Bank of Japan Cuts Benchmark Interest Rate to as Low as 0%
The Bank of Japan on Tuesday unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate from 0.1 percent to a range of 0 to 0.1 percent. The unanimous decision came after a two-day meeting of the bank’s nine-member policy board and is the first change of Japan’s key rate since December 2008.
The move had important symbolic impact, signaling the bank is willing to take action to spur the ailing economy despite the risks of deflation from further cuts in interest rates.
Tokyo’s Nikkei stock market average rose by more than 1.5 percent after the announcement.
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Borrowers of Euroland Are Proving Einstein’s Theory of Insanity Right
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So, it is alleged, spoke Albert Einstein. All over Europe officials are trying to prove him right.
Greece led the peripheral countries in piling up debts that it had little hope of ever repaying. Non-peripheral countries, most notably Britain and France, joined in the fun, the latter despite its commitment to its Euroland partners to keep its fiscal deficit within 3% of GDP — in the event, borrowing reached 8%.
Cometh the markets, cometh reality: payback time. National cupboards being bare, the Euroland authorities stepped in with a cunning plan to handle excessive debt: borrow more to repay the wild borrowings of the member countries. And the Irish government will drive its deficit to 32% of GDP by borrowing to bail out banks hit by the inability of property developers to repay excessive borrowings. If more borrowing to repay excessive borrowing doesn’t fit the great physicist’s definition of insanity, it is difficult to tell what does.
On to austerity. No responsible observer would deny that the welfare states of many Euroland countries should be trimmed. But austerity is not costless: it can cost jobs, profits and, therefore, tax revenues. Unless the central banks oblige with an offsetting loose monetary policy. Which the European Central Bank is disinclined to do.
Yves Mersch, a member of the ECB’s governing council, believes the euro zone recovery is now self-sustaining and agrees with Jürgen Stark, a member of the Bank’s executive board, that long-term liquidity support for the area’s banks can be reined in. History suggests that austerity without loose monetary policy can be self-defeating. Never mind: Eurocrats will pay any price to avoid the humiliation of restructuring and unleashing inflation worries in Germany. So a combination of austerity and tighter credit is in store, to the applause of the rating agencies, those infallible appraisers of risk that endowed securitized subprime mortgages with triple-A credit ratings. Further proof of Einstein’s genius.
In the end, this crisis is not about whether the piper will be paid, but who will do the paying. One set of candidates includes creditors and euro-zone citizens with fixed incomes. They can be forced to pay by having the central bank print lots of euros, produce inflation, and repay creditors with a debased currency. The ECB has said “no” to what is in effect a wiping out of creditors, with collateral damage inflicted on anyone without a cost-of-living escalator attached to his income source. And if the ECB weakens, there is always the loud “nein” from Berlin, representing a Germany ever fearful of the political consequences of inflation.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Financial System the ‘Achilles Heel’ Of Global Recovery, Warns IMF
Uncertainty in the global finance system is the “achilles heel” of economic recovery, the International Monetary Fund warned today as it admitted turmoil in the European sovereign debt markets has set back the prospects for global stability.
In its half-yearly health check of the financial system, the IMF admitted that governments may not be able to withdraw their life-support for the banks as quickly as they hoped and called for a re-think in the way ratings agencies are used to assess the creditworthiness of government debt.
The Washington-based fund assessed the impact of rating downgrades on government debt — a situation that has been highlighted during downgrades of debt issues by Greece, Spain and Ireland — and said that when ratings fall below investment grade there can be “cliff effects” in the price of the debt.
The IMF suggested that regulators remove the use of ratings if they are likely to cause such “cliff effects” and also demand more disclosure from ratings agencies, which are paid for their ratings by the entity being assessed in what is known as an “issuer pay” model.
Since its last assessment of the estimated losses to the banking sector from the crisis, the IMF has shaved the total loss from $2.3tn (£1.5tn) to $2.2tn but warned that $4tn of bank debt needs to be rolled over in the next 24 months to enable the banks to keep financing themselves.
“Exits from extraordinary financial system support, including the removal of government guarantees of bank debt, will have to be carefully sequenced and planned,” the IMF said.
“With the situation still fragile, some of the public support that has been given to banks in recent years will have to be continued. Planned exit strategies from unconventional monetary and financial policies may need to be delayed until the situation is more robust,” it added.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland Warned Credit Rating Cut ‘Likely’
Moody’s today warned that it was considering cutting Ireland’s credit rating amid concerns that its economic recovery was running out of steam, coupled with the financial burden of the €50bn (£43bn) bailout of its crippled banking system.
Moody’s Investor Services said Ireland’s Aa2 rating would “most likely” be cut by one notch if the downgrade went ahead — a change that would bring its rating on the country in line with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
Last week Allied Irish Bank became the fourth bank to be nationalised by the Fianna Fáil-led government while Anglo Irish Bank, which is already owned by the state, is to be given another €7bn taxpayer-funded injection.
Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan has described the total bill to fix the country’s banks as “horrible” but manageable. The bailout is expected to swell Ireland’s deficit to 32% of economic output this year — the biggest in Europe since the second world war.
The country’s worsening finances have fuelled speculation that it might have to follow in Greece’s footsteps and tap the €750bn rescue fund set up by the European Union and International Monetary Fund at the height of the sovereign debt crisis.
Moody’s said its review, which would take three months to complete, was prompted by uncertainty over Ireland’s financial strength in the wake of the bailout. Higher borrowing costs in the bond markets since July, when Moody’s last cut Ireland’s rating, also make servicing the national debt more expensive.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Towns Struggle Under Crushing Debts
BRUNETE, Spain — This leafy town on the outskirts of Madrid, where residents live in comfortable homes behind high walls, marks the next front in Spain’s fiscal crisis.
Struggling to rein in costs, Brunete has cut library and park workers’ hours. Instead of fixing the roof of city hall, town administrators have cordoned off the sidewalk in front to keep tiles from falling on passersby. More gravely, it is as much as three years in arrears to providers of building supplies and electrical services. Soon, it says, it may be unable to pay city workers.
Across Spain, towns that once reaped the benefit of housing-boom revenues are slashing budgets, cutting services and racking up debt. Together, according to Spain’s central bank, the country’s 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion ($18 billion), representing more than one-third of their €36 billion total debt.
Economists say the situation is already suppressing Spain’s economy and employment levels. UBS Bank SA forecasts that sharp fiscal adjustments at all levels of Spanish government — not only cities, but also the regional and federal governments — risk pushing Spain back into recession in the third quarter, following timid growth in first and second quarters.
