Dallas Fed Reports Sluggish Texas Manufacturing Activity for July
The manufacturing production index rose back into positive territory in July after going negative in June for the first time since October, according to the Dallas Fed’s Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey.
But indexes tracking new orders and the growth rate of orders fell deeper into negative territory, “indicating a further contraction of demand,” the Dallas Fed said.
The capacity utilization index fell into negative territory for the first time in nine months.
While the survey’s employment index edged up and remained positive for the fifth month in a row, the hours worked index dipped into negative territory. Moreover, indexes designed to reflect future expectations of manufacturers continued to fall. Future production, capacity utilization and shipments indexes all fell again in July, although they stayed in positive territory.
“Optimism regarding firms’ six-month outlook continued to wane in July, although the indexes remained positive,” the Dallas Fed said.
The regional Fed bank said it collected survey responses from 99 Texas manufacturers between July 13 and July 21. It calculated survey indexes by subtracting the percentage of respondents reporting a decrease from the percentage reporting an increase.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Goldman Reveals Where Bailout Cash Went
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night.
Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.
Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, “I hope it’s as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money.”
He added, “We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on … we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world.”
Grassley said he was reserving judgment on the appropriateness of U.S. taxpayer money ending up overseas until he learns more about the 32 entities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Municipalities on the Brink of Bankruptcy
The collapse of the Spanish property sector and bad management has led to over 400 out of the over 8,000 municipalities in Spain to stop paying their water, electricity and telephone bills.
According to sources from the FEMP (Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces) the next step will be that salaries will stop being paid and by the end of 2010, around 30 per cent could declare bankruptcy.
In Andalucia, two out of three municipalities are on the brink of bankruptcy says the Federation.
According to recent reports, the crash of the Spanish property sector caused the local municipalities to lose 15,000 million euros per year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Municipal Bond Debt Bomb
State and local borrowing, once thought of as a way to finance essential infrastructure, has mutated into a source of constant abuse. Like homeowners before the housing bubble burst, states and cities have gorged on debt, extended repayment times, and used devious means to avoid limits on borrowing—all in order to finance risky projects and kick fiscal problems down the road. Though the country’s economic troubles have helped expose some of these unwise practices, the downturn has brought not reform but yet more abuse. Even as Tea Party protesters and taxpayer groups revolt against excessive government spending and taxes, they are paying too little attention to the gigantic state and local debt bomb. If it can’t be defused, we’re all at risk.
Government debt helped finance the expansion of the American republic. The first municipal bond on record in the United States was an 1812 New York City offering to pay for digging a canal. Six years later, New York State began issuing bonds to finance the $7 million construction of the Erie Canal, whose beneficial impact on the state’s economy led other states and cities to rush out bond offerings to pay for new roads, bridges, and waterworks.
Though the early muni-bond market helped the young country grow, the borrowing could be risky. Some of the toll roads, railroads, and other endeavors were highly speculative and failed to generate enough income to pay back investors. The five-year downturn that followed the 1837 bank panic left eight states, including Pennsylvania, unable to pay off their bonds, prompting William Wordsworth to pen “To the Pennsylvanians,” an ode that castigated those in the state who had “ruthlessly betrayed” the legacy of prudent founder William Penn. Realizing that the defaults would interfere with their ability to borrow in the future, some states imposed debt restrictions on themselves, and eventually inserted requirements into their constitutions that voters approve future bond offerings.
[…]
…[T]hen the Great Depression arrived, drying up tax revenues and leaving governments unable to meet their debts. The 1930s would see 4,500 defaults by state and local governments. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the muni market bounced back and debt outstanding surpassed pre-Depression levels.
[…]
Across America, states and cities have heaped on the debt to build facilities aimed at luring tourists and conventioneers away from other states and cities. For instance, cities have been waging a two-decade-long “arms race,” as University of Texas public policy professor Heywood Sanders puts it, to expand convention centers, and have been funding them through billions of dollars in municipal debt. The result: a market with perhaps 40 percent more space than demand warrants, underperforming facilities, operating deficits, and little economic payoff…
[…]
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America’s Patron Saint of Free Speech
[…]
…Ibn Warraq, in his book, “Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism”, exposed a long-time and still festering Big Lie, that propagated by the Christian Palestinian-American Columbia Professor, the late Edward Said, who persuaded the immediate academic world that westerners, especially intellectuals, colonized our understanding of the Middle East and Muslim world and that our views are poisoned by racism, colonialism, arrogance, etc…
[…]
Of course, the Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, the American Molly Norris, the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, the Egyptian-European Bat Ye’or, the scholar, Zeyno Baran, have all stood against the Biggest Lies of our time.
But now, allow me to sing the considerable praises of Rachel Ehrenfeld whose brilliant persistence against the greatest of odds has won a great victory for free speech. Ehrenfeld is the first to acknowledge those who have helped her, (see our interview below), but in my view, she is truly a lone David-like figure, working alone against a multitude of Goliaths. No other author really worked with her, shoulder to shoulder, in this long, hard campaign—although one came to testify.
As we all know, Islamists have exerted a chilling effect on what writers, editors, and publishers are willing to say. Publish — and be demonized as an “Islamophobe;” publish and be bombed or butchered; publish and be driven into poverty by a lawsuit, by what Ehrenfeld calls “libel tourism,” and what Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson call “lawfare.”
…On April 29, 2008, the New York State Legislature passed “Rachel’s Law.” On July 19, 2010, the American Senate passed the SPEECH Act. These two pieces of bi-partisan legislation potentially go a long way in terms of allowing American authors to exercise our First Amendment rights without having punitive judgments for “defamation” in foreign libel suits collected against us in the United States.
[…]
Follow link to the interview with Rachel Ehrenfeld…
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Audio: ‘Son of Hamas’ Opposes Ground Zero Mosque
‘They are celebrating the same god who mandated killing those victims’
The eldest son of one of Hamas’ founding members has come out in vehement opposition to plans by Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque near New York City’s Ground Zero, site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was once considered an heir to his father’s leadership of the terrorist group Hamas until his dramatic conversion to Christianity. Yousef’s remarkable story is told in the book “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue and Unthinkable Choices.”
“All I can say [is] shame on Muslims to do this, to build a mosque on a graveyard that all its victims were killed [in] the name of the god of the Quran, who mandated the killing of those innocent people,” Yousef said yesterday in a radio interview with Aaron Klein, WND’s senior reporter and host of an investigative radio program on New York’s WABC 770 AM radio.
“They are celebrating now and praising the same god who mandated the killing of those victims, two and a half blocks from their graveyard,” he told Klein on his WABC show.
Audio of Yousef’s comments can be heard below:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama to Appear on American Version of Loose Women in Attempt to Revive His Popularity
Barack Obama is to appear on America’s version of ITV’s Loose Women in a desperate attempt to revive his flagging popularity.
He will gain the dubious distinction of being the first sitting President to appear on a daytime talk show when he makes a guest appearance on The View on Thursday.
The White House regards it as an opportunity for Mr Obama to counteract some of the bad publicity that has sent his approval ratings plunging to an all-time low.
And with Democrats fearing a poor showing in the U.S. mid-term elections in November, Mr Obama will need all the exposure he can get.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chuck Norris: Obama’s U.S. Assassination Program? Part 1
Sound too conspiratorial to be true? Like the cover-up ops of spy novels? Well, it’s reality. And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people.
It’s not an extremist belief or theory of the far Right. It’s a fact that has been confirmed by publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and even documented by the far-Left blog, Salon.com.
And it’s the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: A presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are in the literal scopes of the executive branch, based upon nothing more than allegations of terrorism involvement as they define it.
Of course, the CIA has executed covert assassinations of foreigners for decades. But, tragically, Obama is now expanding this program to include American, non-Islamic, stateside, homegrown terrorists.
[…]
Conveniently, the Obama administration is also integrating a pervasive plan to assure the expiration of radicals as they deem them abroad and domestic too, with the resurrection of the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” introduced by U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County). Also known as H.R. 1955, it was passed in the House by the Democratic majority, but was then rejected by the Senate.
Everyone thought that legislation was dead until the Obama administration resurrected its tenets in its new 52-page National Security Strategy, released in May. So alarming is the feds’ potential abuse of power that officials from London to the Kremlin are recognizing the threat to U.S. citizens.
