Angela Merkel Consigns Ireland, Portugal and Spain to Their Fate
Bondholders will discover burden-sharing. Debt relief will be enforced, either by interest holidays or haircuts on the value of the bonds. Investors will pay the price for failing to grasp the mechanical and obvious point that currency unions do not eliminate risk: they switch it from exchange risk to default risk. What were investors thinking when they bought Greek 10-year bonds at 26 basis points over Bunds in 2007, below the spread between British Columbia and Quebec?
“We must keep in mind the feelings of our people, who have a justified desire to see that private investors are also on the hook, and not just taxpayers,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Or in the words of Bundesbank chief Axel Weber: “Next time there is a problem, (bondholders) should be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. So far the only ones who have paid for the solution are the taxpayers.”
These were the terms imposed by Germany at Friday’s EU summit as the Quid Pro Quo for the creation of a permanent rescue fund in 2013. A treaty change will be rammed through under Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty, a trick that circumvents the need for full ratification. Eurosceptics can feel vindicated in warning that this “escalator” clause would soon be exploited for unchecked treaty-creep.
Mrs Merkel needs a treaty change to prevent the German constitutional court from blocking the bail-out fund as a breach of EU law, and a treaty change is what she will get. “This will strengthen my position with the Karlsruhe court,” she admitted openly.
One might argue that bondholders should have been punished for their errors long ago. The stench of moral hazard has been sickening, on both sides of the Atlantic. An orderly bankruptcy along lines routinely engineered by the International Monetary Fund is exactly what Greece needs. It makes no sense to push Greece further into a debt compound spiral by raising public debt from 115pc of GDP at the outset of the “rescue” to 150pc at the end of the ordeal.
If you strip out the humbug, the Greek package allows banks and funds to shift roughly €150bn of liabilities onto EU governments, or the European Central Bank, or the IMF. Greek citizens are being subjected to the full pain of austerity under false pretences, without being offered the cure of debt relief.
It is in reality a bail-out for investors. There is a touch of cruelty in this. Needless to say, the Greek Left has noticed. A socialist dissident from the “anti-Memorandum” bloc (ie anti EU-IMF) is likely to win the Athens region in coming elections.
Note too that the ruling socialists have fallen to 25pc in the Portuguese polls, while the Communists and hard-left Bloco are together up to 18pc. Ain’t seen nothing, you might say.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Bank of England Chief Mervyn King Proposes Eliminating Fractional Reserve Banking
Mervyn King — the governor of the Bank of England — has proposed abolishing fractional reserve banking.
As the BBC noted last week:
Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has tonight made a big intervention into the debate on banking reform. In a speech at Buttonwood, New York, he [listed] much more radical proposals.
1. Forcing the riskiest banks to hold capital “several times the magnitude” of requirements at present.
2. The Volcker rule-style enforced breakup of banks into speculative and non-speculative arms.
3. The “Kotlikoff proposal”, which forces banks to match each pool of risks with a requisite amount of capital, preventing losses in one spilling over into another.
4. Stunningly, Mervyn King imagines the “abolition of fractional reserve banking”:
“Eliminating fractional reserve banking explicitly recognises that the pretence that risk-free deposits can be supported by risky assets is alchemy. If there is a need for genuinely safe deposits the only way they can be provided, while ensuring costs and benefits are fully aligned, is to insist such deposits do not co-exist with risky assets.”
[…]
Ironically, while King is proposing the potential elimination of fractional reserve banking (i.e. a return to 100% reserves), Ben Bernanke has proposed the elimination of all reserve requirements (i.e. requiring no reserves)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is the American Dream Over?
America has long been a country of limitless possibility. But the dream has now become a nightmare for many. The US is now realizing just how fragile its success has become — and how bitter its reality. Should the superpower not find a way out of crisis, it could spell trouble ahead for the global economy.
It was to be the kind of place where dozens of American dreams would be fulfilled — here on Apple Blossom Drive, a cul-de-sac under the azure-blue skies of southwest Florida, where the climate is mild and therapeutic for people with arthritis and rheumatism. Everything is ready. The driveways lined with cast-iron lanterns are finished, the artificial streams and ponds are filled with water, and all the underground cables have been installed. This street in Florida was to be just one small part of America’s greater identity — a place where individual dreams were to become part of the great American story.
But a few things are missing. People, for one. And houses, too. The drawings are all ready, but the foundations for the houses haven’t even been poured yet.
Apple Blossom Drive, on the outskirts of Fort Myers, Florida, is a road to nowhere. The retirees, all the dreamers who wanted to claim their slice of the American dream in return for all the years they had worked in a Michigan factory or a New York City office, won’t be coming. Not to Apple Blossom Drive and not to any of the other deserted streets which, with their pretty names and neat landscaping, were supposed to herald freedom and prosperity as the ultimate destination of the American journey, and now exude the same feeling of sadness as the industrial ruins of Detroit.
Florida was the finale of the American dream, a promise, a symbol, an American heaven on earth, because Florida held out the prospect of spending 10, perhaps 20 and hopefully 30 years living in one’s own house. For decades, anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 people moved to the state each year. The population grew and grew — and so too did real estate prices and the assets of those who were already there and wanted bigger houses and even bigger dreams. Florida was a seemingly never-ending boom machine.
Could the Dream Be Over?
Until it all ended. Now people are leaving the state. Florida’s population decreased by 58,000 in 2009. Some members of the same American middle class who had once planned to spend their golden years lying under palm trees are now lined up in front of soup kitchens. In Lee County on Florida’s southwest coast, 80,000 people need government food stamps to make ends meet — four times as many as in 2006. Unemployment figures are sharply on the rise in the state, which has now come to symbolize the decline of the America Dream, or perhaps even its total failure, its naïveté. Could the dream, in fact, be over?
Americans have lived beyond their means for decades. It was a culture long defined by a mantra of entitlement, one that promised opportunities for all while ignoring the risks. Relentless and seemingly unstoppable upward mobility was the secular religion of the United States. Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, established the so-called ownership society, while Congress and the White House helped free it of the constraints of laws and regulations.
The dream was the country’s driving force. It made Florida, Hollywood and the riches of Goldman Sachs possible, and it attracted millions of immigrants. Now, however, Americans are now discovering that there are many directions that life can take, and at least one of them points downward. The conviction that stocks have always made everyone richer has become as much of a chimera in the United States as the belief that everyone has the right to own his own home, and then a bigger home, a second car and maybe even a yacht. But at some point, everything comes to an end.
The United States is a confused and fearful country in 2010. American companies are still world-class, but today Apple and Coca-Cola, Google and Microsoft are investing in Asia, where labor is cheap and markets are growing, and hardly at all in the United States. Some 47 percent of Americans don’t believe that the America Dream is still realistic…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Scary Actual U.S. Government Debt
Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 per cent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion — 840 per cent of current GDP. “Let’s get real,” Prof. Kotlikoff says. “The U.S. is bankrupt.”
Writing in the September issue of Finance and Development, a journal of the International Monetary Fund, Prof. Kotlikoff says the IMF itself has quietly confirmed that the U.S. is in terrible fiscal trouble — far worse than the Washington-based lender of last resort has previously acknowledged. “The U.S. fiscal gap is huge,” the IMF asserted in a June report. “Closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 per cent of U.S. GDP.”
This sum is equal to all current U.S. federal taxes combined. The consequences of the IMF’s fiscal fix, a doubling of federal taxes in perpetuity, would be appalling — and possibly worse than appalling.
| [Return to headlines] |
Bachmann Wants Constitution Class
Congress will lose their constitutional druthers once they get to Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann has a message: Fear not, she’s going to set up constitutional classes.
Bachmann spokesman Sergio Gor says, “It was something she’s always wanted to do. There’s so many folks that come to Capitol Hill to discuss obscure and mundane topics, but no one coming regularly to discuss bill of rights or the role of government.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bangor Police Officer Denied Right to Vote After Refusing to Surrender Weapon
Update: The election warden who turned the officer away has been dismissed, and the Bangor police chief has stated at a press conference that officers are not required to surrender their weapon at the polls.
BANGOR, Maine — In the 18 years that he has been a police officer in Bangor, James Dearing couldn’t think of a single time when someone has asked him to turn over his firearm.
Until last Friday.
Dearing, who was patrolling his assigned beat near the Bangor Civic Center, decided to stop in and cast an early vote. He walked into the polling place in full uniform and stood in a short line with other voters.
Election warden Wayne Mallar then approached Dearing and reiterated the request: Turn over your weapon to another officer or we can’t let you vote.
Dearing refused.
“I would never relinquish my weapon,” the officer said later.
Mallar stood his ground.
The officer said he left the civic center Friday feeling embarrassed and insulted. Dearing posted details of the incident on his Facebook page late Friday and immediately began receiving strong responses.
“One fellow officer, who is stationed in Iraq, said ‘What am I over here fighting for?’“ Dearing said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cable Station Fails to Air O’Donnell Infomercial
After announcing a last-minute buy from a regional cable company for 30-minute slots, the Christine O’Donnell campaign urgently encouraged Delaware voters to tune their sets to her last-minute pitch. Just to be sure that it went off without a hitch, the campaign also reminded the station to run the program. Even after that, the cable channel “forgot” to run the show … twice:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nick Cohen: On Giving Up
Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity yesterday featured Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens singing “Peace Train”. Islam/Stevens previously showed his commitment to peace and sanity by saying that death was the appropriate punishment for Salman Rushdie’s “blasphemy”.
He has tried to wiggle out of it and issued all kinds of denials.
But here is what he said to Geoffrey Robertson QC in 1989. (Video here.)…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spot the Terrorist: Many Jihadists in America Are White, Born in the U.S.