In the longer run, fears are mounting that the government may have to mount some sort of local bailout. Such a move would have negative consequences for Spain’s international creditworthiness, according to Giada Giani, economist at Citigroup in London.
“The sovereign debt crisis is not over,” Ms. Giani said. “As we’ve seen, any negative news runs the risk of being magnified.”
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Super-Rich Investors Buy Gold by Ton
Reuters) — The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar — and sometimes by the ton — and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.
Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
“They don’t only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold,” said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank’s services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.
UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Surprise! IRS Wants More Money
Almost 23 million American households have already had their federal taxes raised by an average of $3,900 this year — but may not know it yet.
They could get a big surprise when they prepare their tax returns next year.
Among those subject to this already-in-place tax increase are some families making less than $50,000 per year, and virtually all married couples earning between $100,000 per year and $500,000 per year, according to data published by the Congressional Budget Office.
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Tension Grows as G7 Ministers Set to Meet Over ‘International Currency War’
Finance ministers from the G7 will hold an informal meeting in Washington this week to discuss growing concerns that the world is in the grip of an “international currency war” as government’s manipulate their currencies to bolster exports.
The meeting on Friday, on the sidelines of the annual International Monetary Fund gathering, comes amid rising tensions between the western industrialised nations and China, whose prime minister, Wen Jiabao, is on a charm offensive in Europe this week.
In separate moves designed to weaken currencies, the Bank of Japan reinstated its zero interest rate policy and pledged to buy ¥5tn ($60bn) of assets, while Brazil doubled a tax on foreign investors buying local bonds to put a lid on a recent rally in its currency, the real. It was Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, who coined the “international currency war” phrase last week, following a series of interventions by central banks in Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan to make their currencies cheaper.
The concerns about currency manipulation have been heightened by the global recession, with many countries, including Britain, seeing a growth in exports as the means to recovery. A weaker currency means a country’s exports become more competitive.
The Bank of Japan set its interest rate target to a range of zero to 0.1%, returning to zero rates for the first time in more than four years and underlining worries about the Japanese economy, which is beset by falling prices. Japanese officials intervened in the currency markets last month to weaken the yen, but the impact was only short-lived. “The pace of recovery is slowing down partly due to the slowdown in overseas economies and the effects of the yen’s appreciation,” the bank said.
Before the IMF meeting, the Institute of International Finance, an industry group representing some of the world’s largest banks, urged action. In a letter to the IMF, Charles Dallara, the banking lobby’s managing director, called today for greater co-operation. “Urgent action is needed to arrest the disturbing trend towards unilateral moves on macroeconomic, trade and currency issues,” he said.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know it: Laurence Kotlikoff
‘Unofficial’ Liabilities
Based on the CBO’s data, I calculate a fiscal gap of $202 trillion, which is more than 15 times the official debt. This gargantuan discrepancy between our “official” debt and our actual net indebtedness isn’t surprising. It reflects what economists call the labeling problem. Congress has been very careful over the years to label most of its liabilities “unofficial” to keep them off the books and far in the future.
For example, our Social Security FICA contributions are called taxes and our future Social Security benefits are called transfer payments. The government could equally well have labeled our contributions “loans” and called our future benefits “repayment of these loans less an old age tax,” with the old age tax making up for any difference between the benefits promised and principal plus interest on the contributions.
The fiscal gap isn’t affected by fiscal labeling. It’s the only theoretically correct measure of our long-run fiscal condition because it considers all spending, no matter how labeled, and incorporates long-term and short-term policy.
$4 Trillion Bill
How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?
Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.
This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.
This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.
Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.
My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”
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Wall Street Extends Its Rally; S.&P. Rises Almost 2.1%
The rally continued Tuesday down on Wall Street. Markets extended a surge that began in September. Shares jumped after a better-than-expected report on the services sector in the United States and the Bank of Japan offered a range of other measures aimed at supporting that country’s economy. The latest snapshot on America’s service sector exceeded analysts’ expectations. The Institute for Supply Management said its service sector index rose to 53.2 last month from 51.5 in August, topping expectations of 52. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 1.8 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 2.1 percent, while the Nasdaq rose 2.36 percent.
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‘Brace Yourself, The War With Muslims Has Just Begun’: Defiant Times Square Bomber Laughs as He is Jailed for Life
The failed Times Square bomber was jailed for life today for his plot to bring carnage to the heart of New York.
Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad had packed explosives into the back of an SUV, but the detonator failed, sparing crowds of tourists.
Calling himself a Muslim solider, Shahzad had pleaded guilty in June to 10 terrorism and weapons counts.
Today, as he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole, he defiantly warned the court: ‘Brace yourself, the war with Muslims has just begun.’
He added: ‘The defeat of the U.S. is imminent, inshallah.’
During in a five-munite outburst, the 31-year-old thanked the judge for the sentence and said he was ‘happy with the deal that God has given me’.
Shahzad, a former finance worker from Connecticut was arrested two days after his attempted bombing on May 1.
He had parked a sport utility vehicle full of explosive materials in the crowded area and attempted to set the bomb off as he fled.
But the bomb fizzled before it could do any harm, doomed by faulty wiring and ingredients such as a low-grade fertiliser that couldn’t explode.
For greatest impact, he chose a crowded section of Times Square by studying an online streaming video of the so-called ‘Crossroads of the World’, prosecutors said.
He lit the fuse of his crude, homemade bomb, then fled on foot, pausing along the way to listen for the explosion that never came, court papers said.
A street vendor spotted smoke coming from the vehicle and alerted police, who quickly cleared the area.
The bomb attempt set off an intense investigation that culminated two days later with investigators plucking Shahzad off a Dubai-bound plane at a New York airport.
Prosecutors used video of an FBI test blast as evidence of what kind of damage authorities say the bomb could have done.
Technicians studied Shahzad’s design to build a working model that was detonated in a field in Pennsylvania in June.
The FBI test vehicle — fitted with 250lbs of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel, three 25lbs propane tanks and two five-gallon petrol cannisters — blew up with a force that ripped the sport utility vehicle in half.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Communists and Red Hand Clappers
A Report from the Progressive Rally
Various communist and socialist groups were photographed and filmed during the October 2 “One Nation Working Together” rally in Washington, D.C. But groups can show up at any event they want to and there is not much that organizers can do about it. The real controversy lies in whether they were officially invited to participate. In this context, the involvement of the Communist Party USA, a group that served as a subversive pawn of Moscow for decades, is relevant and newsworthy.
Since the Obama organization known as “Organizing for America” urged its supporters to attend the rally, this should prompt questions to the White House. But it’s doubtful the media will utter a peep.
