Greece: 70% of Uni Graduates Ready to Leave Country
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, AUGUST 30 — The vast majority of those who have just got their degree or are at university are prepared to leave the country to seek a job abroad, and believe that the measures adopted to overcome the economic crisis do not take their problems into account. This was seen in a survey published by the Socialist daily To Vima and carried out by Kappa on a large sample of 5,442 young people between the ages of 22 and 35 who have completed their university studies or are in the process of doing so.
According to the survey, 45% of those who are in favour of moving abroad are already working to do so and 66% of them made this decision because they have not found a job in Greece or believe that they will not be able to. Some of them (13% instead intend to continue their studies abroad. Over 86% of those interviewed believe that the solutions proposed to help Greece exit the crisis continue to ignore their needs, and say they have precious little confidence in the governments and political parties. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Republicans Play Into Obama’s Hands
Financial expert Zubi Diamond, author of Wizards of Wall Street, says that Republican proposals to fix the economy are deficient because they fail to protect invested capital in the stock market from the hedge fund short sellers.
Republican Representatives Paul Ryan and John Boehner, who voted for the $700 billion big bank bailouts that began under President Bush, have put forward much-publicized proposals to solve the economic crisis.
But Diamond says he has had no luck in getting Boehner—or other top Republicans—to pay any attention to his detailed and specific plan to save the economy by reinstating the safeguard regulations that protect invested capital and shareholder rights.
He argues that, until and unless the hedge fund short sellers are prohibited from looting the publicly traded companies, real economic growth cannot take place. It is this capital, he notes, that funds the loans for borrowers, the day-to-day operations of the corporations, their payrolls and the funds they needed for growth and expansion. “This is the money needed for job creation and employment,” he asserts.
Diamond predicts that the current crisis—and the failure of Congressional Republicans to offer a viable alternative—will give President Obama the excuse he needs to nationalize the banks and further the process of socializing the U.S. economy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: One Million Small Enterprises Closed Due to Crisis
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 30 — Newspaper El Economista reports that around one million small enterprises closed down in Spain during the last three years of crisis. According to figures of the Spanish National Statistic Institute, 323,000 family or individual businesses or enterprises with less than 5 employees had to close in 2007; in both 2008 and 2009 398,000 firms had to close.
This trend was reversed during the first six months of 2010: the period saw not only a decrease in the number of businesses that closed or went bankrupt, 69,000 overall, but also the creation of more than 50,000 new enterprises until July. Default and absence of bank credit remain the main causes of business “death”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
“It Was Certainly a Dry Run”: Two Muslims Arrested in Amsterdam After Flight From Chicago
What’s shocking about this is that before he even got to Chicago he was stopped in Alabama for “further screening” because of “bulky clothing” and then upon further investigation of his checked baggage, they found all sorts of shady things including 7 grand in cash, a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter and three large knives.
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Caroline Glick: Washington’s Israeli Elites
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heads to Washington for another stillborn round of talks with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas hosted by US President Barack Obama, he will probably be preoccupied with one issue.
It won’t be Obama’s bigoted demand that Jews be prohibited from building synagogues, schools and homes in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
Netanyahu won’t be wondering how long Abbas can keep up with his “Palestinian president” act before his people chase him out of town. Abbas’s term ended in January 2009.
Israel’s elected leader will be thinking about Iran. He will be wondering how the US government will react if he sends the IAF to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations. Will the US permit IAF jets to overfly US-controlled Iraqi airspace? Or will Obama follow the advice of his foreign policy mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski and order the US Air Force to shoot down those jets, abandon the US-Israel alliance and embrace a new role as protector of Iran’s nuclear weapons program?
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Coburn Rips the Left and Right Alike
He pulls no punches during a town hall meeting in Wagoner.
WAGONER — U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn called out Democrats, Republicans, Newt Gingrich, the military-industrial complex, teachers unions and Medicare — to name a few — at a town hall meeting Friday.
“The real problem is that America is asleep,” Coburn said, speaking mostly in response to questions from an audience of about 65 people at the Wagoner Civic Center. “America is not involved. I think this election they’ll be more involved than they ever have been, and the reason is they’re scared.”
The audience generally seemed to find comfort in the potential for a Republican takeover of Congress, but Coburn warned that that alone would not necessarily yield the desired results.
“If the conservatives in Congress gain control and don’t live up to expectations,” he said, “the Republican Party will be dead.”
Coburn also expanded on his recent criticism of arms spending, echoing President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 warning against the “military-industrial complex.”
“I’m not capable of telling you, because I don’t have the training, whether we have the forces we need,” he said. “I can tell you that if you add our forces and compare them to the next 19 nations, … we’re stronger.”
He continued: “The problem is, we have allowed the military-industrial complex to make things unaffordable. There’s no choke chain. We need a choke chain. When the cost of an F-35 triples during development, something’s wrong.”
Coburn made it clear that he won’t be on Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential bandwagon.
Gingrich “is a super-smart man, but he doesn’t know anything about commitment to marriage,” he said of the thrice-married former House speaker. “He’s the last person I’d vote for for president of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president.”
As he has in the past, Coburn blasted health-care reform and traced the rise of medical costs to the introduction of Medicare in the 1960s. He said schools “are no longer about kids, they are about teachers’ unions,” and he claimed that academic achievement has gone down since the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, although some statistics argue otherwise.
Coburn also repeated what has become a popular line among conservatives — that “no one has ever been hired by a poor person” — to support tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.
His audience was largely in agreement. One man complained that unemployment and welfare benefits are too generous, and another said “success is punished and failure rewarded” by the federal government.
Another man said taxes should not be raised for the wealthy and corporations, because they ultimately will be paid by those further down the economic food chain.
“The rich and the corporations are going to keep their money,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Paid Informant in Bronx Synagogue Bomb Plot $97k, Who Provided Terror Suspects With Fake Bombs
The jury in the Bronx synagogue bomb plot case was told Wednesday that the informant who provided the four suspects with phony bombs and missiles was paid $97,000 by the FBI.
The FBI gave Pakistani immigrant Shahed Hussain $44,000 for expenses and $53,000 for “his services” over a three-year period, agent Robert Fuller said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Details Emerge About Proposed Islamic Center
(CNN) — New details emerged Tuesday about the controversial “Park51” project, involving the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York City.
A source familiar with the project told CNN’s Allan Chernoff the structure is being planned as an 11-story building. It will cover 120,000 square feet. Within that space, the source said, 10,000 square feet — just more than 8 percent — would be designated for the Muslim prayer space. The developer is considering the possibility of an interfaith education/meditation/prayer space as well, the source said.
The Islamic Center’s leaders have said plans for the $100 million facility call for a community center including a mosque, performing arts center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.
It will be built on property the center already owns, two blocks from where the World Trade Center was destroyed by Islamic extremists on September 11, 2001. The attacks on the two towers killed more than 2,700 people.
| — Hat tip: TB2 | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul: Ground Zero Mosque Foes Beat Hateful Drum
Ground zero mosque opponents are pounding a “drumbeat of hatred” and ignoring the conservative principles of private property and religious freedom, Texas Rep. Ron Paul says.
In an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview, the 2008 GOP presidential hopeful alleged that conservative opponents of the mosque and cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York City are blaming all Muslims for the Sept. 11 attacks instead of focusing their ire on al-Qaida, the actual perpetrator.
Paul’s stance has placed him at odds with many Republicans, including his son, Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul, who voiced his opposition to the proposed mosque and Islamic center two blocks north of ground zero during a recent Newsmax.TV interview.
Conservatives are enamored with the idea of having an imperial presence on the world’s stage, with troops stationed around the globe, the elder Paul says.
“They support the war in Afghanistan and Iraq — and actually support plans for intimidating and moving toward war in Iran,” he says. “They have to have a reason for that, and they can’t say it’s for oil or they can’t say it’s to . . . make them all democrats over there.
“You have to have somebody you are willing to hate — you have to have a Hitler to hate.”
Paul believes such advocates are making Muslims that hate target to get Americans to support the wars.
“They have to keep the drumbeat of hate up, so they have to blame the entire religion,” he says. “That’s not everybody . . . that might support or not support building the mosque, because a lot of people just say, ‘That’s bad manners and they shouldn’t do it because they haven’t thought it through.’“
Although Paul disagrees with his son about the mosque, he does not include him in the same category as those who oppose the project because they see Islam as the enemy.
Asked whether concerns about the $100 million project’s getting Iranian funding have merit, Paul says: “We never treat anybody else who is building a church or a mosque to check where actually the money is coming from and what everybody believes in. I mean, if something turns up, you deal with it if they break the law.
“But in religion and freedom of speech, you give people the benefit of the doubt.”
Suggesting that the government look into the project’s funding threatens the First Amendment because it would equal censorship, he says. New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio is among those who have urged such an audit.
“I don’t want government coming in and checking on anything like this, and implying . . . that bad people have supported it,” Paul says.
| — Hat tip: DF2 | [Return to headlines] |
Seven in 10 NYers Want Mosque Moved
Move the mosque!
Seven in ten New Yorkers say the proposed mosque/Islamic community center near Ground Zero should be relocated because of opposition from 9/11 families — and an equal number want state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to probe the group’s finances, a new statewide poll released today found.
“Overwhelmingly — across party and regional lines — New Yorkers say the sponsors ought to voluntarily move the proposed mosque to another location,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
The survey of 1,497 of New York residents found:
* 54 percent agree that “freedom of religion” gives Muslims the legal right to build the mosque on Park Place, while 40 percent disagreed and the rest were undecided.
* But 53 percent also said Muslim developers should not be allowed to build the mosque near the World Trade Center site in deference to sensitivities of 9/11 relatives, with 39 percent opposed and the rest undecided.
* A whopping 71 percent then said the organizers should voluntarily move the mosque elsewhere because of opposition from 9/11 family members. Only 21 percent were opposed, with the rest undecided.
* And 71 percent also said that AG Cuomo should probe the finances behind the building of the mosque, also known as 51Park. The concerns over who bankrolls the mosque comes as developer Sharif el-Gamal just announced the launch of the facility’s fundraising campaign and he collected $10,000 last week from supporters.
* A sizable number of New Yorkers have negative views of Islam. Nearly one-third — 31 percent have an unfavorable opinion and about one-quarter were undecided. Less than a majority — 45 percent — had a favorable opinion.
* About one-quarter of New Yorkers think “mainstream Islam” encourages violence against non-Muslims, while 54 percent consider it a peaceful religion. About one in five had no opinion.
There were partisan differences. Republicans were most strongly against the mosque: 72 percent of GOPers said Muslims should not be allowed to build it there, and 85 percent said planners should voluntarily relocate the facility.
Democrats were more divided — with 49 percent opposed to government blocking the project because of objections from 9/11 families. But even 61 percent of Democrats said organizers should voluntarily move it.
There was also a slight gender and regional gap. By a 56-34 margin, women said the mosque should not be allowed to build near Ground Zero despite the legal right to do so. Among the men, there was a narrower 50-45 split.