I know: Let’s play a game. In the spirit of the Juan Williams debacle,we’ll call it “Spot the Terrorist.”
Here’s how it works: you’re sitting at the airport, looking around you as your flight prepares for boarding. Among your fellow passengers are the following: a blonde woman of about 30 in a business suit, cell phone to her ear, pacing back and forth; an elderly Muslim woman in headscarf, sitting quietly in her seat; a white guy of 40-something with sandy hair, clad in jeans, a Land’s End shirt and sneakers, who rummages through his backpack; two Middle Eastern men in “Muslim garb,” talking quietly to one another; and an Orthodox Jew, his head buried in a book.
Which one is the terrorist?
Obviously, since I’m asking this question, you know it’s not one of the Muslim men in djellaba. And I’ll give you another hint: it’s not the woman in the headscarf, either.
So then who?
According to a recent report by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, statistically speaking, the one most likely to be a Muslim terrorist is the sandy-haired guy in jeans. In fact, according to the report, the majority of Muslim jihadists in America are white and born in the USA (21%) — the one exception being Somali immigrants, who top the list at 31%.
That fact explains such figures as Colleen LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane,” and Daniel Patrick Boyd, the North Carolina drywall contractor indicted in 2009 on charges of training others to wage jihad — either of whom could easily have sat on a plane right next to José Williams, and he wouldn’t have even flinched.
And there’s the thing. Williams may have been fired unjustly from his job at NPR. He may have only said aloud what most people only think. But he was wrong in his assumptions, and so were the ladies of The View who walked out on Bill O’Reilly — and so are most of us. From Adam Gadahn, né Adam Pearlman — the California-born convert to Islam who is now a member of Al Qaeda — to New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki — a known mentor to “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan and “Christmas bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — the terrorists who form one of the greatest threats to the U.S. homeland look, for all the world, just like you and me.
What they have in common, all of them, is Islam.
This is just a fact. We can say they are “fanatical Muslims” or “Muslim jihadists” or “Islamic extremists”; we can point out that they adhere to a certain extreme sect within the faith; but the single factor that binds them — the only factor — is Islam. And it is for the Islamic community — the ummah — that they fight.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Stalinist and Daniel Webster
Alan Grayson: “America’ s only Stalinist Congressman”
As a resident of Florida’s 8th Congressional District in the Greater Orlando area, and a former New Yorker who grew up in the Bronx a few blocks away from the childhood home of Congressman, Alan Grayson, I cast my ballot last week in early voting to help defeat a man who rightly deserves the title of “America’ s only Stalinist Congressman”.
Grayson’s attack on Republican candidate Daniel Webster whom he labels “Taliban Dan” includes the now infamous video that follows the technique perfected by Stalin’s henchmen and lackeys of splicing, editing, wiping out, skipping and superimposing images and words to convey the polar opposite of reality and historical truth. To see how it was done, take a look at “The Commissar Vanishes; Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia” by David King, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Co. Inc. 1997) and to see how Grayson perfected it just go on the internet.
No other political ad in American history has sunk to this level and Grayson revels in it proclaiming at the end that “I am Alan Grayson and I approve this ad”. Sixty years ago in my youth, Jews felt a deserved pride that “our politicians” and jurists such as Governor Herbert Lehman, Senator Jacob Javits and Justices Brandeis and Frankfurter were models of honesty, integrity and decorum. In today’s political scene, we have descended into the gutter with the likes of former disgraced New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, political “activists” Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod (advisor to disgraced former Senator John Edwards) and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (who dishonestly claimed to have served IN Vietnam). All of these have been put into the shade by Grayson.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
When Bias Has Its Own Media
Bias always exists, but journalistic bias has a tipping point at which instead of a free press, we have a propaganda press. When does that tipping point occur? Henry David Thoreau wrote that there is a certain amount of injustice in government, just as there is a certain amount of friction in operating a machine. But when “friction has its own machine”, then the injustice is no longer an unfortunate byproduct, it is now the purpose of the machine. That is the case with tyrannical regimes who exist to oppress people, rather than the oppression being an unfortunate by product of the exercise of authority, as was formerly the case in the United States.
When it comes to the media, there is also a point at which “friction has its own machine”. That happens when bias is no longer just injected into the reporting of a story, but when bias is the reason for the existence of a story.
It’s easy to spot the difference between the two. For example, a reporter who covers a possible teacher’s strike might favor the teacher’s union and give more time to their grievances than to the plight of the municipal budget and the overburdened taxpayer. This is bias. On the other hand, when that same reporter begins running a series of stories about juvenile delinquency and rising crime connected to school dropout rates in order to warn taxpayers against voting down a proposed school budget — then “bias has its own media.”
The difference is that our hypothetical reporter is no longer only biasing legitimate stories, his stories are part of a narrative that exists for no other purpose than to convince readers to follow his agenda. That is acceptable on the Op Ed page, but not when it is disguised as news. And when entire newspapers, TV stations, magazines and news sites are run in this way, then there is a word for it — propaganda.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Air Freight is an Open Flank in the Fight Against Terrorism’
The parcel bombs found on cargo planes bound for the US have exposed a security gap in air transportation. Expensive checks on cargo will no doubt become necessary. Still, German commentators say that President Obama is dealing more rationally with the threat of terror than his predecessor.
The parcel bombs sent from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago have revealed a major vulnerability in global aviation: air freight, where checks are far less stringent than in passenger travel, even though a large percentage of freight is carried in the holds of passenger jets, write German commentators.
The world urgently needs to adopt common standards for scrutinizing freight, even if this will entail higher costs and slower transport, editorial writers say.
Some also praise the United States government’s sanguine response, which they say marks a welcome change from the exaggerated terrorism fears stoked by the previous administration under George W. Bush. Under President Barack Obama, the US has taken a more measured and less politically charged approach to the threat of Islamic terrorism, commentators say.
Two air freight packages containing bombs — both sent from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago — were intercepted in Britain and Dubai last week. One of the packages was found on a United Parcel Service cargo plane at East Midlands Airport, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of London. The other was discovered at a FedEx Corp facility in Dubai. The tip-off came from Saudi intelligence. US and British authorities said they believe the bombs were meant to go off on board the aircraft rather than at their destinations.
It is believed that the parcel found in East Midlands Airport on Friday may have been trans-shipped via Cologne-Bonn airport in Germany. Asked why the explosives weren’t detected in Germany, industry sources told Reuters that packages that had already passed through security were not necessarily subjected to further checks while in transit.
US authorities suspect Saudi extremist Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri to be behind the foiled attacks. He is believed to be cooperating with AQAP, a Yemeni group linked to al-Qaida in Yemen, and to have constructed the bomb that Nigerian would-be suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to detonate on board a passenger plane bound from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day last year.
Meanwhile, thousands of cheering Yemenis on Monday greeted the student detained briefly on suspicion of having sent the parcel bombs. Yemeni police had arrested computer science student Hanan al-Samawi on Friday after tracing her through a telephone number left with a freight company. But they released her the next day, saying she had been a victim of identity theft.
Now governments, airlines and aviation authorities around the world are reviewing security.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Party Urges Arab TV Ban
People’s Party says Al Jazeera and other Arabic channels sow hatred against Western society in immigrant communities.
Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the far-right Danish People’s Party, is calling for a ban on satellite antennas in residential areas with large immigrant populations in Denmark.
She has since pushed for the national broadcasting authority to prevent Al Jazeera and other Arab satellite channels from broadcasting in Denmark.
Kjærsgaard accuses them of “broadcasting indoctrination from the Middle Eastern world”, and “inoculating the viewers in Denmark to hate Denmark and the West”.
The controversial proposal has so far been met with criticism from the Danish People’s Party’s coalition partners, the liberal and conservative parties.
Although both main parties disagree with the proposed ban, they fundamentally agree with the People’s Party’s claims — as a spokesman for the conservatives put it — that Arab channels “espouse anti-Jewish and anti-Western propaganda”.
But banning Arab channels will give the impression that Denmark is suppressing Arab points of view, the spokesman said.
The current government has relied on Kjærsgaard and the People’s Party for its majority since 2001, when the coalition came to power following campaign laced with anti-immigration rhetoric.
The ruling party’s Kristian Jensen says Denmark should defend freedom of speech, but cautions that there is an opportunity to make a case to the country’s broadcasting authority if the channels break the law.
Conflicting opinions
Kjærsgaard says that the broadcasting authority can move to ban a channel it sees as promoting hatred.
Meanwhile, opposition parties are outraged, describing the People’s Party’s proposal as a “desperate” attempt to maintain its grip on the debate on Muslims and immigrants in Denmark.
The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, thinks that it is “un-Danish” to forbid people from deciding which TV channels they can access.
“We live in Denmark, not in North Korea or China,” the party has said.
Al Jazeera broadcast a documentary in 2009 entitled Confrontation in Copenhagen, which dealt with the racialised debate on crime in Denmark as well as the new anti-immigrant laws, sparking a huge debate in the country.
Calls to strip me, the producer of the piece, of my citizenship were heard on the fringes.
In the lead-up to the film’s screening, headlines such “A Palestinian-Dane produces a dark film that portrays Denmark as a racist country” filled the screens and front pages of many Danish media outlets.
The main two television broadcasters, TV2 and Danish Broadcast Co-operation, as well as all major national news papers, treated the film as second “cartoon crises in making”, referring to the controversy stirred when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
In the hours before the documentary’s screening, there was a heightened state of alert across Danish embassies in the Arab and Muslim world. As Al Jazeera went on air with the film, Denmark’s main TV channel picked up the telecast live.