Here are the facts: the CPUSA was an official “endorsing organization” and was given space to set up a literature table by the rally organizers. Indeed, a two-page official list of “One Nation March” organizations shows that it was given a highly coveted “reserved space.”
These officially-sanctioned groups also included the AFL-CIO and several left-wing labor unions; United for Peace and Justice, founded by veteran Marxist activist Leslie Cagan; Code Pink; the ANSWER Coalition, a front of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism; Green for All, the group once associated with former White House official Van Jones; Democratic Socialists of America, which helped give Barack Obama his start in Illinois state politics; and the NAACP.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Guilty Verdict on 16 of 17 Counts in Connecticut Triple Murder Case
A former parolee with a long history as a petty criminal was convicted of capital crimes on Tuesday for his part in a brutal home invasion in Cheshire, Conn. three years ago. The jury deliberated less than one full day.
The defendant, Steven J. Hayes, who, the testimony showed, described his eager anticipation of the crime with an “LOL” — laughing out loud — text message hours before taking part in murder, rape, kidnapping and arson at the home of the Petit family on Sorghum Mill Drive, was convicted of 16 of 17 crimes in all; he was acquitted of arson.
Of those, six are crimes that make him eligible for the death penalty. The same jury that sat during the three week trial is now to begin a penalty phase to determine if Mr. Hayes, 47, is to be sentenced to death. The trial is to continue with the penalty phase that could last a month.
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Obama Adviser Distributed Al Jazeera ‘Propaganda’
Works with Marxist who wants to dismantle U.S. capitalist system
A technology advisor to President Obama founded a group has been helping the Arab TV network Al Jazeera disseminate news footage of Israeli attacks inside the Gaza Strip.
Lawrence Lessig also works closely with a Marxist activist who has argued for the dismantling of the U.S. capitalist system and whose George Soros-funded group petitions for more government control of the media.
Lessig has been mentioned as a future candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC. He is an activist for reduced legal restrictions on copyright material and advised Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
He reportedly has known Obama since their days teaching law at the University of Chicago. Lessig now teaches at Harvard.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
O’Donnell Said China Plotting to Take Over US
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware said in a 2006 debate that China was plotting to take over America and claimed to have classified information about the country that she couldn’t divulge.
O’Donnell’s comments came as she and two other Republican candidates debated U.S. policy on China during Delaware’s 2006 Senate primary, which O’Donnell ultimately lost.
She said China had a “carefully thought out and strategic plan to take over America” and accused one opponent of appeasement for suggesting that the two countries were economically dependent and should find a way to be allies.
“That doesn’t work,” she said. “There’s much I want to say. I wish I wasn’t privy to some of the classified information that I am privy to.”
“A country that forces women to have abortions and mandates that you can only have one child and will not allow you the freedom to read the Bible, you think they can be our friend?” she asked. “We have to look at our history and realize that if they pretend to be our friend it’s because they’ve got something up their sleeve.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shultz to Obama: ‘You’re Out of Your Mind’
Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz blasted President Obama Monday night for his scheduled July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
[…]
Mr. Shultz, 89, made the unusually blunt remarks at a packed dinner for the International Republican Institute — the GOP-aligned counterpart to the National Democratic Institute — where he was receiving the organization’s 2010 Freedom Award.
“You’re out of your mind,” he said at a question-and-answer forum, when asked his opinion of the president’s drawdown date. “How can you say that ‘if I haven’t won by six or nine months from now, I’m leaving?’ “
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The Boy of Three Trapped in the World of Thomas the Tank Engine After Watching Show for Five Hours a Day
He should be running around laughing and playing with the other children at his nursery.
But because he watches so much TV, one three-year-old boy has already become cut off from his peers, trapped in his own ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ world instead.
The toddler, known only as Max, has spent so long watching the show that he barely speaks to other children at his nursery school and instead wanders around in a daze obsessively repeating phrases from the TV programme.
He watches the cartoon for as many as five hours a day — and doctors fear that it has had a long-term effect on his development and communication skills.
The programme is full of catchphrases, such as the character Thomas saying he wants to be a ‘really useful engine’ and exclaiming ‘well bust my buffers’, or those of his faithful coaches Annie and Claribel ‘We feel so full,we feel so full’.
Another well-known phrase goes ‘Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch, fell in the ditch,’ from the episode which shows the big engine purposely running into a ditch to avoid pulling a goods’ train.
The boy, who lives in the U.S, is being treated by a specialist in California.
Doctors are so alarmed that they have reported his behaviour in a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
The youngster’s mother reportedly lets him watch as much TV as he likes. He also likes to watch the Disney Channel, which includes popular programmes such as Hannah Montana and Phineas And Ferb.
However, his case is by no means unique and experts warn that children who watch too much television may be in danger of suffering learning difficulties later on.
Some doctors believe the problem is becoming so widespread that toddlers younger than two should be banned from watching any TV at all.
Researchers in Britain fear that television is increasingly hindering children’s communication skills and ability to concentrate as well as contributing to rates of obesity, because screen-based activities mean they are less inclined to be physically active.
They are considering drawing up strict guidelines which could even advise parents to ban toddlers from watching TV.
Stuart Biddle is chairman of the ‘sedentary behaviour and obesity’ working party, which is currently considering guidelines for the Department of Health.
He said: ‘We are considering what guidelines should say, and a statement around no television for the under-twos is potentially one of the more controversial ones.’
Some countries are already considering a similar policy.
Last year, the Australian government began drawing up guidance suggesting a ban for children under two.
The advice, which is being finalised, also recommends that those aged between two and five should watch a maximum of one hour a day.
France has also banned any programmes specifically being made for those under five.
| — Hat tip: DS | [Return to headlines] |
Three States Have Voter Initiatives to Opt Out of Obamacare
Following the lead of the successful Missouri initiative, which passed with 71 percent of the vote, Arizonans, Coloradans and Oklahomans will decide this fall whether to approve proposed constitutional amendments that would allow them to opt out of key provisions of President Obama’s signature national health care law.
The three initiatives prohibit the government from forcing individuals to buy health care insurance — a “mandate” that critics say violates the U.S. Constitution — and would allow patients and employers to pay providers directly without penalty. The idea is to protect state residents from “the ongoing takeover of health care by government,” backers of the Colorado campaign say.
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Times Square Bomber Sentenced to Life
[Associated Press report]
[…]
“You appear to be someone who was capable of education, and I do hope you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people,” Judge Cedarbaum told Shahzad after she announced his mandatory life sentence, which under federal sentencing rules will keep him behind bars until he dies.
