New York Poll Finds Anger at Albany and Wide Edge for Andrew M. Cuomo
New York voters are profoundly pessimistic about the state economy, worried that they or someone in their household will be laid off in the coming year, and convinced that Albany is rife with corruption.
But in the race for governor, they are rallying not around the gruff outsider who has promised to take a baseball bat to Albany, but around an insider who has spent much of his adult life working in government: Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo.
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Robots Are Replacing Middle Class Jobs
The middle class is disappearing and the problem is deeper than politics. How will we understand work in the coming age of robotics?
Last April, the MIT economist David Autor published a report that looked at the shifting employment landscape in America. He came to this scary conclusion: Our workforce is splitting in two. The number of high-skill, high-income jobs (think lawyers or research scientists or managers) is growing. So is the number of low-skill, low-income jobs (think food preparation or security guards). Those jobs in the middle? They’re disappearing. Autor calls it “the polarization of job opportunities.”
These days, all of us, from President Obama on down, are thinking about jobs. The unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent, we’ve watched the ground disappear from under Detroit and Wall Street, and there’s a pervading sense that other industries might be next.
It’s not that the issue isn’t getting attention. The Princeton economist Paul Krugman is out there telling Congress to spend more money to create jobs. The former secretary of labor Robert Reich is arguing for tax breaks for the bottom brackets so people can buy stuff again. Here’s the thing, though: The erosion of the middle class is a phenomenon that’s bigger than the Great Recession. Middle-range jobs have been getting scarcer since the late 1970s, and wages for the ones that are still around have remained stagnant.
In his report, Autor says that a leading explanation for the disappearance of the middle class is “ongoing automation and off-shoring of middle-skilled ‘routine’ tasks that were formerly performed primarily by workers with moderate education (a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree).” Routine tasks, he explains, are ones that “can be carried out successfully by either a computer executing a program or, alternatively, by a comparatively less-educated worker in a developing country.”
The culprit, in other words, is technology. The hard truth—and you don’t see it addressed in news reports—is that the middle class is disappearing in large part because technology is rendering middle-class skills obsolete.
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UK: Cambridge University ‘May Go Private’
The university is considering the possibility of breaking free of Government control following claims a proposed reform of higher education will undermine its global standing. It comes just days after a review of university finance called for the existing £3,290 a year cap on tuition fees to be scrapped in conjunction with the axing of almost all direct state funding for degree courses.
The move — outlined in a report by Lord Browne, the former head of BP — would give universities the power to levy higher student fees to make up for the loss of taxpayer funding. It is claimed as much as 80 per cent of direct support for degree courses — £3.2billion — will be cut in this week’s Comprehensive Spending Review along with a further £1bn of research funding. But some top universities fear that Lord Browne’s review stops far short of plugging the funding gap — prompting widespread concerns over standards. Under the review, universities seeking to charge more than £6,000 face harsh financial penalties, effectively ruling out fee rises much above £12,000. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, is believed to favour even tighter controls and could impose a £7,000 cap when the Government’s formal response to the review is published in coming weeks. According to reports, some universities could go private in an attempt to boost resources. A Cambridge source told The Sunday Times: “We have a deficit of £96m a year. We are not competing with Leeds, we are competing with Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford.” Barry Sheerman, the Labour MP and former chairman of the Commons education select committee, told The Sunday Times: “I was told by Cambridge they may privatise themselves because they are so aggrieved by the cuts and by Lord Browne’s proposals.” But a Cambridge spokesman dismissed the report as “pure speculation”. “The university has reached no official position on these matters,” he said. “It will only take one when it has seen the Government’s response to the Browne review and the detail of the Comprehensive Spending Review.” Other top universities have considered going private in the past.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Why I’m Not Donating to the Chamber of Commerce
I blasted the White House thug tactics against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce again in my column today — and made the point that the Left’s donor suppression effort is about much more than just the Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately, some are getting carried away with lionizing the Chamber. My Fox News colleague Glenn Beck yesterday urged his radio listeners to participate in the “largest fundraiser for the Chamber.” Several readers wanted me to join in.
Sorry, but I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of that old saying that “the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.”
If you have followed this blog over the years, you know I have opposed illegal alien amnesty in all forms, opposed the bipartisan TARP bailout from day one, opposed the bipartisan auto bailout from day one, and opposed the Obama stimulus from day one.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the staunchest promoters of amnesty and joined with the AFL-CIO/ACLU to oppose immigration enforcement measures. They oppose E-verify and sued Arizona over its employer sanctions law.
The Chamber supported TARP, the auto bailout, and the stimulus. The Chamber is supporting a pro-Obamacare, pro-TARP, pro-card check, pro-stimulus, pro-amnesty Democrat in Arizona over his free-market GOP challenger.
For the same reason that I generally advise folks to contribute to individual causes and candidates and local charities and organizations instead of Washington-based entities, I recommend that you think twice and hard before hopping on the heat-of-the-moment bandwagon and filling the national Chamber’s coffers. A little due diligence now will prevent donor remorse later.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Human Genome Still Chock-Full of Mysteries
Exactly how many genes make up the human genome remains a mystery, even though scientists announced the completion of the Human Genome Project a decade ago. The project to decipher the genetic blueprint of humans was supposed to reveal all of the protein-producing genes needed to build a human body.
sciencenews”Not only do we not know what all the genes are, we don’t even know how many there are,” Steven Salzberg of the University of Maryland in College Park said October 11 during a keynote address at the Beyond the Genome conference, held in Boston. Most estimates place the human gene count in the neighborhood of 22,000 genes, which falls between the number of genes in a chicken and the number in a grape.
Grape plants have 30,434 genes, by the latest count. Chickens have 16,736 genes, a number Salzberg said will likely grow as scientists put the finishing touches on the chicken genome. As in humans, the gene totals for each species are not as precise as they seem and are subject to revision.
The most accurate estimate of the human gene count is the RefSeq database maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Salzberg said. He laid out arguments for favoring this estimate, such as its inclusion of all confirmed genes to date, in a paper published in May in Genome Biology. By the RefSeq count, humans have 22,333 genes. But another government database lists 38,621 human genes. And a different project called Gencode currently recognizes 21,671.
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Islamic Kids Cartoons Praised by Obama Draw Terse Warning
‘These are not types of heroes you want your children to have’
A coming series of “superhero” cartoons promoting the tenets of Islam under the title of “The 99” — which has been praised by President Obama — is drawing a terse warning from an expert who has analyzed media impact on people for decades.
“These are not the types of heroes you want your children to have,” Dr. Ted Baehr, chief of MOVIEGUIDE,” told WND today. “These heroes, at their core, because they represent values contrary to humanity, at the core these heroes are more villain than hero.”
Baehr’s organization said the program includes “hair-hiding headscarves” that are “mandatory for the five female characters, not including a ‘burqa babe’ called Batina the Hidden.”
“Curiously (or not so curiously considering his track record), President Obama, who was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia but supposedly converted to Christianity, praised this work created by Kuwaiti psychologist Naif al-Mutawa, saying at an April meeting with Arab entrepreneurs, ‘His superheroes embody the teachings of the tolerance of Islam.’“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Law of Marriage
No set of rules in a country affects more residents than marriage and family laws, for everyone is touched by these. Specifically, it is within the Islamic law of marriage one can really see and understand the impassable gulf separating Western and Shari’ah (Islamic law) concepts of justice. Men and women are simply not equal under Shari’ah law, nor could they ever be.
Given that many today demand Shari’ah Muslim law in the U.S., a crucial and unavoidable question must be addressed: Can Muslim law be established in America? If so, would it be desirable? Despite rumblings from many uneducated liberals, the answer is a resounding—”NO!” Please read the following essay upon Muslim marriage when considering why this is the only sane answer.
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Opinion: The Real 9/11 Truth: We Are at War With Islam
Bill O’Reilly, in an appearance on ABC’s The View last week to promote his latest book, said that Barack Obama has disconnected himself from most Americans with his views on many of the issues facing the country. He noted in particular that Obama’s stance on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, was an affront to Americans, 70 percent of whom do not want to see an Islamic place of worship built near the site of the most devastating attack ever perpetrated on this nation. O’Reilly said this was due to the fact that the attacks were carried out by Muslims. This prompted two of The View’s hosts to walk off the set in protest. Barbara Walters then proceeded to chastise him for painting with a broad brush. O’Reilly was telling the truth. It was Muslims that attacked our country on 9/11. It was Muslims who hijacked planes and slammed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing almost 3000 of our fellow American citizens. Ever since that fateful day over nine years ago, politicians on both sides of the aisle have gone out of their way to proclaim that it was radical extremists, acting on a misinterpretation of the Koran, that attacked us, and not mainstream Islam. All anyone has to do, however, is read the Koran to see that Islam is a religion which advocates converting non-believers by deception, the sword or whatever it takes. The true followers of the Islamic faith believe in sharia law, which has as some of its tenets the murder of apostates, the beating of wives by their husbands, legal revenge (physical eye for an eye), and the execution of homosexuals. Muslims also believe that sharia law should be imposed on the entire world. Anjem Choudary, in an appearance on ABC’s This Week, said that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House. He clearly believes that sharia will eventually dominate the entire world, a view made clear on his website. Those who say that Choudary’s views do not reflect those of most Muslims are sadly mistaken. The so-called moderate Muslims have not, for the most part, repudiated those who advocate violence and jihad. They remain silent on the issue of sharia law and its extension to the world. Muslim clerics, preaching in their mosques, do not rebuke the ones who attacked us on 9/11. While most Muslims may not personally commit a terrorist attack, there is no hue and cry from the Islamic community when one occurs. There is a saying that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. No truer words were ever spoken. The Obama administration has downgraded the war on terror to an overseas contingency operation. Terrorist attacks are now called man-made disasters. Barack Obama has bowed before Islamic leaders, appointed a NASA administrator whose chief responsibility is to reach out to the Muslims and make them feel good about themselves, and agreed to meet with leaders of nations that are state sponsors of terror without precondition. by doing so, he has weakened this nation and put us at risk of another attack on U.S. soil, which might bring us to our knees, and open the door to the implementation of sharia law in this country. Before that happens, however, Americans had better wake up the truth that we are at war with Islam. And it is a war which we may lose if we do not identify the enemy.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
2010 Flu Vaccine Contains H1N1
TORONTO — Canadians who chose not to be immunized against H1N1 during the pandemic will have another shot at getting protected with this year’s seasonal flu vaccination.