As the European Union reported, “Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: Quality Control or Rubber Stamp?
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected soon to vote on President Obama’s New START. As usual, its majority is lining up to perform the role of rubber-stamp on whatever treaty an executive signs and wants ratified.
To ensure that outcome, the committee holds hearings where only proponents are allowed to testify. When it feels the need at least to acknowledge that there actually are opponents, the latter are typically outnumbered ten-to-one. The effect is as predictable as it is cynical: Most panel members know of no reason to disapprove ratification. That vote then becomes justification for other Senators to forego the kind of due diligence on the treaty they might otherwise feel compelled to perform.
The Founding Fathers had a very different role in mind for the Senate. Recognizing that treaties could effectively alter the Constitution and jeopardize national security, they entrusted to the Senate a unique and extraordinary power: No treaty could become binding on the United States without the Senate’s “advice and consent.”…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Judges Evade Obama Birth-Certificate Query
Abandon plans to penalize attorney whose clients challenged eligibility
Judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suddenly have abandoned plans to assess damages against an attorney whose clients are challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president after he argued that if there was to be punishment, he would have the right to know whether the defendants could have mitigated their injury by publicly releasing Obama’s birth documentation.
[…]
But Apuzzo had explained to the court that under standard rules of judicial procedure, while they allow for damages to be assessed in “frivolous” cases — even though the district never made that ruling — there also is a responsibility on the part of the defendants to mitigate their damages.
In this case, he asked the court to “enforce my right to discover whether defendants had a copy of the [certificate of live birth, Obama’s] 1961 long-form birth certificate, and related documents showing that Obama was born in Hawaii which they could have simply shared [with] … the Kerchner plaintiffs.”
That disclosure, he argued, “would have mitigated the damages and costs they now claim they suffered from having to defend plaintiffs’ appeal.”
“To confirm the veracity of the defendants’ representations, I also have a right under (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) 26(a)(1) and 26(b)(1) to receive a copy of those documents,” he argued. “Should the court be inclined to find that I am liable for defendants’ damages and costs, I also request that the court defer entering judgment on damages and costs until I have had an opportunity to address the amount of damages claimed by defendants, the issue of proximate cause, and whether defendants satisfied their burden to mitigate those damages.
“So that I may have a meaningful opportunity to present defenses to defendants’ claim of damages and costs, including showing that defendants have failed to mitigate their claimed damages, I am requesting limited discovery of Obama’s (certificate of live birth), his 1961 long-form birth certificate, and any documents that may be relevant in showing where Obama was born, along with a hearing on the record at which I will have a fair opportunity to present witnesses, evidence and defenses to the defendants’ claim of damages and costs,” he wrote.
The court’s response was to drop the “Order to Show Cause” almost immediately, referencing only Apuzzo’s “research.”
[…]
At the online Post & Email, a forum-page participant said the results of the situation are perfectly clear.
“I think the court was really afraid of this — ‘Should the court be inclined to find that I am liable under Rule 38 for defendants’ damages and costs, I respectfully request that the court recognize and enforce my right to discover whether defendants had a copy of the (certificate of live birth), his 1961 long-form birth certificate, and related documents.’“
“They really didn’t want to risk Mr. Apuzzo having a legal reason to get BO’s BC,” he wrote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Now ‘Christians’ Set to Attack Tea Partiers
Author warns of next assault after failed attempt to define group as racist
With recent attempts to portray tea-party members as racist backfiring, a renewed attack is being launched, warns the author of “The Tea Party Manifesto,” and this one is from progressive Christians who claim the movement lacks Christ-like charity.
Just as the racism accusation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proved groundless before it deteriorated into an embarrassing public-relations disaster that encompassed the White House, says Joseph Farah, author of the “Manifesto,” no one should accept the latest salvo as gospel either.
[…]
Progressive Christians with ties to the Obama administration — whose policies of government expansion over private-sector industries gave rise, in part, to the tea-party groups — characterized the movement as unbiblical.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Political Goon Squads Becoming the Norm
“Accuse your adversaries of what you do.” — Karl Marx
Clad in military attire, New Black Panther bullies used weapons, racial insults and profanity to deter voters, and federal prosecutors in response filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia. However, the case was mysteriously and abruptly killed by a top Justice Department official just as a federal judge was preparing to punish the Black Panthers for ignoring the charges and refusing to appear in court.
While the mainstream news media lambaste the Tea Partiers with accusations of racism, violence, hatred and other transgressions, these same reporters and pundits routinely turn a blind eye towards the violence perpetrated by liberal-left “activists.”
Routinely, Americans are spoon-fed allegations of Republicans attempting to disenfranchise Democrat voters, but in reality it is usually groups of activists who are allied with Democrats — ACORN, New Black Panthers, SEIU, etc. — discovered to be involved in using brutish tactics or corruption on behalf of their chosen politicos. Here are a few examples:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Psychiatric Drug Use Skyrockets in U.S. Military
(NaturalNews) Use of prescription psychotropics has skyrocketed among U.S. military personnel in recent years, according to an investigation by Military Times.
At least 17 percent of active-duty military personnel are currently taking an antidepressant, including as many as 6 percent of all deployed troops. In contrast, the rate of antidepressant use in the wider U.S. public is only 10 percent.
[…]
Although antidepressants are among the drugs most commonly taken by military personnel, their use increased only 40 percent between 2001 and 2009. Spending actually dropped by 16 percent, likely reflecting the new availability of less-expensive generic drugs.
According to a 2009 study by the Veterans Affairs Administration, approximately 60 percent of psychiatric drug use by military personnel is for “off-label” uses not approved by the FDA. Thus, antipsychotic drugs intended for the treatment of schizophrenia are now being widely prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms such as anger, headaches, nervousness and nightmares.
“Patients may be exposed to drugs that have problematic side effects without deriving any benefit,” said Robert Rosenheck of Yale University. “We just don’t know. There haven’t been very many studies.”
[…]
Some observers have suggested that the 150 percent increase in suicides in the Army since 2001 and the 50 percent increase in the Marines may be caused in part by the 76 percent increase in the use of psychiatric drugs.
The widespread use of psychotropics, including off-label use and cocktails, is “really a large-scale experiment,” said former Navy psychiatrist Grace Jackson. “We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The New Racial Mess
Weren’t we supposed to enter a new age of tolerance with the election of President Barack Obama?
His half-black, half-white ancestry and broad support across racial lines suggested that at last Americans judged each other on the content of our characters — not the color of our skin or our tribal affiliations.
Instead, in just 18 months of the Obama administration, racial discord is growing and relations seem to have been set back a generation.
Black voters are galvanizing behind Obama at a time of rapidly falling support. White independents, in contrast, are leaving Obama in droves.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has claimed that the loosely organized Tea Party includes “racist elements.” The National Council of La Raza has ripped the state of Arizona for its new anti-illegal alien legislation. Jesse Jackson characterized aspects of the multimillion-dollar bidding war to acquire basketball superstar LeBron James in terms of masters and slaves. Pundits are arguing whether the fringe racist New Black Panther Party is analogous to the Klan.
In turn, a number of Americans want to know why — nearly a half-century after the Civil Rights Act, affirmative action and Great Society programs — some national lobbying organizations still identify themselves by archaic tribal terms such as “colored people” or “La Raza” (“the race”) when it would be taboo for other groups to adopt such racial nomenclature.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Charles Sherrod: “Finally We Must Stop the White Man & His Uncle Toms From Stealing Our Elections”
If you thought the hateful speech by race-healer Shirley Sherrod was bad wait until you hear this… Dan Riehl posted this video of Charles Sherrod, husband of Shirley Sherrod, railing against the white man and “Uncle Toms”. So will the state-run media dare play this after canonizing Saint Shirley this past week? Don’t count on it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We Must Stop the Drive for Sharia Law in America
There is a massive push around the country to force Sharia Law into our court rooms and OUR way of life. The U.S. Constitution is OUR supreme law of the land as well as every sovereign state has laws by their state constitutions.
Sharia Law has NO place in these united States of America and we must fight at the state and federal level to make sure it stays out of our system. Frank Graffney summed up Sharia Law and people had best pay attention:
“Shariah is the name given by the authorities of Islam to the barbaric, totalitarian and supremacist code that its adherents seek to impose on all of us. It calls for the murder of homosexuals, the mistreatment of women, the flogging and stoning of those accused of adultery, the killing of apostates and girls who defile their family’s “honor” by dating non-Muslims or wearing pants or make-up, etc.