Shahzad, 31, responded that the “Koran gives us the right to defend, and that’s all I’m doing.”
[…]
At another point, he said, “The defeat of the U.S. is imminent.”
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Trucks Encircle ABC, CBS, NBC, Challenge ‘Liberal’ Media to ‘Tell the Truth’
Four billboard trucks bearing the message “Stop the Liberal Bias, Tell the Truth!” began circling the Manhattan headquarters of ABC, CBS, NBC, and the New York Times on Friday. The trucks will do so for eight hours every weekday for the next four weeks as part of a campaign run by the Media Research Center, a watchdog group that analyzes the media for liberal bias.
Similar trucks also are operating in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, passing the offices of the broadcast networks, the Washington Post, CNN, the Newseum, the National Press Club and Politico, and ads about the campaign are running on numerous Web sites and on conservative talk radio programs.
L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center (MRC), the parent organization of CNSNews.com, said the goal of this 2010 “Tell the Truth!” campaign “is simple: to force the liberals in the media to stop pushing an agenda and just tell the truth.”
The “liberal media news networks” need to report the facts about “massive growth in government and its control over our lives, and about spending, deficits and debt,” he told CNSNews.com. “They also need to tell the truth about the efforts to turn our country into a European-style Socialist state.”
[…]
he MRC launched the 2010 “Tell The Truth!” campaign in September and, in addition to the truck ads, the watchdog group is running similar ads on the conservative Web sites RushLimbaugh.com, MarkLevinShow.com, The Drudge Report and Hannity.com.
Also, the MRC is posting billboard ads of its “Tell the Truth!” message in nine cities, including Pittsburgh, Little Rock, Las Vegas, Dallas, Orlando, Seattle and Milwaukee. TV ads will be broadcast on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” program. Further, throughout this month an ad will run on the popular conservative talk radio program The Mark Levin Show.
The “Demand the Liberal Media Tell the Truth Campaign” is here: http://www.mrcaction.org/558/petition.asp?PID=26339836
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Drone Death Man ‘Being Groomed to Head UK Terror Group’
A British terror suspect killed in a drone attack was being groomed to head an al-Qaeda splinter group in the UK, the BBC’s Newsnight has learned.
The man, named in Pakistan as Abdul Jabbar, was killed in September by the attack in Pakistan.
Newsnight spoke to a “a trusted, senior security source” overseas who said Jabbar intended to lead a group called the Islamic Army of Great Britain.
Whitehall officials have declined to comment on the BBC’s report.
Europe plot
The programme also said the security source confirmed that Jabbar was a British citizen with a British wife. He was living in the Jhelum area of Punjab in Pakistan.
According to Newsnight, intelligence agencies monitored a meeting of 300 militants three months ago in the Ambarshaga area of North Waziristan, attended by Jabbar and militants from the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The source said that Jabbar was put forward as the leader of the new terrorist group, which was tasked with preparing Mumbai-style commando attacks against targets in Britain, France and Germany.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
France: 12 Arrested in Counterterrorism Cases
PARIS — Police in southern France arrested 12 people in sweeps against suspected Islamic militant networks on Tuesday, including three men being checked for potential links to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan, officials said. The roundups were part of two entirely different counterterrorism cases under investigation by French judges, and fell on the same day only by coincidence, one police official in Paris said. Firearms were seized in one of the sweeps, another official said. The arrests came as France and many other European nations have stepped up terrorism alert vigilance amid what has been described as an abstract though heightened threat in recent weeks. The U.S. government warned Americans over the weekend to use caution when traveling in Europe. In one of the cases, nine suspected Islamic militants were detained in southeastern Marseille and its suburbs, and authorities turned up at least one automatic rifle and a pump gun, the officials said. In Tuesday’s other roundup, two men were arrested in Marseille and another in southwestern Bordeaux on suspected ties to a Frenchman arrested in Naples, Italy, last month accused of links to an Afghan recruiting ring. A ranking French police official said the man arrested in Naples is a 24 year old from the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers named Ryad Hennouni who had traveled to Afghanistan. The official denied Italian media reports that the young man had a kit to produce bombs, saying material found was insignificant. The official was not authorized to discuss the case publicly so asked not to be named.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Conservatives Slam Wulff for Islam Remarks
Leading conservative German politicians assailed President Christian Wulff on Tuesday for comments intimating Islam had gained a status comparable to Christianity and Judaism in Germany.
Wulff riled his fellow Christian Democrats by saying Islam had become an important part of German society in a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of German reunification on Sunday.
While several Christian Democrats and their Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) allies grudgingly admitted Muslims had earned a place in Germany, they bristled at the idea they were changing the core social fabric of the country.
“The speech was easily misunderstood,” CSU politician Norbert Geis told Bild on Tuesday. “If the president wanted to equate Islam in Germany with Christianity and Judaism, then I’d consider that wrong.”
Christian Democrat Wolfgang Bosbach, the head of parliament’s interior affairs committee, also said Islam could not expect to be put on the same level as the faiths based solely on the New and Old Testament.
“Islam has certainly become part of the reality of daily life in Germany, but we belong to a Christian-Judeo tradition,” he said.
In his first major speech on Sunday since taking office in July, Wulff extended the hand of friendship to Muslims, saying the challenge of integrating them into society was comparable to reunifying the country after the Cold War.
“Christianity is of course part of Germany. Judaism is of course part of Germany. This is our Judeo-Christian history … But now Islam is also part of Germany,” he said in his speech. “When German Muslims write to me to say ‘you are our president’, I reply with all my heart ‘yes, of course I am your president’.”
His comments were welcomed by leading German Muslim groups as an important sign that they were not second-class citizens in Germany.
But out of 1,008 Germans surveyed by YouGov for a poll published on Tuesday, a whopping 66 percent disagreed with their president’s views on Islam. Only 24 percent of those surveyed believed Muslims were as much a part of the country as much as Christians and Jews.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Judge Hits Out at Store Over Shoplifting
TESCO SHOULD put its own system in place to deal with shoplifters and not have the Irish taxpayer foot the bill for the huge cost involving in bringing people before the courts, a District Court judge said yesterday.
Judge Mary Fahy said the taxpayer was paying for Garda and prison officers who have to transport prisoners to court for just stealing a bottle of wine.
The judge made her comments at Galway District Court yesterday while dealing with Lithuanian, Nerijus Rudkauskas (38), of no fixed abode who pleaded guilty to stealing a €6.99 bottle of wine from Tesco in Galway on August 21st.