Nasser Khader and Fathi al-Abded, two Danish politicians and representatives of the communities, concluded that the film would harm Danish national interests, especially if the “imams” made use of it.
Sober evaluation
The verdict of independent media experts and the Danish ministry of foreign affairs was considerably less alarmist. They judged the film “innocent”, “critical”, “fair and balanced”…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Taste of What’s to Come?
If you want to know what the social, cultural and racial trend is in Europe — and every country is different — look no further than Denmark.
No country adopted multiculturalism and ethnic tolerance with the enthusiasm and idealism of Denmark.
Some countries had little choice but to accept an influx of people with different and conflicting values and mores. When its African colonies gained independence, and when Algeria broke away after a bitter war, France became home to millions of displaced Arabs.
Portugal, Spain, and even Britain became the new home for many who felt they had to move from the land of their birth. Newcomers adjusted in varying degrees of harmony and resentment.
During the 1970s, no country was as welcoming as Denmark to newcomers. Danes had no obligation to encourage outsiders — but it did. Perhaps Denmark was influenced by its gallant record of standing up to the Nazi occupation in the Second World War — not with guns and bombs, but by its response to the order that all Jews be rounded up and sent to a concentration camp.
In defiance, an enterprising and heroic underground network spirited 7,200 of Jews out of Denmark, mostly on fishing vessels, to safety in Sweden, a national action that spoke volumes.
Subsequently, Denmark’s socialist government has tried to look after every citizen. Regarding immigrants, it sought to avoid mistakes of other countries, and ensure that newcomers could integrate and blend with Danes and feel comfortable.
Denmark’s crime rate was one of the lowest in Europe; its education system was excellent and available to all; its humanitarianism beyond repute. Denmark’s history of pillaging Vikings succumbed to generous welfare to immigrants, plus housing and other amenities that it hoped would set an example for the world in multicultural inclusiveness.
To a great degree it worked. But not with Muslims, who chose not to integrate, but to live in self-chosen ghettos where Danish liberalism and tolerance were seen as decadent and offensive.
This all came to a head in 2005 when an obscure magazine published 12 political cartoons featuring Mohammed. Months later, streets in parts or the world ran with blood, the cartoonists’ lives were threatened, Islamic outrage caused the rest of the world to shudder, cringe and apologize for allegedly showing disrespect to the Prophet. Denmark retreated.
The western media largely refused to publish the Danish cartoons — pretending to be motivated by principle rather than fear of Islamic reprisals.
Daniel Pipes is one who anticipated the Muslim collision in Denmark. In 2002 he noted that Muslims in Denmark comprise 4% of the population (5.5 million), but get 40% of available welfare payments. He also claimed the majority of convicted rapists are Muslim.
Pipes’ claims were later disputed by Danish parliamentarians, who say his numbers just don’t add up.
Muslims want Sharia law in Denmark. Forced marriages exist (promising newborn daughters to male cousins in the home country); Muslims who convert to Christianity are threatened with death; women are forced to cover their faces, fearing male vengeance, Pipes claims.
Anti-Israel marches turn into anti Jewish protests.
Like other European countries (Germany, France, Holland, Belgium) opposition is growing against multiculturalism — now seen as a failure.
Russia, China — even the U.S. and Canada — have growing unease about the militancy of Muslims, and are called bigots.
As Ezra Levant noted in a column, only in Canada would an appeal court judge rule that before a veiled women must show her face while testifying, she can ask for an order to clear the courtroom of males — including staff, opposition lawyers, even the judge himself.
Another triumph of multiculturalism? No, but it looks to be the future.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sarkozy’s Perfect Storm
French Fury Goes Beyond Pensions
The French are not just protesting to stop the retirement age from being raised. They are also fighting to save their country from government sleaze and the dismantling of democracy.
During his adventurous journeys across oceans and through faraway lands, Obelix, the loyal friend of Asterix in the famous French comic book series of that name, is often surprised by local customs and traditions. Whenever he encounters something unfamiliar, the fat Gaul in the blue-and-white striped pants taps his red hair and mumbles: “These Romans are crazy,” or makes similar remarks about whichever nationality he happens to have encountered.
These days, as the French take to the barricades once again to protest a pension reform that appears to be necessary, one might be tempted to turn Obelix’s remarks around, and ask: Are these Gauls crazy? Have the French lost their minds?
[…]
Those who have paid only fleeting attention to the events in France and have relied on little more than brief, hectic news reports must conclude that the French, in defiance of all reason, are fighting ferociously to keep their retirement age at 60, and not change it to 62, as the government wants to do. If this were true, one would indeed be forced to conclude that the French are mad, and France itself would have to be written off as a serious partner in Europe until further notice. But fortunately the truth looks a little different.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Flight Ban Extended to Yemeni Passenger Jets
Germany has extended a ban on air freight from Yemen to passenger flights, a Transport Ministry spokesman said Monday, after parcel bombs posted in that country were found on US-bound cargo flights.
The spokesman told a regular government briefing that Germany had stepped up its emergency measures when it emerged that one of the parcel bombs had been routed via the western German city of Cologne. Germany is the first country to announce a ban on all flights from Yemen.
“All Yemeni air companies that fly to Germany have received a flight ban,” the ministry spokesman said.
“The German air authorities have orders to turn back all direct and indirect flights from Yemen. That means that for the time being, there will be no flights to or over German territory allowed.”
The German government said Saturday that it would outlaw all cargo from Yemen indefinitely. A spokesman said Monday that Berlin was now weighing whether to ban freight from other countries amid a major security review.
The Transport Ministry spokesman said Germany had no current figures on the amount of cargo from Yemen. A source close to the government said there was only one flight to Germany on a Yemeni airline per week, via Rome.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told the same news conference that Germany would work with its European partners and US authorities to coordinate further steps to protect air traffic.
“(Cargo traffic) is harder to control than passenger traffic because it can lead to a world trade being slowed down,” Seibert noted.
Qatar Airways said a package containing explosives was flown from the Yemeni capital Sanaa to Doha and then on to Dubai Friday on one of its aircraft. A source said on condition of anonymity that the plane was a passenger flight.
The bomb had PETN hidden inside a computer printer with a circuit board and mobile phone SIM card attached, officials said.
The other parcel was found at East Midlands airport in central England and travelled through Cologne. British Prime Minister David Cameron said it appeared designed to blow up a plane.
The two bombs contained 300 grammes (11 ounces) and 400 grammes of explosives respectively and could have caused “significant damage,” a German official said Monday. The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the two bombs contained the explosive PETN.
If they had gone off, “they would have caused significant damage,” he said, without specifying the source of the information.
US officials have said the two intercepted packages originating from Yemen were addressed to synagogues in Chicago, President Barack Obama’s former power base. They have cited Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, an alleged Al-Qaida bomb-maker born in Saudi Arabia but based in Yemen, as a “leading suspect” in the case.
Evidence suggests the same person built the intercepted parcel bombs and the device worn by the “underwear” bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who botched an attack on a passenger flight to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Suspects Carried Letter Bomb for Sarkozy
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek police foiled four attempted parcel bomb attacks Monday, allegedly targeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and three embassies in Athens, after one of the devices exploded at a delivery service, leaving a worker hospitalized with burns.
Motorcycle police later arrested two Greek men, aged 22 and 24, several hundred meters from the blast site in central Athens. Police said the men were carrying handguns and bullets in waist pouches, and one of them wore a bulletproof vest, a wig and a baseball cap.
Police released photographs of the two suspects late Monday, but did not identify them.
Parts of the city center were cordoned off for more than an hour around midday as the three unexploded bombs, found at a different delivery service and in the suspects’ backpacks, were defused in a series of controlled explosions.
Beyond Sarkozy, the targets were the embassies of Mexico, The Netherlands and Belgium, police said. The return address labels included the names of a senior government official, a Greek charity, and a well-known Greek criminologist, police said.
They said the one that exploded was addressed to the Mexican Embassy. The one addressed to the Dutch Embassy was found and defused at a delivery service, police said. The other two — the one addressed to the Belgian Embassy and the one addressed to Sarkozy — were found on the suspects, police said.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Opposition Press Premier on ‘Ruby Phone Call’
Berlusconi ‘completely unfazed’ by case of Moroccan runaway
(ANSA) — Rome, October 29 — The centre-left opposition on Friday said it would press Premier Silvio Berlusconi over his apparent admission that he had his office phone a Milan police station in May about a 17-year-old Moroccan runaway belly dancer who was subsequently released without charge after allegedly stealing from an acquaintance of hers.
According to press reports, the premier’s office allegedly asked the case to be handled “sensitively” because the girl, Ruby, was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Ruby has told police she received gifts from the premier at parties in his Milan residence where she also allegedly witnessed an “erotic ritual” called ‘bunga bunga’, a reference to one of the premier’s favourite bawdy jokes.
Former graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro, leader of the opposition Italy of Values (IdV) party, said the IdV might table a vote of no confidence in Berlusconi as premier for allegedly interfering in police work, a breach of his institutional role.
“We’ll wait to hear what Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has to say about it at question time and then we’ll decide,” Di Pietro said.
IdV spokesman Leoluca Orlando called on the premier to resign, saying “the ‘bunga bunga’ will bury Berlusconi”.
“Italy has completely lost credibility at an international level and has become a joke thanks to its premier who knows no shame,” Orlando claimed.
Enrico Letta, a heavyweight in the largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, also said Berlusconi should resign if the “pressure exerted on the Milan police turns out to be true”.
Members of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party shot back by saying “the only kind of politics the opposition deals in is gossip”.