Next week, provinces and territories across the country will begin rolling out the 2010-11 vaccine, which includes H1N1 A and two other strains — H3N2 influenza A Perth and influenza B Brisbane.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Semitism in Sweden Grows With Muslim Immigration
MALMO, SWEDEN — At some point, the shouts of “Heil Hitler” that often greeted Marcus Eilenberg as he walked to the 107-year-old Moorish-style synagogue in this port city forced the 32-year-old attorney to make a difficult, life-changing decision: Fearing for his family’s safety after repeated anti-Semitic incidents, Eilenberg reluctantly uprooted himself and his wife and two children, and moved to Israel in May.
Sweden, a country long regarded as a model of tolerance, has, ironically, been a refuge for Eilenberg’s family. His paternal grandparents found a home in Malmo in 1945 after surviving the Holocaust. His wife’s parents came to Malmo from Poland in 1968 after the communist government there launched an anti-Semitic purge.
But as in many other cities across Europe, a rapidly growing Muslim population living in segregated conditions that seem to breed alienation has mixed toxically with the anger directed at Israeli policies and actions by those Muslims — and by many non-Muslims — to all but transform the lives of local Jews. Like many of their counterparts in other European cities, the Jews of Malmo report being subjected increasingly to threats, intimidation and actual violence as stand-ins for Israel.
“I didn’t want my small children to grow up in this environment,” Eilenberg said in a phone interview just before leaving Malmo. “It wouldn’t be fair to them to stay in Malmo.”
Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, with a population of roughly 293,900 but only 760 Jews, reached a turning point of sorts in January 2009, during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. A small, mostly Jewish group held a demonstration that was billed as a peace rally but seen as a sign of support for Israel. This peaceful demonstration was cut short when the demonstrators were attacked by a much larger screaming mob of Muslims and Swedish leftists who threw bottles and firecrackers at them as police seemed unable to stop the mounting mayhem.
“I was very scared and upset at the same time,” recalled Jehoshua Kaufman, a Jewish community leader. “Scared because there were a lot of angry people facing us, shouting insults and throwing bottles and firecrackers at the same time. The sound was very loud. And I was angry because we really wanted to go through with this demonstration, and we weren’t allowed to finish it.”
Alan Widman, who is a strapping 6-foot-tall member of parliament and a non-Jewish member of the Liberal Party who represents Malmo, said simply, “I have never been so afraid in my life.”
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment
Since the end of World War II Germany has prided itself on being a beacon of tolerance, removed from the petty hatreds that once tore Europe apart. But according to a national survey released this week, a new form of ugly xenophobia — this time focused on Muslims, who make up around 5.5 percent of the population — is gaining mass acceptance. More than 55 percent of those polled by researchers from the University of Leipzig declared that Arabs weren’t pleasant people — up from 44 percent in 2003 — and 58 percent said the practice of Islam should be “considerably restricted.”
Islamophobia isn’t only on the rise in Germany. A powerful and populist strain of anti-Muslim sentiment is now taking hold across Europe — boosting support for far-right groups, and putting mainstream politicians on the defensive.
Of course, parties with an anti-race bent aren’t anything new in Europe. The anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant National Front has been a force in France for decades, and in 2000, Austria’s Nazi-sympathizing Freedom Party temporarily became part of the coalition government. What is new is that the anti-outsider groups now attracting high-levels of support don’t define their foes by skin color or geographic origin, but by religion.
The Sweden Democrats party — which started out as a neo-Nazi movement — last month entered parliament for the first time, winning 5.7 percent of the vote on the back of campaign ads that featured burqa-clad Muslim women knocking aside white Swedish pensioners and grabbing their state benefits. In the Netherlands, the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders — who believes the “fascist” Koran should be banned, along with immigration from Muslim countries — gained a record 24 seats in the June elections. And in Britain, thousands of hooligans from the English Defence League — which claims to be against extremist Islam, and boasts that its membership includes Jews and Sikhs — regularly stages marches in largely Muslim urban areas, shouting anti-Islamic slogans and intimidating local residents.
This stricter focus on Islam has helped these groups win over voters who don’t consider themselves racist, but — in the wake of 9/11 and the bomb attacks in London and Madrid — are concerned about the perceived threat of radical Islam. “It’s no longer politically acceptable to be openly racist,” Jonathan Githens-Mazer, co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre at England’s Exeter University, told AOL News. “But in secular Europe, it is politically acceptable to be anti-Muslim. For many far-right movements, this is a very convenient schtick that ensures they’re no longer accused of being fascists, and allows them to turn their intolerant views into a more electorally palatable form.”
By targeting Islam, these groups are also able to tap into wider worries over the slow demise of old national identities in the face of increasing multiculturalism and globalization. “Immigration from outside Europe, as well as internal migration from East to West, is changing societies right across the continent,” says Chris Allen, a research fellow at England’s University of Birmingham and author of the upcoming book “Islamophobia.” “That means it’s increasingly difficult for British people, for example, to define themselves around skin color because we’re such a diverse society. These changes challenge us all to find out who we are and what our national identities are really about.”
H.A. Hellyer — fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at Britain’s University of Warwick and author of “Muslims of Europe: The Other Europeans” — notes that this identity crisis is reflected in the way that the debate over Islam in Europe has transformed over the past four years from being predominately about concerns of security, to worries over whether Western civilization itself is under threat. “People are now not so afraid that our civilization will be destroyed from outside by al-Qaida, but from inside by Muslim communities,” he says.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Germany and France’s Muslim Problem: Is Political Frustration the Cause?
In an article published by the Brookings Institute titled “Islam, Jihadism, and Depoliticzation in France and Germany”, author Anouar Boukhars argues that growing Islamic extremism in Germany and France is caused by the depoliticization of Muslims and the failure of political Islam to organize.
The idea of a “Muslim siege,” stemming from the belief that all Muslims are challenging European’s assimilation policies, is driven primarily by islamaphobia, fear, and populism. Boukhars concludes by arguing that the absolute assimilation of Muslims in France and Germany must stop, and integration with political representation must be promoted.
Author Boukhars explains French anxiety over Muslim culture. He reminds the reader that this anxiety is “not a new phenomenon’ (Boukhars, 298). Instead, this anxiety has at least existed since the 1995 bombings of the Paris metro, and was only furthered with the 9/11 attacks and the terrorist attacks on Madrid and England’s pubic transit (Boukhars, 299). This anxiety has created xenophobia, and Muslim communities are stereotypically seen (by European citizens) as communalistic and anti-government. This is termed as “symbolic ghettoization” and Boukhars says the French see Muslim youth as “scum that must be simply rubbed out” (Boukhars, 299).
This mindset grows from events like the 2005 riots in Paris. Boukhars points out the riots were indeed comprised of Muslims, but instead of chanting scripture or other familiar jihad intifada they chanted “liberte, egalite, fraternite” (Boukhars, 299). France’s biggest political Muslim group, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), is not doing its job of uniting Muslims across France politically. Instead, youth see the UOIF’s image as polluted, since it has constructed deals with the Ministry of the Interior, and failed to loudly voice critical opinions on important Muslim issues (Boukhars, 300). Anger with already established Islamist groups, Boukhars argues, is evidence of political frustration with the usual mouthpieces.
Boukhars identifies three different salafi groups in France, their stances on French integration, and their attractiveness to Muslims in France. The Salafist (generally a Sunni Muslim) puts emphasis on the piousness of ancestors and follows the Quran in both “action and deed…” (Boukahrs, 300). The three types of salafism in France are broken down into predicative, political, and jihadist.
Predicative salafism is a return to political Islam, a rebirth, and is a-political. Predicative salafism seeks a transnational (global) Muslim identity, founded in individualization. This is the biggest of the three Muslim groups in France, and is non-violent and leadership-less.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Northern Ireland: Tesco Slow to Refund Christian Over Halal Lamb
A Tesco store near Belfast was reluctant to refund a Christian woman who unknowingly bought Halal lamb until she said: you wouldn’t treat a Muslim this way.
Mrs Andrena Robinson took the meat back to her local store after she read in the press that all of Tesco’s New Zealand lamb was slaughtered according to Islamic ritual.
The duty manager at the Tesco store said he would not refund her unless there was a problem with the quality of the meat.
Conscience
But Mrs Robinson told him that if she had been a Muslim who had unknowingly bought non-Halal meat, the store would give her money back.
She said: “I felt that as a Christian I had as much right to demand a refund. At that point he relented and reluctantly took the meat back.”
If Tesco had continued to refuse her a refund when it would have given one to a Muslim, Mrs Robinson could have launched a legal action.
She added: “If I’d known it was Halal I would not have bought it. It is an issue of conscience for me, something I feel strongly about.
Labelling
“If meat is Halal, it should be clearly labelled. Then customers can make an informed choice.”
There is now a growing campaign for supermarkets to properly label any Halal meat sold in their store.
Mrs Robinson is concerned about the growing disregard for Christian values. She said: “Christianity is being marginalised and at the same time there is an over-sensitivity to Islam.”
The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge said: “It’s disappointing that Mrs Robinson had to argue with Tesco before getting her refund.
Freedom
“Christians will have different opinions about whether they personally would eat Halal meat, but people should be given freedom of choice.
“Mrs Robinson chose to return the meat and Tesco should have been quicker to respect her choice.”
Last month a Mail on Sunday investigation found that numerous restaurants, fast-food chains, and supermarkets are selling Halal meat without telling customers.