“Shariah is no less toxic when it comes to the sorts of democratic government and civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. According to this legal code of Saudi Arabia and Iran, only Allah can make laws, and only a theocrat can properly administer them, ultimately on a global basis.
“In order to realize that utterly political agenda of world domination, Shariah obliges its adherents to engage in jihad — which that noted Islamic authority, President Obama’s Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, tells us is “a legitimate tenet of Islam.” Indeed, it is. And according to Shariah, those who are not in a position to engage in the violent form of jihad favored by al Qaeda, the Taliban, Jamaat Islamia, etc., are required to engage in the non-violent form known as “civilizational jihad” or Dawa.
[…]
Do you know whether the malevolent ideology of Islam is being taught in your child’s school?
July 4, 2010. Schoolbook hunky-dory with Islam, but skunks Jesus?
“Parents of Florida high-school students are outraged because they say a world-history textbook used in many of the state’s schools portrays Islam and Muhammad in a favorable light. The Sarasota chapter of ACT! for America, a citizen-action network, claims the textbook “has an anti-Western, anticapitalist, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish bias.”
“Conversely it promotes Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, promotes Islam as a religion, promotes socialism and fails to address world history in a historically accurate manner,” the group said in a statement. Sarasota County ACT! for America chapter leader Richard Swier, editor of RedCounty.com, attended a school-board meeting on April 20 to share his concerns about the textbook.
“I spoke at the school-board meeting requesting ‘World History’ be removed from the district’s approved list because it was historically untrue, academically dishonest and does not give equal treatment to all religions,” wrote Swier. “Dozens of examples of historical untruths, biases and distortions were pointed out, including: no mention of jihad as a warlike means to expand Islam; Islamic conquest as good, Christian conquest as bad; and non-Western civilizations as benign, Western civilizations as evil.”
“After reading the book, Ferguson concluded that it “placed Islam in a textually superior position as fact with other religions portrayed as belief systems.” Swier has said that the textbook’s coverage of Sept. 11 is biased and that the book doesn’t even mention Muslims or jihad when discussing the attacks.”
[…]
March 29, 2010. Islamist Gülen Movement Runs U.S. Charter Schools
“A secretive foreign network of Islamic radicals now operates dozens of charter schools — which receive government money but are not required to adopt a state-approved curriculum — on U.S. soil. The inspirer of this conspiratorial effort is Fethullah Gülen, who directs a major Islamist movement in Turkey and the Turkish Diaspora but lives in the United States…
“But in startling news for Americans, the Gülen movement operates more than 85 primary and secondary schools on our soil. A roster of the Gülen schools and of the numerous foundations that support them has been released to the public by the patriotic group Act! for America. The Gülen schools are often designated as “science academies” and are concentrated in Texas, Ohio, and California — with others scattered across the rest of the country.
[…]
“Gulen, in his application for permanent residency in the United States, maintained that he was “an educator of extraordinary ability and renown.” But Gulen does not possess an elementary school education, let alone a high school diploma. He is semi-literate and speaks no English.”
[…]
WAKE UP AMERICA. This propaganda is being shoved down the throats of America’s children via the government’s indoctrination centers called public schools. I know you’re tired after working all day or job hunting. But, if you care about your child (and that includes grandma and grandpa’s), find out what is being taught in the classroom. Go to the school board meetings. Get the facts and fight to stop this cancer from spreading any further. Boot them out of our schools and textbooks once and for all. Stop the spreading of poison to America’s children.
With the states dying under the weight of massive debt, the last thing they need is tens of thousands of Muslims coming into this country to suck the resources of the state while their citizens pay for all this welfare:
“Newly arrived Somali immigrants have transformed small towns and cities throughout the United States into tuulas (Somali villages). The Jamestown Sun reports that 400 Somalis have applied for public housing in the past four months. The Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kansas and nearby small towns have created the Somali Community Center of Southwest Kansas in order to tap into public welfare programs. Within this section of the heartland, white Christians have become the minority.
[…]
February 28, 2010. Muslim leader implodes on air
“A Muslim leader who has tried to portray the founder of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus in Washington as an extremist “hatemonger” was himself exposed as an extremist on a popular radio program.
“For years, Jibril Hough has represented himself and his North Carolina mosque as “moderate,” while putting Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., on the defensive as an anti-Muslim fanatic who “shoots from the hip” when sounding the alarm about homegrown Islamic terrorism. Myrick, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, co-founded the Capitol Hill caucus after 9/11 to educate Americans about the growing threat from jihadists.
“But during an in-studio interview Friday with Charlotte radio personality Keith Larson of WBT-AM, Hough was confronted with documents revealing his mosque — the Islamic Center of Charlotte — is owned and controlled by an organization connected to a plot to funnel millions of dollars to Islamic terrorists.
[…]
“The North American Islamic Trust holds the deed to ICC, an 800-member Sunni mosque located on five acres at 1700 Progress Lane in Charlotte. The U.S. Justice Department recently blacklisted its owner NAIT as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history. The government also identified NAIT as a front for Hamas and the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Late Judge Says Arab Drug Mafia Uses Palestinian Kids
Arab drug cartels are trafficking children and youths from Palestinian refugee camps into Germany, according to excerpts published yesterday of a book by a Berlin youth judge who committed suicide last month.
Kirsten Heisig, who took a zero-tolerance approach to repeat juvenile offenders in a deprived Berlin neighbourhood, wrote in an unpublished book that young Palestinian asylum seekers often gave suspiciously similar reasons for coming to Germany.
In her book, The End of Patience, Heisig described the process by which children and youths were flown in from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, by traffickers who took their passports and promised them a better life.
The youths reportedly told officials they were living with relatives after their parents had died, and said their families had spent their last penny on sending the children to Germany.
In Germany, these young people disappeared from youth homes and were taken in by their own communities, where they were taught how to master the drugs trade, Heisig wrote in a section of her book published by Spiegel news magazine.
The judge said it had struck her how often youths she sentenced for heroin trafficking in central Berlin had actually been assigned to care homes across Germany, where their disappearance was merely registered with the authorities.
“The gangs’ latest trend is to fetch young people under the age of 14,” Heisig wrote, explaining: “This has the particular appeal of lacking the threat of punishment.”
Under German youth law, reduced sentences are seen as enough of a deterrent to prevent young criminals from re-offending.
The judge also criticised the German authorities for failing to perform rigorous checks on young asylum seekers.
The End of Patience is to be published in Germany on July 26. Heisig, 48, had made final changes to the manuscript on June 28, the last day she was seen alive.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Unsolved Mysteries Plague Lockerbie Tragedy 22 Years on
The Obama administration, which reportedly told Scottish officials last August that, although it opposed any release of the Lockerbie bomber, it would rather see him released in Scotland than transferred to a Libyan prison, has now been called upon to declassify documents related to the release by Scotland.
A secret memo indicating that the US preferred Scotland rather than Libya for al Megrahi was unearthed by the Sunday Times in London. The memo bears witness to the lies of President Barack Obama days after his words at a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron when he said “all of us… were surprised, disappointed and angry by the Scottish government’s decision to free Abdel Baset al-Megrahi last year.”
[…]
Most everyone knows that al Megrahi who was said to have only three months to live when he was released last August is still among us some 11 months later.
Not so well known are some of the troubling factors both heard and unheard in sworn testimony during al Megrahi’s trial.
A contingent of self-appointed sleuths, led by Canada Free Press columnist, Doctor in Nuclear Sciences, Ludwig De Braeckeleer, contend that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, employing Palestinian terrorists in retaliation for the US downed Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘They Had Knives, They Jumped Me’ — London Teacher Tells of Attack by Gang
A teacher who was almost killed in a gang knife attack near his east London school vowed today to be back in his classroom in September despite suffering horrific injuries.
Gary Smith’s face was slashed from his mouth to his neck and he was stabbed and beaten repeatedly by a group of five Asian youths — all wearing black bandanas — as he walked to work in Mile End. The 37-year-old, a religious studies teacher at Central Foundation School for Girls in Bow, told the Standard he was lucky to be alive after being ambushed at 8.20am on July 12.