As for Cuomo, even 65 percent of Democrats agree the AG should probe Park 51’s finances.
Meanwhile President Obama’s approval ratings sank to their lowest level ever in Democratic-friendly NY — with 51 percent supporting him and 41 disapproving.
There’s a regional gap. Democratic-dominated NYC voters back Obama 66-27. But he gets a thumbs down from 54 percent of suburban voters and 47 percent of upstaters.end-
| — Hat tip: TB2 | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Soldier: “I Can’t Deploy and be a Muslim”
Following are excerpts from an Al-Jazeera TV report about Muslim U.S. soldier Nasser Abdo, who has refused to be deployed to Afghanistan. The report aired on August 21, 2010, and included clips of Abdo praying in his home while wearing his Army camouflage uniform. According to the report, his wife in Canada runs a website to raise money for Abdo’s legal campaign, and he has retained a lawyer.
Reporter: “The Muslim U.S. soldier Nasser Abdo prays five times a day where he lives near the Fort Campbell base in Kentucky, from where some 5,000 soldiers are to be sent to Afghanistan as part of President Obama’s plan, which strives to eliminate the Taliban. Abdo’s fellow soldiers are preparing for deployment to Afghanistan soon, according to their orders. But this Muslim soldier is refusing to be sent with his unit, because, he exclaims, as a Muslim he is forbidden to kill Muslims.”
Nasser Abdo: “I don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Danes Call for Election Observers in Sweden
Representatives of the governing parties in Denmark have argued that freedom of speech is under threat in Sweden and have called for the instalment of election observers to ensure that democracy is upheld.
The foreign policy spokesmen of the government coalition partners the Liberal Party (Venstre) and the Conservative People’s Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti — K) have argued that the Council of Europe should send election observers to Sweden, according to a report in the Danish Jyllands-Posten daily on Tuesday.
“I think that it would be appropriate to send observers to the Swedish elections. I want to hold a discussion the Council of Europe’s member states, over whether we should put Sweden under some form of monitoring, to secure democracy in the future,” Venstre’s Michael Aastrup Jensen told the newspaper.
Jensen is joined by Naser Khader of Det Konservative in criticising the state of freedom of expression in Sweden following the decision by national television channel TV4 and several radio channels not to broadcast an election campaign advert by the nationalist Sweden Democrats.
“Sweden is a developing country when it comes to freedom of expression,” Khader said. “Someone should tell the Swedes, that it is a question of censorship. This doesn’t belong in a Scandinavian country in 2010.”
Vivian Nilsson of the Swedish Election Authority told The Local on Tuesday that the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has already visited Sweden and adjudged that election observers are not needed.
“But elections are open public occasions in Sweden, so anyone can come and observe if they want to,” she said. “That is not something over which we decide.”
Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader of the Danish People’s Party (Danske Folkeparti, DPP), an anti-immigration conservative party that lends its support to the government in parliament, has also criticised Sweden.
“The situation in Sweden is more grotesque than in eastern Europe,” she said to the newspaper.
However, according to the newspaper, Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen (K) has responded that it is not her place to get involved in the Swedish national elections.
Representatives for the opposition Danish Social Liberal Party (De Radikale Venstre) rejected Jensen’s comments arguing that the party’s proposal is “completely out of proportion.”
“Sweden is a fully functioning Nordic democracy,” Niels Helveg Petersen, De Radikale’s foreign policy spokesperson, told the newspaper.
Swedish TV channel TV4 announced last Friday that it had refused to broadcast a campaign advert by the far-right Sweden Democrats because it considered it to be an incitement to racial hatred.
The half-minute advert shows a race in which an elderly woman with a walker is chased by a group of burqa-clad women pushing prams with a slogan promising to safeguard pension funding at the expense of immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: City to Close Racist Discos
Council to stop minorities being randomly turned away at city nightclubs
Reports of minorities being refused admittance to the city’s discotheques are being taken seriously by Copenhagen’s city council, which is ready to pass a special ordinance aimed at shutting down the discriminatory clubs, reports Politiken newspaper.
Although many turned away do not file official complaints against the clubs, social authorities have cited the problem as being widespread.
Politiken recently sent out their own group of non-ethnic Danes to six city nightclubs. The group was refused entry into five of them. Also, a Catinét survey taken in 2008 showed that 52 percent of minorities claimed to have been refused entry to a discotheque, while only 17 percent of white Danes had experienced the same treatment.
But now the Social Democrats have put forward a proposal to crack down on the guilty clubs, and the move reportedly has a majority of the city council backing it.
‘Politiken’s test confirms that we need to focus more closely on the issue and on the means to deal with it,’ said Pia Allerslev, head of the city’s culture and leisure department.
‘The situation is the same as if I weren’t allowed entry by a minority bodybuilder working the club door,’ she said. ‘We can’t tolerate that and obviously have to address the matter politically.’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Police Arrest Terror Suspects on US Flight
Dutch police have arrested two men who were allowed to board a transatlantic flight despite the fact that one was allegedly carrying a “mock bomb”.
Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi, who was to believed to be from Yemen, and Hezam al-Murisi, whose nationality was not known, were detained at the request of the American authorities.
Al-Soofi began his journey in Alabama where airport screeners stopped him because of his “bulky clothing”, according to ABC News. They discovered he was carrying $7,000 in cash.
The US Transport and Security Administration is likely to face questions about why he was allowed to board even though his luggage was allegedly found to contain a mobile phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three other mobile phones taped together and several watches taped together.
Sources told ABC that because no explosives were discovered, he was cleared for the flight to Chicago.
A senior law enforcement official said the two men may have been carrying “mock bombs” for what was “almost certainly a dry run”.
At Chicago, al-Soofi appears to have checked his luggage on a flight bound for Yemen, with scheduled stops in Washington’s Dulles airport and Dubai.
He did not board the flight and was instead joined by Murisi for the flight to Amsterdam.
Once it was discovered he was not accompanying his luggage, it was reportedly removed at Washington before the pair were arrested in Holland.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Gaddafi is Pulling Our Leg
Now who’s the greatest wiseguy? Colonel Gaddafi and Silvio Berlusconi, during the ceremony commemorating Bengasi agreement.
When it comes to foreign policy, national interests will sometimes trump lofty moral principles. But the Libyan leader’s latest provocations and blackmail attempts beat all.
Franco Venturini
The economic interests of any state, even a liberal democracy, demand a hefty helping of pragmatism. Consider the United States’ relations to China, which is clearly not the fatherland of human rights. Consider us Europeans, who, for gas and oil, are willing to overlook Russia’s authoritarian drift and the ever-so-slightly undemocratic workings of the monarchies in the Gulf. So we really shouldn’t be outraged if Italy and her government (past and present) welcome a tyrant with a strange, dark past like Muammar Gaddafi.
Nor, given the benefits we reap from all this tolerance, should we be overly finicky about the form such visits of state may take, or get all up in arms about goings-on in Rome that Berlusconi benevolently refers to as “folklore”. In these lean years, doing business with whoever can afford to and bringing (hopefully real) benefits home to Italy probably merits a little bending of protocol.
Holding a knife to the European jugular
And yet, however reasonable and convenient it may be to roll out the red carpet for Gaddafi, we believe Berlusconian Italy has erred in overstepping the line protecting the nation’s good name and international credibility. Berlusconi and nearly his whole cabinet were there on 30 August when Muammar Gaddafi issued Europe an ultimatum (read: blackmail): Libya wants at least €5bn a year to stop illegal immigration to the EU. Or else, as the Colonel explained, there will be no way to check the mass migration of desperate millions — and Europe will wake up to find itself as black as Africa.
The Libyan leader didn’t set any deadlines, to be sure, nor did he specify the terms of the arrangement. But he did say (and we’re still waiting for the denials…) Italy has green-lighted the dirty deal. Apparently seizing on the (richly remunerated) truce with Rome as a chance to up the stakes, he is now holding the knife of mass migration to the European jugular to wrest cash from our national coffers. Berlusconi and nearly his whole cabinet were also on hand when Gaddafi, after having pledged with a wink to plump for an Italian seat on the UN Security Council, mapped out his vision of the Mediterranean. A sea of peace. Now who could possibly object to that?
Or object to a sea to be saved from death by pollution? A sea of north-south dialogue to boot. And then — and here’s the icing on the cake — he envisioned a sea that is to be spared the vicissitudes of “imperialist conflicts”, i.e. in which only Mediterranean nations shall be allowed to sail their navies. Who knows how abstractly Gaddafi meant that proposal: the only “foreign” force in those waters is the US Sixth Fleet, based in — you guessed it — Italy.
Is all that just “folklore”, the idiosyncrasies of a leader who has always been a tad different from the rest? Believe it if you will. But this seems to me to be the Colonel as ever, the same Gaddafi who signed the friendship treaty with Italy [in 2008], the one who has always played tough on the international front to tighten up domestic discipline and always knew how to turn others’ interests to his own account. By means of thinly veiled blackmail, if need be, as in the case of a Europe all too familiar with — and inept at handling — the issue of illegal immigration.
Gaddafi does his proselytising in Rome
And those aren’t the only big issues raised by the Libyan leader’s visit and constituting the flipside of our economic and energy-driven realpolitik. Gaddafi ordered a bevy of pretty girls [recruited by a specialist agency] to dance attendance on his proclamation that Islam is to become the reigning religion of Europe. An idea that isn’t so scandalous if everyone is free to wish for the worldwide triumph of their own religion.
But Gaddafi does his proselytising in Rome, the capital of Christendom. And as a guest of Berlusconi, who in his time railed at secular France for objecting to the mention of Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots in the — ultimately abortive — European Constitution. Gaddafi had already tried that number during his first visit to Rome. We could and should have expected, and prevented, a rerun.
But it would be a mistake to range under “the Colonel’s idiosyncrasies” his request for hundreds of young ladies to hear him hail the future spread of Islam. How in the world did we get to have these offensive get-togethers with the nubile recruits? (And who paid the girls?)
The fact is the return to Libya of illegal immigrants embarking from her shores is still an open wound: the number of new arrivals in Italy has indeed markedly declined, but the fate of those returned to sender — and interned in Gaddafi’s camps — remains more than uncertain. In a word, the cost-benefit analysis on those deals probably could and should have been done a little more astutely.
