Why Obama is Sabotaging U.S. Economic Growth
If the financial reform bill passes, the bad Wall Street will win, the good Wall Street will not. And investors and American families will lose.
[…]
Answering a question on the BBC, Geithner said that the administration is now taking steps to come out with better growth outcomes across the global economy.
Translation: The administration has purposely hamstrung U.S. economic growth as a way to burst the bubble of America’s supremacy. The financial reform bill carries this process forward by suppressing the capitalist spirit, business freedom, and economic growth.
President Obama had hoped to carry his trophy legislation to the Chinese and Russians at the G20 and G8 meetings. It would have been like bringing America’s head on a platter.
Ask yourself: with the administration passing the financial reform bill, will it translate to solving the economic crisis? Will it translate to robust economic growth for America? Will it heal the private sector and create more jobs and reduce the unemployment rate or stop the stock market from crashing again? The answer is “No.”
Then you should ask yourself: Does the Obama administration know this? The answer is “Yes.”
The Obama Administration knows very well that passing the financial reform bill is not going to improve the unemployment picture, or solve the economic crisis, or even prevent the stock market from crashing again. Yet they rushed it through without fixing the root cause of the economic crisis—the influence of the hedge fund short sellers that are organized in the Managed Funds Association (MFA), the most powerful special interest group in America.
Billionaire George Soros is one of its most prominent members.
If anything, the passing of this financial reform bill is a guarantee that the U.S. economy is not going to recover, and that the stock market will crash again and again and again, leading to more job losses and increased unemployment.
Why are they doing this? Tim Geithner just gave you the answer. They do not want the United States of America to drive global growth anymore. And that is in alignment with the agenda of George Soros, the MFA, and the Center for American Progress, which I call the Center for American Destruction. They are bursting what George Soros calls the bubble of American supremacy in order to achieve global equilibrium among nations.
It’s also called international socialism.
[…]
What is needed is legal protection for the invested capital.
I repeat: You have to protect the invested capital that is needed to create jobs, and to protect the value of our homes and assets. You must restrict short sale transactions, end mark to market accounting completely, restore the old circuit breakers, and restore the old uptick rule to their original condition without any modification.
You must encourage and protect capitalism and risk-taking, before the private sector can see a recovery and start creating jobs.
Consider that the Chinese and Indian economies are growing, expanding and even over-heating. They both rejected and banned short selling. As a result, their invested capital is protected.
The Australian economy is growing, expanding and over-heating. The Australians preserved the short sale restriction regulation and the uptick rule. Hence, invested capital and stock equity ownership in Australia are protected by law.
The European governments which lost money in the Wall Street collapse can follow the money paper trail from their side. They have an idea of what happened; the Germans have already banned naked short selling.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Controversy Surrounds Construction of Mosques Across U.S.
By Lauren Green
They’re separated by thousands of miles, but they share a common controversy: Mosques.
Murfreesboro, Tenn., has joined a growing list of midsized towns in the U.S. that are embroiled in conflicts over proposed mosques being built or bought in their neighborhoods.
Including Murfreesboro, residents have risen up against mosques in two other Tennessee towns; in Staten Island, N.Y.; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, as well as the proposed mosque and Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, which has garnered some of the most heated battles.
A new Quinnipiac Poll shows that well over half of New Yorkers — 52 percent oppose building a mosque near the 9/11 site. Only 31 percent support it.
Among ethnic groups, Hispanics show the greatest opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, 60 to 19 percent.
Among religious groups, Jews and white Catholics expressed the greatest opposition, both at 66 percent.
Those who support building the mosques say the opposition comes from growing Islamophobia, racism and ignorance.
Those who oppose adamantly deny that bigotry is involved.
In Murfreesboro, Republican congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik says she’s not against the building of a mosque, but she does oppose the construction of an Islamic cultural center, which she says would be an Islamic training facility. “This has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with a radical agenda,” she says.
But in Staten Island, fears that a mosque will become a breeding ground for homegrown terror are rooted in reports about who’s financing the deal.
Residents of the heavily Catholic neighborhood are in an uproar over a Muslim group’s plans to buy a shuttered convent and convert it into a Mosque. Besides concerns about increased traffic and little parking, there are disturbing reports surrounding the organization, the Muslim America Society, which is funding the purchase.
According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, MAS has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a 100-year-old movement that is widely regarded as one of the most influential Islamic fundamentalist groups in the world. Its stated agenda has been to spread Islam and Shariah law throughout the West. Some of its members also reportedly created Hamas.
“The Muslim American Society was created in the early 1990s as the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood,” says Steve Emerson, IPT’s executive director.
He says the MAS and Muslim Brotherhood claim to oppose terrorism, but “behind closed doors they support terrorism and have defended various terrorists that have been convicted in the United States since 9/11.”
But Ibrahim Ramey, the human and civil rights director for MAS Freedom, adamantly denies any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or terrorism.
“There are people who don’t like Muslims and don’t like Muslims in their neighborhood who have been vociferously and consistently trying to link MAS with foreign organizations and movements, but that simply isn’t true,” Ramey says.
“We are not agents of Hamas nor do we answer to them, nor do we provide money for them, nor are we part of any conflict that they have with the U.S. Government, or any authorities in the United States.”
Emerson says his group has documentation linking MAS with the Muslim Brotherhood. He also says MAS has been on a spending spree in the last two years, either buying property to establish mosques, as in Staten Island, or taking over existing mosques, like the huge Dal al-Hidrah in Northern Virginia and the very prominent Islamic Society of Boston in Massachusetts.
“The way to gain influence among the Muslim community is to control the mosques,” Emerson says. “The way to control what people think in the Muslim community is to have the right imam preach the right message. So by acquiring these mosques the Muslim American Society gets the right to appoint the imam and distribute the message they believe is necessary to spread Islam around the world.”
Ramey says the Muslim community simply is growing and needs more space.
“Our interest in establishing mosques,” he says, “is simply to provide for members of the organization and members of the larger Muslim community.”
“The allegations that MAS is somehow pushing for the implementation of Shariah laws is an absolute lie. It is not founded in fact. It is not part of our agenda.”
He says open dialogue is the key to quelling any fears a community may have about mosques.
But for Zelenik, dialogue doesn’t seem to be in the near future. She says she’s received threats for her comments, but she won’t back down. She vows to continue fighting against the mosque in Murfreesboro.
“We are focusing on the positive,” she says. “We are not going to let threats stop us for one moment, have not and will not.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Could Obamunists ‘Postpone’ Election?
I believe that some people come to Washington with sincere intentions to roll back big government, eliminate federal handout programs and abolish anti-freedom laws and regulations. But once in power, they become convinced of the need to buy votes, lest they find themselves out of the club and having to — gasp! — seek employment in the private sector.
Which means it’s up to you and me to do the job. We should not allow ourselves to become emotionally engrossed in oil spills, riots in Greece and foiled terrorist plots. Instead, it is imperative that we relentlessly focus on our loss of liberty. Any of these and a thousand-and-one other “crises” could be used as an excuse for BHO to invoke an Obomination Sedition Act, which, in turn, could be used as an excuse to “postpone” elections in 2010 or 2012 for “security reasons.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Doesn’t Pay to be Friend of U.S.
It just doesn’t pay to be a friend of the United States of America, these days — not with Barack Obama in the White House.
Over and over again we see this administration use its power to punish America’s allies and reward our enemies.
Take, for example, Obama’s relentless pressure on and criticism of Israel.
What has Israel done to warrant all the attention?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Center Drops Cemetery Request
Application withdrawn from Board of Zoning Appeals meeting
The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has withdrawn its application and request for a conditional use permit to establish a cemetery in the residential zoning district at its Veals Road lot.
The written request was made Monday by Stephen A. Steele, professional engineer with Huddleston-Steele Engineering, on behalf of the Islamic Center.
“Members of the advisory board of the Islamic Center requested we do this,” said Steele, a partner in the Murfreesboro engineering firm. “They just didn’t think this was a good time to submit the papers.”
Camie Ayash, the spokeswoman for the Islamic Center, said the center’s planning committee decided to pull the request “so that they can sit down with the engineers, and re-review it.”
The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro is located in a 2,250-square-foot building along Middle Tennessee Boulevard, just off South Church Street.
The congregation obtained site plan approval in May from the county’s Regional Planning Commission to build a center that will total nearly 53,000 square feet. It will include a mosque area for worship that’s less than 10,000 square feet, offices, classrooms, a pool, gym, sports field, pavilion, playground and home for the imam (religious leader).
A one-acre site for a proposed cemetery was also on the site plans approved May 24, with the understanding that it would require a conditional use permit from the Board of Zoning Appeals. The application was made this earlier in the month and scheduled for the July 14 meeting at the Rutherford County Courthouse.
An existing burial at the future Islamic Center of Murfreesboro site off Bradyville Pike will be able to remain despite the congregation withdrawing its cemetery request, an official said.
“We’re not going to make them dig up a body,” Rutherford County Planning Director Doug Demosi said Monday during an interview in his office.
Katherine Hudgins, a resident who lives in a subdivision near the new site for the Islamic Center, wondered how a body could already be buried on the property when a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting was not scheduled until July.
As reported in The Daily News Journal, the congregation requested approval to bury one of its members in May. Demosi’s department administratively issued a Type I conditional use permit on May 18 for the burial.
“They can only have one,” Demosi said Monday. “We’re not going to give them any more.”
Hudgins said the planning commission should have let the public know why and how the body was allowed to be buried there.
When the Type 1 conditional use permit was issued in May, Demosi directed the mosque to pursue a Type II conditional use permit from the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals to expand the cemetery. The BZA in the past has dealt with a cemetery expansion request from a church.
The Type 1 conditional permit, dated May 18, states only one person shall be buried on the site before a Type II conditional use permit for the rest of the cemetery is reviewed by the Board of Zoning Appeals. The burial site is to be located in a one-acre area at the rear of the center’s 15-acre site.
“We checked out the state guidelines and found out that religious institutions are exempt from state regulations, just like a family cemetery is,” Demosi said in an earlier story.
Ayash said the burial did not include a coffin, a vault or embalming of the member of the mosque, according to Islamic custom.
“We met all the guidelines provided by the health department and the county,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to do anything unhealthy for ourselves or our neighbors.”
The body was buried in a leather bag about 6 to 8 feet in the ground based on guidelines given by the county and the health department, she said.