Police first treated the attack as a robbery but upgraded the investigation to attempted murder because Mr Smith was so seriously injured. He needed three operations to repair his face and was not discharged from hospital until last night.
Speaking for the first time about the savage attack, he said: “They were all armed with knives. I tried to defend myself and run away but they all jumped me and that’s the last thing I remember. I’m not sure how many times they stabbed me — I’ve got several wounds on my head, and bruises all over my face and body. I wouldn’t want anybody else to suffer what I went through. I survived but somebody else might not. If this is the kind of thing they’re doing, I hope they will be caught soon to keep people safe.”
Mr Smith, who also runs a martial arts club, said that he did not believe the youths recognised him or targeted him for any reason. He said from his home in Chingford: “I’ve absolutely no idea what the motive could be. I was just walking to work and it seems entirely random. They were probably just looking for someone to hurt and I happened to be there. I’m very pleased to be home so I can start to recover fully. I’ve had a lot of support from my family and my friends and colleagues at school. They’ve all been fantastic. Now I’ve got the summer holidays to get well before the start of school in September, when I’m determined to be back at work.”
Mr Smith’s mother Heather, who was at his hospital bedside every day, said: “His injuries were so bad I didn’t recognise him.
“It was a horrific and evil attack and we need the public’s help so police can catch whoever did it.”
Detective Inspector Des McHugh, who is leading the hunt for the five attackers, said: “This was an extremely violent incident and unusual at this time of day.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: “Violent” And “Non Violent” Islamists
So, it is almost that Global Peace and Unity time of year again.
Regular readers of Harry’s Place will remember that, every year, the Islam Channel invites some of the most extreme and nasty Islamists — supporters of attacks on our troops, of terrorism (outside the UK, of course), Holocaust denial, wife beating, and so on — to bunfight. Each year, leading politicians from all three parties are invited. Sometimes, they attend.
Labour’s performance on this matter has ranged from excellent to terrible.
The Lib Dems have been atrocious — not only did they attend the event, they rubbished Policy Exchange’s attempt to brief leading politicians on the nature of the invitees to the conference.
The Tories’ Dominic Grieve did turn up, and very impressively expressed his disappointment at the nasty views espoused by some of the attendees.. If you are going to attend, that is the way to do it.
So, what will happen in 2010?
Former Tory cohesion minister, Paul Goodman has the low down — via the Benkhaldun blog — on some of the attendees.
[…]
This is Paul Goodman’s advice:
“Theresa May’s made a good start at the Home Office by barring Zakir Naik and Bilal Phillips from entering the UK. The final list of speakers for GPU has yet to be published. Part of the annual gavotte is backstairs negotiation between the organisers and politicians. Ministers don’t have to make up their minds at this stage whether or not to attend.
Furthermore, politicians must necessarily meet all sorts of people. At times, they can’t be too particular, and it’s neither practicable not desirable for them to quiz all of those they meet in detail. But they shouldn’t lend legitimacy to people who support attacks on our troops, on civilians as a matter of principle, or incite hatred and violence — and who, furthermore, don’t represent the mass of British Muslims for whom they purport to organise. If such people are on the platform, Ministers shouldn’t go to the GPU this year.”
Paul Goodman links to a related story in today’s Sunday Telegraph by Andrew Gilligan. He reports that civil servants in the Communities Department are working hard to push ministers into attending the GPU Event:
“The Communities Department also appears to be attempting to facilitate the attendance of ministers at a controversial event closely associated with Islamic extremism.
The Global Peace and Unity conference in London this October is organised by the Islam Channel, a TV station which has a number of fundamentalist and extremist presenters. Speakers at the conference are a mixture of mainstream figures and Islamic militants, including Hussain Yee, a preacher who has been accused of anti-Semitism and who the Home Office is reportedly seeking to bar from Britain.
In an email exchange this month with the conference organiser, a Communities Department official, Ingrid Barnes, asks: “I was just wondering whether you have sent invitation letters to Ministers yet? Ministers go on summer recess at the end of July, so it would be good to put something up to them before then.”
Rashad Ali, of the Centri counter-extremism thinktank, said: “Government policy in this area appears to be in flux with both positive steps taken and also issues of concern. The next few months will be decisive.”
Paul Goodman, the former Tory communities spokesman, said: “It’s clear that Home Office ministers recognise that non-violent extremism can be the soil from which violent extremism grows and are determined to make Government policy reflect this view. They are entitled to expect the civil service to respect these views.”
A joint statement from the Communities Department and the Home Office said: “The new government is committed to overhauling the flawed ineffective and counter productive prevent programme and will take firm action to tackle domestic extremism in all its forms.”
The report is based on a leak of classified papers, which indicate that the Communities Department has a certain, erm, problem. Here’s what they’ve been advising:
“In the classified papers, presented last week to Coalition ministers on the Cabinet’s home affairs committee, officials say a “clear assessment” has been made that individuals “do not progress” to violence through such groups.
One paper, classified “Restricted” and entitled “Government strategy towards extremism”, says: “It is sometimes argued that violent extremists have progressed to terrorism by way of a passing commitment to non-violent Islamist extremism, for example of a kind associated with al-Muhajiroun or Hizb ut Tahrir … We do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear ‘conveyor belt’ moving from grievance, through radicalisation, to violence … This thesis seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors.”
In fact, at least 19 terrorists convicted in Britain have had links with al-Muhajiroun, including Omar Khayam, sentenced to life imprisonment as leader of the “fertiliser bomb” plot, and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the airliner “liquid bomb” plot, who is also serving life.”
Oh, but which civil servant could possibly be behind this duff advice? Lemme guess….
“The papers are understood to have been prepared with the involvement of Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a controversial paid ministerial adviser to the Communities Department. Mr Aziz is an honorary trustee of the hardline East London Mosque, which has hosted dozens of hate and extremist preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric cited as an inspiration by the perpetrators of 9/11 and many other terrorist attacks.
The mosque is the headquarters of, and closely linked to, a secretive, fundamentalist network, the Islamic Forum of Europe — which believes in transforming “the very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam”. Mr Aziz is a former officer of the IFE’s youth wing.
Earlier this year the IFE was accused by Jim Fitzpatrick, then a Labour minister, of infiltrating and “corrupting” his party in the same way as the Militant Tendency in the 1980s..
The papers appear to pave the way for a policy recommended by Mr Aziz in another document leaked to this newspaper. Written in April, it condemns what Mr Aziz calls the previous Government’s “veto approach” towards fundamentalist-influenced organisations.
Mr Aziz says that ministers and officials in the new administration should consider appearing in public, “on a case by case basis”, even with organisations which promote “a message of divisiveness, expressing intolerance towards other communities in the UK”.
He says that Whitehall officials should even deal privately with organisations which may support “violent extremism in Britain”, and urges that organisations should only be boycotted as a “port of last call” in “very defined circumstances” including “wholly unacceptable positions on the use of force”.
Mr Aziz also strongly recommends far closer engagement with hardline, but non-violent, organisations such as the IFE and the East London Mosque.”
It gets worse!
“But in a “restricted” memorandum to Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, written on July 15, Robert Mason, one of his senior officials, says the papers present “a clear assessment that individuals do not progress through non-violent extremist groups to violent groups … Extreme groups may also provide a legal ‘safety valve’ for extreme views.”
Bear in mind, while reading this, that ‘non violent” in this context generally means only that they do not support terrorism in the United Kingdom. They do, more often than not, support a notion of ‘defensive jihad’: a religious political theory that legitimates violence to defend and establish Islamist and Muslim states. Of course, that almost always includes support of Hamas.
God help us if Pickles takes this advice. What do you reckon? Does he have the guts to tell the pro-IFE clique to bug off?
He should. This is why.
Let us immediately discount the very remote possibility that the Communities Department has been infiltrated by supporters of the politics of Jamaat-e-Islami who are making these recommendations for ideological reasons. Instead, let us engage with the argument — promoted by Bob Lambert — that partnerships with “non-violent Islamists” are an essential bulwark against ‘violent Islamists”.
The problem with that thesis is Anwar Al Awlaki: a man who was relentlessly promoted by a pretty full range of “non-violent Islamist” organisations, including those with links to Islamic Forum Europe and the East London Mosque. Awlaki was promoted as a moderate, but turned out to be closely associated with Al Qaeda. In other words, the best you can say of the affair is that “non violent Islamists” are no good at spotting “violent Islamists”, let alone preventing them. Indeed, CagePrisoners actually engaged in advocacy on Awlaki’s behalf, prior to his open declaration of his links with terrorists, and after the publication of his pamphlet “44 Ways to Support Jihad”.