Translated by Eric Rosencrantz
Immigration
A dirty, but handy, deal
The deal clinched by Libya and Italy in May 2009 to check the flow of African immigrants has meant that the number of those reaching Italy’s southern shores plummeted from 37,000 in 2008 to 9,500 last year. The deal is slammed by human rights organisations, however, reports the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, because it does not guarantee humane treatment for the immigrants “turned back”. Moreover, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the issue of returning asylum-seekers to Libya has yet to be resolved as long as their provenance remains unknown. As another consequence of the treaty, explains the Swiss daily, immigrants to Western Europe now pass through Greece or Turkey to reach the coast of Calabria or Apulia — using pleasure boats so as not to tip off the Italian coastguard. So Italy’s interior minister recently announced plans to sign similar treaties with Athens and Ankara.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gadhafi Angers Italy With Call for Islam to Become ‘Europe’s Religion’
During a visit to Italy, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi enrages opposition parties by saying Islam must become ‘Europe’s religion’ and that Europe’s conversion would ‘begin when Turkey becomes an EU member.’ Gadhafi made the comments during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his talk
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, standing at left, and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi review the honor guard ahead of a horse show in Rome. AP photo.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s visit to Rome has become mired in controversy after he said Europe should convert to Islam and the conversion would “begin when Turkey becomes an EU member,” daily Hürriyet reported Tuesday.
Gadhafi, who traveled to Italy to mark the second anniversary of Libya’s friendship treaty with its former colonizer, made the comments Sunday during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his talk.
“Islam should become the religion of all of Europe,” one of the women quoted Gadhafi as saying in the Italian press.
The Democratic Party and the Italy of Values Party criticized Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for welcoming Gadhafi, saying the Italian leader was appeasing his Libyan counterpart for monetary gain. A coalition partner, the North League, said Gadhafi had turned Italy into a media circus.
“Gadhafi is putting on a cultural show,” Berlusconi responded.
The North League also addressed Gadhafi’s comments about Turkey in a statement.
“The Libyan leader’s words about Turkey state a fact. Turkey is a danger for the European Union,” the statement read. “That is why we have been campaigning ‘No to Turkey’ for years.”
The agency paid the women, mainly students who hire themselves out for advertising of publicity events, 70 or 80 euros to attend and said it would not pay those who gave their names to the media, Agence France-Presse reported.
It also told them to dress conservatively for the lectures.
About 200 women gathered at the Libyan cultural center in Rome on Monday to attend a second lecture. One of the women present said Gadhafi had said at the gathering that “women are more respected in Libya than in the West” and offered assistance in finding Libyan husbands. “Islam is the last religion and if we are to have a single faith then it has to be in Mohammed,” he said, according to the participant.
The lectures are “a new, humiliating violation of Italian women’s dignity,” opposition lawmaker and former Health Minister Rosy Bindi said.
Gadhafi’s comments also caused discomfort within the coalition of Berlusconi, a close ally of the Libyan leader.
“Gadhafi’s words show his dangerous Islamization project for Europe,” said Mario Borghezio, a member of the European Parliament with the anti-immigrant Northern League, a junior partner in the coalition, according to Il Messaggero.
Carlo Giovanardi, a government undersecretary, tried to stem the criticism, saying Gadhafi’s words were simply “a remark made during a private meeting.”
Gadhafi, who came to power after the overthrow of the monarchy 41 years ago, landed in Italy on Sunday to mark the second anniversary of a friendship treaty signed with Berlusconi that drew a line through the countries’ bitter colonial-era relationship.
Berlusconi and Gadhafi met privately for 30 minutes on Monday, during which Gadhafi confirmed the policy of opening Libya to Italian investment, a member of Berlusconi’s staff said. After the meeting, the two men toured a photography exhibition tracing the history of the Italian-Libyan relationship, including the bloody colonial period.
Gadhafi seeks EU cash
Speaking later alongside Berlusconi at a closing ceremony, Gadhafi suggested the European Union pay Libya “at least 5 billion euros a year” to put a halt to illegal migration from its Mediterranean shores. To do so would be in Europe’s interest, he said, if it wants to head off “the advance of millions of migrants” from Africa.
“There is also desirable immigration,” Gadhafi added. “There are Libyans who have money and I encourage them to come to Italy to invest.”
Berlusconi credited good relations between Italy and Libya “for countering with success the trafficking of illegal migrants from Africa to Europe controlled by criminal organizations.”
Ties between Rome and its former colony have deepened since the signing of the friendship accord, with Italy now the third-largest European investor in the North African country.
Italy has said it will invest $5 billion and build a 1,700-kilometer highway in Libya to compensate for its three decades of colonization from 1911 to 1943. The two countries also reached an agreement that allows the Italian navy to intercept illegal migrants at sea and return them to Libya, triggering sharp criticism from the United Nations’ refugee agency and human-rights groups.
Gadhafi traveled, as usual, with a Bedouin tent for his accommodation that was pitched in the gardens of the residence of the Libyan embassy in Rome. In a sign of protest against his visit, an opposition party planted a “tent of legality” in front of the embassy.
Gadhafi was set to return to Libya on Tuesday morning, according to sources with knowledge of the visit.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany is Becoming Islamophobic
A commentary by Erich Follath
Part 2: Parallels with 19th-Century Anti-Semitism
“In no other religion is the transition to violence and terrorism so fluid,” Sarrazin writes. Former FAZ correspondent and bestselling author Udo Ulfkotte, another prophet of doom, expresses similar concerns when he warns: “A tsunami of Islamization is sweeping across our continent.” Dutch writer and columnist Leon de Winter, who is much celebrated in Germany and a frequent contributor to SPIEGEL, claims to have recognized “the face of the enemy” in the outlandish religion and is generally disparaging of Muslims, writing: “Since the 1960s, we have been deceiving ourselves that all cultures are equal.” The journalist and writer Ralph Giordano, a moral authority in Germany, is sharply critical of new mosque construction and sweepingly characterizes Islam as a totalitarian religion.
And aren’t those who tolerate totalitarianism nothing but appeasers? And haven’t we seen this once before?
Potential for Violence
There is no question that there are Muslims in Germany who sympathize with Islamist ideas (which doesn’t necessarily mean that they are prepared to use violence). A report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, includes 36,270 Muslims in this group, a number that has increased slightly in recent years — by about 9 percent since 2007. It is also undeniable that suicide bombers worldwide frequently invoke Islam — a deplorable but not an isolated phenomenon. Every monotheistic religion, through its claim to exclusivity, contains the potential for violence.
But no one condemns Christianity as a whole when Northern Irish breakaway factions commit murder in the name of God. We don’t blame all Catholics when some of them kill abortion doctors while invoking their faith. And we don’t take all of Judaism to task when a Jewish terrorist named Baruch Goldstein slaughters dozens of Muslims during prayers in Hebron while invoking Yahweh.
But we do condemn Islam, whose holy book contains about as many passages glorifying violence as the Old Testament (which, unlike the Koran, does mention stoning as a punishment).
Of course, the widespread mistrust of Muslims, which has only grown in recent years, has a lot to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. It is everything but a purely German phenomenon.
‘Growing Hostility’ in US
In the United States, traditionally a country of immigrants, where Muslims are much better integrated into society than in Germany, the planned construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque room near Ground Zero in New York has triggered a heated controversy. Comments by hate-mongers from Fox News and leading Republicans prompted Time magazine to conclude, in a cover story in its latest issue titled “Is America Islamophobic?” that there are signs of “growing hostility” toward Muslims. The new government in the Netherlands will be forced to tolerate the right-wing populist politician Geert Wilders, who has even proposed banning the Koran.
In Italy, Denmark and Austria, populist right-wing parties are scoring political points with their crude anti-Islamic slogans. In Switzerland, a country with a very small Muslim population, they even managed to win a referendum to ban minarets. And in France the banlieues, low-income areas on the outskirts of major cities, are in flames because the French government can offer no solution to the lack of prospects for most Muslim youth.
In Germany, which has had at least some success in integrating foreigners, the mood against Muslims is now just as hysterical. A man like Sarrazin is applauded for behaving like a toned-down version of Wilders. But why?…
| — Hat tip: Politically Incorrect | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Turkish Community Demands More Government Pressure on Sarrazin
The chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) has called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to send a clear signal condemning anti-Muslim comments by Bundesbank official Thilo Sarrazin, according to a Saturday report.
“I ask the German government to initiate proceedings to dismiss Thilo Sarrazin from the Bundesbank board,” Turkish community leader Kenan Kolat told German daily Frankfurter Rundschau on Saturday.
Kolat said the Bundesbank official’s comments, which appear in Sarrazin’s forthcoming book, had crossed the line. “It is the culmination of a new intellectual racism and it hurts Germany’s reputation abroad,” Kolat told the newspaper.
In an excerpt from his book published by daily Bild on Thursday, Sarrazin said there were “good grounds” for reservations against Muslims across Europe.
“There is no other religion with such a flowing transition to violence, dictatorship, and terrorism,” he claimed, before making the equally provocative assertion that Muslim immigrants were “associated with taking advantage of social welfare state and criminality.”
Kolat praised the broader government response to Sarrazin’s statements, including criticisms voiced by the SPD leadership, the Green Party, the Left and integration commissioner Maria Böhmer, as well as Angela Merkel herself.
“I’m very pleased that the German chancellor spoke so clearly of defamation,” he said. Kolat also thanked the Central Council of Jews in Germany for its clear condemnation of Sarrazin’s comments.
Lest the Social Democrats alienate migrant voters, Kolat said he was confident that his party would take further steps to kick Sarrazin out of the SPD. “He’ll go himself, or he’ll be made to leave,” he said. The Bundesbank official survived a previous attempt this year to revoke his party membership for previous controversial comments.
Sarrazin’s book, “Deutschland schafft sich ab — Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen”, or “Abolishing Germany — How we’re putting our country in jeopardy,” is scheduled for publication on Monday. Kolat encouraged a media boycott of the press conference planned to announce the book’s official release.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gaddafi Causes Stir With Women in Rome
Libyan leader keeps raising eyebrows with second Koran ‘lecture’
(ANSA) — Rome, August 30 — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi continued to cause a stir during a Rome visit Monday by wheeling out another four busloads of young women to receive another lecture on the Koran.
Islam is “the last religion and if you want to believe in a single faith then it must be that of Mohammed,” the colonel reportedly told 200 women hired by a Rome hostess agency, some of them wearing headscarves and one sporting a picture of Gaddafi around her neck.
“He didn’t try to convert us,” said Elena Racoviciano, 21, from Naples, after emerging from a photography exhibit at the new Libyan Cultural Institute.
Gaddafi held a similar meeting with 500 women provided by the same agency on Sunday, three of whom reportedly converted to Islam.
“Women are more respected in Libya than in the West and the United States,” was another of Gaddafi’s remarks conveyed by Racoviciano.
In his first encounter with the hostesses, after an impromptu stroll around central Rome, the dictator urged them to marry Libyan men.
Gaddafi’s lectures to the women and his statement that Islam should be “Europe’s religion” have sparked opposition from Catholic and feminist groups as well as prompting accusations that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is pandering to him.
The Italian opposition has also protested that the women involved in the event have been “humiliated” while a member of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, Potito Salatto, said “I’d like to see the reception Berlusconi got if he tried to sell Bibles in Tripoli”.
A political foundation close to House Speaker Gianfranco Fini, Farefuturo, said “Italy is becoming Gaddafi’s Disneyland”.