Berlusconi, who was dogged by reports about his private life last year, said at a European Union summit Thursday night that he was “absolutely unfazed” by the allegations concerning Ruby and stressed that the phone call was “only to alert (the police) about someone who should be taken to a (minors’) shelter”.
Previously, the premier had said that he had “a big heart” and was always ready to “help out people in need”.
Ruby reportedly ran away from her parents in Sicily and a centre for youngsters in trouble before seeking the high life in Milan where she found illegal work as a night-club belly dancer.
She has reportedly told police she received a dress, jewelry and cash from the premier but stressed she never had sex with him.
“He was a gentleman,” she reportedly said.
A Berlusconi news anchor, a former dental hygienist who is now a Lombardy regional councillor, and a TV impresario are reportedly under investigation for aiding and abetting prostitution.
Berlusconi, who is not under investigation, has described the case as “media trash” and has denied all impropriety.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Trash Fires in Naples
‘Situation serious’ official says
(ANSA) — Naples, October 29 — Some 30 piles of rubbish across Naples were set ablaze Thursday night and fire services had to intervene to put them out, officials said Friday.
Many of the fires were in the city centre, they said. An estimated 2,000 tonnes of uncollected refuse is littering the streets of the southern Italian city, almost 500 tonnes more than Thursday.
“The situation is serious”, Urban Hygiene Councillor Paolo Giacomelli said after protests blocked trucks unloading in one city site.
Outside the city, on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius, where there have been violent clashes over a foul-smelling dump, there was an “uneasy calm”, officials said.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi visited the area Thursday and vowed to clear Naples’ streets of rubbish “in three days”.
The contested dump is being tested and is slated to be reopened next week, despite continuing protests, while another has been indefinitely put on hold.
The premier voiced confidence that the area’s residents and mayors would support a plan to solve the crisis “within 10 days”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi’s Love of Women, Work and Play ‘Won’t Change’
Brussels, 29 Oct. (AKI) — Italy’s billionaire prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said his love of work, women and play will never change, as he dismissed fresh allegations of sexual misconduct with a Moroccan minor who he says escaped from a “tragic life” thanks to his help.
Some Italian newspapers over the last few days have printed stories based on claims by a Moroccan illegal immigrant who goes by the first name “Ruby”, that recounted stories of her supposed three visits to 74-year-old Berlusconi’s villa in Arcore near Milan when she was 17 years old.
The teenager was picked up several times by police, suspected of theft and burglary. But each time, she was allegedly released after police received a call from the Berlusconi’s office.
“She was sent to me so I could help out a person who could have been locked up, which isn’t very nice,” Berlusconi told reporters in Brussels on Friday.
According to the Italian media reports, Ruby said she joined escorts, government cabinet ministers and the news anchor for one of Berlusconi’s television stations to play Bunga Bunga”, a sex game. Berlusconi allegedly said Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi had taught him the rules.
Ruby, who aspires to be a showgirl, said the prime minister showered her with valuable gifts, as well as 150,000 euros in cash, according to the reports.
Berlusconi has referred to the accusations as “trash” and on Friday said it was part of a left-wing plot to ruin his reputation.
“It’s a leftist attack against me…With a smile on my face I read all the lies. I don’t have to clear up anything. In my house I allow only good people and above all, people who behave themselves,” he said.
But Berlusconi told reporters he likes a good time in female company to unwind from a busy schedule.
“I’m a playful person. I love life and I love women,” he said. “Nobody can make me change my lifestyle,” he said.
Over the past two years Berlusconi has been trailed by a string of accusations about his sex life.
Berlusconi’s estranged wife Veronica Lario in a biography about here suggested that the prime minister should seek counselling for sex addiction.
He had been linked to teenage Naples lingerie model Noemi Letizia, whose 18th birthday party he attended in 2008 and to whom he gave a 6,000 euro gold and pearl pendant.
She said she called him ‘Papi’, meaning ‘Daddy’ in English.
Escort Patrizia D’Addario alleges she had sex with Berlusconi at his residence in Rome in November 2009. She released tapes of their encounter to media. Berlusconi has said he is “no saint” but has never paid a woman for sex or had “improper” relations.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim World: Young European Man Explains Why He Converted to Islam
The story of Malcolm is intriguing, and perhaps a bit puzzling.
Why would a left-leaning young man from one of the world’s most secular and liberal countries choose to become a pious Muslim?
The 34-year old Swedish music teacher from Stockholm, who asked that his last name not be published, attempted to explain his decision, describing it as the culmination of a long journey searching for faith and him solidifying his religious beliefs that he couldn’t always place.
“I have never doubted my faith,” he told Babylon & Beyond while on a recent visit to Beirut. “It feels like I’ve had the same faith all the time but it feels so cleanly formulated in Islam.”
For Malcolm, becoming a Muslim gave him a connection to others in a country where identity is not always clean-cut.
“I feel very comfortable as a Muslim…. We’re social creatures and we want to feel a sense of belonging,” he said. “If it’s not a clan it’s a nation or a soccer team. For me it’s nice to have a belonging which is not a nation or a football team.”
Growing up in predominantly Protestant Sweden, Malcolm’s doubts about his faith lingered as he got older.
He started to study different religions and read philosophy texts. He felt drawn to Islam and fascinated by its teachings, especially to what he says is the religion’s focus on seeking knowledge.
He used the Internet to learn about Islam and the Koran, dedicating many hours in front of his computer learning how to recite the Koran and memorizing its chapters.
Malcolm wasn’t the only member of his family who embraced Islam. His brother, too, became a Muslim.
The day he “officially” became a Muslim some three years ago will be forever ingrained in his memory.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: PVV Warns of Islamic ‘Right to Lie’
The Party for Freedom (PVV) has added a new word to Dutch vocabulary: takiyya. It says it is an Islamic rule that allows Muslims to lie to non-Muslims.
In his recently-published book, PVV MP Martin Bosma describes takiyya as “lying to strengthen Islam.” It amounts to Muslims being able to present themselves as liberal and modern, while secretly working on the introduction of the Sharia.
In a debate last week, GroenLinks leader Femke Halsema accused PVV leader Geert Wilders of making all Muslims suspect with the reference to takiyya. Wilders advised her to seek information from Islam experts.
If Halsema were to go to Maurits Berger for advice, she would not be convinced of Wilders’ views. The professor of Islam in the present-day West reacted angrily to the PVV message in De Volkskrant newspaper yesterday.
“How dare Wilders throw around Islamic terms about which he does not have a clue? Takiyya is a concept from the Middle Ages. It infuriates me that such a dogma from the past should be stuck onto the Muslims of today. It is as if you claimed that Christians think women who stay afloat are witches.”
The concept of takiyya appears in the Koran. “Only among extreme groups does this secrecy still do the rounds,” according to Berger. He considers it a “complete scandal” that Wilders and Bosma have introduced it. “This is manifest incitement to hatred.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Rape in Marriage is No Crime Says Cleric
A MUSLIM cleric sparked outrage yesterday — saying there is no such thing as rape within marriage.
Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, who runs the largest network of sharia courts in Britain, claimed husbands who rape their wives should not be prosecuted because “sex is part of marriage”.
When asked if he believed non-consensual marital sex could be rape he said defiantly: “No.
“Clearly there cannot be any rape within the marriage. Maybe aggression, maybe indecent activity.”
He said the “aggression” of reporting the man to police was greater than the “minor aggression” of forcing a woman to have sexual intercourse against her will.
He claimed many married women who alleged rape were lying.
“In most of the cases, they have been advised by solicitors that one of the four reasons for which a wife can get a divorce is rape.
“Why it is happening in this society is because they have got this idea of so-called equality, equal rights.”
Sheikh Sayeed said the concept of rape within marriage was “not Islamic”.
He said: “It is not an assault, it is not some kind of jumping on somebody’s individual right.
“When they got married, the understanding was that sexual intercourse was part of the marriage, so there cannot be anything against sex in marriage.
“Of course, if it happened without her desire, that is no good, that is not desirable.”
He said husbands can be dealt with under sharia law, but there is no need for the police to be called in.
Asked how husbands accused of rape should be dealt with, he said: “He may be disciplined, and he may be made to ask forgiveness. That should be enough.”
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As campaigners, police and women’s groups reacted angrily to his remarks yesterday Sheikh Sayeed stood by his claims adding: “In Islamic sharia, rape is adultery by force.
“So long as the woman is his wife, it cannot be termed as rape. It is reprehensible, but we do not call it rape.”
Sheikh Sayeed moved here from Bangladesh in 1977.
He is now president of the Islamic Sharia Council which operates 16 courts in Britain, including in Birmingham, Bradford and London.
Dave Whatton, Chief Constable of Cheshire and spokesman on rape for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said the sheikh’s opinion “fundamentally undermines everything we are trying to do”.
He said: “We know that the majority of rapes do not take place through strangers attacking women late at night but between acquaintances and within marriages and partnerships.
“Sharia law should not replace the laws of the UK.”
Muslim tribunals exploit a legal loophole which allows sharia courts to be classified as arbitration courts, with their rulings binding in law.
Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “Under sharia women are second-class citizens at best; chattel at worst. Sharia courts are incompatible with British democracy. There’s no such thing as moderate sharia. It’s a backward, bigoted, discriminatory body.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
They’re Leading US to the Abyss
In Brussels, 28/29 October, France and Germany will try to persuade their EU partners to modify some of the EU’s cornerstone texts in order to create a culture of budgetary rigour. A simplistic and useless idea, according to a Spanish editorialist.
Xavier Vidal-Folch
A month ago, at the monastery of Sant Benet de Bages, Felipe González admonished a bunch of businessmen handpicked by the ESADE business school: “We’ve spent too much time distracted by the European Union: let’s keep them from fiddling any further with the treaties because, as far as I can see, anyone will be able to block their reform.”