Imposed
Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell said at the time: “I don’t object to people of different religious groups being catered for but it’s not something that should be imposed on everybody else”.
Mr Rosindell, who is also secretary of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, continued: “The vast majority of people in this country would not want meat of this origin.
“The outlets have a duty to let their customers know because some will object very strongly, not least because of the animal welfare implications of Halal.”
Informed
An RSPCA spokesman said: “The public have a right to know how their meat is produced. Many people are extremely concerned about animal welfare. What the Mail on Sunday has discovered shows that people are not being kept informed.”
The Mail on Sunday itself hit out at the revelations saying customers needed to know if their meat was Halal.
It said: “The reticence of public bodies and private companies about this matter results from the same force which affects so many other areas of our national life: multiculturalism, allied with political correctness.
Choice
“No doubt it is costlier to provide everyone with a choice. But if similar methods were secretly adopted by slaughterhouses purely to save money, there would be a major public controversy.
“Sensible tolerance rightly permits Kosher and Halal butchers to slaughter animals using the methods required by their faiths. But the stealthy introduction of ritually slaughtered meat into British daily life goes far beyond tolerance”, it added.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
She Says Politics Disgusts Her… Now Brigitte Bardot Wants to Challenge Sarkozy as French President
She said in an interview last month that politics disgusts her. But today Brigitte Bardot announced that she could be running for French president at the next election in 2012.
The former actress, now 76, shocked fans in 1973 when she retired to become an animal rights activist. Now she has been asked by France’s Ecology Alliance party to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy for the country’s leadership.
The party campaigns for animal rights and against the ritual slaughter of livestock by Muslims for halal meat.
Bardot has now written to President Sarkozy telling him she may run against him because he ‘took her for an idiot’ by not keeping his manifesto promises to outlaw the traditional Muslim treatment of animals.
She wants a law making it compulsory to give animals anaesthetic before their throats are slit in keeping with Islamic teaching.
In a letter published in the French press, she wrote: ‘Because you do the opposite of what you say, I am studying a proposition from the Independent Ecology Alliance to be their presidential candidate in 2012.
‘No matter whether it’s someone from the political left or right, we just need a voice to stand up and defend animal rights.’
The ecology party’s chairman Antoine Waechter added: ‘We think she is the best person to represent us for the presidency. If she accepts, a final decision will be taken next year.’
News that Bardot could run for the French presidency comes as a surprise, given that in an interview with FRANCE magazine last month, she said that politics disgusted her.
‘I am greatly misunderstood by politically correct idiots. Politics disgusts me.’
In the same piece, she revealed that she didn’t think much of Mr Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni, either, describing her as ‘as beautiful as she is badly brought up.’
Bardot’s controversial views and strong opinions means she is rarely out of the media spotlight. She is known for her strong right wing views on immigration and homosexuality and has been convicted and fined four times for racist and anti-gay remarks.
In 2008, she branded US presidential candidate Sarah Palin ‘a disgace to women’ and described her as ‘disconcertingly stupid’.
In the same year, a court fined her £15,000 for inciting racial hatred by writing that Muslims were destroying France.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 50 Oil Tankers Stranded as Climate Change Protesters Close Road Leading the UK’s Biggest Oil Refinery
Hundreds of demonstrators blockaded the road to an oil refinery and claimed they stopped 375,000 gallons of fuel from leaving the depot.
The protesters, who barricaded the road leading to the Coryton Oil Refinery near Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, said they prevented more than 50 oil tankers getting to and from the site, which they accuse of exacerbating climate change.
Police were forced to close the road after 12 female protesters handcuffed themselves to vehicles parked to deliberately block the way for fuel tankers.
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Activist Julie Allen said: ‘We’ve come here to the source of the problem, to put our bodies in the way of the relentless flow of oil to say “no more”.
‘If we’re to have a hope of tackling climate change we need to find a way to get over oil. It won’t happen overnight, but we can, and must move beyond oil.’
Another demonstrator, Terri Orchard, said: ‘We don’t have a hope of tackling climate change if we don’t find a way to start moving beyond oil.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: College to Introduce Scheme That Pays A-Level Students £5,000 for FAILING Their Exams
A college has been accused of creating ‘a charter for dunces’ after it offered to pay £5,000 of taxpayers’ money to every student who fails their A-Level exams.
The principal says he is so confident in his staff and the commitment of his students that he is prepared to take the risk, claiming no-one would deliberately fluff their exams to receive the cash.
The offer comes after average A-Level grades rose for the 27th consecutive year, suggesting the exams had got easier and easier for students.
The Government has promised a major shake-up of the A-Level system after some independent schools announced plans to ditch it in favour of the international baccalaureate system which they said was far more rigorous.
Today Blackburn College — which is the first in the UK to offer the cash offer — came under a hail of criticism.
Campaigners for higher education standards accused the college of rewarding failure.
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UK: Expenses Scandal: Three Face Suspension From House of Lords
The trio — two Labour peers and a cross-bencher — are expected to be officially recommended for censure in a statement tomorrow by the House of Lords authorities. Baroness Uddin, a Labour peer and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to the upper house, is set to be suspended from the Lords for between a year and 18 months, and has agreed to pay back £125,000 in wrongly claimed expenses.
Lord Paul, another Labour peer and a major party donor, has been recommended for a suspension of between four and six months and has agreed to pay back £40,000. Lord Bhatia, who sits as a cross-bencher but has also donated money to Labour, faces a ban of between six and 12 months and is to repay voluntarily £27,000. All three were investigated by the subcommittee on Lords’ interests, a powerful body in the upper house chaired by Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5. Lord Paul and Lady Uddin were referred to the committee after criminal investigations into their cases were dropped. Last night none of the trio was prepared to comment on the results of the investigation and its recommendations on punishments — which will now be passed to the House of Lords to vote on. However, a source close to the investigation said: “This looks extremely serious for them.” The investigation followed a series of complaints and questions over alleged abuses of the expenses system in the House of Lords, which included at the time an “overnight” allowance of £174 to cover the cost of staying in London if a member’s “main home” was outside the M25. Lady Uddin, who was born in Bangladesh and became a councillor in east London, told the House authorities that her main home was a property in Maidstone, Kent, despite having another house in London. Neighbours at the Kent property said they had rarely seen her there. In March, she was told she would not be prosecuted over the expenses claims, which totalled at least £100,000. She has previously “strongly denied” that she had never lived in the Maidstone flat. Lord Paul, an Indian-born steel tycoon who has donated, through his company, more than £400,000 to Labour and is close to Gordon Brown, is understood to have already repaid about £38,000. He admitted that he never spent a single night at an Oxfordshire flat that he registered as his main home while claiming money in overnight expenses for a London property. One of the richest men in Britain, with an estimated fortune of £500million, he has said in the past: “The question is, what are the rules? I know that I have followed the rules.” He was also told in March he would not face criminal charges. Lord Bhatia, who ran his own finance companies, has a £1.5million home in south-west London but in 2007 he “flipped” the designation of his main home to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which used to be lived in by his brother. Reigate is just beyond the M25, the boundary used to define qualification for expenses. On one occasion he was said to have been unable to remember the address of the property he designated as his main home. He claims that he acted within the rules as he believed the flat had been his main home. A Conservative peer, Lord Hanningfield, who also faced expenses allegations, has been charged with offences under Section 17 of the Theft Act relating to false accounting for claims for overnight accommodation. He has proclaimed his innocence and vowed to fight the charges. Lord Taylor of Warwick, a former Tory peer who resigned his party’s whip, has pleaded not guilty at Southwark Crown Court to six counts of false accounting in relation to allegedly making dishonest claims for £24,300 in subsistence costs.
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| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Imam’s Beard “Is Shaved in Attack”
A MOSQUE leader was held down and had his beard shaved off after he was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing young boys, a court was told. Mohammed Hanif Khan, 41, honoured by Buckingham Palace for his work in prisons, was attacked by three men on the day of his arrest, it was said.
Shaving a Muslim’s beard is regarded as a sin, North Staffordshire Magistrates’ Court heard.
Imam Mr Khan, who strenuously denies the abuse claim and faces trial in January, said he was knocked down by a headbutt in Tunstall, Staffs.
It is alleged that 31-year-old Mohammed Jameel, Mohammed Nadeem, 28, and Mohammed Safir, 32, then held him down as he was shaved with electric clippers.
Jameel and Nadeem deny assaulting Mr Khan by beating.
Safir has admitted the charge, but the basis of his plea is not accepted by prosecutors.
Trial continues.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Islamic Students at Top University ‘Are Preaching Hard-Line Extremism, ‘ Terror Experts Warn
Think tank finds evidence of moderate Muslims being radicalised and Jewish students intimidated
Radical Islamic extremism is being openly practised at a leading university campus, a report today claimed.
Think tank Quilliam said they had evidence of hard-line Islamist ideology being promoted through the leadership of the university’s student Islamic Society at City University in central London.
The group had intimidated and harassed staff, students and members of minority groups, it was claimed.
The counter-extremism think tank said they had evidence of the president of City University’s Islamic Society, (ISoc) openly preaching extremism during prayers held on the campus during the 2009/10 academic year.
They said the president — Saleh Patel, was recorded saying: ‘When they say to us ‘the Islamic state teaches to cut the hand of the thief’, yes it does!
‘And it also teaches us to stone the adulterer.
‘When they tell us that the Islamic state tells us and teaches us to kill the apostate, yes it does!
‘Because this is what Allah and his messenger have taught us and this is the religion of Allah and it is Allah who legislates and only Allah has the right to legislate.’
‘When a person leaves one prayer, one prayer intentionally, he should be imprisoned for three days and three nights and told to repent.
‘And if he doesn’t repent and offer his prayer then he should be killed. And the difference of opinion lies with regards to how he should be killed not as to what he is — a kafir or a Muslim’.
According to students interviewed for the report, the actions of leading members of the ISoc made members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Society (LGBT) feel ‘scared’.