In other words, the strategy being recommended to Eric Pickles has been proved to have failed, and dangerously so.
Eric Pickles should be given a copy of the following recently published article by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Jacob Amis in the journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology vol.. 10:
“The careers of Awlaki and Abdulmutallab powerfully suggest the fluidity of Islamist thought. In particular, they illustrate the confluence between what might be broadly termed “hard” and “soft” Islamism. The latter is based on long-term and largely non-violent social and political activism, while the former looks to immediate violence to further its goals.[1] Awlaki and Abulmutallab, however, moved rapidly and seamlessly within and between these different modes of Islamism, and it would seem that extreme beliefs common to both provided a launching pad for increasingly extreme actions. It is argued here that an intensely literalist yet politically impassive Salafism made Abdulmutallab nevertheless receptive to the activist Islamism of the UCL Islamic Society. Later, he made a further jump to jihadism
…
The careers of Abdulmutallab and Anwar al-Awlaki remind us that individuals can slip beyond this porous boundary rapidly and very often unnoticed. That any particular strand of Islamist ideology can effectively block the shift to violence is at best uncertain. Rather, the evidence presented here suggests that religiously meritorious violence, once accepted under any circumstances, can take on a momentum of its own. Further, the shared principles of diverse forms of political Islam can, however innocently, provide an ideological firewall that obscures and underwrites the violent intentions of the minority.”
The authors go on to analyse the development of Awlaki’s theology and politics, and his many links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami networks in the United Kingdom. It is a long piece, but one well worth 30 minutes of your time.
Recommend it to your MP.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council Graveyard ‘Charges Muslims Less for Burial Plots’
A council-run graveyard is selling Muslim burial plots £500 cheaper than those for non-Muslims, to the anger of local residents.
Christian churchgoers have complained about the “discriminatory price” of burial plots in the Greenlawn Memorial Park cemetery in Warlingham, Surrey.
The cemetery — which is managed by Croydon Council — offers Muslims a graveyard plot for £2,383, but charges non-Muslims £2,927 — a hike of £544.
If you live outside of the borough — and so don’t pay council tax in the area — Muslim burial plots cost an extra £1,361 and non-Muslim ones an extra £1,708.
The cemetery has a specially-designated area of land for Muslims, who as part of their religion only allow one body to be buried in any one plot and must be buried apart from non-Muslims and facing Mecca.
Local John Spencer, 41, said he was “disgusted” at the price difference, adding: “In death people need to be treated entirely equally.
“Money should not be an issue, especially when it is directly linked to which God you pray to.
“I think the council need to have a serious rethink on this issue because there comes a point where you just have to stand up for what you believe in and say ‘I’m not going to take this anymore.
“If Muslims needs separate areas that is fine, but they should pay exactly the same as everybody else, with no exceptions.”
A spokesman for Croydon Council said that the reason for the price difference was that Muslims only allow one person to be buried in a grave, whereas people of other religions can use the plot for more than one person.
Kevin Pilkington, the head of bereavement services at the council, said: “The difference between the plots is that the Muslim graves are only used for one burial, whereas the other graves can be used for up to three people and for cremated remains.”
He said that the price of a non-Muslim grave “decreased” with each additional person added to it, meaning that “adding a body” to the grave would only cost £886 extra.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hizb-ut-Tahrir is Not a Gateway to Terrorism Claims Whitehall Report
The Government has opened the way for official links with Muslim extremists after civil servants said radical groups could be a “safety valve” for those tempted by terrorism.
The groups specifically named — in documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph — include al-Muhajiroun, which has praised 9/11 as “magnificent” and Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to turn Britain into an Islamic dictatorship under sharia law. In the classified papers, presented last week to Coalition ministers on the Cabinet’s home affairs committee, officials say a “clear assessment” has been made that individuals “do not progress” to violence through such groups.
One paper, classified “Restricted” and entitled “Government strategy towards extremism”, says: “It is sometimes argued that violent extremists have progressed to terrorism by way of a passing commitment to non-violent Islamist extremism, for example of a kind associated with al-Muhajiroun or Hizb ut Tahrir … We do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear ‘conveyor belt’ moving from grievance, through radicalisation, to violence … This thesis seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors.”
In fact, at least 19 terrorists convicted in Britain have had links with al-Muhajiroun, including Omar Khayam, sentenced to life imprisonment as leader of the “fertiliser bomb” plot, and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the airliner “liquid bomb” plot, who is also serving life. Al-Muhajiroun provided backing to Abu Hamza, the extremist cleric, whose Finsbury Park mosque was a forming-ground for other terrorists. Advertising a conference held in the mosque in 2002, al-Muhajiroun leaflets described the 9/11 hijackers as the “magnificent 19”. The organisation was banned under Labour, but ex-members have regrouped under different banners. Former al-Muhajiroun activists demonstrated against a parade by British troops through Luton and threatened to do the same against the coffins of dead soldiers passing through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett.
Hizb ut Tahrir says it opposes terrorism and condemned the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. However, it regards integration as “dangerous,” orders all Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and says that “those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir”, or apostates. A British would-be suicide bomber, Omar Sharif, was radicalised partly by Hizb activists at his London university. Before he became Prime Minister, David Cameron repeatedly called for Hizb to be outlawed, and criticised Labour for failing to introduce a ban. In March he said in an interview that he wanted to keep foreign preachers of hate out of Britain and “ban those extremist groups like Hizb ut Tahrir who are already here”.
The Whitehall documents admit that a “minority” of terrorists have been involved with non-violent extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun, and state that such groups “can foster a sense of Muslim isolationism from wider UK society, which may increase vulnerability to radicalisation”. But in a “restricted” memorandum to Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, written on July 15, Robert Mason, one of his senior officials, says the papers present “a clear assessment that individuals do not progress through non-violent extremist groups to violent groups … Extreme groups may also provide a legal ‘safety valve’ for extreme views.”
The papers say that Mr Cameron, and the Government, agreed “to do more to tackle non-violent extremism”, including extremist views such as Hizb ut Tahrir’s, at a meeting of the administration’s new National Security Council last month.
However, they say that tackling extremism should not be done in a security-related context. Labour’s attempt in its controversial Prevent strategy to “challenge some extremist views which fell short of espousing violence”, the papers say, produced “more hostile reaction [among Muslims] than the rest of the strategy put together … There is clearly a risk that the grounding of a counter-extremist strategy even more explicitly in terrorism would produce an adverse reaction.”
Whitehall sources said there was a split between the two main departments responsible, with Home Office ministers wanting a tough line with Islamists while Communities Department civil servants advocate a more “inclusive” approach. The papers say: “How non-violent extremism is to be addressed is likely to be one of the key points of difference between Ministers.”
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has already acted to ban two extremists, Bilal Philips and Zakir Naik, from Britain, despite some resistance from officials.
The papers are understood to have been prepared with the involvement of Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a controversial paid ministerial adviser to the Communities Department. Mr Aziz is an honorary trustee of the hardline East London Mosque, which has hosted dozens of hate and extremist preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric cited as an inspiration by the perpetrators of 9/11 and many other terrorist attacks.
The mosque is the headquarters of, and closely linked to, a secretive, fundamentalist network, the Islamic Forum of Europe — which believes in transforming “the very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam”. Mr Aziz is a former officer of the IFE’s youth wing. Earlier this year the IFE was accused by Jim Fitzpatrick, then a Labour minister, of infiltrating and “corrupting” his party in the same way as the Militant Tendency in the 1980s. The papers appear to pave the way for a policy recommended by Mr Aziz in another document leaked to this newspaper. Written in April, it condemns what Mr Aziz calls the previous Government’s “veto approach” towards fundamentalist-influenced organisations.
Mr Aziz says that ministers and officials in the new administration should consider appearing in public, “on a case by case basis”, even with organisations which promote “a message of divisiveness, expressing intolerance towards other communities in the UK”.