He was dead right. Yet another reform, now, when the previous one has only just gone into effect? More Irish referendums, Czech blackmail and institutional snoozing on the job? How frivolous and tiresome, what a navel-gazing waste of time, what a recipe for paralysis!
Create a European Monetary Fund, terrific idea. But reforming the treaty to that end — and to add sanctions — would be a waste of time. Or worse. But Berlin and Paris don’t see it that way. They think they can impose a quick reform to beef up the euro stability pact, but even simplified reforms have to win enough votes to pass.
The EU summit opening today will give its blessing — or not — to the new economic sanctions. There’s no problem there aside from their lack of credibility: seeing as the sanctions are not automatic, it doesn’t occur to anyone that one day they might apply to France and Germany, just as the old sanctions were never applied when the two states breached the austerity diktat in 2003—2005.
Do we need to reform the Treaty to make these changes?
Moreover, the summit will examine the Franco-German proposal of reforming the Lisbon Treaty to give permanent form to the rescue fund (€750 billion) that was approved in May to bail out countries drowning in their own sovereign debt. The object is a bona fide European Monetary Fund (EMF). That’s truly fantastic news. The assembled heads of state and government will also thrash out the idea of penalising those who fail to meet the Maastricht criteria. Should their voting rights be suspended? That’s debatable, seeing as an economic failing calls for a financial penalty, not a political one.
Do we need to reform the Treaty to make these two changes? Yes, as regards suspending voting rights for fiscal failings. All the same, it is ironic that this proposal should be made by France, which frankly should have been brought to book for infringements of “respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities” (Treaty on European Union article 2) and stripped of its voting rights under the terms of article 7 for “clear risk of a serious breach by a Member State” of those democratic “values”. In a word, it would be a frivolous waste of time to reform the Treaty to safeguard an important but minor value, namely that of fiscal orthodoxy.
Karlsruhe has issued four rulings
Furthermore, no Treaty changes are needed to set up an EMF. Before its predecessor, the temporary bailout fund, was created (for three years) in May, Angela Merkel alleged it would be impossible without changing the Treaty because the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe would quash it. But it proved possible, because the creation of such a fund is permissible under article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Karlsruhe has issued four rulings on European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and on the EU itself, in each case endorsing the pro-European progress, albeit with certain nationalistic reservations: On 12 October 1993 it backed up the Maastricht Treaty as long as *sovereignty would not be “voided of substance* by the transfer of responsibilities”. On 31 March 1998 it rubber-stamped the transition to the third phase of EMU, which, it said, “is not a matter for the courts, but for Parliament”.
On 30 June 2009 it approved the Lisbon Treaty because the latter did not dare to entrust the EU with “the basic determination of the type or amount of taxation to be levied on citizens”, and because it maintained the “essential core of state sovereignty”. And this past 7 May it applauded the Greek bailout “for not jeopardising the monetary union” and because the financial “burden” on Germany would not “cause any fundamental prejudice to the general welfare”. So like as not, Karlsruhe would stick to this line, setting the pace for Berlin to some extent, then ultimately proceeding at its pace.
So why do Angela and Nicolas insist on leading us towards a futile undertaking and, perhaps even worse, towards an abyss?
Translated from the Spanish by Eric Rosencrantz
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Smiling’ Woman ‘Stabbed MP Twice in Stomach After Confronting Him About Iraq War’
A Muslim woman tried to kill a Labour MP by stabbing him in the stomach ‘in revenge’ for him voting for the Iraq War, a court heard today.
Roshonara Choudhry, 21, is accused of knifing Stephen Timms twice in a shock attack during a constituency surgery meeting after she greeted the MP with a smile and offered him the hand of friendship.
A second later the fanatic allegedly lunged forward, repeatedly plunging a three inch kitchen knife into his stomach, sending the MP ‘reeling and staggering’ backwards, before staff jumped in to wrestle the blade from her grasp.
The Old Bailey heard how the young Muslim woman had plotted for weeks to kill her local MP, buying two knives in case one ‘broke’ when she enacted her ‘punishment’ for him voting in Parliament to invade Iraq in March 2003.
[…]
Choudhry was later charged with attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon.
But in an extraordinary case, she has refused to challenge the evidence, saying she does not recognise the jurisdiction of the court.
In what is thought to be the only case in living memory, the defendant has refused to appear in court for her trial and has instructed her lawyers not to offer any evidence in her defence or cross-examine any witnesses.
[…]
When she was interviewed by police, Choudhry is said to have remained chillingly calm, telling officers she had been planning to kill the MP for three or four weeks and had bought two knives at the end of April ‘in case one broke’.
She told Detective Inspector Simon Dobinson: ‘I made an appointment to see him and I went there and then when I was shaking his hand I stabbed him.’
Asked why, she said: ‘Because he voted for the Iraq war.’
She continued ‘I purposefully walked round the side of the desk so I could get close to him so I could, yeah, stab him.
‘He pointed for me to sit down on the chair but instead I walked towards him with my left hand out as if I wanted to shake his hand.
‘Then I pulled the knife out of my bag in my right hand and I hit him in the stomach with it.
‘I put it in the top part of his stomach.
‘I just pushed it in like how it is if you punch someone.
‘I was trying to kill him because he wanted to invade Iraq.’
Asked why, she answered: “Punishment.”
‘I think I stabbed him again. I think I did it twice. I tried to attack him again and then everyone starting to scream,’ she told detectives.
When asked what she was thinking or feeling, Choudhry replied: ‘I was not feeling anything’.
When questioned why she stabbed him in the stomach, Choudhry said: ‘I am not that strong I thought that the stomach would be soft enough to get the knife in.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bus Driver Cleared After Blundering Bosses Took Her to Court Over £21.60 (But Case Still Costs Taxpayer £10k)
A £10,000 case against a bus driver for stealing £21.60 has been dramatically thrown out of court — after her employers realised THEY’D added up her takings wrong.
Catherine Bates, 39, was arrested in February after her employer Travel de Courcey claimed she had pocketed customers’ money.
The bus firm said she had stolen the cash by handing out tickets to customers and not declaring the payments at the end of her shift.
But after an eight-month legal nightmare costing thousands in taxpayer cash, it has finally emerged a simple accounting error was to blame for her ordeal.
As it turned out, Catherine had actually overpaid her employer and someone else had added up the totals from a spreadsheet incorrectly.
It was only ON THE DAY she was due to stand trial that the mistake was finally spotted and the judge immediately threw out the case in light of the new evidence.
The jury trial at Coventry Crown Court lasted just a few minutes, leaving prosecutors red-faced about their decision to pursue the case.
The cost of preparing legal proceedings against Catherine is thought to total at least £10,000.
Now, the furious mum-of-one says her life has been ruined by eight months of ‘sheer hell’.
[…]
A spokesman for West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service, which went ahead with the decision to prosecute Catherine, said the case fulfilled its criteria to take it to court.
[…]
‘In the light of this further information, a decision was made to discontinue the prosecution on the basis that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Carer Left Note on Dying Patient’s Bed Saying ‘Hopefully They Will Not Last More Than Two Days’
A note reading ‘Hopefully they will not last more than two days’ was accidently left by a hospital carer on a dying patient’s bed.
Healthcare assistant Brenda Nixon has refused to apologise for the note and claims her only regret is that someone spotted it.
It had been written in anger at receiving notification that five beds would be earmarked for terminally-ill patients, who hospital management implied would only be staying for 48 hours ‘preparing for death’.
But her message was actually found by the son of 74-year-stroke victim Jean Wrench who was staying in the bed at Burslem’s Haywood Hospital, Staffs.
It read: ‘They come in here nearly dead. Hopefully they will not last more than two days. We are not allowed to help. It is the credit crunch.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Firefighters ‘Lacked Equipment’ For 7/7 London Bombings
Firefighters lacked the training and first aid equipment to treat the most seriously injured, the 7/7 London bombing inquests have heard.
Firefighter Sean Jones said some of the wounded in the 2005 attack at Aldgate were untreatable by the fire service.
His colleague Paul Osborne was overcome with emotion when he gave evidence, having to pause for several seconds.
The inquests are into the deaths of 52 people who were killed by suicide bombers on three Tube trains and a bus. Mr Jones told the hearings that he spent up to two hours in a bomb-damaged Tube train carriage at Aldgate trying to help the wounded and dying.
‘Beyond remit’ He said: “At that stage all we carried on our fire engine was a very basic first aid kit, a number of bandages, elastic tape.
“The nature of the injuries that we saw on the train, there was no mild first aid — it’s either seriously injured or they get up and walk off.
“So there was no triage that needed to be done, there was nothing like that. It was just purely a case of the casualties that we saw were way beyond our remit and skill levels to be able to treat.
“So our first aid kit would have been useless anyway.”
He added: “We needed paramedics and Hems [Helicopter Emergency Medical Service] there.”
Hugo Keith QC, counsel to the inquests, asked him: “In truth there was nothing that you or perhaps the police officers could have done for them because none of you had the specialist medical equipment?”
Mr Jones, who was based at Southwark fire station in south London at the time, replied: “There was nothing that could have been done.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hoodie Thug is Caught on CCTV Hitting Pregnant Woman in the Face
A woman who is six months pregnant was savagely hit in the face by a passer-by as she walked through a train station, it emerged today.
The thug, wearing a hoodie and pushing a push-chair containing a toddler, lashed out at the stunned mother-to-be at London Bridge Station.