Some Jewish students felt ‘intimidated’, and the group’s actions forced ordinary Muslim students to adopt hard-line Islamic practices which led to some Muslim students publishing an open letter complaining that their religion had been ‘hijacked’ by the ISoc.
Report author Lucy James, said: ‘It is deeply shocking that such extremism is being openly promoted on a university campus in central London.
‘Such extremism can create dangerous divisions on campuses and, if not tackled, may even lead to terrorism.
‘University heads need to recognise this problem and take the lead in tackling it.’
City University London Students’ Union released a statement which read:
‘The report raises a number of issues so the Students’ Union will be in contact with the authors to review the evidence on which the report is based.
‘The Students’ Union works closely with the University to act in the best interest of its student body and wider University community.’
A spokeswoman for the university added: ‘The University is committed to creating as many opportunities for people of different faiths (and indeed of no faith) to meet and engage in honest and respectful dialogue.
‘The University and the Students’ Union asks that all Students’ Union Clubs and Societies — and any external speakers that they invite into the University — abide by its equality and diversity guidelines and values and behaviours.’
‘The University works closely with its Students’ Union and, on a number of occasions, has offered support to the Students’ Union when the Islamic Society has been found to be in breach of these guidelines.
‘The University and Students’ Union are constantly reviewing their protocols, to ensure that they maintain an environment that is open and welcoming to staff and students.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pregnant New Bride Dies After Being Set on Fire in Garden
A pregnant woman has died after being found on fire in her garden.
Neighbours said the 23-year-old woman — named locally as Asiyah Khan — arrived in the country earlier this year and had an arranged marriage.
She was rarely seen outside the house, which she shared with her husband Naveed, mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law.
Police were investigating the incident yesterday and it was not clear whether Mrs Khan had set herself on fire or had been set alight by someone else. No one has been arrested in connection with her death.
Emergency services were called to the residential street in Bradford at 7.15pm on Thursday, but Mrs Khan was pronounced dead at the scene.
Neighbour Debbie Gregoire said the family returned home from a shopping trip to find the house locked. Naveed Khan climbed over the gate to find his wife’s body in the back garden.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stranger Bites Woman
A WOMAN walking alone was bitten on her face by a stranger when she refused to kiss him.
The 24-year-old victim was walking along Upper Deacon Road in Bitterne when her attacker struck.
She was approached by a man she did not know who asked her for a kiss but she refused.
He then forced her towards him by pulling at her and tried to kiss her lips.
But when the victim struggled the man bit down on the woman’s upper lip.
The ordeal left the woman terrified and now police have appealed for any information on the indecent attack that took place at 11.15pm on Thursday(OCT 14).
The suspect is described as Asian Indian appearance, aged 25-30, of average height and slim build. He had short dark hair and wore a jumper with horizontal stripes on and he was smoking.
PC Aaron Shale, of Bitterne police station, said: “This was a frightening experience for the woman involved and I am particularly keen to hear from anyone who saw this man hanging around the Upper Deacon Road area or anyone who witnessed the incident itself.”
| — Hat tip: ICLA | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tower Hamlets Extremist Vote Poses Ed Miliband’s First Big Election Test
A man with close links to Islamic fundamentalism and the backing of prominent racists could this week be elected as the executive mayor of a council, with almost total control over its £1 billion budget.
Lutfur Rahman was sacked by the Labour Party last month as its candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets amid deep concerns about his links with a Muslim supremacist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), and a number of powerful local businessmen.
Mr Rahman also signed up entire families of “sham” paper Labour members — some of whom do not even support the party — to win nomination as Labour’s candidate.
Mr Rahman is now running as an independent and his supporters say he is “hopeful” of victory.
“Things look very good,” said one of his major business backers, Shiraj Haque, a millionaire restaurateur.
Labour sources said the contest between Mr Rahman and their new candidate, Helal Abbas, was “extremely close” and would depend on turnout in Thursday’s election.
Unlike a conventional leader, a directly-elected mayor has almost complete power over a council’s finances and cannot be controlled, checked or sacked by councillors.
Tower Hamlets moved from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the IFE.
In secret filming earlier this year, Abu Talha, an IFE activist, told an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches: “The mayor is going to have a lot more control. That’s why we need to get someone, one of our brothers, in there. Which we will do.”
The law says that if 5 per cent of the electorate petition a council, it must hold a referendum on changing to a mayoral system.
Earlier this year another prominent IFE activist, Abjol Miah, organised such a petition.
A total of 99.3 per cent of the signatures were Asian names, in a borough which is only a third Asian.
Council officers found that almost half were “invalid”, with entire pages of names and addresses written in the same handwriting and around 5,000 not even appearing on the electoral register.
Nonetheless, enough of the signatures were ruled to be valid.
The mayoral referendum was granted and passed in May after an intensive campaign involving the IFE, Mr Haque and others who have now emerged as backers of Mr Rahman.
The literature advocating a “yes” vote in the referendum campaign used an identical logo and typeface to some of Mr Rahman’s leaflets in the mayoral campaign.
Defeat in strongly-Labour Tower Hamlets would be a humiliation for the party’s new leader, Ed Miliband, in what is his first electoral test. However, it would also raise even more serious concerns about radical Islam’s political power in the UK.
According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE — based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets — wants to change the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.”
The group is accused by one of the area’s Labour MPs, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating and “corrupting” his party in a way similar to the Militant Tendency in the 1980s.
Mr Rahman, a former council leader, was removed from that post by his fellow councillors in May after The Sunday Telegraph and Dispatches exposed how he had achieved the position with the help of the IFE.
Six serving and former Labour councillors told us they had been threatened by a senior IFE official that the group would mobilise its supporters against them if they did not choose Mr Rahman as their leader.
Mr Rahman confirmed that the IFE official had helped run his leadership campaign, though he denied that any threats were made to councillors on his behalf.
In the secret filming, the IFE activist, Mr Miah, told the undercover reporter: “We’ve consolidated ourselves now. We’ve got a lot of influence and power in the council — councillors, politicians.”
During Mr Rahman’s two years as council leader, Tower Hamlets channelled millions of pounds of public money to front organisations run by the IFE.
The borough’s public libraries stocked large quantities of extremist literature, including taped sermons by the spiritual leader of the 9/11 hijackers, Anwar al-Awlaki. An anti-gay preacher was hosted in the council chamber.
Lutfur Ali, a man with close links to the IFE, was appointed as the council’s assistant chief executive, despite headhunters saying he was unqualified for the job.
Mr Ali was also removed after this newspaper’s investigation, but he was present at Mr Rahman’s campaign launch and is expected to return to the Town Hall should Mr Rahman be elected.
During the campaign, Mr Rahman’s supporters have targeted the Bangladeshi community electorate with a blitz of tens of thousands of leaflets falsely claiming that their Labour rival, Mr Abbas, is a “racist”, a “wife-beater”, and a bankrupt.
One leaflet delivered door-to-door on Friday falsely claimed that Mr Abbas had “obnoxiously” insulted the imam of Mecca, “initiated a physical attack” against his political opponents and was guilty of “racist TV slurs”.
“It is a hugely well-financed operation and is making a real impact in the Bangladeshi community,” said one Labour councillor. “In a low-turnout election, it could make the difference between victory and defeat.”
Mr Rahman, who insists he is paying for his entire campaign out of his own pocket, says he is the victim of “racism” and “unfairness” by the Labour Party.
“I won the vote of the membership. The imposition of Cllr Abbas in my place is an insult to the democratic process,” he said.
Mr Rahman said that if elected he would “work to bring together our diverse communities”. However, one of his leading supporters, Wais Islam, a former Tower Hamlets councillor, recently posted anti-Semitic insults about a local journalist on his Facebook page, though he later apologised for them.
Another prominent Tower Hamlets racist, Abul Hussain — expelled from George Galloway’s Respect party for making anti-Semitic remarks — has organised campaign meetings on Mr Rahman’s behalf.
Mr Abbas said: “If I am elected I will ensure that no one is favoured or disadvantaged because they’re my cronies. My campaign is not funded by people wanting [council] contracts — it’s funded by the Labour Party.”
Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said Mr Abbas’s victory was vital to “stand up for the values of freedom, of transparency, of the correct use of public money”.
She said: “The stakes are so high. We do not want the people of Tower Hamlets, and especially the Bangladeshi community which I am so proud to be a part of, to be known to this country for the wrong reasons.”
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Commentary: U.S. Has Long Sided With Arab World
By Mordechai Nisan
On three formidable major speech-making occasions since his election — in Ankara, Cairo, and Washington — President Obama stated that America ‘is not and never will be at war with Islam’.
This definitive affirmation ignores the fact that America has been at war with Christians who are at war with Muslims, while the United States has accepted the defeat and death of Christians at the hands of Muslims. Obama actually gave voice to what has been characteristic of U.S. policy in religiously-defined conflicts, for American-Islamic compatibility was a pillar in Washington’s conduct long before Obama made it central to the American political creed.
The history of America’s special relationship with Saudi Arabia, the heart of Islam and its global campaign to reach and preach in the four corners of the world, is well-documented and central in the strategic calculations of the United States for over 70 years. Incorporating Turkey into the NATO alliance in 1952 was also a step toward U.S.-Muslim consolidation, as is the decades-long alliance with Pakistan.
But our concern here is a particular aspect of Washington’s pro-Muslim inclination involving Muslim-Christian rivalries and America’s decision of supporting the Muslim side.