The Type 1 conditional use permit also required the burial to be in the area designated as a cemetery on the Islamic Center’s site plan, and that the site be set back at least 50 feet from each lot line and street right of way.
Officials at the Rutherford County Planning Commission said the request for a conditional use permit could be applied for again by the Islamic Center.
Murfreesboro resident Kevin Fisher has called into question the advance notice given by the planning commission prior to the May 24 meeting. But a Tennessee Coalition for Open Government official told The Daily News Journal that listing the date, time and location of the meeting on the issue was adequate.
Fisher was also planning a march along Main Street to the Public Square prior to the July 14 BZA meeting.
“In lieu of (Monday’s) events, we will discuss future plans with others involved,” Fisher said. “However, our tentative plans are to still march, with time, date, place and route details to be forthcoming.”
Fisher said in a statement that he was very pleased by Monday’s turn of events, but would continue to monitor the situation.
“I do sincerely believe this is a positive step for all parties involved,” Fisher said. “The citizens have a lot of questions which merited further discussion.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Opponent Calls for July 14 Petition March
Mosque opponent Kevin Fisher announced in a news release today that a public march to deliver petitions to county officials will start at 3 p.m. July 14 at Central Magnet School.
“We will proceed to the Rutherford Courthouse in unison, where we will deliver our petitions to our representatives, who will prepare them to be turned in at the start of the next Commission meeting,” Fisher states in his news release. “Once petitions have been delivered, we will hold a nondenominational prayer for our leaders and for this great community, led by a local clergy. Anyone wishing to participate is welcome to do so: this is a public march. Bring your children, your neighbors, your loved ones, and even your pets! All are welcome to join this march!”
The July 14 event will be on a Wednesday starting at a campus that used to be Central Middle School and is located at 701 E. Main St. about a mile east of the Public Square in Murfreesboro.
Fisher announced the March plans through the following release:
“We who have been seared in the flames of withering injustice, will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty river.” — Martin Luther King Jr…
“Several weeks ago, our Rutherford county Planning commission gave blanket permission to organizers of the proposed Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to build a large compound in our community and sought to stifle public outcry by manipulating “adequate notice “ laws to ensure its passage before anyone noticed,” Fisher wrote in the release.
“This compound, if built will not only be the largest of its kind in Middle Tennessee, it will be one of the largest in the United States. Roads ,traffic and supporting streets in the neighborhood are not prepared to withstand a substantial increase in traffic and wear and tear, and despite Tennessee Highway Patrol doing a study which suggested major improvements were needed, few were actually completed.
“One of Planning Director Doug Demosi’s assistants, one Ms. Elizabeth Emslie, gave permission for this same group to bury a body on this property-with no coffin, no vault, no embalming, even though this burial lies close to the water supply of several surrounding homes, farms and communities.
“Finally, our planning commission, in its zeal to rush this proposal through the process, overlooked numerous mistakes. Proper letters of notice which was never sent. Out of hundreds of legal notices posted on their website, one was never posted. You guessed it; it was the one concerning the mosque. And when adequate notice was given of a meeting, wonderful residents from all across the area turned out in droves to voice their concerns. So many turned out, in fact, that the fire marshal had to come in to turn people away, due to the incredible response.
“We believe the list of mistakes done by our local government is, but not limited to, the following:
- Adequate notice was not given to residents and neighbors about forthcoming meetings. Because of this, residents who would like to have had an opportunity to voice their concerns about traffic, roads and road repair, water supply, soil contamination, and many others were never given the opportunity. Here in America we have due process, by which we citizens who choose to seek redress from our government have the legal right to do so. Our commission took this away from us.
- Site drawings were grossly in error. County regulations require a cemetery be at least five acres; this site plan submitted only has one acre set aside for the cemetery.
- State law gives the Planning commissioner, Doug Demossi, permission to sign a type one conditional permit for one burial on this property.Mr.Demossi never signed the permit; Ms. Emslie, an assistant, did.
- Many residents have concerns about the ideology behind this group. While we in this country welcome all that choose to come here, and welcome them to worship as they see fit, we would like the opportunity to get to know more about our neighbors. Citizens were not given an opportunity to do so. While it took World Outreach five years to complete the process of getting approval for their construction, this group was approved in 17 days, with very little authentication or submitted paperwork.
“Because of these and many other concerns held by many in the community, we are officially welcoming all who have a concern, complaint or support our humble efforts to join us in our March for Justice. We are petitioning our local government to hear our humble cry and heed our call for fairness. We are asking our government to halt construction of this mosque until a proper voicing of concerns, from all members of the community, can take place. We are requesting appropriate site studies, health studies, and traffic studies can be completed. We invite citizens from every background, every religion, every race, sex and creed, to step forward in our call for liberty. This petition is done on behalf of all the citizens of Rutherford County, the state of Tennessee and this wonderful, blessed land called America.
“One final note: nothing in this press release is intended to disrespect, demean or insult any religion, culture or populace. As many in this community have stated many times in the past, this complaint is a call for justice for all citizens, a demand for due process, and a proper vetting of an establishment into a residential community, not a repudiation of any religion. We are a loving community here; we welcome those who come to this land with a respect and a love for our community, and a willingness to be an integral part.
“Therefore, with a spirit of love for all in our community, with a desire for justice from our local government, and with a yearning for the light of honesty and fairness to be shone upon a process which has been maligned by our local government, we ask the community to join us as we march from Central Middle School to the Rutherford County Courthouse on Wednesday, July 14 ,2010 beginning at 3:00pm.We will proceed to the Rutherford Courthouse in unison, where we will deliver our petitions to our representatives, who will prepare them to be turned in at the start of the next Commission meeting.
“Once petitions have been delivered, we will hold a nondenominational prayer for our leaders and for this great community, led by a local clergy. Anyone wishing to participate is welcome to do so: this is a public march. Bring your children, your neighbors, your loved ones, and even your pets! All are welcome to join this march!”
Because of these and many other concerns held by many in the community, we are officially welcoming all who have a concern, complaint or support our humble efforts to join us in our March for Justice. We are petitioning our local government to hear our humble cry and heed our call for fairness. We are asking our government to halt construction of this mosque until a proper voicing of concerns, from all members of the community, can take place. We are requesting appropriate site studies, health studies, and traffic studies can be completed. We invite citizens from every background, every religion, every race, sex and creed, to step forward in our call for liberty. This petition is done on behalf of all the citizens of Rutherford County, the state of Tennessee and this wonderful, blessed land called America.
“One final note: nothing in this press release is intended to disrespect, demean or insult any religion, culture or populace. As many in this community have stated many times in the past, this complaint is a call for justice for all citizens, a demand for due process, and a proper vetting of an establishment into a residential community, not a repudiation of any religion. We are a loving community here; we welcome those who come to this land with a respect and a love for our community, and a willingness to be an integral part.
“Therefore, with a spirit of love for all in our community, with a desire for justice from our local government, and with a yearning for the light of honesty and fairness to be shone upon a process which has been maligned by our local government, we ask the community to join us as we march from Central Middle School to the Rutherford County Courthouse on Wednesday, July 14 ,2010 beginning at 3:00pm.We will proceed to the Rutherford Courthouse in unison, where we will deliver our petitions to our representatives, who will prepare them to be turned in at the start of the next Commission meeting.
“Once petitions have been delivered, we will hold a nondenominational prayer for our leaders and for this great community, led by a local clergy. Anyone wishing to participate is welcome to do so: this is a public march. Bring your children, your neighbors, your loved ones, and even your pets! All are welcome to join this march!”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Poll Finds 73 Percent of Staten Islanders Oppose Mosque at Ground Zero
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Staten Islanders are skeptical about the idea of a mosque being built near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks, perhaps because they are confronting a similar issue in their own backyard, a Quinnipiac poll shows.
About 73 percent of Islanders surveyed said they are opposed to the idea of constructing a mosque and community center near Ground Zero, according to the report, released yesterday. Citywide, 52 percent of those questioned were opposed to it, 31 percent were in favor and 17 percent were undecided. Manhattan was the only borough to support it.
Share “Liberal Manhattan accepts the mosque and trusts Islam,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Staten Island, where there’s controversy about another proposed mosque, is more skeptical.”
Image from the Facebook page of group that advocates conversion of empty Midland Beach convent to mosque and community center.
There has been a heated debate across the borough about whether the Muslim American Society should convert an empty former convent, owned by St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church in Midland Beach, into a mosque and community center.
Residents learned about the agreement between the church and MAS in May, but are angry the contract was drafted quietly and without their input.
They expressed concerns about traffic and parking in the neighborhood, and contended that bringing a mosque to the area would display insensitivity to area residents who were killed on 9/11. Some feared MAS is affiliated with a group called the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been questioned for terrorist practices.
Earlier this week, the Advance reported that federal agencies were not responding to a probe by Rep. Michael McMahon (D-Staten Island/ Brooklyn) to learn more about MAS’ background. The Advance has requested that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) lodge inquiries with federal agencies on behalf of their Staten Island constituents.
Yesterday, spokesmen for Schumer did not respond to several e-mail and voice-mail messages. A spokeswoman for Ms. Gillibrand’s office said inquiries hadn’t yet been made; she said she could not comment on whether the senator’s staff would indeed make the inquiries on Staten Islanders’ behalf.
The parish board of trustees — which includes New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan — has not yet voted on the sale, which is the next step in the process.
The Midland Beach proposal was not included in yesterday’s poll.
According to the survey, by a 44-28 percent margin, with another 28 percent undecided, New York City voters have a generally favorable opinion of Islam. Only Staten Islanders showed more negativity: 28 percent had a positive impression of Islam while 43 percent did not. Still, Staten Island was in line with the rest of the city in thinking of Islam as a generally peaceful religion. About 29 percent of residents believe it encourages violence.
“New York enjoys a reputation as one of the most tolerant places in America, but New Yorkers are opposed to a proposal to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero,” Carroll said. “Is it because we’re still nursing the wounds from the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, or is it more like bigotry? Opponents suggest that the mosque would dishonor the memory of the attacks’ victims.”
Forty-two percent of voters across the city — including 68 percent of Staten Islanders surveyed — said the mosque near Ground Zero “is an insult to the memory and families of 9/11 victims.”
The poll questioned 1,183 registered voters in the five boroughs between June 21 and 28. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Speaker on Islamic Canon Warns: Sharia Law Holds Threat
Roughly 70 community members gathered at Walter Hill church Thursday burst into occasional applause as a presenter detailed how Sharia Law threatens them.