The Italian branch of Amnesty International called on Berlusconi to ask Gaddafi, at a formal dinner Monday night, about the state of human rights in his country. Under the 2008 Friendship Treaty, Italy agreed to pay $5 billion reparations over 20 years, much of it creating work for Italian firms, for its 1911-1943 occupation of the north African country.
During his trip, Gaddafi is staying in his trademark Bedouin tent, planted in the grounds of the Libyan ambassador’s residence.
The major topics of the visit, such as immigration, new gas accords, and the Libyan coastal highway Italian firms are building as part of 2008 deal, will be covered at a Monday night dinner. The dinner, at which Berlusconi will provide Gaddafi with a fast-breaking ‘Iftar’ meal during Ramadan, will have some 800 guests including the entire Italian government.
There will also be representatives of Italian companies like energy giant Eni, construction group Impregilo, hi-tech industrial group Finmeccanica and Italy’s biggest bank, Unicredit, with which Libya has major business interests.
Entertainment will include a folklore show featuring Arab and Carabinieri horsemen.
The Libyan leader has brought 30 Berber horses to Rome for the occasion. Gaddafi is scheduled to leave Italy on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gaddafi Leaves Polemics Behind
Berlusconi urged not to keep giving Libyan leader ‘a stage’
(ANSA) — Rome, August 31 — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi left Rome Tuesday after a trip where he spurred polemics by preaching Islam to hired hostesses and demanding billions of euros to keep Europe from “turning black”.
The colonel’s plane left Ciampino Airport at about 13:00 local (11:00 GMT) after a three-day visit marking the second anniversary of a friendship treaty giving Libya $5 billion in colonial reparations and letting Italy turn back migrant boats.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Monday night called Geddafi “a great friend” and played down the fuss over his guest’s behaviour, calling it “folkloric”.
Feminist and Catholic groups were outraged by Gaddafi’s two public lectures to 500 and 200 hostesses while the opposition accused Berlusconi of pandering to the Libyan leader because of Italy’s huge business interests in the north African country.
On Tuesday even the premier’s People of Freedom (PdL) party urged Berlusconi to stop providing “a stage” for Gaddafi. “It is of course essential for us to develop our privileged diplomatic relations with Libya, but how come such scenes and appeals are never seen in Germany or the rest of Europe?”, said Deputy House Speaker Maurizio Lupi and PdL European Parliament whip Mario Mauro.
“What happened could never occur in Muslim countries,” Lupi and Mauro added in a letter La Stampa.
Youth Minister Giorgia Meloni said she had been “somewhat bothered” by Gaddafi’s appeal to the young women to help turn Europe Islamic.
Veneto Governor Luca Zaia, a top member of the Northern League, said “Gaddafi should have been received as an ordinary citizen” and “he should go and give his ‘Islamisation’ lessons elsewhere”.
The League, a defender of Italy’s Christian heritage, has been accused of turning a blind eye to Gaddafi’s religious pitches because it backs the controversial immigrant policy that he makes possible.
The UN and human rights organisations have criticised the ‘push-back’ migrant boat policy and raised concerns over the conditions of asylum seekers in Tripoli.
The head of Italy’s Observatory for the Rights of Minors, Antonio Marziale, urged the government to “ask about the children, some of them extremely young, kept in Libyan migrant camps after they have been repelled from Italian shores, ask about the state they’re in”.
(In Brussels, a European Commission spokesman said the EC had no comment to make on Gaddafi’s request for five billion euros a year to keep immigration from sub-Saharan Africa out of Europe). The Vatican was also critical of Gaddafi’s visit, with the head of the missionary department, Cardinal Robert Sarah, speaking of “provocation that was disrespectful of the pope and Italy which is an overwhelmingly Catholic country”.
Italian bishops’ daily Avvenire said the visit had been a “boomerang” featuring “disgraceful stunts”.
During Gaddafi’s visit, deals were firmed up with several major Italian companies including Finmeccanica whose Selex unit will provide satellite systems to better control Libya’s southern borders.
Berlusconi also hailed progress on a 1,700km coastal highway that Italy is building as part of the 2008 friendship deal.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Suspect in Turin Acid Attack Arrested
Turin, 31 August (AKI) — Italian police have arrested a 23-year-old Moroccan man on suspicion of attacking a co-national with acid. The suspect in last Thursday’s attack in Turin was seized on a Naples-bound train in an alleged attempt to evade arrest.
Also arrested on the train was a 24-year-old friend of the Moroccan man who faces charges of aiding and abetting a criminal. Both are unemployed and in residing Italy illegally.
The two were arrested by Italy’s paramilitary Carabinieri police who boarded the train in the city of Asti, 55 kilometres east of Turin.
A 19-year-old Moroccan woman suffered second and third degree burns over 20 percent over her body during the acid attack.
The victim told police that prior to the attack she had rejected her alleged aggressor’s romantic advances.
Police said that they tracked down the suspect by listenting in on his telephone call during which he described his plan flee to Naples, in Italy’s south.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Physicists Get Political Over Higgs
A storm is brewing round the scientists in line to win the Nobel prize for predicting the elusive particle.
It hasn’t even been found yet, but the elusive Higgs particle is already generating controversy. As feelings run high over a recent conference in France, the particle physics community are split over who should get credit out of the six theoretical physicists who developed the mechanism behind its existence.
The Higgs particle is predicted to exist as part of the mechanism believed to give particles their mass, and is the only piece of the Standard Model of particle physics that remains to be discovered. Physicists at both the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe’s premier particle physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland, and the Tevatron accelerator in Batavia, Illinois, recently voiced their expectation that the particle could well be detected within the next few years.
This gave new urgency not only to the race to find the particle, but also to establishing authorship of the ideas behind it. As John Ellis, a particle physicist based at CERN, acknowledges: “Let’s face it, a Nobel prize is at stake.”
The authorship question is fraught because the mechanism was developed independently by three groups within a matter of weeks in 1964. First up were Robert Brout and François Englert in Belgium, followed by Peter Higgs in Scotland, and finally Tom Kibble in London, along with his colleagues in the United States, Gerald Guralnik (at the time in London) and Carl R. Hagen.
“There are six people who developed the mechanism in quick succession and who hold a legitimate claim to credit for it,” says particle physicist Frank Close at the University of Oxford, UK.
Because the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences can award Nobel prizes to no more than three people, that leaves six men in contention for half as many places, should the particle make an appearance.
“The first three in the Nobel queue probably feel quite relaxed — all they have to do is stay alive until the the particle is discovered,” says Ellis. “The ones just behind them may understandably be quite nervous.”
Stoking the fire
The credit controversy was re-ignited by an advertisement for the “Higgs Hunting” meeting that took place in Orsay, France, last week. Many particle physicists took exception to the fact that the meeting’s advertisement on the web credited only Brout, Englert and Higgs, with some threatening to either boycott the meeting or formally protest while there, says Daniel Ferrante, a physicist at Syracuse University in New York and a former student of Guralnik’s.
One of the meeting’s organizers, Gregorio Bernardi at the Laboratory of Nuclear and High Energy Physics in Paris, admits that the committee was surprised by the strength of objections levelled at the web advertisement. “People took this very seriously, which we didn’t expect,” he says.
However, the committee felt that the meeting should not be politicized. “We were not happy that we were lobbied very strongly to change our ad — it was not appropriate,” Bernardi says.
Ellis advised the committee to stick to their guns, arguing that it is undeniable that Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble were the last to publish. He also notes that their paper cited the earlier publications by Brout and Englert, and by Higgs, weakening their authorship claim.
That argument carries little weight with particle physicist Tom Ferbel at the University of Rochester in New York, who says that Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble should not be penalized for citing other papers out of professional courtesy.
Ferbel also notes that, earlier this year, the American Physical Society decided to award all six men the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, making the snub by the conference organizers “insulting” and “chilling”. “I do fear that the myopic views of the organizers could definitely impact the decisions of the Swedish Academy,” Ferbel says.
The conference organizers acknowledged that their choice was controversial by inviting a special talk on the tangled history of the mechanism, providing a forum for disgruntled conference participants to debate the matter. However, although the meeting ultimately ran smoothly, it seems likely that arguments over this issue will become more heated now that the Higgs particle is perceived to be within reach.
“There is a lot of fuss being made about Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble right now, and the American physics community seems to be listening,” says Ellis. “I’m just glad that I’m not on the Nobel committee deciding who to throw out of the lifeboat.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sarrazin: Muslims Not Compatible With Germany
Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin reiterated his criticism of Muslim immigrants on Monday, saying the vast majority were not fit to integrate into German society. Meanwhile the Social Democrats prepared to kick him out of the party.
Presenting his controversial new book Deutschland schafft sich ab — Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, or “Abolishing Germany — How we’re putting our country in jeopardy,” in Berlin, Sarrazin rejected accusations he was stoking racism and xenophobia.
“I invite everyone to find discrepancies in my theories,” he said at a press conference. “It’s an uncomfortable discussion. But to solve problems we have to recognise them first.”
Sarrazin warns in his book that Germans could become “strangers in their own country” because of Muslim immigration. Excerpts published before the book’s release have sparked widespread outrage for being inflammatory and making unfounded generalisations.
But Sarrazin calmly renewed his broadsides against Muslims at the book presentation, while trying to deflect charges of overt racism.
“This isn’t about race, it’s about coming from Islamic cultures,” he said, adding that most Muslim immigrants were “hardly compatible” with a western society like Germany.
Such statements have led to a growing chorus of calls to kick Sarrazin out of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and strip him of his Bundesbank post.
On Monday, SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel confirmed early press reports that the party was making moves to expel Sarrazin.
“This has been no easy decision for us,” Gabriel said.
Sarrazin had done a lot for the party but had now crossed a “red line,” Gabriel said, by linking the genetic make-up of certain ethnic groups with intelligence and the ability to learn. This was “highly problematic” and “racist.”
The SPD could no longer discuss these issues with Sarrazin, who had shown that “he is on completely the wrong track,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel also called on the Bundesbank to act. The SPD was confident there was now “no place” for the Sarrazin on the bank’s board.
The Bundesbank said in a statement on Monday evening that it would meet with Sarrazin “without delay” in order to discuss comments which the central bank deemed “discriminatory” and “provocative.”
The bank said it “decisively distanced itself” from Sarrazin’s views, adding: “The board declares that Dr. Sarrazin’s remarks are damaging to the reputation of the Bundesbank.” But only after hearing out Sarrazin would bank officials decide if they would take further action.
Senior SPD party members have previously said they would prefer that Sarrazin resign. But at his book launch Monday, he told reporters he had no plans to quit either the SPD or the Bundesbank board — saying he fully expected to be at the central bank a year from now, unless he suffered a heart attack.
Sarrazin also tried to distance himself from other European critics of Islam such as the Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders.
“These questions belong in mainstream parties,” Sarrazin said, referring to immigration and integration matters. “There’s a tendency towards the extreme right (in Europe). I find that dangerous. But it’s also wrong simply to ignore such problems.”
Outside the launch, about 70 protestors gathered. The demonstration was organised by the group “Stop Right-Wing Populism!”