The swath of territory running from south-eastern Europe across Asia Minor and toward the eastern Mediterranean basin was historically conquered and ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for many centuries until WWI. A state system emerged, peoples dotted the map, and Western hegemony dominated the political arena. Islam as a religious-political concept appeared to have been replaced by nationalism and secularism, but it never really collapsed; it mutated, radicalized and politicized, and reasserted the ‘Green Belt’ momentum with American consent and cooperation…
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
EU Lacks Vision on Turkey Membership: Gul
Turkish President Abdullah Gul accused European politicians and intellectuals of lacking vision about Turkey joining the European Union, in an interview published Saturday in the Suedeutsche Zeitung. Gul’s comments followed those on Tuesday by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who blamed Turkey’s lagging accession negotiations with the European Union on its failure to undertake needed reforms, saying: “…the ball is in your court”. Gul acknowledged in the interview with the German newspaper that Turkey had its work to do, but said Europe was at fault for the slow speed of the talks. “But the main reason behind the slowing of the talks is a lack of vision and strategic thinking by European politicians and intellectuals,” said the Turkish president. Turkey began accession negotiations with the EU in 2005, but the process has stalled amid opposition from some member states — France and Germany in particular — lack of reform in Turkey and a trade row over the divided island of Cyprus. Gul said Turkey’s membership would reinforce the EU’s security, including in the energy sector, as well as many other areas. “They should think in the perspective of 25, 50 or 100 years,” said Gul. “But if one only thinks about today, the process is blocked.” France and Germany have been vocal opponents of Turkey’s ambition to join the 27-nation bloc and argue that the mainly Muslim country of about 73 million people should settle for a “privileged partnership” rather than full membership.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
In Quiet Revolution, Turkey Eases Headscarf Ban
Freshman Busra Gungor won’t have to wear a wig to cover her Islamic headscarf, as many pious relatives and friends did to avoid getting kicked off campus.
In a landmark decision, Turkey’s Higher Education Board earlier this month ordered Istanbul University, one of the country’s biggest, to stop teachers from expelling from classrooms female students who do not comply with a ban on the headscarf.
It was the latest twist in a long political and legal tussle in Turkey between those who see the garment as a symbol of their Muslim faith and those who view it as a challenge to the country’s secular constitution.
“I was ready to wear the wig, just like my cousin did,” said Gungor, a 18-year-old student wearing a pastel-colored headscarf. “This is about my freedom. I don’t see why my headscarf should be seen as a threat to anybody.”
The debate is not unique to Turkey — France and Kosovo, for example, ban headscarves in public schools, and parts of Germany bar teachers from wearing them.
But it goes to the heart of national identity in this country of 75 million Muslims whose modern state was founded as a radical secular republic after World War One.
Disputes over the headscarf and other public symbols of Islam are part of a wider debate over how to reconcile modernity and tradition as Turkey tries to achieve its decades-old ambition to join the European Union.
Together with the courts, Turkey’s army — which has a long history of intervening in politics and has ousted four elected governments — has long seen itself as a bulwark against any roll back toward Islamization. Easing Turkey’s secular laws would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pursuing an Islamic Metamorphosis
In his book, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga describes the decline of the medieval world as a process of “dying and rigidifying of a previously valid store of thought”.
The main thesis of Huizinga’s book is that, by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the cultural forms and norms on which medieval Europe was based became overused and exhausted. When any ideal becomes exhausted, it fails to be a source of inspiration; rather it becomes an artificial burden.
From Huizinga’s perspective, the European world of the late middle ages was a world of artificial vanity and self-deception, a ruin of a world that had died a long time before.
I think that the abstract aspect of Huizinga’s thesis on cultural forms is enlightening, and can be extended to explain transitional moments in other cultures, including contemporary Islamic culture. The cultural legacy modern Muslims inherited from their ancestors is exhausted, and — with lack of self-criticism — much of this legacy is becoming a burden rather than a source of inspiration.
The Islamic world is going through a deep metamorphosis. The lessons of history from the American and French revolutions show that these kinds of transitive moments are sometimes bloody and painful. At this moment, Muslims need new ideas and ideals that transcend their divisions and heel their wounds.
One of these deep wounds is the conflict between secularists and Islamists, and that is what we will explore here.
State and religion
At the heart of the crisis of Muslim societies today is the lack of consensus about the social contract on which society should be based, especially in terms of an agreed understanding for the relation between religion and state.
Secularism can be seen from an institutional, legal or ideological angle. In the western experience, it is also important to distinguish between the Anglo-Saxon ‘soft’ secularism which basically means positive neutrality of the state towards religion, and the French ‘hard’ laïcité that goes beyond neutrality to negative intervention against religion.
Institutional separation between religious and political organisations is not difficult to accept in the Islamic world. It is indeed in compatibility with the Islamic historical experience, where religion was never institutionalised as a political competitor with the state, the way it was in medieval Christianity.
But ideological secularism the French way, and legal secularism that excludes Islam as a source of legislation, will never take root in Islamic culture.
Historical potential
Muslims cannot, however, continue ignoring new developments in the morality of all humanity regarding the religion-state relations. First, the foundation of the modern state is geographical, not faith-based.
Second, the equality of all citizens in political rights is, theoretically at least, unquestionable in any respected modern state. Third, every nation needs to consider the laws and legislation of other nations.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Second Radical Cleric Leading Prayers on Capitol Hill
A few weeks back, Patrick Poole broke the story of how the Congressional Muslim Staff Association (CMSA) had brought al Qaeda’s Anwar al-Awlaki — imam of 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood terrorist, and the would-be Christmas underpants bomber — to lead Friday prayers on Capitol Hill. Now, at Pajamas, Patrick reports that a second al Qaeda-linked cleric, Anwar Hajjaj, has also been leading CMSA prayer meetings.
As Poole explains:
Anwar Hajjaj was the long-time head of an Islamic charity, Taibah International Aid Association, which the U.S. government identified as an al-Qaeda fundraising arm in May 2004 and designated as a terrorist organization. The UN also designatedTaibah as a terrorist organization.
Hajjaj’s terrorism fundraising efforts were aided by American al-Qaeda bagman Abdurahman Alamoudi, who served as Taibah International’s vice president and who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence [arising out of an investigation that showed him to be a major fundraiser for jihadist groups, including al Qaeda]. Prior to his arrest, Alamoudi was responsible for establishing the Muslim chaplain program for the Defense Department, and was appointed a “goodwill ambassador” to the Middle East by the State Department.
When Alamoudi was arrested in 2003, prosecutors identified Alamoudi’s work with Taibah in court documents as evidence of his “material financial support” for al-Qaeda. In July 2005, the U.S. government said that Alamoudi’s arrest was a “severe blow” to al-Qaeda’s fundraising operations….
Taibah is not Anwar Hajjaj’s only link to al-Qaeda. Hajjaj was also director of the American branch of the Saudi-funded World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) with Osama bin Laden’s nephew, Abdullah bin Laden. WAMY’s Northern Virginia offices were raided in June 2004, and Hajjaj’s partner Abdullah bin Laden subsequently left the country. The FBI began its investigation into WAMY in 1996 for being a “suspected terrorist organization.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Synod: The Grim Reality of the Christians of Arabia, Where “There is No Religious Freedom”
In countries where Islam is the state religion, no Muslim can convert (but Christians can become Mohammedans),where there is freedom of worship, it is limited and only in designated places. In Lebanon, Christian united among confessions, but divided politically.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) — “No religious freedom” for Christians living in Arabia, even when they are allowed (not in Saudi Arabia) to have a church. In Lebanon, however, the Arab country where the Christian presence is proportionately greater and has the constitutional and political implications (the President of the Republic is a Christian) they are united among confessions, but divided politically. These are the two experiences that have had the greatest impact yesterday at the Synod of Bishops on the Middle East, where bishops interventions continue, while work begins on the “circuli minores,” the study groups.
The situation of Christians in the Arab peninsula was clearly outlined by Mgr. Paul Hinder, Apostolic Vicar of Arabia. In Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, he said, there are no native Christians. The three million Catholics out of a population of 65 million inhabitants are all migrant workers from a hundred different countries, mostly from the Philippines and India. The Catholic presence in Arab countries with Islam as the state religion is facing “tough laws on immigration (restricting the number of priests) and security systems. Individual rights and social assistance are very limited”.
There is no “freedom of religion” (no Muslim may convert, but Christians are welcome in Islam), there is limited freedom of worship in designated places, granted by benevolent rulers (except Saudi Arabia). Too few churches, very high turnouts with a single parish having up to 25 thousand faithful on Friday with 10 or more masses a day. The distance from the church, work, laws governing residential areas, all make participation impossible for many”. The Catholic Church is respectful of the law and is trusted by the government. It “has to adapt its structures and pastoral activity to limitations imposed by external circumstances”.
Several bishops spoke of Lebanon, examining different perspectives. Bishop Béchara Rai, the Maronite Bishop of Jbeil said that “there is no sectarian division, but a diversity of Catholic Churches sui iuris, Orthodox and Protestant, each having their own liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary heritage. However there is a political division that does not concern a difference in essence, rather in strategic options. Regarding the essence, Christians disagree about some national constants, defined in the document called ‘The constants’, published by the Maronite Patriarchate 6 December 2006, accepted and signed by the Heads of Christian political parties”. “As for the political options, the division of Christians is based on the strategy for the protection of these constants and the efficient and effective presence of Christians. This division is caused by the current political conditions, both internal, regional and international. “ In particular, Bishop, Rai said that, following the division of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christian groups have chosen to ally with one or the other.
Bishop Béchara Elie Haddad, Archbishop of Sidon of the Greek-Melkites spoke instead of the “dangerous phenomenon” of the sale of the land of the Christians in Lebanon. It “threatens to annihilate the Christian presence in the coming years”. To remedy this phenomenon, he proposes a strategy to create solidarity among the churches linked to the Holy See to change the discourse on the Church regards Islam in order to distinguish clearly between Islam and fundamentalism. “This helps our dialogue with Muslims in order to help us persevere in our land” and move from concept of helping the Eastern Christians to the concept of a development rooted in their own land that helps them find employment.
The importance of formation, already highlighted in recent days by several bishops, was once again the focus of two speeches by two Syrian bishops. Bishop Antoine Audo, Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo said that despite the dwindling number of vocations, we must “test the candidates before admitting them to the seminary.” “To form the seminarians in a deep meaning of each liturgy and to be open to the universality of the Church.”