Insp Mick O’Dwyer said Rudkauskas was caught on camera stuffing the bottle of wine into his trousers and leaving the store without paying for it.
Three prison officers had to accompany the accused from Cork Prison for the brief hearing
The judge said: “Why doesn’t Tesco deal with this sort of thing without calling the garda. There should be some system put in place where Tesco deals with its own shoplifting problems. The Irish taxpayer is paying for all of this — the Garda escort to court and all that,” she said.
Hearing Rudkauskas is serving a three-month sentence in Cork Prison for a similar theft, Judge Fahy said she would not impose a custodial sentence on him for one bottle of wine and she took this latest theft charge into account.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Venice Politician Slams Neapolitan Songs on Gondolas
Venice, 1 Oct. (AKI) — A Venice politican demanded that his city’s world-famous gondoliers serenade tourists with traditional Venetian songs instead of “culturally deficient” Neapolitan classics like ‘O sole Mio’.
“Most of the songs sung by gondoliers come from southern Italy. These culture and attention to Venice’s identity,” Alberto Mazzonetto, a Venice city councillor told Adnkronos.
“This is detrimental to tourists as it presents a distorted image of the city of Venice as some kind of new Disneyland, which has little to do with the place,” said Mazzonetto, who belongs to the Northern League party.
Gondoliers are not to blame for the lack of Venetian songs crooned to tourists aboard the traditional gondolas as they ply the canals of the lagoon city, according to Mazzonetto.
“It is the fault of the Gondola Authority, which incidentally, receives 600,000 euros each year from the city of Venice. This body has a lot of power,” he said.
Neapolitan songs were robustly defended by Italian singer-songwriter Nino D’Angelo, a native of Naples in an interview with Adnkronos.
“O Sole Mio is a famous Neapolitan song that’s known all over the world. It’s one of the most beautiful songs and I don’t believe anyone has forced gondoliers to sing it,” D’Angelo told Adnkronos.
“On the contrary, I think tourists request it — it’s not just a Neapolitan song but a world anthem.”
But Venetian singer and former gondolier, Michele Bozzato, said he would like to see a revival of Venetian songs.
“I’d like gondoliers to gradually introduce more Venetian songs into their repertoire, teaching the listener to enjoy them,” said Bozzato, who is president of the ‘Venetian Notes’ music association.
The Northern League began as a break-away movement calling for Italy’s wealthy north to succeed from the rest of Italy. Members are not shy about bashing Rome and the impoverished south that they consider wasteful and corrupt.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
More Finns Tying the Knot With Foreigners
Finland is becoming home to an increasing number of multicultural families. An estimated 150,000 people belong to a multicultural family in Finland.
Around 3,000 multicultural couples — where one partner is a Finn and the other is a foreigner — tie the knot in Finland annually. According to Statistics Finland, Finnish men most often marry foreign women from Russia, Estonia or Thailand. Meanwhile, Finnish women tend to marry foreign men from Turkey, Britain or the United States.
“We are moving about, travelling and working abroad more than ever. The opportunity to meet people from different cultures is much greater than in the past,” says Elli Heikkilä, the research director at the Institute of Migration.
Multicultural families face a variety of challenges that mainstream Finnish families may take for granted — such as choosing which country to live in and learning a new language and culture. However, Heikkilä says there are also many positive aspects to belonging to such a family.
“When children with parents from two different cultures grow up, they have the ability to get along with people from a variety of backgrounds. It is a kind of richness to be able to understand differences and a variety of viewpoints and cultures from an early age.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Caught on CCTV: Moment Gay Saudi Prince Attacked Manservant in Hotel Lift… Months Before He ‘Sexually Abused and Battered Him to Death’
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A Saudi Prince battered his manservant lover to death in a ‘ferocious’ sexually motivated attack at an exclusive Mayfair hotel, the Old Bailey heard today.
Saud Abdulaziz Bin Nasir Al Saud, the grandson of the billionaire King of Saudi Arabia, murdered Bandar Abdulaziz after subjecting him to weeks of physical and sexual abuse, the jury was told.
The royal downed champagne and six ‘sex on the beach’ cocktails before repeatedly punching his 32-year-old aide in the head, knocking out teeth and leaving him with severe brain injuries in the executive suite they shared at the five star Landmark hotel.
He also strangled him with such force that he fractured bones in his neck and bit him on both cheeks in way that clearly had a ‘sexual connotation’, the jury was told.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Households Face £769-a-Year Rise in Power Bills to ‘Rewire the Nation’ For Green Energy
A £200billion plan to switch to green energy could cost households an average of £769 a year, it was claimed today.
Industry regulator, Ofgem, said a massive construction plan is needed to build new wind farms, power stations, including nuclear, and a modern national grid.
The first stage, a £32billion plan to build new pipelines and pylon networks, has been given the go-ahead.
Ofgem said this element will cost households a relatively modest sum of an average of £6 a year.
However, industry analysts said the full £200billion cost would put up the average annual bill of £1,194 by £769 a year — or 68 per cent — to £2,000.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jobsworth Council Killjoy Puts Spoke in the Wheels of Cancer Charity Bike Ride
With their annual charity bike ride in its eighth year, the organisers were confident the wheels were in motion for a perfect day.
But they hadn’t counted on an over-zealous council jobsworth.
After receiving a handful of complaints about the noise coming from a public address system, an environmental health officer arrived at the event.
The clipboard-wielding official demanded that the PA system was switched off — before hiding in nearby bushes to continue monitoring the event in Milton Keynes with sound measuring equipment.
Visitors were so upset by the ‘heavy-handed’ intervention that many went home, forcing the cancellation of an after-party that was expected to add £2,000 to the £17,000 sponsorship raised by the cyclists for Cancer Research UK.
Milton Keynes Council is investigating the approach taken after the charity made an official complaint.
Carol Osborne, 66, who spent a year helping to organise the event, said the council worker’s attitude was ‘unpleasant, uncalled for and unprofessional’.
She added: ‘He came up to me with no introduction and just started yelling. He was shouting, “Do you realise I can close you down?” He was on some sort of power trip. He was right up in my face yelling and screaming through his teeth, practically growling at me.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Schizophrenic Man Hooked on Cannabis Stabbed Stranger 81 Times… After NHS Said He ‘Posed No Danger’
The family of a man murdered in his bed by a paranoid schizophrenic labelled the investigation into his death a ‘whitewash’ after it found no-one was to blame.
Landscape gardener Daniel Quelch, 33, suffered 81 knife wounds in a frenzied attack after Benjamin Frankum broke into his parents’ bungalow.