Bill Warner, who has been a university professor and businessman and touts himself as director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, conducted the seminar at Heartland Baptist Church.
During his presentation, Warner spoke directly about Sharia Law as a doctrine and not how it is practiced in the United States or elsewhere. Sharia Law is the Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran, which prescribes both religious and secular duties and sometimes penalties for lawbreaking, according to one definition.
Warner also incorporated historical accounts and statistics of Muslims versus Jews and Christians.
“There is no golden rule on Islam,” he said. “There is a golden rule, but it only applies to Muslims. It’s a disappointing insight, but it is powerful.”
Warner spoke of Mohammed and how he “was not only a perfect man, but insisted that everybody did everything exactly like him.”
The presentation followed two weeks of unrest and debate in Rutherford County surrounding a new mosque to be built by the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro on Veals Road, off Bradyville Pike.
Hundreds of residents packed a County Commission meeting last month to protest the center. Residents’ concerns ranged from a lack of notice about the agenda item at a planning commission meeting to a lack of study as to how the mosque could affect traffic in the area to fears that the mosque would be used as a terrorist training center for Muslims.
The debate has raised national attention and criticism of religious intolerance.
Sixth District congressional candidates Lou Ann Zelenik and George Erdel have joined criticism of the mosque, while Democrat Ben Leming has defended the center’s rights as established in the Constitution.
Erdel, who helped organize Thursday’s seminar, helped field questions from the crowd for Warner to address.
“The law mentions you,” Warner told the audience. “This is about you and me — it’s personal. The part about us isn’t very big, but … nothing in Islam agrees with us. The more you know about it, the more you would object it.”
He continued, “The purpose of Sharia Law is to replace our laws. The Imam says he’s here to live by your laws. He’ a leader, but he’s also a politician. He’s right for today; come tomorrow, things will change.”
Warner’s comments elicited occasional applause, but during the question portion of the event his words were questioned by an attendee.
“I think that we should acknowledge practice as well as doctrine,” the attendee noted.
In response, Wagner emphasized that he speaks only about doctrine and not about how it is applied by practicing Muslims.
Another attendee pointed to recent killings in Uzbekistan, saying that Muslims, not Christians, are fighting the government.
While several attendees neglected to comment on the record or offer their names, Murfreesboro resident Steffron James said, “I think education is always good. The more opportunity people have to get educated, the better for them.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Why Obama Socialists Love Sweden, Hate the Constitution
What especially caught my attention in this report, however, is the featured quote from Jonas Himmelstrand of the Swedish Association of Home Education. He connects the imposition of totalitarian government control over education in Sweden with the fact that Swedish law and politics do not operate on the basis of the concept of constitutional government. They are not formed and constrained by the principle that to be legitimate the powers of government must operate within limits that respect the rights of the people. This allows the government to legislate without regard for the unalienable rights connected with parental responsibility for the care and upbringing of children.
In Sweden, the government decides what is and is not good for children. Though the laws are produced by an ostensibly democratic process (an elected legislature passing laws by majority rule) the law may in any given instance abrogate the prerogatives of individuals in every area of life for the sake of whatever goals and purposes the legislative majority at the time determines to be good. There are no individual or other unalienable rights because there are no permanent principles of justice, no permanent determinations of what is right, that apply and must be respected at all times and in all the government’s laws and actions.
[…]
What many Americans fail to realize (through ignorance or inattention) is that the American understanding of democratic government differs fundamentally from this European construct. In the United States, the actions of every person enjoy the presumption of lawfulness reserved under the old European regimes to the monarchical person. This is what the presumption of innocence is all about. This presumption of innocence arises in connection with the fact that every individual has, by virtue of the laws of nature and Nature’s God, unalienable rights, i.e., actions it is right to take because they are authorized by the command of the Creator. In this respect, individuals enjoy sovereign immunity until and unless it can be shown that they have violated a just law, that is, a law that in form (the way it is formed or made) and substance (its particular provisions) respects the provisions of the Creator. Only the violation of such a law places them outside of the presumption of right that otherwise precludes interference with their actions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgarian Mufti: Protests Against Chief Mufti to Continue
Muslims from all the 18 regional Mufti Offices in Bulgaria have participated in an unprecedented prayer on Friday as another peaceful protest against the reinstatement of Nedim Gendzhev as the Muslim religious leader in Bulgaria.
“We are very disturbed by the decision of the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation to bring back Nedim Gendzhev as a Chief Mufti. A while ago, around 1 000 Imams gathered to protest in Sofia. Later this happened again in all regional Mufti Offices in the country. But nothing has changed. The Court has taken a decision in the name of people, but the people are not happy with it,” the regional Mufti from the Bulgarian city of Kardzhali, Bejhan Ahmad, said Friday.
This is the third peaceful protest of the Muslim society in Bulgaria after the Court’s ruling from May 12.
At the beginning of June, around 1 000 Muslims participated in a rally, which started in front of the Sofia Mosque, walked by the Presidential and Council of Ministers buildings and ended in front of the Parliament.
The second protest from June 18 gathered Imams and regular Muslims from 23 Bulgarian cities and towns.
“We are firmly staying behind the current directorate of faith, which is the Chief Mufti Mustafa Ali Hadzhi and the President of the Supreme Religious Council, Shabanali Ahmad. We did not choose Gendzhev and we will never support him. We will use all the rights, granted to us by the Constitution. Our peaceful protests will not stop,” Mufti Ahmad said.
In October 2009, the National Muslim Conference decided to elect Mustafa Ali Hadzhi as Chief Mufti. However, Gendzev appealed the Conference’s vote and the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassations decided to reinstated him as Chief Mufti in May.
The muftis has issued a declaration that Mustafa Ali Hadzhi is the only legally elected Chief Mufti in Bulgaria. They were saying they will send the declaration to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, The European Commission, the President, Georgi Parvanov, the Speaker of the Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, the Chairs of all Parliamentary Groups, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Judicial Council, and the Ombudsman.
Mustafa Ali Hadzhi declared the Court is showing disregard for the vote and the wish of the people, and has been influenced by external factors, adding the Muslim community in Bulgaria will continue its fight for justice.
Gendzhev is notorious in Bulgaria over allegations of trading in political influence and Prosecutor’s charges of illegally withdrawing huge sums from the accounts of the Chief Mufti Office.
According to the regional Mufti in the Bulgarian city of Pleven, Hadzhi Nedzhiatin Mustafa Nedzhip, Gendzhev is also trying to bring back the Revival Process, which was a campaign of the former Communist regime, during which the Muslim’s native names have been replaced with Bulgarian ones.
Nedzhip believes that Gendzhev is also trying to eliminate the creed, so that the Muslims cannot profess their religion freely, adding that Gendzhev has sent letters to the municipalities all over Bulgaria to ask for demolishing Muslim board of trustees.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgarian MP Accused of Vampirism
A true Twilight saga has been played out at the Bulgarian Parliament when a MP from ruling party GERB, Plamen Tsekov accused of vampirism his colleague from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Maya Manolova.
“If it was midnight and there was a full moon, thanks to Mrs. Manolova, we would have witnessed a different kind of event,” Tsekov said Friday at a meeting of the Parliamentary ad-hoc committee, inspecting the publishing of the illegitimate amendment to the drugs law in the State Gazette on March.
Tsekov’s statement triggered a bantering question by the Vanyo Sharkov, MP from the center-right Blue Coalition, whether this was an accusation of vampirism.
“Was that an accusation of vampirism?,” Sharkov asked.
During the meeting, Tsekov, who has been pointed as the main culprit for the scandalous amendment, has been making accusation for Manolova’s behavior.
“What happened at the meeting today is really scandalous. The behavior of the MP Plamen Tsekov has not only been marked by lies and disrespect, but also became scandalous and low because he turned the job of the committee in personal attacks and insults,” Manolova said and added she will approach the Parliament’s ethic committee to rule whether such behavior was normal for an MP.
According to Manolova, the incident with the illegitimate amendment is a stark example of an attempt to falsify the legislative procedure and amounts to document fraud and office malfeasance.
In their letter to the Chef Prosecutor, BSP point out that the Deputy Chair of the Health Committee, Plamen Tsekov, from the ruling GERB, intentionally misled MPs and read a text in plenary hall that differed from the one approved by the Committee.
“All the attempts of Mrs. Manolova to impute some sense of guilt in me for some organized group is in her fantasy, which apparently works very well. Maybe she watched too many spy movies. This is a characteristic of another political party, which has been dealing with conspiracies for many year, not for ours,” Tsekov said.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Demand for Veiling Bulgarian Muslim Women Suffers Another Blow
The regional Mufti from the Bulgarian city of Kardzhali has announced he does not support the demand of Muslim women to be covered with headscarves when taking their new passport pictures.
“The headscarf in Islam is not fashion. It is Allah’s command. But there is the Constitution of Bulgaria, which is in the EU, and all Bulgarian citizens should comply with it. So Muslim women who cover yourselves, please be so kind and do not put yourself above the law, “ Mufti Bejhan Ahmad said.
Last week, the Mufti Office from the Bulgarian city of Smolyan demanded that the regional police department allow Muslim women to take the new passport pictures with headscarves on.
The Regional Mufti Nedzhmi Dabov has announced that the requirements for the pictures with biometric data are in conflict with the Islamic canon that the Muslim woman should not display other parts of her body except her face and her hands up to her wrists.
According to the electoral expert, Mihail Konstantinov, if this demand is fulfilled, Muslim women will not be able to travel in Europe, where passport pictures of veiled women are not allowed.
The Bulgarian party “Movement for Rights and Freedoms” (DPS) has announced it does not support the demand of the Muslim women.
Another official who does not support the Mufti demand is the director of the police department in Smolyan, Kiril Hadzhihristev. He said Tuesday that the demands of the Muslim spiritual leaders cannot be fulfilled because, according to the rules for issuing identity documents, the picture should display the face, ears, and at least 1 cm of the hair of the person.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Airport Closed After ‘Suicide Belt’ Found
Munich, 2 July (AKI) — Flights were grounded at one of Germany’s largest airports, Munich Airport, after baggage scanners detected what appeared to be a suicide bomber’s belt, German news agency DPA reported on Friday.
The item turned out to be a woman’s belt with a novelty buckle in the shape of half a hand grenade, a police bomb disposal team discovered.