For Mgr. Nicolas Sawaf, Archbishop of Lattaquié of the Greek-Melkites (Syria), “we live in a secularized, globalized world in which the number of men who are not interested in God or act without Christian reference is enormous compared to the small number of those who profess to be Christians and believers. “ In this context, “our catechesis must be determined by a dual relationship to those to whom it is addressed: the relationship of belonging to a community founded on the unity of faith and a relationship (of belonging) to a community based on the acceptance of pluralism and diversity. “ “In the Middle East we lack a catechesis that takes account of our Arab culture, of our Christian traditions and riches of the liturgy. We lack a catechetical program for the catechumens. We must make an effort in the spiritual formation of seminarians”.
Finally on an ecumenical note, Egyptian Mgr. Youhanna Golte, Curia bishop of Alexandria of the Copts, speaking of the Orthodox Churches of his country, said: “They are our roots, our ancestors; they are the ones who have fought to defend the Christian faith and keep it alive for us until today. It is they who have sacrificed martyrs, saints, the great theologians. Therefore, the unity of the Church, which is the prayer of the Church, remains the hope of Christian history. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syro-Malabar Church: More Attention to Indian Immigrants in Arab Countries
Bishop Bosco Puthur of Foratiana and participant in the Synod for the Middle East, describes to AsiaNews the situation of the 400 thousand Syro-Malabar Indian immigrants who work in the Persian Gulf region. For the bishop, the faithful immigrants in Arab countries are moving away from the Church in the absence of parishes and the lack formed clergy.
Rome (AsiaNews) — The situation of the Christian migrants in the Arab countries is among the most important issues discussed at the Synod Churches for Middle East being held in Rome.
With over 400 thousand out of 3 million Christians faithful emigrant in the countries of the Persian Gulf, the Indian Syro-Malabar according to tradition founded by St. Thomas the Apostle, is among the most important communities in the region. Its presence in the Arab countries, however, is threatened not only by the restrictions typical of Islamic states, but include inadequate attention to the pastoral problems and social rights of the faithful who come from India to work in the region.
AsiaNews proposes the intervention of Syro-Malabar Bishop Bosco Puthur of Foratiana (Kerala) a member of the Synod Assembly. The prelate stresses that the lack of catechesis and religious sites are distancing many faithful from the Catholic Church and calls for greater attention from the Holy See to this community.
“I would like to bring to the attention of this august assembly certain pastoral problems indicated in the Instrumentum Laboris Nos. 49 and 50, which read: “A new and important phenomenon taking place in Middle Eastern countries is the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers from Africa and Asia…These people are subject to social injustice…This immigration calls for the attention of our Churches which have the pastoral responsibility to assist them in both religious and social matters”.
The Syro-Malabar faithful have been present in the Gulf Region since 1960s. They fully depend upon the Latin Vicariates of Kuwait and Arabia for their pastoral needs. These ecclesiastical structures created in the twentieth century for a few thousand emigrants are not at all adequate to take care of millions of faithful now present in the region.
We gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the two Vicars apostolic of the region. However, the situation of the pastoral care of the Syro-Malabar faithful in the Arabian Gulf countries is very inadequate and unsatisfactory. There are almost 4,30,000 Syro-Malabar migrants in the region (Saudi Arabia 190,000; UAE-110,000; Oman 45,000; Kuwait-40, 000; Bahrain 35,000 and Qatar 10,000.), but not even a single parish is erected for them. There is no proper pastoral care and faith formation-catechesis for the Syro-Malabar faithful according to the proper ecclesial tradition, except in Doha. The Syro-Malabar hierarchy is not at all involved nor invited for this purpose. The only church that was built for our faithful in Doha is not even erected as a parish, but remains an outstation of the Latin parish. Besides, serious restrictions are placed on the Syro-Malabar Hierarchy through a ‘Rescript’ from the Holy See, which prevents any involvement of our Church for providing proper pastoral care to our faithful in the area.
The community is in a precarious situation and many of them have become indifferent to the practice of Catholic faith. As there is the inadequacy in the pastoral care, there is the ever growing danger of our people being led astray by Pentecostal groups thriving in the Gulf region. Hence it is essential to entrust the pastoral care of the Syro-Malabar faithful to our own Church, erecting proper ecclesial structures and granting jurisdiction to our hierarchy. Contrary to the opinion generally circulated by some ecclesiastics, the governments in the Gulf Region are in general open to the Christian communities, since at present they need emigrant workers. In this situation, the Syro-Malabar Church proposes to the Apostolic See to take immediate and appropriate action to establish at least one eparchy/ exarchy in the Gulf region for the Syro-Malabar faithful. The proposed ecclesiastical unit may cover the present ecclesiastical territories of the Vicariates of Arabia and Kuwait. Politically this includes the countries of Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Seat may be Doha, the Capital of Qatar. Here we have the only Syro-Malabar church in the Gulf region and Qatar is relatively open and politically rather liberal. Geographically, it is the most accessible to all in the region.
We hope and pray that the Apostolic See may take appropriate action to redress the grave situation in the region and enable all concerned to provide adequate pastoral care to our faithful in accordance with the liturgical and spiritual tradition of the St Thomas Christians”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican — Turkey: Mgr Franceschini: Ultranationalist and Religious Fanatics Behind Bishop Padovese’s Murder
The successor to the bishop Anatolia demands an end to the “intolerable rumors circulated by the very instigators of the crime, alleging the homosexuality of the martyr”. An urgent request for pastors, missionary personnel and economic aid for the Church in Turkey.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) — The murder of Mgr. Luigi Padovese, a bishop killed June 3 last, is the work of “ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics”, Mgr. Ruggero Franceschini has told the Synod assembly on the Middle East.
He affirms that it was a “premeditated murder, instigated by the same occult powers that poor Luigi had a few months earlier, indicated as responsible for the murder of Don Andrea Santoro and the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink as well as the four Protestants in Malatya, in short a dark web of complicity between ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics who are experts in strategies of tension”..
Mgr Franceschini, who succeeded the slain bishop as vicar of Anatolia, stated that with these declarations to delete he hoped to end the “intolerable rumors circulated by the organizers of the crime.”
Bishop Padovese was killed by his driver, Murat Altun, 26, who had been in the prelate’s employment for a notable length of time. He himself has tried to pass himself off as someone with mental illness and has spread rumors that the reason for the killing was a homosexual relationship he had with the bishop.
According to testimonies collected by AsiaNews, immediately after the murder he had shouted “Allah akbar! I killed the great Satan. “
At the time, the Vatican and Turkish government had stuck to the hypothesis that the killing had taken place for “personal reasons” excluding the possibility of a religious or political motive.
In an interview with AsiaNews (see: 10/06/2010 Archbishop of Smyrna: The martyrdom of bishop Padovese we want the truth and not “pious lies”) Mgr. Franceschini said, “Certainly within the motive for this carefully studied murder, is the desire of some sectors of Turkish society not to join Europe, and that do not want any change”.
In his address to the General Assembly, the bishop stressed the urgent need for more missionary personal for the Church in Turkey, a new bishop for Anatolia and some financial help.
“The Church of Anatolia — he concluded — is unlikely to survive, and I want to make you all aware of the seriousness and urgency of this seriousness. However, I want to reassure neighbouring Churches, especially those who suffer persecution and see their faithful turned into refugees, that Turkish Bishops’ Conference are open to welcoming them and to offering our fraternal aid, even beyond our possibilities”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chechnya’s Leader Vows to End Bride Kidnapping in the Russian Republic
The leader of Chechnya has ordered an end to the practice of bride kidnapping. Ramzan Kadyrov says bride kidnapping violates the laws of Russia, of which Chechnya is a part, and goes against Islam, the dominant religion in the North Caucasus republic. Kadyrov’s press service says he spoke Sunday to an audience of government officials, law enforcement officers and clerics, telling all of them to do their part to end the practice. Bride kidnapping is part of Chechen culture and has become increasingly popular in recent years. In many cases men seize women who either have refused to marry them voluntarily or whose families oppose the match. The woman’s family may then allow her to stay with her kidnapper on the assumption that the union has already been consummated.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Arson Attack Against Saint Joseph Chapel in Central Java
Shepherds see smoke coming from the front of the chapel; they find inflammable material ready for ignition. Local Catholics exclude the attacker or attackers are local because of good interfaith relations. Another attempted arson attack is registered at a local Protestant church.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Someone tried to set fire to the small Chapel of Saint Joseph in Pare, a few kilometres from Delanggu subdistrict in Klaten Regency (Central Java). The building is regularly used by local Catholics to pray during weekends.
On Wednesday, a group of young shepherds saw smoking coming from the front of the building. When they came closer, they saw some inflammable material, including used tyres and fuel containers, at the entrance, under the windows and near gates and a fire starting to take hold.
Usually, the chapel is not monitored at night, or when it is not in use. Fr Saptaka, the parish priest at the Delanggu church, said that a similar attack occurred on 12 December 2009 but did not cause any victims.
Local Catholics do not know who might be responsible for the act, but they think they must be outsiders.
Fr Sutrasno, parish priest at St Maria Assunta Church in Klaten, told AsiaNews that when the previous attack took place in December 2009, he surveyed local Catholics to see if they had had any “problems” with local Muslims.
“Local Catholics told me they have good relations with other residents,” he said. “In fact, the area in front of the church has been used for volleyball matches involving both Catholics and non-Catholics.” People also use the church’s compound to store the harvest.
“It is almost impossible that locals are behind this. They have always respected the chapel,” the clergyman said.
Yesterday morning at dawn, another arson attack hit a Protestant church in Gebyog at Ngemplak, Kartasura subdistrict, some 20 kilometres from Delanggu. Someone saw flames coming out of the building.