CCTV cameras caught the assault on the 39-year-old, who was left distraught and clutching her face by the station wall.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ryanair Boss Attacks ‘Ludicrous’ Security Measures in Wake of Latest Terror Bomb Plot
Air travellers face a wave of new security measures in the wake of the Yemen bomb plot.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary warned even talcum power could end up on the banned list of items people cannot take on planes.
He said he feared a new raft of ‘ludicrous’ airport security measures in reaction to the latest terror plot where bombs hidden in printer ink cartridges were found on U.S.-bound planes in the East Midlands and Dubai.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: She Was Feted by Gordon Brown for Standing Up to the Thugs Terrorising Her Estate.
Now, abandoned by politicians and police alike, she’s been forced to admit defeat.
Even after her five-year-old son saw a stranger punch her in the face on the doorstep of their home on Bolton’s most notorious estate, this fearless mum-of-six did not flinch from what she saw as her duty: to help police tackle the anti-social behaviour which has wrecked her community.
All her neighbours on the Johnson Fold estate have been similarly affected — dreading the hour at which gangs of 30 or more youths congregate outside to drink, smoke cannabis and hurl abuse and bricks through windows — but only Sharon was brave enough to put her name to the complaints that fill countless police and council files.
That’s why, as she and her family endured daily threats, violence, verbal abuse and vandalism, Sharon was last year hailed in the Press as the ‘Superwoman of Suburbia’ — a standard-bearer for families trying to live a decent life on Britain’s lawless council estates.
She won awards for her bravery, and met Gordon Brown at Number 10. No doubt, he hoped that standing alongside an apparent success story would deflect attention from the abject failure of Labour’s ‘alphabet soup’ of anti-social behaviour measures.
Sharon said at the time: ‘They may think they can do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. But this is our home and we won’t be bullied or intimidated into giving it up and letting them turn this place into a war zone.’
There was no doubting she meant it. But little more than a year later, the weight of that responsibility has grown too heavy for Sharon to bear. And who can blame her?
‘I can’t be “Superwoman” any more,’ 39-year-old Sharon admits wearily. ‘We’ve decided to move house because we’ve wasted four years here, living under attack.
‘I put my faith in the system. I reported every crime. I played by the rules and, as a result, I made a target of myself and my family.
‘We don’t see the police round here from one month to the next. They say they want to stamp out anti-social behaviour, but it’s all talk.’After all, Sharon never was Superwoman. She is an ordinary mum who needed the support of the police and confidence in the law to bring her tormentors to justice. But after her four-year campaign she feels she has neither, and no option but to leave.
‘The fact is, even though the street is a much better place day-to-day, I know I will never feel safe around here. There is a massive gang who see it as their business to make our lives a misery, and no one is doing anything to stop them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Stabbed MP ‘In Revenge for Iraq War Vote’
A woman stabbed Stephen Timms, the Labour MP, twice in the stomach during a constituency surgery in revenge for his vote for the war in Iraq, a court heard today.
Mr Timms told the Old Bailey he thought Roshonara Choudhry, 21, was coming to shake hands, and she smiled before lunging at him on May 14 this year.
Mr Timms, Labour MP for East Ham, was sent “reeling and staggering” before retreating into the men’s toilets at the community centre in Beckton, east London.
His assistant Andrew Bazeley prised the kitchen knife away from her and she was placed in a “bear hug” by a security guard before police arrived. Another knife was found in her bag.
Choudhry told detectives she was trying to kill Mr Timms for “punishment” and “to get revenge for the people of Iraq”, prosecutor William Boyce QC, said.
“When asked why she had stabbed him a second time she said ‘because I wasn’t going to stop stabbing until someone made me’,” Mr Boyce added.
Choudhry, who was not in court, is accused of attempted murder and two charges of having an offensive weapon.
Jeremy Dein QC, defending, said she did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court and did not wish her lawyers to challenge evidence put before the jury.
Mr Timms said he was running slightly late when he arrived at the Beckton Globe community centre for his regular Friday surgery.
Choudhry, who was dressed in black, had made an appointment for 2.45pm, specifically to see him rather than an assistant, and was the second person he saw that day, just after 3pm.
The MP said: “She didn’t go and sit down as she continued to come towards me where I was standing to greet her at that point.
“I thought she must have been coming to shake my hand. She made as if she was coming to do that. She looked friendly. She was smiling, if I remember rightly.
“I was a little puzzled because a Muslim woman dressed in that way wouldn’t normally be willing to shake a man’s hand, still less to take the initiative to do so, but that is what she was doing.
“She lunged at me with her right hand.”
Mr Timms pointed at his stomach to show the jury where the knife had gone in.
He said: “I think I knew that I had been stabbed although I didn’t feel anything and I can’t recall actually seeing a knife but I think I said ‘She has a knife’ or words to that effect.
“I attempted to push away the second lunge but was not successful.”
Mr Timms said he was not certain what had happened straight away.
Mr Boyce said Choudhry had made “very full admissions” to police about what she had done.
“She gave her intention as being an intention to kill Mr Timms, and that she was acting in that way as an act of punishment towards him for his parliamentary vote in favour of the war in Iraq.”
He said Choudhry would not give evidence and her barrister would not be inviting the jury to acquit her.
Mr Boyce added: “Nor is there any question she is suffering from mental illness. She is not.”
Mr Justice Cooke explained to jurors that Choudhry had chosen not to attend the trial and this was her right.
“The trial will proceed in her absence but you must not assume she is guilty because she is not here and you must not hold it against her.”
He said the evidence would be concluded today and he would sum up tomorrow before sending the jury out to consider their verdicts.
| — Hat tip: Bewick | [Return to headlines] |
Unwelcome in Mauritius, Emilietta’s Home Remains the Airport
We’ve contacted consuls and embassies in order to understand more about the tramp living in the Milan airport. The only response is that she’s been blacklisted and can no longer return to the African island
Emilietta is still living in Malpensa Airport. We wrote about her at the beginning of August, a month and a half ago, but nothing has happened. And from what we’ve been able to find out over this time, it’s unlikely, if not impossible that Mrs Cesira Ton, known to everyone as Emilietta, will return to Mauritius.
This summer, the story was in all of the main Italian and foreign newspapers and news programmes; it was impossible for the story of this 71-year-old woman originally from Venice to go unnoticed. There was the departure for the African island, with her two children and her husband, the years of coming and going from Madagascar, the marriage that ended, the visa that expired and the expulsion from Mauritius; these are only some of the ingredients of this (in many ways, absurd) story.
Mrs Ton has been living in the airport for six years, and before that, she was forced to spend months going from a tent in Busto Arsizio to a makeshift shelter in Gallarate Station. She lives off the coins she collects from the airport trolleys, and the money she receives from a minimum state pension. She’s there, watching the planes take off, in the hope that, one day, she’ll be able to leave again. She doesn’t want help, she’s not asking for solidarity or even charity. She keeps clean by washing herself in the bathrooms when there’s no one about in Malpensa; she sleeps on the marble benches on the Arrivals floor, living with her cases beside her, a few newspapers and a notepad on which she writes poems which she then gives away. She has a lot of friends, from the cleaning ladies to the bar staff, and the shop assistants that frequent the small/big world of Malpensa Airport every day.
VareseNews has recounted her story, but we wanted to understand it better, and, above all, we wanted to know if there was any chance of a solution. We then tried to contact the consulates and embassies. These are the answers we got. “Mrs Ton’s story is partly true, we have indeed dealt with the case and, on two occasions, we tried to intervene with the local authorities, but without success. I can’t comment on her family’s situation,” the honorary Italian consul in Mauritius, Stefano Zinno, explained to us. “At the beginning, we intervened on the request of the lady herself, so if she asks us again, we’ll have no problem in following up. The fact of her being unwanted is a matter for Mauritian law.”
We then contacted the Mauritian embassy in Italy. “According to the information we have, Mrs Cesira Ton is on the blacklist of people that are not welcome for the Mauritian Authorities, and, consequently, cannot go back to Mauritius without the authorisation of the local authorities concerned. However, if Mrs Cesira Ton wants to go back to Mauritius to visit her family, she can apply, before her trip, with the necessary justification,” Denis Cangy, the Mauritian consul in Italy, wrote. “Generally speaking, the people on the blacklist are foreign people that, for one reason or another, have broken Mauritian law, and they are always informed of this by the local Authorities, at the time of repatriation. So, they are aware of the crime they have committed. However, if a person claims not to know the reason for his repatriation, he can always write directly to the Prime Minister’s Office, or through the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry, to ask for information about his case.”
Translated by Prof. Rolf cookinfo@ssml.va.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Press Accreditation Suspended for Al Jazeera Staff
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, OCTOBER 29 — The Moroccan Ministry of Information withdrew the press accreditation today for the staff of satellite TV station Al Jazeera and suspended their activity, reports MAP, which cited a statement from the Communications Ministry in Rabat. According to the Moroccan authorities, the decision was made “due to numerous violations of the rules in the practice of serious and responsible journalism”. The programmes of the satellite network continued to be broadcast regularly throughout the country. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Yacoubian Palace’ Translated in Hebrew, Author Complains
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, 28 OTT — No relation with Israel, not even cultural, or with pacifist organisations with better intentions. Such is, coupled by threats of international legal actions, today’s piqued reply of Egyptian doctor and writer Alaa Al Aswany to the report of an imminent distribution in Hebrew, not agreed with his person, of his best known novel, Yacoubian Palace.