Staff spotted the belt when a Russian woman traveller put it inside an X-ray scanner for carry-on luggage.
Police evacuated the security inspection area of the airport’s Terminal 2 causing delays to passengers waiting to board their flights, DPA said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Pope Urges More Protection for Christians
Vatican City, 2 July (AKI) — Pope Benedict XVI has urged Iraq’s authorities to give greater protection to Christians and other religious minorities. The pontiff reminded Iraq’s new ambassador to the Holy See, Habib Mohammed Hadi Ali al-Sadr, that “since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have been present in the land of Abraham, a land which is part of the common patrimony of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
Iraq’s new government needs to urgently implement measures designed to improve security for all sectors of the population but especially its various minorities, he said.
“Although Christians form a small minority of Iraq’s population, they have a valuable contribution to make to its reconstruction and economic recovery through their educational and healthcare apostolates, while their engagement in humanitarian projects provides much needed assistance in building up society,” Benedict said.
“If they are to play their full part, however, Iraqi Christians need to know that it is safe for them to remain in or return to their homes, and they need assurances that their properties will be restored to them and their rights upheld.”
Italian foreign affairs minister Franco Frattini has often called for greater protection and respect for Iraqi Christians threatened with persecution for their religious beliefs.
Over 40 Christians were killed in attacks in northern Iraq between January and March in a resurgence of the violence which killed 40 Christians and caused more than 12,000 to flee the country in 2008.
There are approximately 700,000 Christians remaining in Iraq.
Before the US-led invasion in 2003, there were over a million Christians living in Iraq, according to data collected by the country’s dioceses.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Key Allies Back Bid to Overturn Crucifix Ban
Rome, 2 July (AKI) — Italy has the backing of 10 other “important” European states in a bid to have the continent’s top human rights court overturn its ban on crucifixes in schools, according to foreign affairs minister, Franco Frattini. The European Court of Human Rights ruled last November in favour of an Italian woman who said the crucifixes violated her right to raise her children in a secular way.
But Frattini was optimistic that the ban would be overturned when he spoke to Vatican Radio in an interview.
“When you are sure about defending a just cause, it is natural to be optimistic,” Frattini said.
The case against crucifixes was brought by Soile Lautsi, an Italian mother, who believes her children have a right to a secular education under Italy’s Constitution.
In November last year, the Strasbourg court endorsed the woman’s claim, saying parents should be able to raise their children as they wish.
The court said placing crucifixes in the classroom violated parents rights and was counter to right to freedom of religion.
But Frattini said the crucifix was widely seen as a symbol of peace and unification so it was difficult to see how it could offend anyone.
“We could not possibly even imagine the history of Italy the same way if crucifixes were taken down.”
Catholic and Orthodox Christian countries have united in backing Italy’s appeal against the ban which was handed down last November.
A group of 33 European Parliament members have also supported Rome’s appeal against the ban, which provoked uproar across the political spectrum and from the Vatican.
Most of Italy’s allies are smaller nations including Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Romania, but also includes Russia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Leaving Germany for Turkey
Ethnic Turks Encounter ‘Kültürschock’
By Daniel Steinvorth
More ethnic Turks are now moving out of Germany than in. As the German economy lags, a Western education helps professional Turkish Germans find work in a booming Muslim nation. But they aren’t always welcomed “home.”
The first time Ömer Küçükbay felt homesick for Germany, he was lying on a cot in a military barracks north of Antalya. He was 20 years old, it was 2 a.m., and an officer was bellowing at him that he should go keep watch. First, though, someone had to translate the officer’s command, since Küçükbay spoke no Turkish. He was fluent only in a Bavarian dialect of German.
The son of Turkish guest workers in Eggenfelden, Lower Bavaria, he had signed up for military service in Turkey on a whim, to express affection for country he really only knew from family vacations. “But somehow I was always just a foreigner in Germany too,” he says. “To the kids in my class, I was simply a Turk. So I wanted to see what it’s like to be Turkish.”
The experiment lasted three months, at which point Küçükbay got tired of being yelled at and crawling through dust. He went back to Eggenfelden and swore never to return to Turkey.
Reversing the Trend
That was 1991. Since then, things have turned out differently, partly because of Küçükbay’s father, who suffered a heart attack in his homeland, and partly because of a girl from Istanbul Küçükbay fell in love with. He opened a teahouse, married and learned Turkish.
Today the 38-year-old works in a call center in Istanbul. He has made a life for himself here, working for a German company where almost all of more than 250 employees are Turkish Germans, and nearly all have a similar story to tell. Theirs are stories of growing up in Germany as the children of guest workers, only to emigrate back to try their luck in their parents’ home country. The reasons vary — they came because they felt excluded in Germany, because of a formal deportation, because family called, or to pursue a career.
The stories often involve well-educated, well-integrated Turkish Germans — the vast majority of emigrants who return to Turkey are young academics moving for economic reasons. Around 40,000 Turks and Turkish-descended Germans left for their parents’ country of origin last year, or 10,000 more than the number of immigrants arriving from Turkey. A decades-long immigration trend has reversed.
A Model of German Integration
According to a survey by the Dortmund-based Futureorg Institut, one-third of all Turkish-German college students now plan to pursue a career in Turkey, not Germany. “They have far better opportunities to advance there than in Germany,” says Marc Landau, head of the German-Turkish Chamber of Commerce. Mercedes Benz, for example, employs Turkish Germans as 30 percent of its mid-level and upper management in Turkey.
Most of these returnees go to Istanbul, where the job market is richest and where culture shock is manageable. This was the case for Emine Sahin, 37, an architect who calls herself a “model of integration” and pretty much had it all — a sheltered childhood in a small western German town, German neighbors, German friends, good grades in school — yet chose to leave. A job as a construction engineer took her from Frankfurt to Izmir on Turkey’s west coast. Shortly afterward she joined a British real estate company in Istanbul. Now she works as a consultant for a German drugstore chain looking to open new markets in Turkey.
Sahin says she was never discriminated against in Germany on the basis of her name or her background; many things were simply more petty and less dynamic there than in booming Turkey. “Not everyone has realized yet what potential well-educated Turkish Germans hold,” she says. “Someone who moves between two worlds can cope better with globalization. Really, the Germans should be bragging about us.”
Part 2: ‘What Is the Plural of Homeland?’
The elite among these emigrants have organized themselves into regular meet-ups. They sit on the rooftop terrace of Teras6, a popular bar in Istanbul’s hip district of Beyoglu — a group of 50 men and women in sports coats and business wear, drinking beer from German-style mugs and tea from Turkish tulip-shaped glasses.
They are here, above all, to network and make contacts. Sometimes they share grievances over an unfamiliar culture and daily life in Turkey’s cumbersome bureaucracy. “Many of us are not actually returnees, but are here in Turkey for the first time, coming not as Turks, but as Germans,” Sahin says. They have German ideas, German values and German customs.
Sahin, the architect, landed in hot water in Istanbul when she contradicted a superior, breaking an unwritten rule. She later caused a commotion by fasting during Ramadan. It was something Sahin had always done in Germany, calling it a “vacation from my body.” But among her strictly secular colleagues in Turkey, she now fell under suspicion of being religious.
Still, Sahin considers herself privileged. It’s a luxury, she says, to be able to choose between two home countries. “What is the plural of ‘homeland’?” she wonders.
Low-Wage Workers Stay Put
Academics trained in Germany have excellent opportunities on the Turkish job market, while less qualified Turkish Germans prefer to remain in Germany rather than move to a country where they would have to compete against hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers. Those who do come to Turkey have to settle for odd jobs or working under the table. The minimum wage in Turkey is just 729 Turkish lira (€380 or $466) a month, while unemployment benefits amount to around €170 per month and welfare benefits are nonexistent.
Many of these returnees also meet with prejudice in Turkey. The “Almancilar,” meaning roughly “Germany-ers,” are preceded by a dubious reputation, seen as either overly pious country bumpkins or nouveau riche recently of the working class.
“They came back wearing fake gold chains and driving BMWs and Mercedes they’d actually only rented,” is how one woman describes a group of young guest workers that returned to her village in Turkey. Prominent Turkish Germans such as film director Fatih Akin, professional soccer player Mesut Özil or Cem Özdemir — co-leader of Germany’s Green Party and hailed by Turkish media as “the Turks’ Obama” — affect that image only slightly.
Returnees from Germany are met with great skepticism, as the song “I’m Not an Almanci” by Turkish singer-songwriter Sebnem Kisaparmak shows. The song describes an inconsiderate returnee family that buys a plot of land in Turkey, driving up prices. “Thank you, these are my feelings exactly,” commented one online reader.
Many take the returnees’ language skills particularly seriously. When Turkish-Belgian pop singer Hadise Açikgöz mumbled a bit too much and committed the faux pas of offering her own interpretation of the Turkish national anthem at a recent Turkish national soccer team game, she provoked outrage in Turkey, where patriotic feelings are currently running high. “She isn’t even a Turk, her Turkish is bad and she knows nothing about Turkish culture,” one commentator declared.
Ankara has done little so far to improve language proficiency among Turks returning from abroad or to assist them with reintegration. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Turkish Germans in Cologne two years ago against giving up their “Turkish identity,” but didn’t detail how his government might help citizens living abroad to preserve it. So far Turkey’s cultural policy has consisted mainly of exporting imams.
“Why isn’t there a Turkish equivalent of the Goethe Institute, for example?” says Latif Durlanik, who lives in Hamburg. “Why do people in Turkish cultural centers do nothing but smoke and play cards?”
House Cleaning in Germany
Ankara now plans to create a governmental authority for Turks abroad, formally establishing at least one institution available to the diaspora — and perhaps to returnees in Turkey as well. The precise function of this authority remains unclear. “People expect Turkey to hear the voices of our brothers working in the EU and Germany,” the government minister responsible for the project declared a few weeks ago.
The German government has also had its own cases of failing to help Turkish Germans. Sükriye Dönmez arrived in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district with her parents as a baby in 1969 and lived there for 40 years. She became an actor, then a director, achieving acclaim as “Berlin’s most beautiful nurse” in her role as Ayfer, the head nurse on the television series “Klinikum Berlin Mitte.” She also starred in Fatih Akin’s first short film (“Sensin — Du bist es!”) and appeared in his first feature-length movie, “Short Sharp Shock” (“Kurz und schmerzlos”), about a Turkish-Greek-Serbian gang in Hamburg.