Pressure on Sarrazin has intensified in recent days, with with senior politicians including Chancellor Angela Merkel lining up to condemn his comments.
Merkel on Sunday evening weighed into the drama surrounding the central banker’s latest outburst in which he said different ethnic groups were each distinguished by an identifying gene, such as a “Jewish gene” or a “Basque gene.”
“The statements are completely unacceptable,” she told broadcaster ARD. “They are marginalizing … (they) disparage whole groups in the community.
“The type and manner of speaking here divides the community.”
Merkel also signalled that the Bundesbank should consider sacking Sarrazin.
“I’m completely certain that they will speak about this at the Bundesbank.”
Sarrazin told Welt am Sonntag newspaper: “All Jews share a certain gene; Basques have certain genes that differentiate them from others.” This followed a string of controversial remarks he has made about Muslims and integration in Germany.
Frank Bsirske, chairman of Germany’s largest union, Verdi, told daily Berliner Zeitung that Sarrazin had become an intolerable burden on an important public institution and therefore on the image of Germany as a whole. Sarrazin’s latest remarks were intellectually indefensible, particularly in light of Germany’s history, Bsirske said.
The Social Democrats’ general secretary Andrea Nahles said Sarrazin’s views had “drifted far from the values of social democracy and the consensus of our democracy.”
He has previously been sharply criticised by both Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Catalan for University Lecturers Imposed by Decree
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 30 — The governor of Catalonia will force university lecturers to have an average knowledge of the Catalan language (indicated as “C” level) by decree. The news was reported today by the councillor for Innovation, Universities and Business of the Generalitat, Josep Huguet, in an interview on TV3.
The decree is waiting for the government’s approval which is expected to be given “tomorrow or next week”. The government “wants to restore the balance between the Catalan and the Spanish language” with this measure, according to the councilor.
The decree will not be retroactive and only regards new lecturers. Foreign lecturers who want to keep teaching at the Catalan universities will be granted “sufficient time” to reach C-level in the Catalan language.
A similar initiative introduced in June 2008, promoted by the regional government through Catalonia’s inter-university Council, was opposed by several universities, like the Pompeu Fabra University, which protested against making it compulsory to learn the Catalan language and test the knowledge of lecturers in that language, which was left to the discretion of single university chancellors.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Govt Freezes Planned Law on Religious Freedom
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 30 — The Spanish government is to freeze the law on religious freedom, the approval of which was initially scheduled for September. The move was confirmed today by the Prime Minister, Jose’ Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who ruled out the approval of the law in the next quarter, as the government “is focussed on the Budget and on economic laws”.
Speaking to the media in the Chinese city of Shanghai, where he is on an official visit, Zapatero said that no project for the new law will be launched until the Budget and the law on sustainable economy have been approved”.
“More than ever, we are facing three months of economic initiatives to emerge from the crisis and accelerate the change in production models,” added the Prime Minister, who was quoted by EFE. The law on religious freedom, which has been strongly opposed by the Church and by the right-wing, will remain for now on the list of unfulfilled promises, despite appearing in the socialist programme for the current term.
The minority government, which is searching for parliamentary alliances that will allow the Budget to be approved cannot allow itself further conflict ahead of the forthcoming electoral deadlines: the Catalan regional elections, this coming autumn; the municipal and regional elections in 13 autonomous communities, in May 2011; and the end-of-term general election in 2012.
Government sources quoted by the daily newspaper Publico, which is close to the government, believe that even if the procedure to enact the bill were set in motion, the law on religious freedom would probably not be approved by Parliament. It is opposed by the People’s Party, and by both the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, CiU and PNV, as well as by the radical left-wing group, IU, which considers the law currently studied by the government to be insufficiently secularist.
The latest draft up by the group developing the law, which is made up of political and technical representatives of the Presidency and Justice Ministries , consists of 37 articles and sanctions “the religious neutrality of the State”. In the chapter on religious symbols, it establishes that crucifixes and symbols of other religions will have to be withdrawn from schools and public buildings. With regard to the participation by political authorities in ceremonies of a religious content, this is to occur without discrimination of religion. After being in force for three decades, the Zapatero government announced in May 2008 that it intended to renew the existing law on religious freedom, to “move forward the condition of secularity that the Constitution affords the state”. To draw up the new text, a work group was set up, and met on a month-by-month basis until March. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Three Danes on Al-Qaeda Death List
Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons keep Denmark on the terrorist map
Terrorist network al-Qaeda has released an official death list, naming nine people who have mocked the prophet Mohammed — three of whom are Danish. The list was published in Inspire, the organisation’s first ever English language magazine.
It is now five years since Jyllands-Posten newspaper published their now notorious cartoons of the prophet, but it would seem the terrorist network has not forgotten the incident, as the three people on the list were all involved in the drawings.
They are the newspaper’s former editor-in-chief Carsten Juste, its culture editor Flemming Rose, and the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew the now infamous picture of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban.
Terrorist experts have confirmed that the magazine and the list has definitely been compiled by al-Qaeda and, according to Swedish terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp, it should be taken seriously. He said that it is worrying that three Danes appear on the list and that it is somewhat surprising that Juste is named.
Both Rose and Westergaard are due to publish books about the cartoon crisis later this year.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Dead MI6 Spy Was an Unsung Hero, So Why Are Shadowy Figures Trying to Blacken His Name?
George Smiley would never have behaved like this. Ever since the body of the GCHQ code-breaker Gareth Williams was discovered stuffed into a hold-all in his bath, we have been treated to a stream of unsavoury and contradictory leaks from mysterious sources.
The story is throwing up more obfuscatory trade-craft than a John Le Carré novel. Of course, the secret intelligence world must of necessity work in a deeply shadowy way — concealing its tracks, laying false trails and employing sundry other means of disinformation.
It does so in order to keep this country safe from its enemies. So much is generally accepted.
But when one of its number is found apparently murdered in a flat in central London, you do not expect these black arts of subterfuge to continue.
You certainly don’t expect them to thwart the investigation of an apparently sinister death or cause further and needless distress to the dead man’s bereaved parents.
Yet this is precisely what seems to have happened after the discovery of Mr Williams’s body.
It appears that he was no ordinary GCHQ operative but a vitally important contributor to the defence of the West.
A brilliant mathematical boffin, he was helping to oversee a network which links satellites and super-computers in Britain and the U.S. with those of other key allies.
He had also worked on breaking coded Taliban messages, helping to save the lives of countless British and other Nato soldiers under attack in Afghanistan.
So his death would seem to have serious security implications of one kind or another — including the possibility that he was murdered by enemies of this country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Was MI6 Spy Victim of the Perfect Murder?
Pathologists are investigating whether MI6 spy Gareth Williams could have been the victim of the ‘perfect murder’.
There are no signs of a violent struggle on the body of the cipher and codes specialist and it is possible that the cause of his death will never be fully discovered.
Doctors examining the body of the 31-year-old for clues are focusing on any evidence which would suggest a professional hit and are scrutinising the area around his neck, sources said.
A seasoned assassin may be able to inflict a ‘discreet’ neck wound that could kill even though it would not look as obvious as a snapped neck.
Detectives are keenly awaiting the results of toxicology tests in the hope they will reveal some clues as to how Mr Williams died.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
VKO Want Observers for Swedish Elections
The non-socialist parties in Denmark are questioning freedom of speech in Sweden up to elections.
The Danish Liberal, Conservative and Danish People’s parties feel that the nationalist Sweden Democrats have been subjected to censorship in the run-up to the Swedish elections on September 19th and as a result the Council of Europe should be asked to send election observers to the country, Jyllands-Posten writes.
The Liberal Foreign Policy Spokesman Michael Aastrup Jensen, who is also chairman of the Danish delegation to the Council of Europe, plans to put the issue on the agenda of the next Council of Europe meeting in October.
“It would be reasonable to send observers to Swedish elections. I will be discussing with Council of Europe member countries whether Sweden should be put under some form of monitoring so that we ensure democracy in the future,” he tells Jyllands-Posten.
VKO feels there are several democratic problems with the Swedish election campaign, including a recent decision by the TV4 company to reject a controversial advertisement for the right-wing Sweden Democrats. The parties also believe there is a problem with the Swedish voting system in that voters have to choose in public which voting sheets they want to take into their booth.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Deal for Purchase of 150 Agusta Helicopters, Press
(ANSAmed) — ROME, AUGUST 30 — Algeria will be buying 150 helicopters from Agusta Westland for an overall value of slightly over 4 billion euros, reports the Algerian daily Sawt Al Ahrara, adding that the signing of the contract will occur in mid-October during a visit by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The helicopters will be for the Air Force, the national gendarme, the navy, the National Security Dircetorate and the Civil Protection. Some of the aircraft will be delivered by the end of 2010 while the others will be delivered by the end of next year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
In 15 Pictures the Evidence of Tortures Against Refugees in Libya
ROME — Finally we got photographic evidence of Benghazi massacre. Fifteen pictures in low definition, taken by a cell phone overcame Libyan censorship. They show a group of men injured by knife. They are Somali refugees kept in the detention centre for undocumented migrants of Ganfuda, near Benghazi, after having been arrested along the route which leads from the Libyan desert straight to Lampedusa. You can see the scars on their arms, the wounds still open on their legs, the bandages on their back and on their head. Clothes are still stained with blood. On August 11, when the Somali website Shabelle released the news of a massacre committed by the Libyan police in Benghazi, the Libyan ambassador in Mogadishu, Rabiic Canshuur, denied the report. This time, it will be a bit more difficult to deny these photos.
The pictures were first published on the website Shabelle. And today the observatory Fortress Europe raises it in Italy. According to an eyewitness we interviewed by telephone, the injured refugees would be at least fifty, mostly Somalis but also from Eritrea. None of them was hospitalized. They all are still locked in the detention camp. Twenty days after the riots.
Everything happened on the evening of August 9, when around 300 prisoners, mostly Somalis tried to escape. The repression of the Libyan police was terrible. Armed with batons and knives they attacked the rioters beating blindly. At the end of the fighting, six refugees were dead. But the number of victims could be higher, since we don’t know the fate of a dozen Somalis who are reported to be missing.
The field of Ganfuda is located about ten kilometers from the city of Benghazi. There are detained about 500 people, mostly Somalis, together with a group of Eritreans, some Nigerians and Malians. They have been arrested in the region of Ijdabiyah and Benghazi, during police raids in the city. They are accused to be potential candidates for the crossing of the Mediterranean. Many of them have been in jail for more than six months. Somebody for one year. None of them has been judged in front of a Court. Somebody is suffering scabies, dermatitis and respiratory diseases. The only way out from the prison is corruption, but the policemen ask for $ 1,000. The conditions of detention are very poor. In a cells of five meters by six, there are up to 60 people. They eat bread and water. They sleep on the floor, there are no mattresses. And every day they are subjected to humiliation and harassment by the police.