Frankum, 25, then calmly told Mr Quelch’s two terrified young children that ‘Daddy was a bad man’ and he was going to be their ‘new daddy’.
An independent inquiry into cannabis-user Frankum’s NHS care and treatment revealed that he had been assessed for detention under the Mental Health Act weeks before the killing — but was not found to be a danger to the public.
The report concluded that Mr Quelch’s murder could neither have been ‘predicted nor prevented’.
But his parents Barbara, 62, and Ernie, 66, said that NHS South East Coast, which had been responsible for Frankum’s care since 2001, had seriously failed in his treatment.
Company director Mrs Quelch said: ‘We hold this NHS trust responsible for the death of our son as it did not look after Frankum properly and did not act on the warning signs. He was released into the community without proper support or monitoring.
‘He started smoking cannabis again, could not keep his house or himself clean and stopped taking his medication.
‘Even Frankum’s family were concerned and they told us that they were literally screaming down the phone at his care co-ordinator that he was not taking his medication.
‘Yet nothing was done and seven weeks later he murdered our son.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Two Teenage Girls Charged With Snatching Baby From His Sister’s Arms and Hurling Him Under a Bus
Two teenage girls have been charged with snatching a seven-month-old baby boy from his sister’s arms and throwing him under a double-decker bus.
The two 14-year-old girls were arrested in the aftermath of the attack on Tavish Dabedeen, who was allegedly snatched from his 13-year-old sister’s arms and hurled under the oncoming bus in Croydon.
The teenage girls, who cannot be named, have been charged with a range of offences after the incident outside West Croydon station on July 27 this year.
Both of the accused girls have been charged with common assault and shouting racial abuse — and one of them an additional charge of causing actual bodily harm.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Europe Still Doesn’t Get Islam
Like an old car starting up on a cold winter’s day, European governments have been slowly waking up to the realization that all those jolly Islamic people might be a problem after all. Unfortunately they don’t understand the dimensions of the problem. To them the riots, the bombings and the murders are only part of a culture clash, with challenges no different than any other minority group. That is why they prefer to focus on schools and burqas, while ignoring the violence. The thinking is that this is still a cultural problem that can be corrected with 3 drops of educational indoctrination, and 6 drops of enforced integration for the natives whose discriminatory attitudes are just making things worse. The problem is that their model is wrong.
The Islamic problem is not merely a clash of cultures, but also a clash of civilizations. Had it been merely a clash of cultures, Europe would only be in the same boat as America. Troubled, but not immediately fatal. Instead Europe is facing a clash of civilizations. The cultural and religious dimensions of the conflict underlie a larger perception on the Muslim side, that they are fighting to expand the borders of the Muslim East, rather than trying to be accepted in the Christian West.
As Americans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their experience with multiculturalism, Europeans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their inexperience with multiculturalism. Both make the mistake of assuming that Islamic violence is part of the multicultural norm, rather than the resumption of an old invasion of Europe. The chaos and confusion in a multicultural society can make it hard to spot real threats against the background noise, frustrations and raw nerves of cultural friction. It becomes easy to lump in complaints about too many Indian restaurants, with complaints about angry mosque worshipers. And it becomes all too easy for authorities to tell people to just make the best of it, while ignoring the situation. The authorities are certain that eventually a natural balance will arise a generation or two down the road. The slow realization that the native born Muslims are actually more radicalized than their fathers and grandfathers is worrying them, but not in a particularly constructive way. Instead they are torn between England’s accommodation policies and France’s integration policies, neither of which get at the heart of the problem.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Is Bosnian Islam Going the Way of Malaysia?
The Islamisation project of Bosnia’s new elite trained in Malaysia may complicate social harmony and its entry into the EU
When Bosnian diplomat Ensar Eminovic provocatively declared “Saya buatan Malaysia” (“I am a product of Malaysia”) to the Malaysian press last year, his assertion must not be simply seen as an attempt at securing investments.
It is, in fact, symptomatic of the shape of things to come. With a significant number of its top leaders educated in the Southeast Asian nation, Bosnia-Herzegovina is on a steady course to becoming the Malaysia of the Balkans.
Eminovic figures among some 300 Bosnian elites who have graduated from Malaysian universities. Unofficially coined the “Bosnian Mafia” in Malaysia, this highly influential group comprises “ambassadors, CEOs of major companies and up-and-coming politicians” by Eminovic’s own admission.
As they work towards rebuilding a nation ravaged by the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, this group’s most significant impact will be on Bosnian religiosity, especially its society’s imaginings of Islam.
After all, most were trained at the state-sponsored International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), whose prerogative is to “integrate Islamic revealed knowledge and values in all disciplines” so as to bring about “the restoration of the Ummah’s leading role in all branches of knowledge”.
If Bosnia’s appropriation of Malaysian Islam continues, then its practice of public Islam could develop in several ways.
First, Bosniaks (or Bosnian Muslims who make up about 45% of its nearly 4 million population) might embrace the “otherworldly” but inclusive aspects of Malaysian Islam inspired by Sufi mysticism. Second, they could import a reformist version of Malaysian Islam that does not see a conflict between modernity and faith, which has been championed these days by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Here, the IIUM has produced progressive Malaysian Muslim figures like human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: ‘500 Al-Qaeda Offspring Born in Northern Mountains’
Algiers, 4 Oct. (AKI) — Some 500 children have been born to Al-Qaeda militants in the mountains of northern Algeria, according to the head of the country’s national reconciliation commission, Marwan Azzi
The children are aged between five and 15 were born to militants hiding out in Algeria’s rugged and mountainous Kabylie region, according to Azzi.
“Our commission has received 100 files on these cases and so far we have managed to get 37 couples to marry in order to legitimise children born out in the mountains,” Azzi was cited as telling pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi.
In the 1990s, the children’s parents first fought for the feared Algerian Islamist armed group GIA, then for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
The GSPC in 2007 aligned itself with Al-Qaeda to form the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Many of the children’s fathers have now laid down their arms handed themselves in to Algeria’s authorities, taking advantage of a government amnesty, Azzi said.
Algeria was wracked by a brutal civil war in the 1990s after elections won by an Islamist party were annulled. An estimated 200,000 people died and despite a government amnesty announced in 2005, Islamist violence has not ended.
Since Spring 2007, when two suicide bombings in Algiers claimed by AQIM killed over 30 people, the army has conducted extensive operations in Kabylie in a bid to flush out Al-Qaeda militants.
Approximately 2,500 Islamists were released under the 2005 amnesty, many of whom may have returned to militant groups in Algeria, according to intelligence reports.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Do Jews Have Civil Rights?