Dönmez lacked German citizenship, since she was born in Turkey, but when she applied for naturalization in March 1999, she figured it would be a technicality. She’d paid taxes in Germany, made German films, and — aside from the few months just after she was born — had never lived anywhere else.
She waited five years for a decision. Her irregular source of income was the problem, the authorities explained in their rejection, and if Dönmez wanted German citizenship, she would need steady employment. “Why don’t you get a housecleaning job,” the woman at the registration office suggested. “I declined politely,” Dönmez says, “and moved to Turkey instead.”
She now lives in Cihangir, an artists’ neighborhood in Istanbul that is “not so different from Kreuzberg,” in Dönmez’s words. There she’s working on a TV series about Turks returning from Germany. The main character is a Turkish German woman adrift in Turkey. Dönmez plans to call the series “Kültürschock,” inserting the Turkish word for “culture” into the German term for “culture shock.”
Dönmez, meanwhile, finds it amusing to be just Turkish for a while. “Now I’m a guest worker,” she says.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Rebranding Puts Black Marks Against UK Flag
Britain’s national flag — the union jack — has been given the makeover treatment, in the hope of reflecting a more modern society.
It’s become the marketing executive’s remedy for any organisation’s ills. From BT to BP, the Labour Party to the Lottery, hardly a business or institution has escaped the rebranding bug.
Now moves are afoot to redesign that most sacred of British hallmarks — the union flag.
A campaign is being launched to modernise the red, white and blue flag by adding a touch of black to reflect multicultural Britain in the 21st Century.
The proposed new flag (see above) is the work of Nigel Turner, an enthusiastic fan of the UK’s transformation into a multiracial society over the past 50 years.
Mr Turner, who has called his campaign Reflag, believes his plan would reclaim the union jack from its negative associations, and silence that old skinhead chant: “There ain’t no black in the union jack.”
“If I flew the union jack from a flagpole in my garden, many people would see it as a racist statement,” he says.
“I’m a glass half-full, rather than half-empty sort of person. It’s time we made a positive statement about the progression of a multicultural and multiracial society.”
400th anniversary
The union flag was first seen in 1606 and the version that we know today was drawn up by the College of Arms in 1801 to represent the Act of Union.
Mr Turner, 46, who is white, hopes to spark a debate on the flag. He would like to see a new design replace the current union jack for the flag’s 400th anniversary in 2006.
“The proposed design does not mean throwing out all that has gone before, and it is clearly recognisable as the flag of the UK without saying something new.”
But as makeovers go, even a designer as thick-skinned as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would think twice about treading into such perilous territory.
The so-called “union black” has already raised the ire of the Scottish. Tuesday’s Scotsman newspaper said Mr Turner had “missed the point”.
“The United Kingdom is not a firm which changes its corporate branding each time the management alters. The flag is an enduring symbol of unity which transcends politics and absorbs cultural change.”
MSP Phil Gallie told the Scottish Parliament: “The suggestion that our flag should be redesigned is ridiculous tokenism and would do nothing to stamp out racism.”
So what does Mr Turner need to do to make his flag official? The answer is not black and white, says flags expert Charles Ashburner.
“There are no laws governing the union flag. Primarily, it’s the monarch’s flag, but it has come to represent the UK through common usage.
“So to make it official, he just has to make people believe it’s the official flag. It will never take the place of the union flag of course, but it could became a sort of quasi-official flag if enough people flew it.”
| — Hat tip: ICLA | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Special Forces Unit Under Fire
Switzerland’s elite special forces unit, whose mission is to protect Swiss troops and citizens abroad, is again in the spotlight and under pressure.
President Doris Leuthard last week confirmed Switzerland considered sending in “security forces” to rescue two of its citizens who were detained in Libya for more than a year. Some politicians say the “dangerous” commando unit, known as DRA10, should now be dissolved.
“It’s a military unit specially designed for interventions abroad. At the beginning we were told that it was just a unit to rescue Swiss taken hostage by terrorists. But we now see it’s a dangerous instrument,” former Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, now figurehead and chief strategist of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, told Le Temps newspaper on Saturday.
“The plans were drawn up by amateurs and the consequences could have been catastrophic. We are calling for a stop to any [Swiss] military action abroad and the end of the DRA 10.”
Swiss media reported last week that the foreign ministry’s secret plans to use special forces or intelligence agents to free businessmen Rachid Hamdani and Max Göldi sparked controversy when they were disclosed to the cabinet.
President Doris Leuthard condemned the leaks to the media but said officials had rightly studied all options to get the men out of Libya.
“That the relevant authorities considered the possible use of security forces in a hostage situation is correct and cannot be criticised,” she told reporters in Bern on June 21.
But questions remain unanswered concerning which cabinet ministers knew what and when and how advanced the plans were.
Security report
At their general assembly in Delémont, canton Jura, on Saturday, People’s Party president Toni Brunner also attacked the elite force and said the party was ready to launch a people’s initiative to ban Swiss military interventions abroad.
The rightwing party is not alone in its criticism of the special forces. Green Party parliamentarian Jo Lang, who is also a member of the Switzerland Without an Army group, filed a proposal with a parliamentary security committee on Monday calling for the DRA 10 to be dissolved.
The DRA 10 is likely to be discussed this autumn when parliament debates the latest national security report, which the government approved last week.
The report, which establishes guidelines for better cooperation between cantonal and federal agencies, will help guide the future mandate of the Swiss army, which is scheduled to be unveiled in September.
But contrary to his own faction, the People Party, Defence Minister Ueli Maurer last week defended Switzerland’s elite troop force.
“It would not be called into question,” he told reporters. “A modern army has such units. Switzerland wanted troops capable of evacuating Swiss nationals abroad. Nothing has changed in that respect.”
But he admitted that the situation remained fluid and the unit would be merged with the grenadier guards and parachute regiment.
He recalled that under his predecessor, Samuel Schmid, DRA 10 had been trimmed from 90 members, as initially planned, to 40.
Atalanta
This is not first time the DRA 10, which has never seen active engagement, has been under pressure.
In September 2009 an anti-interventionist, left-right alliance defeated a centrist bloc to torpedo a proposal for Swiss elite troops to take part in a European Union-sponsored “Atalanta” campaign to fight pirates off the coast of Somalia.
After the vote several politicians, even Swiss army chief André Blattmann, questioned the usefulness of DRA 10.
“If we don’t want to use this tool, we have to ask ourselves if we want to keep it,” Blattmann told 24Heures newspaper.
While the Libya rescue story continues to make the headlines, military expert Albert Stahel, of Zurich University’s Institute for Strategic Studies, is dubious about the DRA 10’s sole involvement.
“If the idea was for the unit to rescue the two people, then I don’t think it was possible, as Switzerland doesn’t have the necessary sophisticated transport,” he told swissinfo.ch.
“I have the feeling there was a lot of theoretical thinking with a similar approach to Atalanta… lots of fantasy behind it.”
As to the future, Stahel believes Switzerland should create a single special forces unit that brings together the army’s various elite commandos under one umbrella, as the nation simply “cannot afford it”.
“If Mr Maurer or [Justice Minister Eveline] Widmer-Schlumpf don’t agree on building one unit, I have the feeling there will be a strong pressure to dissolve the DRA 10,” he declared.
Dra 10
Since August 1, 2007, Switzerland, best known for its militia army and neutrality, has had its first fully operational elite special forces unit, known as DRA10.
The detachment is an elite special forces unit belonging to the Reconnaissance and Grenadiers Division, alongside the grenadiers’ and parachute regiments and a specialist air transport unit.
The DRA10’s missions are to protect Swiss troops and citizens abroad who face increased security threats; to save and repatriate Swiss citizens caught up in crisis situations abroad and to gather key information concerning such operations.
Work started on building up the unit in 2003. There are currently 40 trained professional soldiers.
Training lasts 18 months for members of the DRA10, compared with 25 weeks for grenadiers and 43 weeks for members of the parachute regiment.
Cost of unit (91 members): SFr16million ($19.2 million) per year.
Switzerland has a large and well-trained army, but it hasn’t gone to war since 1815. A discussion paper leaked last month suggested the country should reduce the size of its armed forces and concentrate on providing security inside Switzerland as well as assisting humanitarian operations abroad.
Currently, all Swiss men are required to undergo army training from the age of 19 and must perform regular reserve duty until at least the age of 30.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Big Brother Row as ‘Food Police’ Secretly Photograph Schoolchildren’s Packed Lunches
Teachers have used ‘Big Brother’ tactics to spy on children’s lunchboxes, it has been revealed.
They secretly photographed pupils’ packed lunches over six months and analysed the contents.
Staff awarded marks to the food and then showed their findings to outraged parents, offering them advice on how to improve nutrition.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sharia Councils ‘Undermine Social Cohesion’
Blog: By Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin since 2005 and a member of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
Since the 1996 Arbitration Act, Government ministers have allowed Islamic tribunals around Britain to rule on a range of financial disputes, provided both parties agree to accept the court’s decision. But in recent years, these tribunals have developed into fully fledged Sharia Councils — allowed to settle new disputes, such as divorce, family law, and faith issues. These powers go well beyond the letter and spirit of the original legislation and whilst they provide new ways of dispensing cheap justice they do not always dispense fair justice.
By expanding the powers of Sharia Councils, ministers have set the scene for a breaking narrative which is fractious, discriminates against women, and, incrementally, is establishing a parallel legal system.
As Sharia Councils expand their powers and reach, ministers have unwittingly rolled the dice over a type of cultural snakes and ladders, all in the hope that such initiatives will increase inclusiveness and marginalise Islamic radicals. But all the evidence contradicts ministers’ stated aims. Sharia rulings are more likely to create legal ghettos — undermining rather than improving social cohesion. And in so doing, ministers are found guilty of piecemeal legal vandalism and managing the gradual decline of English jurisprudence.
The replacement of legal precedence and common law with Islamic codification is also a gift to some extremist parties who have seized on the increasing numbers of Sharia Councils as more evidence of the demotion of hard fought for British cultural freedoms and laws. And despite the protestations of senior government ministers over recent BNP advances, ministerial alarm calls will ring deep and hollow as long the same ministers continue to advocate two Britains.