On the matter, a group of deputies from the Radicali party, presented an urgent interrogation to the Prime Minister and to the Foreign Minister, on August 18, asking “whether Italy is not considering, even in the light of the facts expressed above, to ensure that asylum seekers from Somalia would no longer be pushed back to Libya”. Probably the answer in the Parliament will be delayed. But in the reality the answer is already know. And the last deportation, on August 31, of 75 Somali is its sad confirmation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Libya: Photos of Colonial Misdeeds in Tripoli’s Streets
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, AUGUST 30 — The second anniversary of the Italian-Libyan Day of Friendship, celebrated in Italy his year with yet another exuberant visit by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to Rome, is getting much less attention on the other side of the Mediterranean.
In a half-empty Tripoli, due to the heat and the Ramadan during which the citizens sleep during the day and are awake during the night, large billboards showing black-and-white photos taken during the period of Italian colonialism in Libya are shown in the large streets of the city. There are four different photos of the shooting of two veiled women on the seaside, the deportation of chained Bedouins and other misdeeds committed by the colonialists in Libya. The slogan in the Arabic language that accompanies these pictures can be summarised as a conciliating “After all this, now it is time for friendship”.
The Libyans seem reluctant to forget about their history despite this friendship however: the relations that have transformed Libya from Italy’s ‘fourth shore’ to its “important economic partner from which” Italy “imports 25% of its oil and 33% of its gas”, as the daily OEA writes, are described in detail in the main local newspapers, stage per stage, starting on October 9 1911, the day the Italian troops landed on the Libyan coast and ending on August 30 2008, the day the Friendship Treaty was signed. Libyan television broadcasts the entire visit of the country’s Leader, including his speeches and public meetings in Rome.
Waiting for the return of the colonel and of the delegation of the around 500 people that followed him, the city is installing huge electrical installations in the city which will be used to illuminate the night in which Gaddafi will celebrate his 41 years as leader of Libya, on September 1. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Pushed Back Migrants Speak Out: “Beaten and Deported to the Sahara”
ROME — Beaten by Italian soldiers and deported to the Sahara. The migrants pushed back to Libya speak out. For the first time. From the cells of a prison situated in the middle of the Libyan desert, a thousand kilometres south of Tripoli, where they have ended up after having been sent back to Libya on Italian military ships. We have reached them by phone. They are 38 Somalis. All men. Part of that ship crew composed of 81 Somalis who left Tripoli on the 27th August 2009 and were rejected by Italian authorities after three days at sea, on the 30th August.
A. is one of them. He is 17 years old. “We sailed off on the night of the 27th August — he says — With us we had 17 women, 7 children and an elderly woman, we were all Somalis”. After two days of navigation northwards, the rubber dinghy encountered a Maltese patrol boat. “They gave us water and life jackets. We asked directions for Malta, we did not want to go to Italy, fearing rejection. They showed us the route and we left again. It was only after five hours of navigation that we realized we were going towards Sicily”. M., a 29 year old cellmate, confirms.
The description of those moments coincides with the events reported on the 30th of August by news agencies. Twenty-four miles away from Capo Passero, province of Syracuse, the watercraft is intercepted by Italian units. Four passengers, among whom a woman and a newborn baby, are transferred to the Valletta hospital. A fifth one is hospitalized in Pozzallo, Sicily. The other passengers are transhipped onto a high sea patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza which sails off towards Tripoli, where it will arrive the next day. Up to here the official version. But what really happened on board?
“When they took us on board they did not tell us where they were taking us — says A. -, but at a certain point it was clear we were going back to Libya, because we had been at sea for too long, it took us 28 hours to reach Tripoli”. It was then that a strong protest broke out on deck. “They had divided us. The 17 women with the 7 children were on one side. The men on the other. The women were crying, the men were shouting. Luckily there were three men who could speak English and acted as interpreters with the Italians. ‘No life in Libya’ they were saying. We explained to them that we were Somalis, that in Somalia the is a war going on and that we could not go back to Libya. Rather, we said, they could send us back to Sudan, where we would not have incurred in any risk, but not to Libya”.
Initially — says A. — the Italian soldiers seemed to understand their case. A. remembers the eldest on board. “He was a white haired man. He was crying, moved at the sight of the women and children weeping, and the elderly woman, and at the thought of sending us back to prison”. A. claims that that same official contacted his superiors, in order to understand what to do. But the patrol boat never turned back. And half way there it encountered the Libyan patrol ship onto which the passengers had to be transhipped. At that point the protests soared. “Some men threatened to jump into the sea, they were shouting, the Italian soldiers had to use force, and raged with their truncheons on a young man. Finally they decided not to tranship us and we remained on board until we reached the harbour of Tripoli”. Once ashore, on the pier, protests immediately ceased, says A. “Who talked was promptly beaten by the Libyans”.
From there they have been transferred to the prison of Tuaisha, near the airport of Tripoli. After one month they have been sent to different detention centres. Thirty-eight of them — among which no woman — ended up in Gatrun. One thousand kilometres south of Tripoli. Near the border with Chad and Niger, in full desert. The journey from Tripoli lasted three days, locked in a container. Presently in Gatrun there are 245 detainees, all Somalis. Crammed in three dormitories, they sleep on the floor, without blankets nor mattresses, at night it is cold, some of them cached scabies. One of the dormitories is reserved for the women, which are 54 and stay together with the four children, one of which is just a few months old and was born in prison, in Benghazi. Indeed the majority of the Gatrun detainees come from the detention camp of Benghazi, in Ganfuda.
Remember? We talked about it in an investigation in September, when we published the pictures of the wounded Somalis stabbed by the Libyan police during the pitiless repression of a mass jailbreak attempt, on the 9th August, ended with the killing of six Somalis.
They have attempted a mass jailbreak in Gatrun too. It happened last Friday. They smashed the cell door and fled in 91. The Libyan police managed to recapture only 32. “They have been strongly beaten — says M. — and then brought back here. For us and for them there is no solution. We have been here for months, we have not seen the UN yet. But at this point we just ask the UN and Europe to repatriate us. We would rather die at war in Mogadishu than remain locked in this prison”.
translated from the Italian by Francesca Megna
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Gov’t Protest Against Morocco Over Latest Incident
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 30 — Spain’s government will be requesting an explanation from its Moroccan counterpart over police aggression against 14 Spanish members of an NGO who on Saturday took part in a peaceful demonstration in El Aaiun in defence of the rights of the Saharawi. According to government sources quoted by El Pais, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Juan Pablo de Laiglesia will be calling his Moroccan counterpart to “request an explanation” over what happened to the activists of the Friends of the Saharawi People of the Canary Islands association. After being held by Moroccan authorities and released thanks to the intervention of the Foreign Ministry, the activists today returned to Palm Island in the Canary Islands onboard a ferry from Morocco and, later, were transferred to Tenerife onboard a plane. Eleven members of the NGO were arrested Saturday — while three others managed to escape — by Moroccan police while they were taking part in a demonstration for the self-determination of the Saharawi population. Some of the activists detained reported being beaten and mistreated by Moroccan police. The incident has come a week after the visit to Morocco by Spain’s Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba to end the border crisis concerning Ceuta and Melilla. Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos telephone his Moroccan counterpart, Fassi Fahri, yesterday to facilitate the bringing back of the Spanish activists detained to their home country. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Four Israelis Shot Dead by Terrorists in West Bank
Barak: “Israel will exact a price from the murderers”; victims, from Beit Hagai, shot while driving, include 2 men, 2 women, one reportedly pregnant.
In response to Tuesday night’s shooting attack which killed four Israelis near Kiryat Arba, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “This is very grave incident. The IDF and Israeli security forces will do everything they can to capture the murderers. Israel will not allow terrorists to lift their heads and will exact a price from the murderers and those who sent them.”
The four victims, described by a settler spokesman as a couple who had been in a vehicle and a second couple who were hitching a ride, were driving on Route 60 near the entrance of Kiryat Arba when their vehicle came under fire.
Barak added that the attack “is likely an attempt by the low-life terrorists to prevent the diplomatic process and to hurt the chances of the talks opening in Washington.”
Barak was briefed on the attack by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin. Barak spoke with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who is en-route to Washington DC and updated him on the developing events. He also spoke with Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.
Tuesday night’s devastating shooting attack in the West Bank was believed to have been aimed at torpedoing the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to kick off on Wednesday in Washington DC.
Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida told The Associated Press late Tuesday that Hamas carried out the attack.
The IDF was investigating two possibilities — that Palestinian terrorists had laid an ambush alongside the road or that the shots were fired from a passing car.
IDF troops immediately launched searches for the perpetrators and the Central Command decided to raise the level of alert out of fear that Palestinian terrorists will increase efforts to perpetrate attacks in the coming days with the goal of torpedoing the peace summit in Washington.
The four were two couples — one aged 25 and the other 40. One of the women was pregnant. According to eyewitness reports, the terrorists succeeded in hitting the passengers in their initial fire but then approached the car and shot them occupants at close range.
“When we arrived on the scene, all four doors of the car were open and four bodies were strewn on the road,” Magen David Adom paramedic Guy Ronen told The Jerusalem Post. “We saw that the vital organs had been struck by a very large number of bullets, and that there was no chance of saving their lives,” he added.
“It was a very difficult scene. We had learned to forget scenes like this in recent years,” Ronen said.
The US labeled the deadly shooting Tuesday “a tragedy” while urging both sides not to take steps that would jeopardize direct peace negotiations set to be launched Thursday.
“Any time one human being takes out a weapon and fires and kills other human beings it’s a tragedy,” said State Department spokesman PJ Crowley following the attack, adding that the US still didn’t know the circumstances surrounding the incident.
“We are cognizant that there could be external events that can have an impact on the environment. We also are cognizant that there may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to sabotage the process,” he said. “We are very aware that as we go forward in this process, not everyone sees this in the same way, and there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt or derail the process.”
Following the attack, the Israel Police’s Operations Branch sent out an order to all officers in the Judea and Samaria district calling on them to increase their awareness and be on the look out for potential terror attacks, while maintaining security in the area.
Head of the IDF’s Civil Administration Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai spoke with his Palestinian counterparts and updated them regarding the attack. PA security forces were also conducting their own independent investigation into the attack.
It was unclear if the attack was carried out by an established terror cell or if it was perpetrated by a small group of attackers that are not affiliated with a larger terrorist group.
While the IDF apparently did not have specific intelligence regarding the attack on Tuesday night near Kiryat Arba, there was a fear in Israel that terror groups would use the launching of the new round of peace talks to perpetrate attacks within the West Bank.
Ashkenazi and OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi toured the West Bank earlier this week and met with brigade commanders. Ashkenazi asked the commanders to raise their level of vigilance for the duration of the summit in Washington out of fear that either Hamas, Islamic Jihad or even al-Qaida-affiliated elements will launch attacks against Israel.
The forces were also asked to avoid friction with the Palestinian civilian population and to demonstrate sensitivity at the crossings between Israel and the West Bank.