A striking aspect of the so-called building freeze in Judea and Samaria that expired last week is that an enormous amount of construction went on throughout the last 10 months. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria were not only building without restrictions, the US, Europe and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf bankrolled much of their construction.
The presumptive purpose of the freeze was to prevent Israel from creating “facts on the ground” that would prejudice the outcome of the so-called peace talks with Fatah. This goal is justified on the basis of the Palestinian misinterpretation of a clause in the 1995 agreement between Israel and the PLO in which they agreed that “neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”
The clause was never intended to refer to construction, and “neither side,” of course, relates to both Israel and the Palestinians.
But since the agreement was signed, while the Palestinian misinterpretation has been widely adopted, only one side has been held to account…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Imam Beats Bangladeshi Worker With Iron Rod
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 4: A Bangladeshi cleaning company worker at a mosque in Jahra has been admitted to the area hospital Tuesday. He was reportedly beaten with an iron rod by the young Kuwaiti imam of the mosque, reports Al-Anba daily quoting medical sources. The same sources said the leg of the victim has been badly fractured.
This happened when the imam accused the Bangladeshi of stealing a TV set from the mosque. He was arrested by police and released after interrogation and this angered the imam so he took the law in his hands and punished the Bangladeshi.
The daily gave no other details.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Another 20 Oil Tankers Burned as Pakistani Taliban Claims Responsibility for Third Attack in Three Days
Militants in Pakistan have attack and burned at least 20 tankers carrying oil bound for Nato and U.S. troops in Afghanistan for the third time in three days.
Three people were killed and eight wounded in the early-morning attack on trucks waiting to use the Torkham border crossing, the more important of Pakistan’s two main supply lines into Afghanistan
Last week Pakistan closed northerly Torkham border crossing — which is used to deliver fuel and other non-lethal supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan — in apparent protest of a Nato helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘German Taliban’ Video Posted on Al-Qaeda Website
A recruiting video produced by German militants and posted on an al-Qaeda website has cast fresh light on how European Islamists are joining insurgents fighting in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal areas. The 51-minute film shows German-speaking gunmen, armed with AK-47s, light machine guns and mortars, apparently taking on Pakistani troops in South Waziristan and Orakzai, areas close to the border with Afghanistan. They include a clean-shaven man of Caucasian appearance, who wears a baseball hat pulled low on his face and sunglasses. The role of the “German Taliban”, as analysts have dubbed them, emerged last week when security sources said eight Germans were believed to be at the centre of a plot by al-Qaeda cells to launch commando attacks on European cities. German authorities believe at least 70 German nationals have travelled to Pakistan for training, with about a third returning home. A drone strike on Monday killed eight militants, including possibly five Germans, according to Pakistani security sources, as part of a US surge in attacks to kill the plotters. The new video is filmed in the style of a travelogue — offering a running commentary on the beauty of the region’s forested valleys and scenic waterfalls — but includes a chilling call to arms in German, exhorting young Muslims to join them in their fight against Pakistan and its American ally.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Religious Intolerance Rising Among Indonesian Muslims
About 57.8 per cent of Muslims oppose the construction of churches or other non-Muslim place of worship. Only 27.6 per cent accept that non-Muslim teachers teach Muslims. The absence of government policy and unrestrained schools and teachers are among the causes of the rising fundamentalism.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Recent surveys indicate that Indonesian Muslims are increasingly intolerant of other religions, this according to a report published by the Jakarta-based Islamic National University (UIN). This has taken the form of non-acceptance by Muslims of non-Muslim teachers in public schools and opposition to new churches or non-Muslim places of worship.
The survey, which compares data from 2001 to data from 2010, was conducted by the Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM), an independent research centre at the State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta, headed by executive director Jajat Burhanudin.
Each year, the PPIM interviews about 1,200 Muslim men and women, 17 years and older, most of whom are elementary to junior high school graduates.
The data shows that Muslim opposition to churches and non-Muslim religious buildings rose from 40.5 per cent to 57.8 per cent.
In 2010, around 27.6 per cent of those surveyed said they did mind if a non-Muslim taught their children at school, a 6.2 per cent increase compared to 2008 (21.4 percent), but still lower than in 2007 (33.5 percent).
According to PPIM executive director Burhanudin, greater intolerance is closely linked to Islamic fundamentalism, whose rise is directly related to the absence of policies to counter it in favour of a more moderate Islam,
At the same time, more and more, teachers in Muslim schools and colleges are using “emotional appeals” against non-Muslims, acting independently of any Muslim association, which makes it hard for the government to monitor them.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Pamphlet: Parliamentary Parlance Reflects Fear and Loathing Towards Immigrants
Several Finnish politicians have for a long time pursued a “very biased, narrow-minded, and prejudiced” manner of speaking, objecting to humanitarian immigration in particular and to an increase in the number of asylum-seekers.
This is the claim of freelance writer Jussi Förbom in a pamphlet published on Wednesday, for which he went through the minutes of Parliament since 1998.
Förbom’s assumption had been that the parliamentary parlance particularly relating to asylum policy would have hardened and become more critical.
However, the minutes revealed that the language used in the chamber has been similar for quite some years.
“Fear and loathing towards foreigners have been expressed already over many years in the discussion club that is the most prestigious forum in the country”, Förbom notes.
Förbom charges that among those who represent the hard line are for example Ben Zyskowicz (National Coalition Party), Kari Rajamäki (SDP), and Raimo Vistbacka (True Finns). The booklet contains numerous examples of their statements.
According to Ben Zyskowicz, who was present at the launch of the pamphlet, seeing matters as problems is a common style of parlance in Parliament, the purpose of which is to react to problems.
Zyskowicz notes further that the number of debates has also increased mostly because the number of government bills relating to immigration and brought before Parliament is greater than before.
Zyskowicz also said that it is an MP’s duty to look at immigration from the Finnish perspective, not only from the angle of asylum-seekers.
Förbom said that Parliament should also have discussions on fellow men and women who need help.
“MPs do not seem to realise that it is all about human beings, not about some remote ‘asylum shoppers’ or ‘anchor children’ as they are described in the more sensational terminology”, Förbom says.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Pakistani Immigrant Arrested for Wife’s Murder
Modena, 4 Oct. (AKI) — A Pakistani immigrant was arrested with his son on suspicion of bludgeoning his wife to death near the northern Italian city of Modena after she defended her daughter for refusing an arranged marriage.
Ahmad Khan Butt, a 53-year-old manual worker allegedly killed his 46-year-old wife Begm Shnez during a violent quarrel after she tried to stop him trying to kill their 20-year-old daughter Nosheen with a wrench.
