first (in vane) attempt to get married, the two women succeeded today in Lisbon in the presence of some friends and many reporters. The ceremony was made possible by the law on same-sex matrimonies that was recently approved by the socialist government of Premier José Socrates. The Portuguese parliament gave green light in February to the law that was ratified by Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco da Silva in May. The ceremony started this morning at 9.40 local time. Twenty minutes later the two women heard the following momentous words: “In the name of the law and the Republic of Portugal, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao are now married”. The two daughters of the women, who have been living together for eight years, from previous heterosexual marriages were present at the ceremony, the Jornal de Noticias reports. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
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