He says that Whitehall officials should even deal privately with organisations which may support “violent extremism in Britain”, and urges that organisations should only be boycotted as a “port of last call” in “very defined circumstances” including “wholly unacceptable positions on the use of force”. Mr Aziz also strongly recommends far closer engagement with hardline, but non-violent, organisations such as the IFE and the East London Mosque.
The Communities Department also appears to be attempting to facilitate the attendance of ministers at a controversial event closely associated with Islamic extremism. The Global Peace and Unity conference in London this October is organised by the Islam Channel, a TV station which has a number of fundamentalist and extremist presenters. Speakers at the conference are a mixture of mainstream figures and Islamic militants, including Hussain Yee, a preacher who has been accused of anti-Semitism and who the Home Office is reportedly seeking to bar from Britain.
In an email exchange this month with the conference organiser, a Communities Department official, Ingrid Barnes, asks: “I was just wondering whether you have sent invitation letters to Ministers yet? Ministers go on summer recess at the end of July, so it would be good to put something up to them before then.” The groups specifically named — in documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph — include al-Muhajiroun, which has praised 9/11 as “magnificent”, and Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to turn Britain into an Islamic dictatorship under sharia law.
Rashad Ali, of the Centri counter-extremism thinktank, said: “Government policy in this area appears to be in flux with both positive steps taken and also issues of concern. The next few months will be decisive.”
Paul Goodman, the former Tory communities spokesman, said: “It’s clear that Home Office ministers recognise that non-violent extremism can be the soil from which violent extremism grows and are determined to make Government policy reflect this view. They are entitled to expect the civil service to respect these views.”
A joint statement from the Communities Department and the Home Office said: “The new government is committed to overhauling the flawed ineffective and counter productive prevent programme and will take firm action to tackle domestic extremism in all its forms.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ministers Mustn’t Share Platform This Autumn With Supporters of Attacks on Our Troops
Andrew Gilligan has an ominously well-briefed story in today’s Sunday Telegraph about civil service pressure on Minister to drop the Government’s counter-extremism programme. I’ve written about how the policy was developed here and how it should be applied here. Gilligan’s kind enough to quote me, and I’ll return to some of the matters he raises in due course. In the meantime, let me deal with only one.
He refers in passing to the Global Peace and Unity conference taking place in London this October. The GPU, as it’s usually known, is a kind of Royal Ascot of the British Islamist calendar (though also attended by many apolitical people). The event is organised by the Islam Channel, a TV station which as Gilligan says “has a number of fundamentalist and extremist presenters” — see Quilliam’s report on the broadcaster.
And each year, an Ascot Gavotte is danced out between the GPU organisers and the main political parties. The aim of the former is to gain credibility, patronage, and muscle among British Muslims by manoevering politicians to speak from the event’s podium. The aims of the latter are more complex — a mix of eagerness to win Muslim votes, anxiety about losing other votes, and a desire to do the right thing.
During the last Parliament, the Liberal Democrats were only too eager to plunge on to the dance floor. Labour waltzed on and off in bewildering succession, depending on whether Jack Straw or Hazel Blears was calling the shots. When I was in the Shadow Communities team, we and the Home Office team considered the matter closely. Eventually, Dominic Grieve went to GPU…but read the organisers the riot act (politely, but firmly).
Grieve referred specifically to Yasir Quahi, who’s a record of holocaust denial and anti-Shia extremism, and to William Rodriguez, who believes that the American Government destroyed the twin towers, attacked the Pentagon and shot down United Airlines flight 93, saying that “we have no business giving madmen legitimacy…such people too often have nothing to contribute and I don’t want to share a platform with them”.
As he drew to a close, he said: “The future participation of many mainstream politicians, including myself, will be difficult if not impossible if this issue isn’t satisfactorily addressed in the future”. Gilligan notes that this autumn “speakers at the conference are a mixture of mainstream figures and Islamic militants, including Hussain Yee…who the Home Office is reportedly seeking to bar from Britain”
The Benkhaldun blog has more details. Speakers apparently include -
- Hussain Yee (as Gilligan said), who believes that Muslims didn’t carry out 9/11 and has supported attacks on British troops in Iraq.
- Yusuf Estes, who’s said that disobedient wives should be hit with rolled-up newspapers or yardsticks.
- Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss, attender of the holocaust denial conference in Iran — the “goons’ rodeo”, as Martin Amis described it — and buddy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian election fraudster.
- And possibly Dr Abu Rahman Al-Sudais, who has supported attacks on our troops in Iraq, and described Christians as “cross worshippers”, Jews as “rats of the world”, and Hindus as “idol worshippers”.
Oh, and finally…Yasir Qadhi, one of the two men specifically singled out as objectionable by Grieve.
Theresa May’s made a good start at the Home Office by barring Zakir Naik and Bilal Phillips from entering the UK. The final list of speakers for GPU has yet to be published. Part of the annual gavotte is backstairs negotiation between the organisers and politicians. Ministers don’t have to make up their minds at this stage whether or not to attend.
Furthermore, politicians must necessarily meet all sorts of people. At times, they can’t be too particular, and it’s neither practicable not desirable for them to quiz all of those they meet in detail. But they shouldn’t lend legitimacy to people who support attacks on our troops, on civilians as a matter of principle, or incite hatred and violence — and who, furthermore, don’t represent the mass of British Muslims for whom they purport to organise. If such people are on the platform, Ministers shouldn’t go to the GPU this year.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: No Room at the Inn! Expectant Mother Taken on 230-Mile Trip to Four Hospitals Before She Could Give Birth
A mother was taken on a ‘nightmare’ 230-mile round trip to FOUR different hospitals — before giving birth just 15 miles away from her home.
Helen Ramsey, 33, was turned away from three specialist baby care units before giving birth at her local hospital after a six-day-wait.
Helen’s partner James Baird, 31, drove her to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, on May 17 at 9pm, when her waters broke seven weeks early. But the couple were rejected from the hospital’s special care baby unit — because there was no room.
Helen was taken by ambulance to Colchester General Hospital where she waited for two nights to be induced before being told there was no space there either — and she was moved again.
On arrival at Peterborough District Hospital, doctors said they could not induce Helen and three medics suggested she become an outpatient.
But the devastated mother-to-be, who works for a weight loss company, faced a round trip of 140 miles from her home to Peterborough and suffered an emotional collapse at the news.
Finally, in desperation, her mother, Susan Ramsey, 57, a women’s health nurse, called Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, Middlesex, who said they had facilities available.
Helen gave birth to baby Dylan at Chase Farm Hospital on 23 May at 8.06pm — just 15 miles away from her home in Hoddesdon, Herts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: PC Joe Public: Now You Can Go on the Beat: Unprecedented Police Shake-Up Will See Unpaid Civilians Patrol With Bobbies
In the biggest shake-up of policing for 50 years, ministers want the public to patrol alongside beat bobbies.
They also intend to recruit up to 50,000 extra special constables to flood crime-plagued neighbourhoods with an army of volunteers.
And villages will be protected by a new breed of ‘police reservists’, modelled on part-time firemen and the Territorial Army.
The coalition government yesterday set out plans for communities to ‘reconnect’ with police forces which have disappeared behind their desks, engulfed by a flood of red tape.
But the radical reforms are already being dismissed by Labour as ‘policing on the cheap’ and a fig leaf for cuts in fully sworn officers.
Home Secretary Theresa May said her plans were ‘the most radical reforms to policing in at least 50 years’. She also announced:
- The introduction of directly-elected police commissioners with the power to sack chief constables, along with the prospect of elected U.S.-style prosecutors
- The creation of a National Crime Agency to ‘tackle organised crime and protect our borders’
- Regular beat meetings in supermarkets and old people’s homes to hold officers to account
- ‘Virtual’ get-togethers on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter
- A bonfire of health and safety regulations that tie police in red tape
Mrs May said her reforms, part of David Cameron’s Big Society project, would ‘transfer power back to the people’ and make police into ‘crime fighters not form writers’.
Labour responded that the Government was seeking to replace police and community support officers with unpaid volunteers.
Ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: ‘People volunteer to run the Scouts, not catch criminals. This is simply a cover for massive cuts to the number of police on the beat.’
But ministers said it was about giving local people the opportunities they need to join the fight against the loutish behaviour which took root under the last government.
The document says: ‘Across the country, we want to support more active citizens: taking part in joint patrols with the police, looking out for their neighbours and passing on safety tips as part of Neighbourhood Watch groups or as Community Crime Fighters.’