Still, Rev Setyo Budi Utomo said that the fire caused very little damage, mostly the windows.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Violence Against Women and Attacks on Religious Minorities on the Rise in Pakistan
The families of the victims are often afraid to use the courts for fear of reprisals. The proposals of the Justice and Peace Commission to combat the phenomenon.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — The cases of rape, and attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan are dramatically increasing, and 70% are in Punjab, according to Kashif Mazhar, vice-president of “Life for All”. A phenomenon that has recently seen examples of great cruelty, in which the families of the victims are afraid to seek justice. A 13 year old Christian girl, Kiran Nayyaz, was raped last year and had a child. Her father, Nayyaz Masih told AsiaNews: “I’m poor, working as a janitor at the school in Chak Jhumra. My daughter worked as a waitress, and I had complained before of being harassed. She was raped by a driver, Muahammad Yahweh, who then fled”.
Joseph Francis, National Director of CLAAS (Center for Legal Aid Assistance) told AsiaNews, “Nayiaz Masih and his family came to us, in shock, they were even afraid to talk about this incident. We gave them refuge. Kiran had a baby, and together with the Justice and Peace Commission we are working to see they get justice. “
Instead Father Anwer Patras has confirmed to AsiaNews news of the kidnapping, rape and murder of a Christian girl of 12, Lubna Masih in Rawalpindi. The incident occurred on September 27 last. Lubna Masih studied at Presentation Convent. On leaving her home around 18:30, she was followed by a group of five young Muslim men who then forced her into a car and drove away. Lubna tried to resist and shouted, but no one helped her. Her captors took her in an Islamic cemetery, Dhoka Ellah Buksh, raped and murdered her, and then they threw her body on the street.
Her father, Saleem Masih, told AsiaNews, “I still can not believe it happened. Those responsible are protected by influential local politicians. Two organizations have contacted us, ensuring protection. But I still don’t feel safe enough to report it”. Father Amer Anwer added: “The family is terrified, they do not want to go to court, they are still in chock.” The Commission for Justice and Peace, in a study on the phenomenon, has launched a number of proposals. First, that there are women police and officers responsible for human rights at all police stations, to deal with crimes against women. Then, the discriminatory laws against women must be amended, and, finally, a form of legal protection for women and children against domestic violence.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Man Marries Two Brides at Same Time
A 23-year-old Pakistani man has married two women at the same time — a novel solution to his dilemma of deciding whether to marry the woman he loves or go ahead with the marriage his family arranged. Pakistani law allows polygamy based on the concept that Islam, the main religion in the country, allows up to four wives. But men who take multiple wives usually do so years apart. Azhar Haidri initially refused to marry 28-year-old Humaira Qasim — the woman to whom he has been engaged since childhood — because he wanted to marry the woman with whom he had fallen in love, 21-year-old Rumana Aslam. But the decision threatened to split his family apart since arranged marriages are often customary in Pakistan, so he came up with this alternative approach.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama’s Half Brother in Kenya Marries Teenager
President Barack Obama’s polygamist half brother in Kenya has married a woman who is more than 30 years younger than him.
Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under religious or cultural traditions Photo: AP
The 19-year-old’s mother told The Associated Press on Friday she is furious that her daughter quit high school and married the 52-year-old.
Mary Aoko Ouma says her daughter tried to marry Malik Obama two years ago, but the mother says she would not give permission.
Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under religious or cultural traditions.
In an interview broadcast by Kenya’s NTV that was filmed without his knowledge, Malik Obama says he married the 19-year-old but didn’t say when.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Briton Kidnapped in Somalia Was Trying to Free Yacht Couple
The British man kidnapped at gunpoint in Somalia has been involved in trying to negotiate the release of Paul and Rachel Chandler, the retired couple snatched from their yacht in the Indian Ocean nearly a year ago, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
It is feared that the experienced foreign aid worker may have been taken at gunpoint by the same group holding the Chandlers.
The Briton’s name is known to The Mail on Sunday but we have agreed not to identify him at the request of Save The Children.
Today the charity confirmed he is ‘well’, ‘being looked after and is in good spirits’
He had been conducting a feasibility study for the charity in the war-torn country, where they hoped to set up a feeding and medical base for children.
He and a Somali national were abducted from a guesthouse compound in Adado in the early hours of Friday morning.
The Somalian was released hours later.
The Briton’s abduction comes weeks after he warned that the Chandlers were at the centre of a dispute between the pirates who had kidnapped them and, Al-Shabaab, the Islamic militants attempting to take over the country.
In his report, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, he says: ‘The dynamics of finance are also elements within the equation. The conflict in South Central Somalia has essentially been stalemated for months.
‘A significant element in this is based on the severe cash-flow crisis experienced by all actors . . . probable in light of the latest moves by some western country’s actions geared towards freezing Al-Shabaab funds and blocking any sources deemed to support the organisation.
‘With their military advantage, Al- Shabaab could tax pirates and share in profits…Al-Shabaab may also have decided to attempt a “hostile takeover” of the two hostages.’
After writing the report the Briton travelled to Somalia from his base in Kenya to conduct the study for Save the Children. No international humanitarian organisations have been able to operate in the area for several years due to its volatility and the lack of a stable government.
But sources say that while in Adado, the Briton intended to make contact with the land-based pirates holding the Chandlers and break the deadlock in negotiations for their release.
The Briton, who is married to a Canadian vet and has dual British and Zimbabwean citizenship, is well-connected in the NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) community in Kenya and has written extensively about humanitarian operations in Somalia. He has also worked in Chad, Indonesia and Cameroon.
He recently wrote of the ‘extreme/variable risk’ in the Adado area, putting it in the red-alert category. He described the operation of aid agencies in Somalia as ‘a dysfunctional continuum of mutually-acceptable paralysis’ with locals working unsupervised and foreign staff working out of Nairobi.
A former adviser to the Danish Refugee Council in the Horn of Africa, the Briton is familiar with the complexities of the mainly clan-based conflicts in Somalia, including groups like Al-Shabaab, the Islamic hardliners, their closest rivals Hizbul Islamiya and others such as the Ahlu Sunna Waljama militia which supports the country’s transitional government.
He arrived in Somalia about a month ago and has been using Twitter and his personal website to update friends and colleagues on his progress.
He posted a series of pictures of gun-toting locals, armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, he had met in the streets of the capital and on his trips into the interior alongside his last blog.
He wrote: ‘So “they” say 65 per cent of Al-Shabaab have left Mogadishu.
As British Embassy officials and his own colleagues try to establish who kidnapped the man, two theories are emerging.
One is that Al-Shabaab, bringing its fighting force ever closer to Adado from the North, could have taken him in revenge for recent clashes with its rivals.
The other is that land-based pirates who use Adado town as the home base for their wives and families snatched him to boost their chances of ransom payments for Paul and Rachel Chandler.
The Chandlers, both in their 50s, took early retirement to leave their home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and sail around the world.
Their yacht the Lynn Rival was waylaid by armed pirates about 50 nautical miles west of the Seychelles on October 23 last year as they were heading for Dar-es-Salaam on the Tanzanian coast.
Among those trying to secure their release is the self-styled President of Adado, Mohamed Aden, who until recently had transformed the area into a safe haven with a functioning police force, active businesses and new schools.
A member of the dominant group there, the Salebaan sub-clan, his militia has kept the peace by virtue of its private supply of rocket-propelled grenades, small arms and tanks.
He told The Mail on Sunday recently: ‘I am doing everything I can to negotiate with the pirate group so that there will be no bloodshed and no further delay.’
But the president has clearly been marginalised by recent outbreaks of violence between Al-Shabaab and the pro-government militia of Ahlu Sunna Waljama.
Conflicting reports last night said that the kidnapped aid workers had been forced into vehicles owned by Al-Shabaab and heading for the Galguduud area they control, and conversely that Adado had been taken over by the Sufi moderates, Ahlu Sunna Waljama and that they may be holding the men.
A local source commented: ‘The worst scenario is that it is the pirates who seized them as part of a plan to make further demands for the Chandlers.’
Last night the Foreign Office refused to comment and referred all calls to Save the Children.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
German Multiculturalism Has Failed, Claims Merkel
Germany’s attempt to create a multicultural society has “utterly failed”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said last night, adding fuel to a debate over immigration and Islam polarising her conservative camp. Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democrats (CDU), Ms Merkel said allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating had not worked in a country that is home to some four million Muslims. “This (multicultural) approach has failed, utterly failed,” Ms Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin. The chancellor faces pressure from within the CDU to take a tougher line on immigrants who don’t show a willingness to adapt to German society and her comments appeared intended to pacify her critics. She said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her usual line that they should learn German in order to get by in school and have opportunities on the labour market. The debate over foreigners in Germany has shifted since former central banker Thilo Sarrazin published a book accusing Muslim immigrants of lowering the intelligence of German society. Mr Sarrazin was censured for his views and dismissed from the Bundesbank, but his book proved highly popular and polls showed a majority of Germans agreed with the thrust of his arguments. Ms Merkel has tried to accommodate both sides of the debate, talking tough on integration but also telling Germans that they must accept that mosques have become part of their landscape. She said the education of unemployed Germans should take priority over recruiting workers from abroad, while noting Germany could not get by without skilled foreign workers. In a weekend newspaper interview, her Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen of the CDU raised the possibility of lowering barriers to entry for some foreign workers in order to fight the lack of skilled workers in Europe’s largest economy. “For a few years, more people have been leaving our country than entering it,” she told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. “Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward.” The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) says Germany lacks about 400,000 skilled workers. Yet Horst Seehofer, chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s sister party, has rejected any relaxation of immigration laws and said last week there was no room in Germany for more people from “alien cultures”.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Has ‘Utterly Failed’ To Build Multicultural Society
Mrs Merkel broke a long standing taboo in Germany to address the immigration issue in a milestone speech at Potsdam near Berlin as right-wing feelings rise. Mrs Merkel told a meeting of the youth wing of her party: “Multikulti, the concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it.