The dispute, which had been smouldering for some time, could end up in a full-blown legal action because of the initiative taken by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), a meritorious cultural institution that promotes dialogue between Israel and Palestine, peace and a greater dissemination of Arab culture in the Hebrew State. After being interested in Al Aswany’s work for some time, the Centre (after having failed to establish contact) decided in recent days to carry out a self-produced translation of Yacoubian Palace (a best seller in Arab literature during recent years that has already been published in half the world and made into a successful film) with the stated ambition of “also offering to the Israelis the privilege of reading a great novel”.
The copies in Hebrew (according to unconfirmed reports, but already delivered by e-mail to IPCRI members) will be distributed free of charge and in limited edition, for now restricted to members only.
However, from Cairo, the author wasted no time in airing his wrath. The is a trained dentist who studied and lived in the USA for many years and who in the last decade also published another successful novel named Chicago.
Asked about the matter, Al Aswany (who is also a political activist and visceral anti-Zionist and one of the founding members of Kefaya, the radical opposition movement against the regime of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak) lashed out against the project and the breach of copyright. He stated that “This is a theft and an act of piracy, I want nothing to do with Israel and I will report the event through lawyers to the International Union of Editors”.
The hostile positions of Alaa Al Aswany against the Jewish State, which have been often repeated, include the rejection of the historical peace agreement between Egypt and Israel signed time ago by Sadat and Begin. Recently the writer was quoted by Israeli paper Yediot Ahronot when he stated that “I want no contact with you people, because this would mean promoting normalisation. An I oppose any form of cooperation with Israel”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama ‘To Turn on Israel After Midterm Elections’
Netanyahu purportedly ‘shaking from fear’ of president’s policies
JERUSALEM — Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “shaking from fear” about the policies that President Obama will enact toward Israel after this week’s midterm elections, a senior Palestinian Authority official told WND. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip during a visit to the southern Israeli city of Sderot on September 21, 2010. UPI/David Buimovitch/Pool Photo via Newscom
The PA official, as well as security sources in Egypt and Jordan, said they heard from the Obama administration an outline of a series of moves to pressure Israel after the Nov. 2 vote.
Among the moves would be holding back support for Israel when it comes to future resolutions condemning the Jewish state at the United Nations.
Also, the U.S. is likely to tacitly back a Palestinian threat to unilaterally declare a state at the U.N. Security Council if Netanyahu fails to reach an agreement with the PA.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Talks: US Suggests ‘Renting’ Jordan Valley to Israel
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 1 — The United States has proposed to Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu that — as part of definitive peace accords with the Palestinians — Israel be allowed to “rent” the Jordan Valley for security reasons. This was reported on military radio, which claimed that Netanyahu had not rejected the idea. The broadcaster learned that the plan for Palestinians to rent out the strategic Jordan Valley — a sort of filter to stop weapons smuggling towards the West Bank — was discussed two months ago on US initiative by Netanyahu with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. According to the US, an adequate period for the arranging of the accords is seven years, but Netanyahu — according to the broadcaster — would like a much longer period, lasting a number of decades. No reports were given on Mahmoud Abbas’s position on the matter. Another important point for Israel concerning the Jordan Valley is due to its topographical depression, hundreds of metres below sea level. Military control of the valley would make it possible for Israeli forces to deal with enemy forces intending to attack through Jordanian territory on relatively favourable territory. If the forces were to instead reach the heights of the West Bank, they would not have any other physical obstacles between them and the Israeli coastline where most of the population is concentrated. A Labour Minister, Avishay Braverman, immediately spoke in favour of the US idea. “The important thing,” he told the radio station, “is that following the mid-term elections in the United States, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resume as early as possible and with the maximum level of determination.” Next week Netanyahu will be on a visit to the United States to take part in a congress of major Jewish organisations, and will be meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Air Freight From Yemen and Somalia Banned
Unaccompanied freight flown to the UK from Somalia as well as Yemen will be banned in the wake of the cargo plane bombs, the home secretary has told MPs.
The move was based on possible contact between al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali terrorist groups, Theresa May said.
Toner cartridges over 500g will also be banned from hand baggage on UK flights.
There was no information another attack was imminent, she said, but she confirmed a review of all aspects of air freight security.
Mrs May was speaking to MPs in the Commons after a meeting of the government’s emergency planning committee Cobra.
It met on Monday following Friday’s discovery of a bomb on a US-bound UPS cargo plane at East Midlands airport and a similar bomb on a FedEx plane in Dubai.
The explosive contained in the device was found after a tip-off and was not picked up by initial screening.
Investigators at East Midlands carried out a re-examination as a precaution and the bomb was found hidden in a printer cartridge posted in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Supergrass Foiled Cargo Jet ‘Printer Bombs’ With Eight Times Amount of Explosive Needed to Down Plane
A former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Al Qaeda fighter turned supergrass to provide spymasters with the crucial tip-off that led to the discovery of the ‘ink bombs.’
Saudi-born Jabr Jabran al-Faifi, who has changed allegiances three times, is said to be providing a ‘wealth of intelligence’ after suddenly turning his back on the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which orchestrated the plot aimed at exploding bombs on cargo planes.
In mid-October, he returned to Saudi Arabia after operating for more than two years in the heart of the Yemen-based terror group said to pose a major threat to Britain and her allies, and revealed details of the plan for Lockerbie-style attacks.
He is also said to have named key figures in Al Qaeda’s operation and told how they are targeting foreign recruits, including Britons, to train in terror techniques before sending them back to their homeland.
The development came as it emerged the two bombs contained 300 and 400 grams of explosive PETN, German officials revealed.
Just 50 grams are needed to blast an aircraft out of the sky.
In an extraordinary move, 35-year-old al-Faifi secretly contacted the Saudi authorities from Yemen and a handover was arranged through officials in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
‘We led him step by step until he reached Yemeni security forces based on our instructions,’ Saudi interior spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said today.
Al-Faifi was one of a group of former prisoners at the controversial US run Guantanamo prison who had returned to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation in December 2006 but then escaped to Yemen and returned to Al Qaeda two years later despite completing the reform programme.
Saudi officials say he was one of 11 from 117 Saudi Guantanamo returnees who rejoined Al Qaeda after undergoing the rehab programme. He had been held in Guantanamo on allegations he trained and fought with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
US Defence Department documents say one of his aliases was on a captured computer and that in November-December 2001 he was in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda and Taliban figures were at one stage trapped.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
How Iraqi Politicians Get Paid $1,000 a Minute, Don’t Make Laws and Live it Up for Free at Baghdad’s Finest Hotel
Politicians in Iraq have raked in more than $1,000 a minute for working just TWENTY minutes this year.
They picked up a fee of $90,000 and a monthly salary of $22,500 a month for doing next to nothing and staying free in Baghdad’s finest hotel.
Their lavish perks and salaries emerged as the 325 lawmakers prepared to hold second parliamentary session since the election last March.
But there is growing resentment among ordinary Iraqis struggling to make ends meet that politicians are living the high life.
A mid-level government employee makes around $600 a month and ordinary people lack basic services like water and electricity.
A politician’s basic monthly salary is $10,000 — just $4,500 short of that of rank-and-file members of the U.S. Congress.
In addition, an MP gets a $12,500 monthly allowance for housing and security arrangements, for a combined total of $22,500. They also get to spend nights free at Baghdad’s Rasheed Hotel in the relatively safe environment of the Green Zone, regardless of whether parliament is in session. And they collect a $600 per day when traveling inside or out of Iraq.
Once out of office, they get 80 percent of their salary monthly for life, and for eight years they can keep the diplomatic passports that they — and often their families — are issued.
Since June, when the lawmakers first met for 20 minutes, Iraq’s second elected parliament since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime has failed to convene.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: 58 Die in Siege on Baghdad Catholic Church
Militants armed with grenades took about 120 Christians hostage
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s dwindling Christian community was grieving and afraid on Monday after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 58 people dead and 78 wounded — nearly everyone inside.
The attack, claimed by an al-Qaida-linked organization, was the deadliest ever recorded against Iraq’s Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Denounces Anti-Christian Violence
Death toll from Iraq church siege rises to 50
(ANSA) — Vatican City, November 1 — Pope Benedict XVI on Monday denounced a wave of anti-Christian violence in the Middle East after some 50 people were killed and 80 wounded in a Catholic church in Baghdad Sunday when security forces took on insurgent hostage-takers.
The pope appealed to the international community to do more against the “absurd” violence against Christians in the region, which has seen an exodus of non-Islamic minorities over the past years.
Christians, who a century ago represented almost a quarter of the Middle East’s inhabitants, have now been reduced to less than 6% of the total population.
Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq are among the worst affected countries.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini last week told a Rome synod (meeting) of Middle Eastern bishops that Italy aims to lead efforts to stem the tide of violence and departures.
He called on European Union countries to back a resolution, proposed by Italy at the United Nations, to take “more concrete” steps to support the region’s religious minorities.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Tax on Alcoholic Beverages Up by 30%
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 29 — The lump-sum private consumption tax (OTV or VAT) on alcoholic beverages was raised from 25.1% to 30% after a Cabinet decree announcing the increase was published in the Official Gazette on Thursday, as local media report. The increase in the taxes was expected because the central administration budget for 2011 had set a target of 3.8 billion Turkish Liras (1.9 billion euros) in revenue from the collection of taxes on alcoholic beverages. With the new tax regulation, the OTV on a liter of the traditional Turkish alcoholic beverage, raki, went up to TL 51.48 from TL 39.60 (from 19.80 to 25.75 euros) and from TL 44 to TL 57.20 (from 22 to 28.60 euros) on gin and vodka. Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek defended the tax rise on liquor saying “We did not do it for more revenue. We did it for the health of our people.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Not Partner But Owner of NATO, FM Says
Turkey is not a partner, but an owner of NATO, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu said Saturday, adding that an agreement within the multi-national alliance is as important as an accord within the European Union.