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Procedure to Enter OECD Almost Completed
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, AUGUST 30 — Israel is completing the procedure to enter the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The government has formally agreed to the Ministry of Treasure and the Foreign Ministry’s request to enter the organisation.
The Italian Institute for Foreign Trade office in Tel Aviv explained that, in this way, the agreement signed in Paris on June 29 has been ratified. The agreement specifies Israel’s duties towards the OECD and the fact that the country accepts the rules and all the decisions taken by the organisation since its foundation. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
CNN’s Zakaria Presents Hezbollah as a Model of Religious Tolerance
The first question that so easily strikes when listening to Zakaria’s rosy assessment is contained in the second paragraph. If Lebanon is so open and warm to other religions, why is it that this Synagogue is wonderful not just for “the few remaining Jews there”? If Hezbollah and the state they control were so “tolerant” why is there only a “few remaining Jews” there? Why did those Jews leave if everything is so wonderful?
And of course the propaganda that Zakaria allows the spokesman for Hezbollah to babble, all about how they “respect divine religions including the Jewish religion,” is appalling.
Zakaria fails his viewers miserably to allow Hezbollah’s spokesman to dole out his lies without questioning it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: France Protests Carla Bruni Insults
Paris, 31 August (AKI) — A spokesman for the French government on Tuesday condemned recent comments by an Iranian government daily calling France’s first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy “immoral” and a “prostitute” and claiming she “deserved to die.”
“The insults in the daily Kayhan and picked up by Iranian websites against several French figures, including Mrs Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, are unacceptable,” French foreign ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero said, quoted by French public radio RFI’s website.
“We’re making this message known through normal diplomatic channels,” he said
Iranian media were furious last week when Bruni-Sarkozy , the second wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy joined a world outcry protesting the sentencing to death by stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, who has been found guilty of adultery and complicity in her husband’s murder.
In remarks earlier on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry appeared to try and distance the government from remarks by Kayhan last Saturday calling Italian-born Bruni-Sarkozy an “Italian prostitute”.
The article also had a similar comment about French actress Isabelle Adjani.
Kayhan’s managing director and chief editor is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday criticised the paper.
“Insulting officials of other countries and using indecent words is not endorsed by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmananparast.
“We don’t think this is a right move.”
But the same day, in a new editorial, hardline daily Kayhan said that Bruni-Sarkozy “herself deserves death”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israelis Still Stay Away From Turkey Since May
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 30 — Despite Turkey’s best efforts, Israeli tourists aren’t returning, the Turkish media report quoting Israeli newspapers. The number of Israelis who ventured to Turkey last July was down 90%, reaching a measly 4,500 vacationers — compared to 43,000 in July 2009, and 78,000 in July 2008. This is the second month in a row to see such a steep drop in vacationers: In June, just 2,600 Israeli tourists visited Turkey, compared to 27,000 in June 2009, and 62,000 in June 2008. So far this year, the number of Israelis who have traveled Turkey is down 40% compared to the parallel period in 2009.
Relations between Israel and Turkey have been on shaky ground for a while, beginning with Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008-2009 and worsening this year following the flotilla incident at the end of May, in which Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish citizens aboard a ship attempting to break the Gaza blockade. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Father Disagrees, 6 Sisters in Court to Get Married
(ANSAmed) — ROME, AUGUST 30 — Six Saudi women from Medina want to report their father to the police because he apparently prevented them from getting married even though they received many offers of marriage from “respectable and decent” men. The news was reported by the Arab website Moheet.
The Saudi sisters, all aged around thirty years, asked the judicial authority’s permission to get married without the obligatory approval of their father. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Soldiers Face the Toughest Fight in Afghanistan
The dangerous Helmand Province is causing Danish forces to experience ISAF’s highest mortality rate
As MPs debate how long Danish troops should remain deployed in Afghanistan, the soldiers fighting the Taleban are falling at a disturbing rate.
To date, 36 Danish soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan under military-related circumstances — of which 30 were in direct combat situations.
And while that number may pale in comparison to the United States’s 1,200 deaths, it is the highest casualty rate of all the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) countries — both in terms of the number of soldiers deployed and in relation to the country’s overall population.
A large part of the reason for the high death rate is that all of Denmark’s troops are deployed in Helmand Province — generally considered to be the most battle-ridden area of Afghanistan.
And although Danish soldiers were initially sent there primarily to conduct non-combat operations, that is no longer the case. Danish convoys are typically sent out on patrol missions where their vehicles are extremely susceptible to roadside bombs. The soldiers also frequently take part in combat missions alongside their British counterparts, who lead the forces in Helmand Province.
Hans Vedholm, a press officer for the Army Operational Command, dismissed any notion that the high death rate is due to insufficient combat training.
‘The American and British commanders we’ve served with in Helmand have lauded our efforts and our preparations, so we can’t be that bad,’ he told The Copenhagen Post.
Vedholm said the intense level of fighting in Helmand — and especially around the city of Gereshk — was the main reason there have been so many Danish fatalities.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
The Afghan War From Behind Enemy Lines: Documentary-Maker Follows Taliban as They Attack U.S. Soldiers
A documentary made by a Norwegian journalist embedded with Taliban fighters has provided a rare glimpse of the other side of the Afghanistan conflict.
The raw footage — captured by Paul Refsdal — shows the Afghan militants attacking U.S. convoys on a road below their mountainous hide-out and celebrating hits with a high-five.
The men also show their softer side to the Norwegian journalist by singing, reciting verses from the Koran and even brushing their long hair as he quietly records their day-to-day activities.
But the venture is far from risk-free as Refsdal reveals during his narration of the 20-minute film entitled Behind Enemy Lines.
At one stage, the small band of mujahaideen come under fire from a fearsome U.S. AC130 gunship — a converted transport plane equipped with powerful machine gun and rockets.
And at the end of the documentary, the journalist explains how in a bid to capture further footage he is kidnapped by a separate group, but is released unharmed six days later.
The film begins with Refsdal saying how he spent seven weeks waiting in Kabul for permission to join Dawran, a commander in the east of the country.
There are tense scenes as he first comes into contact with the group, when fighters cover their faces from the cameraman.
He describes it as the ‘point of no return’ and says: ‘At that point I had to greet them and trust they were not fanatics.
‘The Taliban are fighting tall white men and I am a tall white man with a camera.
‘If the Taliban suspect me of being a spy they will execute me.’
Heavily-armed men are then seen scowling at the camera in tense scenes, but by day two they have settled into their normal routines.
The commander of the group, bearded and long-haired Dawran, is then introduced and shown living in a hand-built clay house with his wife and three young children.
He is seen leading his men in ideological discussions, a prayer session and a talk on tactics before gun fire is heard in the valley below.
A lighter moment is provided by a fighter declaring ‘I put it in the wrong way’ as they load their weapons in preparation for an attack on U.S. vehicles.
The attack itself involves a radio discussion with another unit closer to the Tarmac road which American army men are forced to use everyday.
Over the radio, a commander says: ‘Allah make our enemies perish. I seek refuge in you. Alllah make the mujahaideen victorious.’
Then the man’s voice can be heard saying: ‘Use the rocket launcher Rafiq, fire the launcher.’
Meanwhile, Dawran’s men are using a heavy-calibre machine gun to fire on the Humvee armoured vehicles, apparently destroying one.
They celebrate with a high-five and moments later singing can be heard over the radio.
Dawran claims 80 fighters were involved in the attack, before showing his young son and daughter to the camera as he gently plays with them.
Next, a bizarre sequence in which one Taliban fighter, clad in eye make-up, brushes his long hair whihc has been died with henna as a comrade sings.
Refsdal informs viewers that a price of $400,000 has been placed on Dawran’s head, and the commander himself tells the story of how he was almost killed by a traitor.
Later their perilous position is exposed when the men become concerned by the sight of the U.S. gunship flying nearby.
The narrator says: ‘One aircraft that scared them is a transport plane transformed into a gunship.
‘When this was in the air Dawran was very concerned.’
During the night, the fighters flee into the mountains when it becomes apparent their hide-out is to be attacked.
And the next day U.S. special forces achieve a successful raid on the house of Dawran’s deputy, killing him and a dozen fighters and relatives.
This action ends Refsdal’s filming of the unit, and he is told to go back to Kabul.
But at the end of the film, the documentary-maker reveals he was tempted back to the hills by another fighter called Omar, and kidnapped, but released six days later.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Robot Suits to Aid Elderly Japanese Farmers With Toiling in the Fields
MANUAL labour is becoming more and more difficult for Japan’s aging farmers, prompting a Tokyo professor to devise a high-tech solution: mechanise the bodies of the farmers themselves.
Prof. Shigeki Toyama of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering is close to perfecting a robot suit that could considerably reduce the physical burden of farmwork on elderly farmers.
People aged 65 and older are a key pillar of the agricultural work force, accounting for about 60 percent of the agricultural population in Japan. Development of the robot suit may come as welcome news to such elderly farmers.
While agricultural machines such as tractors and rice planters have reduced farmers’ physical burdens, many kinds of work still depend on manual labor, such as harvesting fruits and vegetables or pruning the branches of fruit-bearing trees.
For elderly farmers, it is difficult to work in a kneeling position for hours on end or to lift heavy bundles of crops. Many suffer chronic pain in their lower backs, knees and elbows.
During a conference at his university, Toyama heard of the hardships in the nation’s agricultural sector from Prof. Isao Ogiwara, a horticultural researcher. Toyama subsequently began developing the robot suits for farmers, which he named “Power Assist.”
Toyama, who had studied robot suits for nursing care workers, wished to develop robot suits for elderly farmers.
The robot suit can be easily worn with straps that fasten it to the user’s body. Four ultrasonic wave motors, which generate electric power from ultrasonic vibrations, are situated at the knees and both sides of the lower back.
Users can set the arms of the suit to a number of positions.
With the robot suit, work such as harvesting grapes, which requires farmers to keep their arms raised, will be less physically difficult.
When users must work in kneeling or crouched positions, they feel as if they are sitting on a chair as the motors support their bodies.
The professors said that pulling a daikon radish out of the ground usually requires muscle power equivalent to that needed to lift a 30-kilogram (66-pound) object, but using the robot suit reduces the figure to less than half.
The robot suit’s movements can be controlled by methods including commands spoken into a microphone.
In January, the professors had the suits field-tested by grape farmers in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, during their harvest. The farmers praised the equipment, saying that using it made them less tired.
A robot suit weighs about 18 kilograms (39.6 pounds). The professors aim to reduce the weight to about 6 kilograms (13.2 pounds) by using lighter ultrasonic wave motors. They hope to begin selling the suits two years from now for about 500,000 yen (about US$5,830) each.
Toyama said the robot suits are not just for the elderly. “By incorporating information technology, work efficiency can be raised and it is not a dream to say it could increase farmers’ profits,” he said.
Toyama also began developing goggles with augmented-reality technology, which displays digital information over real fields of sight.
The goggles will display such information as shipments from each field, records of past work and weather forecasts.