Butt’s 19-year-old son Humar was arrested on suspicion of helping his father bludgeon his mother to death with a rock and attack his sister. Nosheen was left with a severe head wound and was admitted to hospital in nearby Baggiovara di Modena in a critical condition, where she was visited by local politicians.
Neighbours in the suburb of Novi di Modena, where the family lived, reported hearing blood-curdling screams coming from the family’s apartment on Sunday, but were told by Butt and his son to mind their own business.
The increasingly bitter and violent quarrels had reportedly been going for months in the Butt household after Noshreen incensed her father by opposing an arranged marriage with a cousin.
Italy’s equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna announced she intended to act as plaintiff in any trial against Butt.
“This is a way to express solidarity with young women immigrants and to make it clear that our country will always defend them against attacks on their freedom and rights as citizens.
“Whoever commits acts of violence against women or even thinks they can murder cannot stay in our country, because Italy unequivocally rejects any form of abuse of women,” Carfagna said on Monday.
She called on Italy’s judges to deal severely with such crimes and young women to report them “to prevent future tragedies”.
Italy’s largest Muslim umbrella group UCOII said it deplored Shnez’s murder, which reflected “traditions regrettably still in existence in many countries around the world”.
“No forced marriage can ever be justified under Islam,” UCOII vice-president Patrizia Khadija Del Monte said on Monday.
“It is truly a cultural scourge with bloody consequences,” she said.
Several ‘honour’ killings committed by Muslim immigrants have shocked Italy in the past few years. The most recent was that 18-year-old Moroccan girl, Sanaa, who was stabbed to death by her father, Moroccan immigrant El Ketaoui Dafani for having a love affair with a 32-year-old Italian man.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Woman Killed in Italy Over Arranged Marriage
A Pakistani woman has died in Italy after her husband beat her with a brick for opposing the arranged marriage of her daughter, triggering a wave of outrage among Italian politicians on Monday.
The daughter, 20-year-old Nosheen Butt, was admitted to hospital with a cranial traumatism and a broken arm after her 19-year-old brother beat her with a stick in the courtyard of their building in Novi, near the north Italy city of Modena. According to Modena prosecutors’ initial findings, the father Ahmad Khan Butt, a 53-year-old construction worker, threw his wife to the ground and beat her with a brick while the brother Umair attacked his sister.
“The victim did not want her daughter to have an unhappy relationship like the one that had been forced on her,” said deputy Modena prosecutor Lucia Musti, who is in charge of the investigation. “The mother and the daughter were on the same side and this could be called a ‘cultural’ homicide because in addition to domestic violence there is the issue of the traditions that may have motivated the crime,” Ms Musti said. The family’s three other children have been taken in by Italian social services. The Italian political class reacted with indignation at the incident which was highly similar to the cases of a girl of Pakistani origin in 2006 and a Moroccan girl in 2009 who wanted to lead Western lives with Italian boyfriends. Livia Turco, a senior politician in the Democrats of the Left main opposition party, condemned “arranged marriages and violence against women” on the pretext of “ethnic traditions” that she blasted as “medieval practices”.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Art Exhibit Depicting Jesus in a Sex Act Sparks Outrage in Colorado
An exhibit at a Colorado art gallery is stirring up outrage from critics who say it depicts Jesus Christ in a sexual act.
Enrique Chagoya’s “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals,” created in 2003, is a multipanel piece in which “cultural and religious icons are presented with humor and placed in contradictory, unexpected and sometimes controversial contexts,” the artist’s publisher, Shark’s Ink, said on its website.
The lithograph, on display since Sept. 11 at the tax-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark. It includes several images of Jesus, including one in which he appears to be receiving oral sex from a man as the word “orgasm” appears beside Jesus’ head.
[…]
But the artist, a professor at Stanford University, said he was simply making a statement on problems he sees with religious institutions, including the sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church.
[…]
Don Surber of the Daily Mail says he wondered if Chagoya and his supporters would feel the same way if someone depicted Muhammad in the same way.
“This has been done so many times before that it is a cliche. In the artworld, such work belongs next to the Velvet Elvis and the dogs playing poker,” Surber wrote in his blog. “If this ‘artist’ had any courage, he’d show Muhammad instead of Jesus. That’s cutting edge. That’s breaking new ground. That’s dangerous. That’s truly being willing to sacrifice for the sake of art.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Should We be Defending Islam, Despite Its Homophobia?
It’s been said that politics can make for the strangest of bedfellows, and the same can sometimes be said for civil rights matters as well. The recent headline-dominating cases of what’s been described as Islamophobia — notably controversy surrounding the Park51 Islamic Community Center and a certain Gainesville pastor’s threat to burn the Quran — have served as examples of just that to many within the LGBT community as well as the wider world.
As conservative voices rallied against Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s still undeterred plans to construct Park51 two blocks from the site of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, progressive voices, including many LGBT activists, spoke in defense of the center and, more broadly, Muslim Americans’ right to religious freedom.
LGBT support has taken on deeper importance as reports of attacks on mosques and threats against Muslim people have continued to spring up across the country in recent weeks. In North Carolina, Republican congressional candidate Renee Ellmers released a campaign ad labeling the center a “victory mosque” and condemning her opponent, Democrat Bob Etheridge, for his silence on the issue.
In Murfreesboro, Tenn., opponents to a proposed mosque there have sued the county, arguing the construction will preach jihad and result in a “Sharia law takeover.” A mysterious fire broke out among the construction equipment; observers don’t consider it a coincidence. Last week, a Muslim prayer center in St. Louis, Mo., was marked with a pentagram, resulting in the condemnation of a New York City Satanist leader.
As of last month, a Washington Post-ABC News poll reported nearly half of Americans had a “generally unfavorable opinion” of Islam. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported last month that claims of job discrimination by Muslims has increased 20 percent in the last year, 60 percent compared to five years ago.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
How the Heat From a Laptop Can ‘Toast’ The Skin on Your Thighs
Balancing your laptop on your knees could cause permanent discolouration of the skin and, in rare cases, cancer, doctors have warned.
The heat generated by the computers can cause a nettle sting-like rash — a condition named ‘toasted skin syndrome’.
Common in the days before central heating, when people huddled around fires and electric heaters to stay warm, it is making a comeback in the laptop generation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Smarter Than You Think: Aiming to Learn as We Do, A Machine Teaches Itself
By Steve Lohr
Researchers are fine-tuning a computer system that is trying to master semantics by learning more like a human.
| — Hat tip: Hullah Ballou | [Return to headlines] |
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