The views of the BNP are repugnant, but it should not take BNP electoral gains for ministers to wake up to the fact that social cohesion cannot be predicated on the reality, or the perception, of one rule for one community and a different set of rules for everyone else. Allowing different groups to apply different standards at variants with existing common and statute law is a recipe for resentment and suspicion. This legal dualism also strikes at the very heart the great British virtue of fair play — and all British subjects being united — under one nation.
And as ministers sleepwalk into further fragmenting communities, they still decline to answer the fundamental question: do Muslim women enjoy the same rights under Sharia jurisprudence as under English law? Ministers should not be allowed to obviate when challenged about Islamic teaching on the role, rights, and responsibilities, of women in society. Ministers may choose to evade this issue, but Sharia principles and practices are unlikely to progress the much needed emancipation of Britain’s Muslim women.
Sharia Councils shine an embarrassing light on how ministers have increasingly relegated and downgraded thousands of Muslim women to de facto second class British citizens, perversely, in the name of tolerance and understanding.
The response of Government proponents of Sharia Councils say those who choose to come before councils do so on a voluntarily basis and that, according to the 1996 Act, parties are free to agree upon how their disputes are resolved. In reality, some Muslim women feel pressured into accepting the rulings of male-dominated Sharia Councils — mostly through fear of retribution and being ostracised — sometimes by their own families.
Women are also losing out in rulings over child custody disputes, which more often rule in favour of men. It is not unimaginable that, in the near future, people from other faiths — and no faith at all — will nominally or genuinely convert to Islam in the hope of begetting a sympathetic custody hearing and paternal settlement compared to the maternal bias of some English family courts.
Speaking at a justice conference last October, Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, commented: “There is nothing whatever in English law that prevents people abiding by Sharia principles if they wish to, provided they do not come into conflict with English law”.
Such conflicts occur throughout Britain every week, and with it, the shunning of basic rights for thousands of British Muslim women.
With Britain’s growing Muslim population, the sphere of Sharia Councils is likely to increase still further. This is something that must be resisted by those who believe in tolerance and mutual respect, and by those, including progressives in the Muslim community, who seek to champion the rights of all — including the equal rights of Britain’s female Muslims.
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Tick Bites Provoke Health Scare
Zagreb, 1 July (AKI) — Six people are in a serious condition in a Croatian clinic after being infected by tick bites, Croatian media said on Thursday. Five of the six are reportedly in a coma.
“Five people are connected to artificial respirators and their recovery is uncertain,” doctor Bruno Barsic told the media.
The sixth patient is in better condition and his life is not in danger, he added.
The patients, aged between 30 and 70, are from northern Croatia and were bitten by ticks carrying meningoencephalitis which causes a serious brain infection, Barsic said.
Eleven people from rural areas have been hospitalised for tick bites this year, but the latest cases are more serious
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Macedonia: Islamists Blamed for Attack on Skopje Mufti
Skopje, 2 July(AKI) — Three people have been detained by police in Macedonia after local mufti Ibrahim Sabani was expelled from a mosque during religious services, local media reported on Friday. Islamists linked to the fundamentalist Wahabi movement have been blamed for the attack on the mufti and police said three suspects had been charged with disorderly conduct.
The Macedonian Islamic community said the incident occurred last Sunday and had been reported to police.
Sabani told Skopje media that “criminal Wahabi bands” were active in the Macedonian capital and were trying to take over the mosque in which he conducted services.
He said Wahabis had slapped him and a man who tried to defend him before they were expelled from the mosque.
The Wahabi movement, originated in what is now Saudi Arabia, and advocates a form of fundamentalist Islam.
It was brought to Bosnia by mujahadeen fighters who came from Islamic countries to support local Muslims in the 1992-1995 civil war.
Last week Wahabis bombed a police station in the Bosnian town of Bugojno, killing one police officer and injuring six others.
One in four of Macedonia’s two million people are ethnic Albanians, who are Muslims.
The Wahabi movement has slowly been taking roots in Muslim populated areas of the Balkans, increasingly resorting to violent acts.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Netanyahu Must Play for Time
Just ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trip next week to Washington, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas went on a charm offensive towards the Israeli media. On Tuesday Abbas invited representatives of the Hebrew-language press to his office in Ramallah and assured them of his good intentions towards Israel.
We have been here before. In Netanyahu’s last go-around as Prime Minister, it seemed like every time he was due to visit Washington, then president Bill Clinton’s advisors would set up a meeting for Abbas’s predecessor Yassir Arafat with the Israeli media. Arafat would talk about how much he wanted peace with Israel, and how he was just waiting for Netanyahu to agree to embrace the cause of peace.
The peace-crazed Israeli media enthusiastically reported Arafat’s lies to the Israeli people without questioning either Arafat’s motives or his honesty. Has they exhibited even a minimal amount of journalistic competence, they would have at least checked to see what the Arafat-controlled Palestinian media was reporting about their meeting with the “Rais.”
But that would have ruined their Netanyahu-bashing narrative. And so the Israeli public was denied knowledge that not only did the Arafat-controlled Palestinian media fail to report their meeting, Arafat’s newspapers and television broadcasts routinely told the Palestinian people that there could be no peace with the Jews. Indeed, they daily exhorted the Palestinians to view the destruction of Israel as their greatest goal…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Interview With “Son of Hamas” Author
A 20 minute video interview of “Son of Hamas” author by Evan Solomon on “Power and Politics” program on Fri 2nd July 2010 at 5pm (on CBC.ca). (Last 20 minutes or so of the program and was a rebroadcast of an interview from March 7 2010 as part of his “Summer Reading” series. Evan gave a “thumbs up” to the book “Son of Hamas”.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Mgr Sako: Security for Christians. Baghdad Asks Not to Accept Asylum Applications
Division among the Christian communities augments the drama of the faithful. Requests for programs to facilitate the return of refugees. The Immigration Minister asks the EU, U.S., Australia to reject asylum applications by Christians.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) — Christian leaders in Iraq, concerned about the outward flow of faithful who leave the country, are asking the government better protection for minorities, while Baghdad is calling on Western countries not accept asylum applications from refugees of minorities. The idea is to discourage their departures, but the real solution of the problem lies in the assurance of security and basic services to the population, which are still lacking.
On 26 June, 76 representatives of various Christian denominations in Iraq gathered in Qaraqosh — in the north, near Mosul — to take stock of the plight of communities afflicted by persecution and emigration. Religious leaders and politicians have appealed to the authorities, demanding greater protection for minorities, respect for human rights and a greater number of Christian representatives in national and local institutions. Among the demands, constitutional amendments to strengthen the rights of Christian minority, funding programs to facilitate the return of refugees, the establishment of a National Commission for Minority Affairs to promote peaceful dialogue between ethnic and religious groups and increased investment in infrastructure and the most underdeveloped areas populated by minorities.
The Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk, Msgr. Louis Sako was also among the participants. The archbishop has reiterated the importance that “Christians do not leave Iraq, but witness their faith to their country.” At the same time, however, he has highlighted some challenges which need to be urgently addressed by Christian leaders, instead of waiting for political intervention. First of all, the internal divisions in the community: “We are small churches that need to unify our voices. So far there has been no common position on migration. This is a shame and an obstacle. We will remain divided as long as we look only to our personal interests: money and power. We will remain vulnerable until our differences only represent conflicts. We are lacking collective action, “said Msgr. Sako.
During the meeting, Al-Athil Najifi, governor of Nineveh Province — where most Christians are concentrated — has announced his commitment to preventing the exploitation of minorities and establishing a mechanism for inclusion of all elements of civil society.
The central government is also concerned about the high levels of emigration. So far however, they have failed to develop any real policy to encourage returns or increases the level of security. The latest initiative was announced on June 23 by Iraqi Minister of Immigration, Abdel Sultan: Baghdad has asked the European Union, U.S. and Australia to reject asylum claims from Iraqi Christians who come from minority groups.
The idea is to discourage departures in order to “preserve the ethnic and religious diversity of the country.” This has provoked the immediate protest of the Iraqi Human Rights organisation: “It is a violation of the Iraqi Constitution, which guarantees the right of the individual to live anywhere they choose, and universal human rights,” said the president Hasan Shabaan. (LYR)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
King Abdallah Compliments President Obama, Sort Of?
by Barry Rubin
According to the press pool reporter for the meeting between King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and President Barack H. Obama of the United States, who wrote it just after stepping out of the meeting room, the king:
“Began his remarks saying he wanted to tell Obama what was spoken of him around the world: ‘That you are an honorable and good man.’“
Is it just me or is there a gigantic unspoken, “But…” at the end of that sentence? It is true that Obama clearly relished this compliment. After all, popularity is everything to him. Presumably, it is the kind of thing his supporters think proves he has been successful.
Yet imagine two Middle East leaders or other rulers meeting: “Hey, ___, you’re a really honorable and good man!” Does that indicate the compliment-giver respects or fears or will do what the subject of that phrase wants him to do? No, quite the opposite.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad said that it was better to be feared than loved. Usama bin Ladin said people prefer the strong horse in a race. He didn’t say anything about the honorable and good horse. I can’t think of anyone in Arab politics in the last 80 years who could be described as “honorable and good.” Maybe, King Hussein of Jordan, but he had to appear nice since he ruled the weakest country in the region. And even he had an iron fist, as he demonstrated in crushing the PLO in September 1970.
And so, knowing something of how King Abdallah thinks, I can’t help but hear some possible implied endings in his statement to the president:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Lahore Church in Support of Sufis Targeted by Terrorism
Justice and Peace: moderate Islam has been struck. The Government of Punjiab (the party of Nawaz Sharif) weak in the fight against the Taliban. Raza Rumi: Lahore destroyed piece by piece. Sufi communities have organized meetings in all mosques of the country to curb the fundamentalist Islam of the Taliban.
Lahore (AsiaNews) — “We condemn this attack. It is painful to see that people who witness a moderate Islam, such as the Sufi community, are prey to violence. It is also painful to see how even the population of large cities have become vulnerable and a target of terrorism, without any protection”. This is the reaction of Dr.Peter Jacob, national secretary of Justice and Peace in Lahore given to AsiaNews in the immediate aftermath of the suicide attack on the Sufi shrine Data Ganj Bakhsh, the largest and most revered in Pakistan, which killed 42 people, wounding 175.