“This approach has failed, utterly,” she said just days after a new poll showed a third of all Germans viewed immigrants as welfare cheats. She said: “We feel bound to the Christian image of humanity, that is what defines us. Those who do not accept this are in the wrong place here.” “Germans should also talk about their values and their increasing alienation from religion, in order to affirm their sense of country and society.” Mrs She said that immigrants who did chose to live in Germany must adapt and learn to speak German as “quickly as possible.” Mindful of the German legacy of the Second World War and atonement for racial policies that cost millions their lives, German politicians since 1945 have tended only to speak in broad positive terms of the “multikulti” society as it is known. The ratcheting up in the political tone, allied as it is with the fears of the population about unemployment and loss of identity, triggered a sharp warning from Jewish leaders in Germany that democracy is under threat. “A recent expert study should prompt the government to act against antidemocratic ideas,” the secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, told a German newspaper on Sunday. “All possible cultural circles are being stigmatised, defamed and tarred with the same brush. I find it on the one hand irresponsible and on the other, shabby. He said the current debate on integration of migrants and immigration was making people feel “uneasy and scared .”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Cap is Bad for UK Business, Say Government Advisors
The evidence reveals that one leading City law firm has been set a cap that is lower than the number of people it needs to hire from outside Europe. The firm says that the employees from Japan and the US are vital if it is to maintain its global competitive edge. The examples of firms being unable to hire talent from overseas has been compiled by the Professional and Business Services Group, an advisory body that represents the UK’s professional services sector, which includes accountancy, legal services, construction services and human resources.
The sector accounts for 8pc of UK output and is a significant employer with 11.5pc of total UK jobs. Another information services company and member of the group said that it had already used up its full quota and revealed how low the cap has been set by the Government for many firms. “We believe that our quota, which is very small, was based on 15pc of our usage of these types of visas from July 2009 to March 2010,” the company said. “We have currently used our entire allocation of Tier 2 visas until March 2011 and believe that additions/extensions are near impossible. The restrictions have stopped us being able to move forward on a couple of instances so far this year.” Last month the CBI warned the Government that the cap, brought in after the general election, was a “real headache” and threatened the economic recovery. The car industry has also raised concerns that the cap could be extended to include inter-company transfers which many global firms use to move employees between different global divisions. Mark Prisk, Minister for Business and Enterprise, has suggested that the cap could be overturned and exemptions made for “technical staff”. The Government would face a further backlash if only certain sectors were allowed to circumvent a permanent cap which is due to follow the present temporary restrictions. “We recognise that the Government has to do something about overall numbers but we need a sophisticated approach for business,” said Sir Michael Snyder, chairman of the Professional and Business Services Group and senior partner at chartered accountants Kingston Smith. “An arbitrary cap appears to be being applied irrespective of the stage of development the business is at. The cap doesn’t take into account the tangible benefits that they [the skilled employees] bring to the UK, such as linguistic skills.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids
(Oct. 17) — Walter Schumm knows what he’s about to do is unpopular: publish a study arguing that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. But the Kansas State University family studies professor has a detailed analysis that past almost aggressively ideological researchers never had.
When one such researcher, Paul Cameron, published a paper in 2006 arguing that children of gay parents were more likely to be gay themselves, the response from the academic press was virulent, to say nothing of the popular press; the Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, equated Cameron to a Nazi.
Not all of the vitriol was hyperbolic. Cameron does not tolerate gay people. He believes that “homosexual practice is injurious to society.”
The gay press, as far back as the 1980s, labeled Cameron “the most dangerous anti-gay voice in America.” Though Cameron was the first to publish papers on the dangers of secondhand smoke, the scientific community has abandoned him. The American Psychological Association long since dropped him from its membership for an “ethical” violation.
Today, Cameron is the founder and chairman of the Family Research Institute, whose “overriding mission” is to publish “empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality.”
Schumm doesn’t go for that sort of research. After Cameron’s 2006 paper, Schumm listened as the academic community stated certainty of two things: Cameron was an idiotic bigot; and the existing literature showed little to no societal, cultural or parental influence on sexual orientation.
Schumm began investigating the second premise. “I just want to know the truth about something,” he tells AOL News. And he found it strange that parents can influence so many facets of their children’s lives — but not in any way their sexual orientation.
Lawyers for the state of Florida heard of Schumm’s fledgling research and invited him in 2008 to testify in a case. The state’s Department of Children and Families was attempting to uphold a ban on gay and lesbian parents adopting children. Schumm’s testimony actually ended up aiding the gay parents in the trial.
He said: “Gay parents can be good foster parents,” and “The decision to permit homosexuals to adopt is best made by the judiciary on a case by case basis.”
Schumm tells AOL News that he agreed to testify as one of the state’s witnesses only if his evidence was not “slanted” for or against gay rights.
But also in his testimony was an inkling of the robust research Schumm has just completed. His study on sexual orientation, out next month, says that gay and lesbian parents are far more likely to have children who become gay. “I’m trying to prove that it’s not 100 percent genetic,” Schumm tells AOL News.
His study is a meta-analysis of existing work. First, Schumm extrapolated data from 10 books on gay parenting; Cameron, for what it’s worth, had only looked at three, and offered no statistical analysis in his paper. Schumm skewed his data so that only self-identified gay and lesbian children would be labeled as such.
This is important because sometimes Schumm would come across a passage of children of gay parents who said they were “adamant about not declaring their sexual orientation at all.” These people would be labeled straight, even though the passage’s implication was that they were gay.
Schumm concluded that children of lesbian parents identified themselves as gay 31 percent of the time; children of gay men had gay children 19 percent of the time, and children of a lesbian mother and gay father had at least one gay child 25 percent of the time.
Furthermore, when the study restricted the results so that they included only children in their 20s — presumably after they’d been able to work out any adolescent confusion or experimentation — 58 percent of the children of lesbians called themselves gay, and 33 percent of the children of gay men called themselves gay. (About 5 to 10 percent of the children of straight parents call themselves gay, Schumm says.)
Schumm next went macro, poring over an anthropological study of various cultures’ acceptance of homosexuality. He found that when communities welcome gays and lesbians, “89 percent feature higher rates of homosexual behavior.”
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UK: Peter Hitchens: Is University Really Such a Good Thing? I Spent Three Years Learning to be a Trot
What are universities for anyway? I went to one and spent the whole time being a Trotskyist troublemaker at the taxpayers’ expense, completely neglecting my course. I have learned a thousand times more during my 30-year remedial course in the University of Fleet Street, still under way.
I am still ashamed of the way I lived off the taxes of millions of people who would have loved three years free from the demands of work, to think and to learn, but never had the chance.
We seem to accept without question that it is a good thing that the young should go through this dubious experience. Worse, employers seem to have fallen completely for the idea that a university degree is essential — when it is often a handicap.
For many people, college is a corrupting, demoralising experience. They imagine they are independent when they are in fact parasites, living off their parents or off others and these days often doomed to return home with a sense of grievance and no job. They also become used to being in debt — a state that previous generations rightly regarded with horror and fear.
And they pass through the nasty, sordid rite of passage known as ‘Freshers’ Week’, in which they are encouraged to drink dangerous amounts of alcohol and to lose what’s left of their sexual inhibitions after the creepy sex educators have got at them at school.
If they have learned self-disciplined habits of work and life, they are under pressure to forget all about them, suddenly left alone in a world almost completely stripped of authority.
And if they are being taught an arts subject, they will find that their courses are crammed with anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-traditional material. Proper literature is despised and ‘deconstructed’.
Our enviable national history is likewise questioned, though nothing good is put in its place. Even if they are studying something serious, their whole lives will be dominated by assumptions of political correctness, down to notices in the bars warning against ‘homophobia’ and other thought crimes.
I think this debauching of the minds and bodies of the young is more or less deliberate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Experts Admit Swine Flu Jab ‘May Cause’ Deadly Nerve Disease
Health chiefs have for the first time acknowledged that the swine flu jab may be linked to an increased risk of developing a deadly nerve condition.
Experts are examining a possible association between the controversial jab and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, according to a report from official watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Previously, the Government has always stressed there is no evidence to link the paralysing condition to the H1N1 vaccine.
[Some Flu vaccines now also contain H1N1 vaccine.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim Brotherhood: Islam’s Global Challenge to the West
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is one of the most dangerous Islamic groups in the world today, not only because it supports terrorism — providing political and financial support for its Palestinian branch, Hamas, for example — but because it is part of a global Islamist network and promotes an ideology that encourages extremism and terrorism.
With branches in seventy countries and linked to major Islamic organizations, the MB has an extensive and well-financed network of educational, social, and cultural institutions which promote a strategic MB plan for Islamic dominance — not through violence, but integration, becoming part of the national social and political life, and the application of Shariah law. These connections give it access to political power and explain why it and the organizations it supports are courted by governments and NGOs. Jean-Pierre Filiu of the Hudson Institute:
The Muslim Brotherhood … has for reasons both ideological and tactical tended in recent decades to embrace a more limited conception of jihad combined with missionary activity and organized political struggle.
Hillel Fradkin, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, notes that the MB, founded in Egypt in 1928, is the source of modern radical Islamic movements and an important part of Muslim communities around the world. The takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas changed the picture. For the first time, the MB had its own territory, a virtual state, and an army. Filiu:
The Brotherhood-offshoot Hamas, which since 2006 has officially ruled over the Gaza strip, is the first Palestinian militia to consistently limit its activities to the territory of pre-1948 Palestine-meaning Israel, the West Bank and Gaza… In the process of consolidating its power, [it] subsequently repressed Gaza’s al-Qaeda-inspired groups. Nowadays, al-Qaeda’s ongoing conflict with Hamas has become one of the main liabilities to al-Qaeda’s propaganda and its efforts to establish itself as the leader of the worldwide jihadist movement.
According to an MB document written in 1991, its role in host countries is a process of settlement called “Civilization-Jihad,” which will “eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within” and establish a “global Islamic state.” To accomplish this, through mosques and Islamic centers, the MB engages in “coalitions,” “absorption,” and civic “cooperation,” building parallel social, political, and cultural organizations. Its guiding principles are those of Hasan al-Banna, who established the Egyptian MB movement and was closely allied with the Nazis.
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