Policing Minister Nick Herbert gave the example of street pastors who go out alongside police officers to help deal with the tidal wave of drunkenness in town centres.
It has not been decided whether the civilian patrollers will wear special clothing or to what level they will be vetted — leading to fears that vigilantes or busybodies will try to become involved.
However they are likely to hold only the standard power of citizen’s arrest.
The planned expansion in the number of special constables — who have full police powers, but are not paid — would deliver the most dramatic change to the police service in decades.
The document says: ‘By volunteering their free time, special constables and other police volunteers provide a tangible way for citizens to make a difference in their communities. They have a long history within the police.
‘The number peaked at over 67,000 in the 1950s, but fell to around 24,000 in 1974 and 11,000 in 2004, although it has climbed to 15,000 today.
We want to see more special constables and explore new ideas to help unlock the potential of police volunteers in the workforce, for example as police “reservists”.
These would be modelled on part-time fire crews in rural communities who are on standby ready to respond to emergencies. They are paid, but less than full-time firemen.
The plans come with the Home Office is trying to identify budget cuts of between 25 and 40 per cent.
Experts have predicted 60,000 police staff, including officers, could be axed. Labour suspects that ministers will seek to replace them with unpaid volunteers.
She added that ‘terrorism, serious and organised crime and cyber-crime require new approaches which cross not just police force boundaries but international borders as well’.
Labour’s Serious Organised Crime Agency will be scrapped in favour of a new National Crime Agency, which will include organised crime, border policing, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre.
Soca was criticised last year when figures showed that for every £15 of public money it spent, just £1 was recovered from criminals.
The National Policing Improvement Agency — a quango criticised for lavishing tens of millions of pounds on consultants — will be phased out.
The Association of Chief Police Officers will be told it must become more accountable to the public.
| — Hat tip: CB2 | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Global Peace and Unity Event 2010
The GPU event this year is to be held on 23rd-24th October 2010. It promises to be a bigger and better event than the previous years.
Yusuf Estes and Dr. Zaghloul El-Naggar are already confirmed speakers according to the GPU twitter page: http://twitter.com/GPUEvent
My contacts at the GPU offices have told me that the following are also confirmed speakers:
- Mr Mohammad Ijaz ul-Haq — (son of former Pakistan president Zia-Ul-Haq)
Hussain Yee — (Al-Khadeem)
Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss — (Neturei Karta International)
Yasir Qadhi — (Al-Maghrib Institute)
Rt Rev Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal — (Former Bishop of Jerusalem)
There are rumours that Dr Abu Rahman Al-Sudais may also attend as a speaker.. The GPU team are also working on inviting Ministers and dignitaries from all major political parties to the event this year.
If the previous years are something to go by then I also expect the likes of George Galloway & Ken Livingstone to attend.
There are other speakers who are yet to be confirmed. I will update everyone as soon as I hear more.
Watch this space!
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tory MP Forced to Apologise for Calling Constituents ‘People Who Hold Up Their Trousers With Twine’
A Tory MP who described members of his constituency as ‘people holding up their trousers with bits of twine’ has apologised for his remarks. Rory Stewart, who represents Penrith and the Borders, also made a joke about people failing to get medical help for a boy run over by a tractor. The Eton-educated former soldier and diplomat insisted his comments were aimed at debunking the idea that Cumbria was a wealthy area that could afford spending cuts.
But he said he was ‘very sad’ about the outcry they had caused. In a newspaper interview earlier this week, Mr Stewart said: ‘Some areas around here are pretty primitive, people holding up their trousers with bits of twine and that sort of thing.
‘I was in one village where a local kid was run over by a tractor. They took him to Carlisle but they couldn’t be bothered to wait at the hospital. So they put him in a darkened room for two weeks then said he was fine. But I’m not so sure he was.’
Mr Stewart, who was elected to the Commons for the first time in May, is a former deputy governor of an Iraqi province and once walked across Afghanistan visiting villages. He told the Carlisle News and Star: ‘I’m obviously very sad about this. What I was trying to get across to the journalist is that he, and many people in London, are trying to portray Cumbria as an area that is very wealthy and comfortable. ‘That’s very dangerous when (we are) facing cuts. What I was trying to get across was not derogatory about people but that we have real needs here, we have communities that are very poor. It was an extremely foolish thing for me to say.’
[JP note: Not half as foolish as the things this ex-FCO wallah has said about the Afghan war, etc.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Roma Champion Helping Gipsies Steal £3m Benefits
She appeared to be a committed campaigner for gipsy rights — even addressing the UN.
But in reality, Lavinia Olmazu helped scores of them fraudulently claim £2.9million in benefits.
And yesterday, the mother of one was convicted of masterminding a scam which lasted 21 months.
Along with her boyfriend and a gang of six Roma criminals, Olmazu co-ordinated the fraud by providing the applicants with false work references which paved the way for nearly 200 Romanians to claim benefits they were not entitled to.
Prior to her arrest in March, Romaniaborn Olmazu, 31, had been a vocal campaigner for greater understanding and tolerance of Roma gipsies.
She has an MSc in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics, and has addressed the United Nations on Roma rights.
As an academic she obtained generous Foreign Office funding to come and live and work in Britain.
She set herself up as an ‘inclusivity outreach worker’ for two London councils and helped Roma migrants get work selling The Big Issue magazine.
Yesterday, however, Southwark Crown Court was told that she used these jobs to tout herself to gipsies as someone who could help them fraudulently obtain thousands of poundseach a year — while contributing nothing to society.
Under rules introduced when Romania joined the EU, Romanian immigrants cannot get a National Insurance number — which is the key to getting benefits — unless they can prove they have paid employment lined up.
For a fee of £80 cash, Olmazu and her boyfriend Alin Enachi, 29, provided false documentation purporting to show that the applicant would become self-employed, such as fraudulent invoices and fake letters of recommendation.
Enachi charged another £70 cash to attend the resulting Jobcentre interview alongside the applicant.
Once the applicant obtained their NI number, the couple charged them again to help them fill out the forms for child benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit.
The NI numbers also allowed their holders to access housing benefit and NHS cover.
Though simple, the scam was phenomenally successful.
In a court hearing earlier this month, prosecutor Hugh Davies said that over a 21-month period to July last year Olmazu and Enachi were the ‘prime orchestrators’ behind 368 fraudulent applications for NI numbers. Some 172 of these individuals — all of whom were Roma gipsies — went on to successfully claim benefits at a cost to the state of £2.9million.
Had the remaining 196 bogus NI number holders succeeded in claiming benefits before the scam was uncovered, the total cost to the UK taxpayer of the fraud would have been £12million.
The couple’s criminality was uncovered by detectives working on Operation Golf — a Metropolitan Police task force designed to disrupt Romanian criminal networks in Britain.
While tracking the activities of Roma criminals, police discovered that many of them made numerous, mysterious visits to Olmazu and Enachi — and on occasion would hand over brown envelopes seemingly full of cash.
Olmazu and Enachi appeared in the dock alongside four brothers and two women, all of whom are Roma and part of the same extended family, whom they helped claim state benefits.
Cristian Dumitru, 29, a Big Issue vendor with convictions for making a child beg and his wife Paula Mihai, 28, who has convictions for making a child beg, shoplifting, theft and begging, together obtained £35,510 from the scam. Stelian Dumitru, 26, a failed asylum seeker who had been deported from Britain but returned here when the borders opened in 2007 and his girlfriend Nicoleta Vasile, 25, who has convictions for theft, fare evasion and shoplifting, together obtained £27,048.
Daniel Dumitru, 20, who has convictions for violence, begging and shoplifting, obtained £9,844. His wife Monica is wanted in connection with the fraud.
And Ioan Dumitru, 22, who has two convictions for criminal damage, obtained a NI number, but appears not to have used it for financial benefit.
Over the period of the scam, Cristian Dumitru — who has never had a legitimate job in the UK — managed to put £80,000 through his bank account, some of which he sent back to other gang members in Romania.
The five other Romanians, who all admitted fraud, were given prison sentences ranging between a year and four months. Yesterday, Olmazu became the final member of the gang to admit her part in the plot, admitting conspiracy to supply articles for use in fraud.
She was remanded in custody until her sentencing in September, when Judge Deborah Taylor warned her she could expect a prison sentence.