“Lahore — Jacob continues — is led by the Islamic party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and is the strongest in opposition. We think the government should take appropriate measures to stop the violence happening now to all moderate people, be they Muslims, Ahmadis, Sufis. The program of the Taliban is clear, we want that the government act immediately to combat it”. According to many observers, the Punjab government has decided not to fight the Taliban and provide security to citizens. Almost a month ago the Taliban have struck two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, proving they are a present force in the city. But all this has not led to increased security. According to local media, the cameras were not working at the Sufi shrine and police on guard, after the first explosion, thought it was a party with fireworks.
Raza Rumi, a Pakistani expert on Sufism, posted the following comment on his website: “This is a barbaric attack and should serve as a wake up call. Data Saheb’s shrine is not just another crowded place — it represents millennia of tolerant Sufi Islam which is directly under attack by the puritans. Last year, there were threats and the government had closed the place for a day or two. This time the worst of nightmares has come true”.
Rumi also calls for greater government involvement, “How much longer will we be mere spectators and see our great city blown to bits — culturally and physically. This is time for hard, concrete action and a major crackdown on all terrorist outfits that are operating in the country especially in Punjab with impunity”.
According to information gathered by AsiaNews, the Sufi community of Pakistan had in recent months organized a series of meetings in the mosques of the country to encourage all Muslims to stop the spread of the fundamentalist creed of the Taliban.
Sufism is a mystical form of Islam popular in South and in central Asia, preached by pilgrims and hermits. However, it is considered heresy by the more orthodox Sunni Islam. The Taliban in Pakistan are authors of a far harder Islam, Wahhabism, which wants to destroy all forms of moderate or heretic Islam (Shia, Sufi, Ahmadi, etc …).
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Thailand: ‘Muslim’ Rebels Kill Five Soldiers
Narathiwat, 2 July (AKI) — Security officials in Thailand said they suspect Muslim insurgents were responsible for a roadside bomb attack in the country’s south that killed five soldiers late Thursday.
The attack occurred in the Ruso district of Narathiwat provinces. Narathiwat is one of four southern provinces hit by a separatist insurgency that has claimed the lives of more than 4,100 people.
The bomb, containing was buried in a dirt road and detonated by wire, said Lieutenant Pairat Kiatjaroensiri, in a news report.
“The group was on night patrol in a pick-up truck when they were ambushed,” said Kiatjaroensiri.
Three of the five soldiers killed were Muslim and two Buddhist.
Thai militias and security forces in southeast Asia countries south have been accused of widespread abuses by rights groups since the the separatist campaign escalated in 2004.
The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed in 1902 by mainly Buddhist Thailand.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Why West Lost Afghan War
By Michael Scheuer
The former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit says the US-led coalition has already lost the war in Afghanistan. A shake-up in military leadership won’t change that.
Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn’t confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win.
‘Winning’ in Afghanistan was never anything more than killing Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, as many of their fighters and civilian supporters as possible and then getting out immediately with the full knowledge that—as Mao said long ago—insurgencies always rebuild and the process might need to be repeated.
The best and most appropriate response to al-Qaeda’s September 11 raid, then, would have been a unilateral US punitive expedition that inflicted massive death and destruction on the enemy and delivered a clear warning to Islamists not to pick fights with the United States. Indeed, many Islamists expected this response, which is why they poured vitriol on bin Laden and expected the US military to set back their movement a decade, if it did not destroy it completely.
Faced with this criticism, bin Laden simply said ‘wait,’ adding (in paraphrase) that the Americans and their allies can’t stomach casualties, that they won’t use their full military power and will unite Afghans by trying to Westernize them via popular elections, installing women’s rights, dismantling tribalism, introducing secularism and establishing NGO-backed bars and whorehouses in Kabul. Bin Laden was right; it seems he is, among other things, a keen student of the West’s past nation-building operations.
Since June 1, the parade of incompetents crossing the Afghan stage is stunning: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US President Barack Obama, Gen. David Petraeus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai—the list is long. McChrystal, saddled with a dead-end strategy devised by David Kilcullen, John Nagl and other counterinsurgency ‘experts,’ gave access to himself and his staff to Rolling Stone, long among the most anti-military US journals.
[…]
After nine years, it is utterly impossible to restart Western policy in Afghanistan. Too many Afghans are dead; too many Afghans and non-Afghan Muslims have joined the Taliban-led insurgency; too much pro-Taliban money is pouring into Afghanistan from wealthy donors on the Arabian Peninsula and across the Muslim world; too much Western funding has been stolen and sent abroad by Karzai’s cronies; too much popular support for the war in the West has been squandered; too many U.S.-NATO troops are dead or maimed; too much has been done by the West to push Pakistan toward the abyss by demanding its military do Western dirty work; and too much time has been wasted on counterinsurgency theories and policies that avoid killing the enemy and his civilian supporters. The one thing the West ‘can start over completely’ is a revision of the plans for withdrawal that moves up the departure date.
The bottom line is that the United States and NATO stand defeated in Afghanistan. Under McChrystal, Petraeus, or Obama himself the counterinsurgency strategy now being flogged has been intellectually bankrupt from its inception. No better proof of this can be found than the fact that the part of the policy meant to address the Afghans’ ‘quality of life’ has been a substantial success.
There are 3 million-plus more Afghan children in school today than in 2001; more electricity and potable water are available; many roads and irrigation systems have been rebuilt; and more primary health care is being delivered. Kilcullen, Nagl and their colleagues argued that such success would prompt the Afghans to turn away from the Taliban’s religiosity and nationalism and isolate that purportedly small force from a population swelling with delight and loyalty to Karzai because of material improvements. In short, a social science-powered, mini-New Deal in Afghanistan would win with minimal use of US-NATO military power because Afghans would joyfully jettison God and country for better teeth and smoother roads.
Well, no such thing occurred. As the trend line for these accomplishments rose, the positive trend line for the Taliban-led insurgency rose faster. The once southern-Afghanistan-based insurgency spread across the nation; the Taliban and its allies struck in Kabul at their pleasure; and the large military/social-work operation to clear insurgents from Marjah District in Helmand Province—framed as the test case to validate US-NATO strategy—became, in McChrystal’s words, an endless, ‘bleeding ulcer’ as the Taliban has gradually reasserted control there.
The enraging and unifying impact on Afghans of the US-NATO occupation of the country; Western support for the unrepresentative and corrupt Kabul regime; and the secularizing campaign by Western governmental agencies and NGOs has not and will never be negated by purer water and more refrigeration.. The Afghans will appreciate and pocket the material improvements even as more of them take up arms to drive out occupiers they perceive as the enemies of God and Afghanistan. Western leaders should have recalled they’re not fighting Westerners, for whom more ice cubes and tetanus shots might have been enough to give up their faith.
A year after Obama outlined this new strategy at West Point it lay in shreds and tatters: the Taliban, et. al are more powerful and geographically dispersed, and the Afghan people are no less Islamic or nationalistic. The ever-present avenging angel of history ignored is exacting its pound of flesh and is still hungry. And the bin Laden-inspired Islamists are nearing victory over the world’s last superpower, a win that will have a galvanizing anti-US impact in the Islamic world by showing Muslims the impossible is possible.
The tragedy of this reality is that it would have taken no highly classified intelligence data or deeply penetrating brain power to predict its occurrence. A week’s reading at the local library about the occupations of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union shows each empire was sooner or later defeated and evicted—Alexander lasted longest because he built Greek colonies—by the most basic Afghan trait which has been transparently and overwhelmingly dominant since the 4th century B.C.: Afghans refuse to tolerate foreign occupation and rule.
Reading history’s lessons also would have shown that the one foreigner who had the most successful strategy for Afghanistan was Genghis Khan. He killed all the Afghan fighters and their families he encountered, built mountains of their skulls to remind Afghans that Mongols are not to be trifled with and then got his army out of the country to India as quickly as possible. George W. Bush had the chance to play Genghis for about a year but didn’t. Instead, he and his clone Obama defied history to try to win the love of Afghans and international applause. In the end, both men earned and richly merited what we see today—abject Western defeat.
Michael Scheuer is the author of ‘Imperial Hubris’ and former chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Issue Station.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China: First Labour Victory as Beijing Hikes Wages
The minimum wage rises in nine provinces and cities by up to a third. “This is a step in the right direction,” expert says. The decision is not inspired by philanthropy but by the government’s desire to build a domestic market and reduce reliance on foreign demand.
Beijing (AsiaNews) — At least nine Chinese provinces and cities will raise minimum wages as of today by as much as a third in a sign that the strikes and labour unrest of the past few weeks have had an impact. The situation pushed even Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to call for action. In a speech, he said that the government and the nation should treat migrant workers like their “own children” because it is through their blood and sweat that China is becoming great.
The capital Beijing was the first place to raise minimum wages, from 800 to 960 yuan (US$ 142). Central China’s Henan, the nation’s most populous province with almost 100 million residents, is raising its minimum wage by 33 per cent to 600 yuan. Such wage differences reflect disparities in purchasing power.
Back in April, Yin Chengji, a spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said that more than 20 provinces and municipalities were planning to increase the minimum wage this year. Shanghai, the country’s financial hub, ordered a 17 per cent raise to 1,120 yuan per month in April.
The latest decision came as the central government realised that the workers’ movement could not be stopped.
In response to the situation, the authorities adopted a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, Prime Minister Wen has taken a soft approach to create more “harmonious labour relations” through wage hikes. On the other, the government has told the national police to crack down at any sign of social unrest.
“This is a step in the right direction,” Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley’s Asia chairman, said. “China has a very low personal income share of GDP, and wages, surprisingly low wages, and limited employment growth are part of the problem.”
“The good news is that the labour market continues to improve despite slowing output growth,” Qu Hongbin, a Hong Kong-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said. “This, combined with wage increases in some factories should offer solid support to private consumption in the coming quarters.”
Wage hikes are not only due to fears of social unrest. Higher wages and salaries among China’s 468 million industrial and services workers, plus another 100 million illegal workers, should help the country reduce its reliance on exports as engines of growth and boost the share of consumption in the economy. Indeed, without a substantial domestic market, the country’s huge industrial output will continue to depend on foreign markets for a long time.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Priest Given a 20-Year Jail Term for “Sadistic” Abuse
Sydney, 2 July (AKI) — A Catholic priest on Friday was sentenced to almost 20 years in jail for sadistic sex attacks on 25 children over nearly two decades. John Sidney Denham, 67, pleaded guilty to several charges related to attacks on boys at schools in the eastern state of New South Wales between 1968 and 1986.