“Through the robot suits, I want to demonstrate what agriculture in the next generation should be like,” Toyama said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A Desperate Homecoming for Deported Roma
France is deporting hundreds of Roma to Romania and other Eastern European countries. But the controversial policy isn’t working. Unable to find work in their home countries, many plan to return to France as quickly as possible.
Merisor de la Barbulesti is home again, and he’s in a foul mood. He is 42, has 15 grandchildren and his only source of income is his battered accordion.
The children romp around him when he gets his instrument from the living room in the evening. He sits down in the courtyard in front of his bright-red house and plays a passage from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Merisor can’t read music. He simply plays by ear, a skill that his father taught him.
The accordion player is a member of the Ursari caste of the Roma people. His ancestors went from village to village with their dancing bears. His German accordion, Hohner’s “Verdi” model, was made before the war. It has been played so much that some of the keys are worn down to the bare wood.
For six weeks, Merisor tried to earn a living in France, but then French President Nicolas Sarkozy suddenly decided to rid himself of the Roma.
Populist Move
About 15,000 Roma live in France, most of them from Eastern Europe. Hundreds of them are often seen camped out on the outskirts of villages and cities, and most of them manage to scrape by as harvest hands.
After clashes between Roma and police in Grenoble and Saint-Aignan, Sarkozy decided that it was time to deport them. The decision, though widely criticized, even by the pope, is not one he is likely to regret. Opinion polls show that a large majority of the French population favors sending the “traveling people” back home.
The authorities also showed Merisor the door, even though, as a Romanian, he is a citizen of the European Union and cannot simply be deported like an asylum seeker whose application has been rejected.
The police sent 60 officers to the camp in Grenoble and initially told the Roma that they had to move. The city had set up a site on the outskirts, between the highway and the railroad tracks, says Merisor. But the police showed up in the new camp only a few days later. “I have orders,” one officer said. “It’s better if you go, or else you’ll be thrown in jail,” he reportedly threatened.
Merisor, like the others, heeded the officer’s recommendation and packed up his accordion. Those who had been in France for more than two months received €300 ($380), which is about the average net monthly income in Romania.
Struggling to Get By
Merisor has been home in Barbulesti, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Bucharest, for a week now. Hordes of black-haired children play with dogs on the potholed, unpaved village streets. There is no sewage system and garbage is strewn all over.
Merisor’s grandfather built the house, a long, single-story building. His mother still lives there, as does Merisor with his wife Nuta, two sons, their wives and Merisor’s grandchildren. The house has electricity and a satellite dish, but the women have to walk two kilometers to fetch water.
From the courtyard gate, the crumbling towers of an old sugar factory are visible on the horizon. Many Roma used to work there. But since the factory was shut down in 1990, practically everyone in Barbulesti has been unemployed.
Merisor is waiting for the next opportunity to play his accordion, perhaps at a wedding. He is well known in the surrounding villages, and people like to hire him to play Gypsy tunes. He earns 800 leu, or about €190, per event. “No one gives decent parties anymore since our country has been in crisis,” he says. “We often don’t have enough to eat.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
More Than Man’s Best Friend
Dogs have been an integral part of human culture for 15,000 years…sometimes in unexpected ways
Today there are some 77 million dogs in the United States alone. But as late as 20,000 years ago, it’s possible there wasn’t a single animal on the planet that looked like today’s beloved (at least in some cultures) Canis lupus familiaris. Just how and when the species first became recognizably “doggy” has preoccupied scientists since the theory of evolution first gained widespread acceptance in the 19th century. The idea that dogs were domesticated from jackals was long ago discarded in favor of the notion that dogs descend from the gray wolf, Canis lupus, the largest member of the Canidae family, which includes foxes and coyotes. While no scholars seriously dispute this basic fact of ancestry, biologists, archaeologists, and just about anyone interested in the history of dogs still debate when, where, and how gray wolves first evolved into the animal that is the ancestor of all dog breeds, from Neapolitan mastiffs to dachshunds. Were the first dogs domesticated in China, the Near East, or possibly Africa? Were they first bred for food, companionship, or their hunting abilities? The answers are important, since dogs were the first animals to be domesticated and likely played a critical role in the Neolithic revolution. Recently, biologists have entered the debate, and their genetic analyses raise new questions about when and where wolves first developed into what we today recognize as dogs.
It can be very difficult to distinguish between wolf and dog skeletons, especially early in the history of dogs, when they would have been much more similar to wolves than they are today. What are perhaps the earliest dog-like remains date to 31,700 years ago and were first excavated in the 19th century at Goyet Cave in Belgium. Paleontologist Mietje Germonpré of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences recently led a team that studied a canid skull from the cave and concluded that it had a significantly shorter snout than wolves from the same period. This dog-like wolf could represent the first step toward domestication and would make the Paleolithic people we call the Aurignacians, better known as the first modern humans to occupy Europe, the world’s first known dog fanciers. But the analysis is controversial, and there is a large gap between the age of the Goyet Cave “dog” and the next oldest skeletons that could plausibly be called dog-like, which date to 14,000 years ago in western Russia. Perhaps the Goyet Cave wolf represents an isolated instance of domestication and left no descendants. But based on finds of dog skeletons throughout the Old World, from China to Africa, we know that certainly by 10,000 years ago dogs were playing a critical role in the lives of humans all over the world, whether as sentries, ritual sacrifices, or sources of protein.
The archaeological record suggests dogs were domesticated in multiple places at different times, but in 2009, a team led by Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm published an analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of some 1,500 dogs from across the Old World, which narrowed down the time and place of dog domestication to a few hundred years in China. “We found that dogs were first domesticated at a single event, sometime less than 16,300 years ago, south of the Yangtze River,” says Savolainen, who posits that all dogs spring from a population of at least 51 female wolves, and were first bred over the course of several hundred years. “This is the same basic time and place as the origin of rice agriculture,” he notes. “It’s speculative, but it seems that dogs may have first originated among early farmers, or perhaps hunter-gatherers who were sedentary.” But this year a team led by biologist Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, showed that domesticated dog DNA overlaps most closely with that of Near Eastern wolves. Wayne and his colleagues suggest that dogs were first domesticated somewhere in the Middle East, then bred with other gray wolves as they spread across the globe, casting doubt on the idea that dogs were domesticated during a single event in a discrete location. Savolainen maintains that Wayne overemphasizes the role of the Near Eastern gray wolf, and that a more thorough sampling of wolves from China would support his team’s theory of a single domestication event.
University of Victoria archaeozoologist Susan Crockford, who did not take part in either study, suspects that searching for a single moment when dogs were domesticated overlooks the fact that the process probably happened more than once. “We have evidence that there was a separate origin of North American dogs, distinct from a Middle Eastern origin,” says Crockford. “This corroborates the idea of at least two ‘birthplaces.’ I think we need to think about dogs becoming dogs at different times in different places.”
As for how dogs first came to be domesticated, Crockford, like many other scholars, thinks dogs descend from wolves that gathered near the camps of semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers, as well as around the first true settlements, to eat scraps. “The process was probably driven by the animals themselves,” she says. “I don’t think they were deliberately tamed; they basically domesticated themselves.” Smaller wolves were probably more fearless and curious than larger, more dominant ones, and so the less aggressive, smaller wolves became more successful at living in close proximity to humans. “I think they also came to have a spiritual role,” says Crockford. “Dog burials are firm evidence of that. Later, perhaps they became valued as sentries. I don’t think hunting played a large role in the process initially. Their role as magical creatures was probably very important in the early days of the dog-human relationship.”
Whatever the reasons behind their domestication, dogs have left their pawprints all over the archaeological record, sometimes literally, for thousands of years. Over the following pages, we explore not only the roles dogs played in past cultures throughout the world, but how ancient artists celebrated our oldest companions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Rare-Earth Supply Deficit
There are well over a dozen rare-earth elements on the periodic table, with names like neodymium, lanthanum and europium. Much is heard about the growing supply deficit in crude oil and other raw materials but the one developing in the rare earths could also have an adverse impact. On the positive side, there could be a range of opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors.
Rare earth elements are used to make miniature magnets, phosphors and other components necessary to the functioning of iPods, BlackBerrys, LCD screens, disk drives, MRIs, hybrid cars, wind turbines, catalytic converters, batteries, lasers, guided missiles, smart bombs and other consumer, green and military technologies.
Demand for rare earths is growing vigorously as penetration rates for these technologies catch up to those in developed countries. As well, ongoing technological innovation is augmenting demand. There is “a wild demand dynamic,” to use a phrase from John Kaiser, editor of the Kaiser Bottom-Fishing Report.
On the supply side, rare earths are not rare per se. In fact, they are ubiquitous in the earth’s crust. What’s rare is finding them in high enough concentrations for economical extraction.
At present, the richest deposits are located in China — so much so that the country currently supplies more than 90% of the world’s demand. “There is oil in the Middle East; there are rare earths in China,” said Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic revolution.
As its internal needs grow, China is steadily reducing the amount available for export. And as trade frictions escalate, the West could be cut off sooner than expected, warns Jack Lifton, a rare-earths expert who publishes the Jack Lifton Report.
Indeed, China slashed rare-earth exports dramatically in July, leaving the quota for 2010 at 30,258 tons, 40% less than the 50,145 tons allowed in 2009. The squeeze on prices just got a lot tighter.
As prices climb for rare earths, there will be an incentive for mining operations outside of China to ramp up operations. But most are years away from production, so the rise in prices could potentially go far before supply catches up. In turn, the price and availability of products requiring rare earths could be negatively affected.
Entrepreneurs and investors might be interested in becoming more acquainted with the rare-earth sector, as well as the mining companies headed toward becoming producers in the West. A list of those companies, including Molycorp Inc. (MCP) and Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AVL), is provided at the end of this article.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Climate Experts ‘Overstated Dangers’: Keep Your Noses Out of Politics, Scientists Told
UN climate change experts have been accused of making ‘imprecise and vague’ statements and over-egging the evidence.
A scathing report into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for it to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science.
The probe, by representatives of the Royal Society and foreign scientific academies, took a thinly-veiled swipe at Rajendra Pachauri, the panel’s chairman for the past eight years.
It recommended a new leader be appointed to bring a ‘fresh approach’ with the term of office cut from 12 years to six.
The IPCC is important because its reports are used by governments to set environmental policy.
The review, which focused on the day-to-day running of the panel, rather than its science, was commissioned after the UN body was accused of making glaring mistakes.
These included the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would vanish within 25 years — and that 55 per cent of the Netherlands was prone to flooding because it was below sea level.
An email scandal involving experts at the University of East Anglia had already fuelled fears that global warming was being exaggerated.
The report demanded a more rigorous conflict of interest policy and said executives should have formal qualifications.
It said: ‘Because the IPCC chair is both the leader and the face of the organisation, he or she must have strong credentials (including high professional standing in an area covered by IPCC assessments), international stature, a broad vision, strong leadership skills, considerable management experience at a senior level, and experience relevant to the assessment task.’…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
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