Police intend to seek deportation orders on those sentenced to 12 months or more in prison.
Detective Constable Melanie Groves said: ‘Olmazu is an educated Roma lady who abused her position of trust and purported to be trying to help Roma people integrate into this country, yet actually assisted them to obtain benefits through false pretences.
‘This undermines the work of those who are genuinely concerned with the difficult issues Roma people face throughout Europe.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Jerusalem: Teens Suspected of Starting Fires
Blaze destroys 1,000 dunams, almost reaches Hadassah Hospital.
Several teenagers were taken in for questioning in connection with a fire near the capital’s southwestern edge that destroyed 1,000 dunams (100 hectares) of forest, forced the partial evacuation of the moshavim of Ora, Aminadav and Even Sapir, and came close to doing the same for Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem police announced on Sunday night.
According to a police spokesman, students from a haredi school in the Jerusalem area were hiking near Ein Hamdak, inside the Aminadav Forest. Some of the students were apparently playing with fire and started the blaze, which got out of control. The group then allegedly left the scene and continued toward Jerusalem before being found by detectives from the Moriya District.
A 15-year-old was held for questioning, and police said they were planning to make more arrests.
The blaze, which was centered just southwest of Hadassah University Hospital, reached dangerously close to the medical center before it was brought under control.
Twenty-three vehicles in Hadassah’s parking lot were damaged by the fire, which was subdued near the hospital’s entrance only after two airborne firefighting units entered the scene.
As the flames crept closer to the hospital — at one point reaching its perimeter fence — roads leading to the medical center were shut down and a evacuation of the entire facility was considered. In the end, firefighters were able to control the blaze, at least in the hospital’s direction.
On the other side of the valley, however, near the three moshavim, the flames continued to burn out of control.
Police and firefighters were called in to battle the flames and evacuate some of the residents after the blaze drew closer and authorities told locals to leave. Four people were treated for smoke inhalation before firefighters were able to control the flames, which turned the green hills between Hadassah Ein Kerem and the moshavim a charred and smoky black.
“According to the information we now have, there are an estimated 1,000 dunams of planted-forest land in the Aminadav Forest that have been destroyed,” a spokeswoman from the Jewish National Fund told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday evening…
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Burma is Working on Nuclear Weapons Programme, Experts Claim
Burma is working on a nuclear weapons programme, experts have concluded, after its existence was exposed by leaked photographs.
Intelligence monitoring of the country’s arms purchases from North Korea has been intensified as a result.
Satellite tracking and electronic surveillance in particular have been stepped up. Concerns over the regime’s attempts to develop a nuclear bomb prompted the US State Department to demand last week that the ruling junta disclose an inventory of its nuclear technology.
Secret documents and hundreds of photographs smuggled out of the country by a defector indicated that it was intent on developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Jane’s Intelligence Review published a separate batch of photographs showing similar activities in buildings and behind security fences near the capital, Naypyidaw.
Fears that Burma had joined a clandestine nuclear network linking North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Syria have been growing for some time, but there has not been hard evidence until now.
Sai Thein Win, the defector, is an army major who trained as a defence engineer and missile expert.
He said he had access to two secret nuclear facilities, including a “nuclear battalion” north of Mandalay, “charged with building up a nuclear weapons capability”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.
The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.
Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.
[…]
This month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in one of the frequent visits by American officials to Islamabad, announced $500 million in assistance and called the United States and Pakistan “partners joined in common cause.”
The reports suggest, however, that the Pakistani military has acted as both ally and enemy, as its spy agency runs what American officials have long suspected is a double game — appeasing certain American demands for cooperation while angling to exert influence in Afghanistan through many of the same insurgent networks that the Americans are fighting to eliminate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Sharp Drop in Asylum Seekers
The number of applicants for asylum in Finland has dropped sharply. This year an estimated 2,000 fewer asylum seekers are expected in Finland than last year.
Last year the number of applicants totalled 6,000. Coinciding with this year’s drop in applications, the Finnish Immigration Service is also cutting the number of reception centre places.
Although numbers are down, this could change depending on what kinds of crises are brewing around the world.
About ten new reception centres have been set up in the past couple of years. More recently the Finnish Immigration Service has reduced allocated places at reception centres by 700, and more cuts are expected.
A law took effect this month allowing fast-track processing for asylum applications by citizens of other European Union countries.This has already reduced the number of applicants from Bulgaria. In practice, a citizen from another EU country cannot be granted asylum in Finland.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Tale of Two Shambles as Immigration Officials Ignore Evidence of Visa Fraud
Thousands of marriage visas were granted to Pakistanis last year without proper checks, a damning report reveals today.
Immigration officials ignored possible evidence of fraud in nearly a third of applications which resulted in visas being granted, inspectors said.
John Vine, Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, said the lack of proper scrutiny amounted to a failure to protect Britain’s borders.
Figures from last year showed 6,750 Pakistanis were granted marriage visas — allowing them to come to live with their husband or wife in this country — meaning more than 2,000 visas may have been wrongly granted in just 12 months.
The revelation is the latest in a string of damaging blows for UKBA.
Last year MPs branded the agency ‘not fit for purpose’ after officials admitted losing track of 40,000 people who arrived on visas which have since expired.
Only last week it emerged the giant £1.2billion e-Borders scheme — designed to track illegal immigrants, terrorists and foreign criminals — was more than a year behind schedule.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Border Policy in Turmoil as Fast-Track Deportations for Asylum Seekers Are Ruled Illegal
A Home Office policy which allows the speedy deportation of foreign nationals refused permission to remain in the UK was ruled unlawful by the High Court today.
A judge ruled that the policy meant people were being given ‘little or no notice’ of removal and deprived of access to justice.
The decision was a victory for Medical Justice, which provides independent medical and legal advice to detainees in immigration removal centres.
Mr Justice Silber, sitting at the High Court in London, gave the Home Office permission to appeal against his decision, saying the case raised issues of general public importance, including the constitutional right of access to justice.
There is a general Home Office practice of giving those facing deportation 72 hours notice of removal directions.
Today’s legal challenge was triggered by an ‘exceptions policy’, introduced by the Government in March 2007 and widened in January this year.
The policy creates categories in which an individual can be given little or no notice.
The categories include vulnerable people who are at risk of suicide or self-harm, and also children who arrived in the UK unaccompanied and may abscond because they cannot be detained.
Dinah Rose QC, appearing for Medical Justice, said UK Border Agency officers had used the policy to swoop late at night and escort people to flights leaving only a few hours later.
Distressed individuals were deprived of the chance to speak to a lawyer and, if so advised, launch last-ditch challenges against removal.
Home Office lawyers argued at a hearing at London’s High Court last month that the exceptions policy was ‘sufficiently flexible’ to ensure there were no human rights breaches.
They said detainees were given as much notice as possible and safeguards had been put in place.
But today Mr Justice Silber rejected the Home Office case.
He said the new policy failed to ensure that those who received reduced periods of notice were able to obtain legal advice before they were removed.
The judge declared: ‘The policy is unlawful and must be quashed.
‘Medical Justice was represented in court by the Public Law Project (PLP), a charity which acts on behalf of poor and vulnerable members of the public who lack resources to go to court.
Diane Astin, who worked on today’s case for PLP, said later: ‘This is a tremendous judgment.
‘The UK Border Agency (UKBA) said it had in place safeguards which guaranteed access to justice.
‘The judge looked at the evidence and said that, in practice, there was no access to justice because of time constraints.’
Ms Astin said today’s ruling was of great legal significance because the judge also spelt out clearly what constituted access to justice.
She said: ‘It is very easy to bandy around the term ‘access to justice’ but this judgment considers what is necessary to ensure that some of the most vulnerable people have ‘access to justice’ — and found that those subject to the UKBA exceptions policy did not.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We are disappointed with the court’s judgment and we will be appealing.
‘The policy of making limited exceptions in special circumstances to 72-hour notification of immigration removal has been an important element of our management of removals.
‘The Government remains committed to removing individuals with no right to be in the UK as quickly as possible.’
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, welcomed today’s ruling.
She said: ‘Too many people who are refused asylum here and end up facing removal have been let down by the asylum process, and have serious grounds for appeal if given the chance.
‘Many of these people have fled conflict and war, are extremely vulnerable, and deserve protection.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
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