Denham was sentenced to 19 years and 10 months after pleading guilty to a range of charges, including multiple counts of indecent assault against boys aged from five to 16.
Judge Helen Syme told a Sydney court that many of Denham’s 25 victims were terrified by the attacks.
“The indecent assaults involved multiple children, often significant planning, were frequently sadistic and overall persistent, objectively serious, criminal courses of conduct,” Syme said.
“The offender’s actions contributed to a culture of fear and depravity, especially at the school, which allowed these disturbing offences to occur and then remain unpunished for years.”
The public gallery applauded the sentence, of which Denham must serve a minimum of 13 years and 10 months.
Denham apologised to the victims and their families, saying he saw himself as a “mere scumbag paedophile”.
Clerical sex abuse has become a major issue in Australia, the United States and across Europe as victims and relatives have sought justice.
During a visit to Australia in July 2008 Pope Benedict XVI met some of the victims and made a public apology for the abuse.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Hardliners Return for Sydney Convention After Push for Ban Fails
HUNDREDS of Islamic activists are assembling in Sydney for a convention being held by the controversial Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
This is its first big event in Australia since a failed push to outlaw it three years ago.
Senior Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) members have flown in from Britain for the conference, which is part of a series of events being held around the world, as the group steps up its campaign for the formation of a trans-national Islamic state.
HT’s Australian spokesman, Uthman Badar, said the conference, the theme of which was the “struggle for Islam in the West”, was aimed at countering rising hostility to “all things Islamic” in the Western world.
“Whether it be the US, the UK or Australia, we see constant attacks on Islam, its values, practices and symbols,” Mr Badar said.
“If it’s not the face veil that becomes a security issue overnight in Australia, it’s the minarets that frighten Switzerland.”
Security agencies will be closely monitoring the conference.
In 2007, when HT held its last international assembly in Australia, the federal government considered banning the organisation in response to claims that it incites religious hatred and indirectly encourages terrorism.
But ASIO advised the then attorney-general Philip Ruddock that there was insufficient evidence to proscribe the group as it did not advocate terrorism.
HT explicitly rejects the use of violence in its quest for an Islamic state. But it supports militant campaigns against Western forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and opposes the existence of Israel, which it calls an “illegitimate” state that “must be removed”.
“Hizb ut-Tahrir’s platform actually forbids its members from acts of terror and there is no clear evidence of (HT) engaging in terrorism or the preparation of terrorism,” said Clive Williams, head of terrorism studies at the Australian National University. “There are many instances, though, of those whose views were forged in Hizb ut-Tahrir subsequently taking part in terrorism.”
HT is banned in much of the Middle East, but operates legally in more than 40 countries, with an estimated one million members worldwide.
It has been active in Australia since the early 1990s.
Mr Badar denied the organisation was extremist. “There is nothing extreme about wanting representative, accountable governance in the Muslim world, or wanting the end of foreign interference there by removing the despots who rule,” he said.
Conservative community groups in Sydney are planning a rally to coincide with Sunday’s conference in Lidcombe to demonstrate their opposition to HT.
“We’re really concerned, we believe (the philosophy) of Hizb ut-Tahrir is not one of peace and co-existence. They want world domination,” said Nick Folkes, Sydney organiser for the Australian Protectionist Party, a fringe group that supports ending all Muslim immigration.
“Co-existence cannot happen. It’s all lovely and fluffy to say co-existence is possible, but it’s not. We want to end Islamic immigration because they want sharia law and we don’t want it.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
‘Beware’ Alert Issued for World Cup Events
UNITED NATIONS — As the 2010 World Cup enters its final weeks, the United Nations Security Department is advising anyone going to South Africa “beware.”
In fact, the U.N. portrays the situation in South Africa as downright “dangerous” despite millions of dollars invested by the Pretoria government to ensure fan safety.
The U.N. advisory overlaps with a U.S. State Department travel alert issued in late May in which it said there is a “heightened risk that extremist groups will conduct terrorist acts within South Africa in the near future.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
40,000 Illegal Bulgarian Immigrants to Benefit From Obama’s Reform
There are between 15 000 and 40 000 Bulgarians residing illegally in the USA, according to estimates of Assen Assenov, a Bulgarian professor at the American University School of International Service.
In the wake of US President Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday pressing for immigration reform, Assenov, an economist researching the issues of Bulgarian immigration to the US, has commented that the passing of the bill would improve substantially the lot of the illegal Bulgarians, as cited by the Bulgarian edition of Deutsche Welle.
Of the 11-14 million illegal immigrants in the United States, some 8.5 million are estimated to be Mexicans, while the rest come from all around the world including Bulgaria.
“According to my estimates there are between 15 000 and 40 000 Bulgarians with illegal status in the US. Many of them have been here for 10-15 years. They can’t be hired to work legally, and aid for their kids is unavailable. Medical help is also limited. Thus, an immigration reform will be something very positive for these Bulgarians. This will also be great news for their relatives back home because these people will finally be able to visit them,” Assenov has said.
He has forecast that despite Obama’s pressing for the immigration reform bill, the reform will hardly come through quickly.
“We should be very cautious in our expectations. The things that Obama expresses as views on the reform in principle are a first step. There is a long period ahead of months, maybe years, of the actual implementation of these ideas and turning them into real reform,” the Bulgarian professor thinks.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
School District Bans Bibles on ‘Religious Freedom Day’
A mission group on Thursday sued a Florida district school board for banning Bible distribution on public school campuses on Religious Freedom Day.
For years, the Collier County School District allowed World Changers to offer Bibles to interested students during non-school hours on Jan. 16 in honor of Religious Freedom Day. But since last year, the superintendent and the Community Request Committee have refused to grant permission to the Southern Baptist Convention-related mission group to do so.
School officials claim Bibles do not provide any educational benefit to the students and thus distribution should stop.
But Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing World Changers, pointed out that many of the founding fathers learned to read using the Bible.
“How sad that on the eve of Independence Day, when we celebrate the religious and political freedom our forefathers won for us at the cost of much blood and great sacrifice, we are compelled to sue to protect the right simply to make free Bibles available to students in public schools,” said Staver.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Worst Human Rights Offenders Condemn West
By Licia Corbella
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” — Adolf Hitler.
In what can only be described as Orwellian double-speak, the Organization of the Islamic Conference told the United Nations Human Rights Council — made up of many of the world’s worst human rights violators — that Muslims in western democracies face unbearable racism and discrimination, and demanded that the UN do something about it.
“People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance and experience discrimination and marginalization,” an Egyptian delegate said on Wednesday.
Pakistan, speaking for the 57-nation OIC, tabled a resolution instructing the council’s special investigator into religious freedom to look into such racism, “especially in western societies” to “work closely with mass media organizations to ensure that they create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity.”
Mahfooz Kanwar, a professor emeritus at Mount Royal University and author, said these resolutions — which are expected to pass owing to the over-abundance of “Islamist and other dictatorial states” that sit on the oxymoronically named UN Human Rights Council — would be funny for their sheer audacity and hypocrisy if they were not so potentially harmful and disturbing.
“I was born and raised in Pakistan and any honest person from there will admit that nobody in that country has religious freedom — or any kind of freedom — not Muslims and certainly not members of minority religions who are afforded even less rights and are often beaten, raped and killed for not being Muslim,” said Kanwar, a sociologist and criminologist. “As for gender equality, there is none. Women are considered property in Pakistan and virtually every Islamic country,” he added.
“If I were to go to Pakistan and do what I do here in Canada, write articles and books that are critical of those governments, I would not survive more than 24 hours,” Kanwar said.
Just last month, on May 28, Muslim suicide bombers stormed two Ahmadi Muslim mosques in Lahore, Pakistan and murdered about 100 worshippers. “That’s extreme discrimination. The Pakistani government declared long ago that Ahmadiyya Muslims are not real Muslims, they are infidels and therefore deserve to be killed,” said Kanwar. “And so, these ignorant fanatics listen to the semi-literate mullahs in the mosques and go out and murder the so-called infidels in suicide bombings with the hopes of going straight to heaven.
“The reality is,” he added, “the ONLY countries where Muslims can really practise their religion freely and without coercion or discrimination is in the West. In Muslim countries, they force you to worship the way the state wants you to worship or you face being attacked. That’s why Muslims are always killing Muslims. The Sunni kill Shiites and vice versa. They think anyone who doesn’t believe exactly like they do is an infidel and deserves to die.”
Kanwar acknowledges that there is some racism in the West, but it is “not systemic and is microscopic in comparison with any Muslim country.”
Organizations that track freedom and religious persecution in the world say that the worst offenders are the same states that have signed on to the resolution to condemn the West. Freedom House ranks the level of freedom in every country and when the lists are compared, the same countries that want the UN to condemn the West for discriminating against Muslims are among the least free countries in the world. These countries are also seeking at the United Nations to make it a crime for anyone to ever blaspheme Islam or Muhammad in the West, yet in their own countries, they have laws that state that non-Muslims have less rights than Muslims.
According to Kanwar and Voice of the Martyrs — a Christian non-governmental organization — in Pakistan, a Christian man’s testimony in court is counted as being worth half that of a Muslim man’s. A Christian woman’s testimony in court is worth only one-quarter of a Muslim man’s, making Christian women and girls prime targets for rape, since it’s near impossible for the perpetrator to be convicted under such laws.
Voice of the Martyrs, which monitors attacks against Christians around the world, states that “many Pakistani Christians have been falsely accused under law 295c of blaspheming Muhammad or the Qur’an, a crime punishable by death.”
In Egypt, where there is a large, though dwindling, Christian community, the country’s constitution gives more rights to Muslims, and Christians are treated as second-class citizens, denied political representation, and often discriminated against in education and employment, states Voice of the Martyrs. “While the constitution allows for freedom of conversion, Muslims converting to Christianity have often been unable to change their religion or their name on their identification cards. Without the freedom to make this change, Christian women remain designated as Muslims and are unable to marry Christian men,” states the Voice of the Martyrs website.
Kanwar says the oppressive leaders in Muslim countries nurture the lie that the West, and especially Israel, mistreats Muslims to distract their “miserable, impoverished citizens” from focusing on their own governments’ corruption, incompetence and oppression.
As a result, despite enormous resource wealth, Muslim countries continue with high unemployment, high illiteracy rates and little hope, proving the Richard Bach quote that, “The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves.”
| — Hat tip: Anna | [Return to headlines] |
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