Speaking to a small group of journalists en route from Xi’an to Shanghai as part of his weeklong China trip, Davutoðlu related a story about how a foreign minister from an EU member state referred to Turkey as an “important partner” during a meeting involving European security and defense policy.
“I took the floor after him in the same meeting and said that we are not a partner here, but an owner. We are an owner of NATO. We are not a partner,” the Turkish foreign minister said.
“I told my colleague the hat that should be worn in this meeting should belong to NATO and if he wants to speak with his EU hat on, he should go to another street in Brussels,” Davutoðlu added.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is believed to be the EU colleague to whom Davutoðlu was referring.
“That was a pleasant discussion. My friend came later saying he had been misunderstood and we hugged,” the Turkish foreign minister added.
Turkey is not a member state in the EU, but a candidate country that began formal accession talks in 2005. The country has, however, been a member of NATO since 1952. Most recently, Ankara has been the subject of discussions over a potential NATO missile-defense system originally proposed by the United States during the Bush administration. It is unclear whether Turkey will actively participate in the proposed system directed against Iran, which much of the international community considers a threat due to its controversial nuclear program.
In discussing the plans, Davutoðlu first said calling the proposed system a “missile shield” was incorrect both technically and politically.
“Missile shield, missile wars, where will Turkey be in this war? The discussions within NATO are not about this at all,” he said. Davutoðlu added that the focus at the recent Brussels meeting of NATO foreign and defense ministers was more about NATO-EU cooperation, which he said did not have ramifications in Turkey.
Turkey not alone, but at the center of NATO
Davutoðlu then clarified the basic three principles in Ankara’s policy toward the NATO missile-defense system.
“First of all, Turkey is not a country that has to be convinced by NATO. Turkey is not alone; Turkey is at the center of NATO,” he said.
The foreign minister then gave another example from a different international meeting where Turkey’s role in NATO was being questioned.
“I gave a similar reaction in this debate too. If one [official from a member state] asks if the alliance is losing Turkey, this is an insult to Turkey… Every matter is discussed in NATO together. Turkey’s position should be taken into consideration here,” he said. “NATO regularly reviews its security defense concept as a whole and takes necessary measures as a security organization. It is out of the question for Turkey to oppose these measures.”
While explaining the country’s second principle, the foreign minister said NATO should take into account the principle of “indivisible security,” meaning that the alliance should preserve each and every member state’s security.
“An understanding of exclusion of certain regions of Turkey [from the proposed defense system] cannot be accepted. Turkey should entirely be protected,” he said. “The essence of the focus is the security of member states and only the security of member states.”
‘Turkey will not be a frontier’
In explaining the third principle, Davutoðlu said Turkey does perceive any threat in its neighborhood and does not plan to be a frontier country as it was during the Cold War era.
“Turkey is not in a position to be a frontier country. NATO, while doing threat planning on this issue, should cover all member states and should remain outside any formula that would geographically set one country against another,” he said…
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen President: Foreign Forces Not Welcome
Faced with mounting international pressure to do more, the leadership in Yemen is sending out a message that it will not allow the West to run its counter-terror drive against Al-Qaeda.
During his late Saturday press conference, Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh stressed that Sana’a would not permit foreign forces to undertake counter-terrorism operations on Yemeni soil. He added that Yemen would continue to participate in the war against terrorism, but in accordance with its “national potential,” state-run Saba news agency reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chechnya: Suspected Militant Blows Himself Up With Grenade, Wounding 9 Police
A militant rebel in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region blew himself up Monday with a homemade grenade, wounding nine police officers, two critically, police said. The incident occurred in Chechnya as a raid on a rebel hideout was near completion, police spokesman Magomed Khamchiyev told The Associated Press. Khamchiyev said the militant detonated an improvised grenade when police approached after an exchange of fire. The rebel died instantly. Police and security forces are in a constant battle with separatist rebels fighting to throw off Moscow’s rule in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus. In the nearby Kabardino-Balkaria province, an officer was killed in a nighttime shooting by unidentified assailants in masks, police said.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Churches Set Ablaze in Russia’s Muslim Caucasus
Three churches were set ablaze on Monday in Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region where Moscow is trying to tame a spreading Islamist insurgency. Two Russian Orthodox churches and one Baptist Church were set alight in the predominantly Muslim province of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Russian news agencies said, adding no one was hurt in the attacks. “An unknown group of people set fire to the Russian Orthodox church in the village of Ordzhonikidze, it is practically completely burnt,” Interfax reported, citing Kazim Baybanov, a spokesman for the local ministry of interior affairs. Vandalism of churches is rare in Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus, where Christian communities live amongst Muslims.
A decade after Moscow drove separatists out of power in Chechnya in the second of two wars, the North Caucasus is plagued by near-daily violence. Youths angry about poverty and fuelled by the global ideology of jihad (holy war) are fighting for an independent state separate from predominantly Christian Russia, where they want to establish Sharia, Islamic law.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Russia/US Operation Seizes $250 Mln Worth of Heroin
Kabul, 29 Oct. (AKI) — Russia and the United States together conducted anti-drug raids in Afghanistan that seized almost 100 kilograms of heroin with a street value of 250 million dollars, according to the head of the Russian drug control agency.
“It was a very important junction of drug trafficking located around five kilometres from Pakistan,” said Victor Ivanov, who added that preparation for took three months.
The Thursday morning raids of four drug laboratories was conducted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the US Department of Defense, NATO, the Afghanistan Ministry of Interior and the Russian drug control agency.
Russia has an estimated 2.5 million heroin addicts and has accused Afghanistan — by far the world’s biggest producer of heroin — of doing nothing to stem the trade.
Last year there were 30,000 fatal overdoes in Russia the narcotic with Afghan provenance, according to Russia’s drug enforcement agency.
Ivanov said the operation involved about 70 personnel from Russia and the US — including four Russian counter-narcotics agents — backed up by attack helicopters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China — Japan — USA: Hanoi Summit: Beijing’s Harsh Accusations Against Japan
During the ASEAN summit, Clinton reaffirms the U.S. commitment to resolving the maritime territorial disputes between the two states. China feels called into question, accusing Tokyo of “untruths” over the Diaoyu Islands. Icy relations between the two countries, ahead of today’s meeting between the two prime ministers.
Hanoi (AsiaNews / Agencies) — In a strong accusation Beijing says Japan has made “untrue statements” after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had invited them to address territorial disputes “through dialogue”. Beijing sees this as interference in the dispute over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu to Chinese) in the East China Sea. Hu Zhengyu, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, warned that “Japan will be responsible for all consequences.”
The summit of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN, including Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia) being held in Hanoi expanded to include China, Japan, USA and other countries, provided a platform for a rapprochement between China and Japan, following the serious conflict that erupted in September over these islands, uninhabited but rich in fish stocks and energy sources. In fact, the two countries had announced that their premiers Wen Jiabao and Naoto Kan would have the first formal meeting since the crisis began. Today the two met briefly. In the meantime, Clinton has commented that “the United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation and commerce without legal obstacles” and that the U.S. “are involved in the resolution [of maritime territorial disputes] through peaceful means based on international law customary law”.
Previously, China had repeatedly stated that the maritime territorial disputes regard the States involved and it would not tolerate the judgements of a third party over its territorial integrity. Instead the U.S. have repeatedly shown they want to support the Vietnamese call for international arbitration in its dispute, always with China, over the sovereignty of other islands (the Spratly and Paracel islands).
Clinton did not mention this directly, but on October 28 met with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara reaffirming loyalty to the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.
Ma Zhaoxu, portavoce del ministro cinese degli Esteri, ha subito risposto che “il governo e il popolo cinese non accetteranno mai qualsiasi parola o documenti che comprenda le isole Diaoyu dentro i fini del Trattato Usa-Giappone”. “Le isole Diaoyu sono parte integrante del territorio cinese sin da epoca antica. La Cina ha un’indubitabile sovranità sulle isole”. Ci sono state accuse a Tokyo di volere “avvelenare” l’atmosfera del summit.
Il Giappone ha espresso sconcerto e sorpresa e il portavoce nipponico Noriyuki Shikata ha subito commentato che le parole cinesi sono “prive di fondamento” e ha invitato alla calma e a riprendere il dialogo.
But Zhaoxu, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry immediately responded that “the government and the Chinese people will never accept any words or documents that includes the Diaoyu Islands in the US-Japan Treaty “. “The Diaoyu Islands are an integral part of Chinese territory since ancient times. China has, undoubtedly, sovereignty over the islands”. There have also been allegations that Tokyo is attempting to “poison” the atmosphere of the summit.
Japan has expressed its shock and surprise. Japanese spokesman Noriyuki Shikata commented that the Chinese words are “groundless” and called for calm and a resumption of dialogue.
Previously, the Clinton administration had also noted that “While the United States agrees that no country can impose its values on others, we do believe that certain values are universal — and that they are intrinsic to stable, peaceful, and prosperous countries. Human rights are in everyone’s interest”. An intervention considered directed at China to respect human rights and the position of the Nobel Peace Laureate, Chinese Lu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for crimes of opinion.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Plans Manned Space Station by 2020
China has announced its intention to complete construction of a “relatively large” manned space station by around 2020. The existence of the programme suggests Beijing has decided against collaborating with other space-faring nations to join the International Space Station already in orbit around the earth.
“After the construction of the space station, China’s three-step manned space programme will be complete,” a spokesman said. The mission will “promote China’s scientific and technological progress and innovation, enhance overall national strength and make an important contribution to raising national prestige”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Man Grabs 12ft Shark by Tail to Stop it Attacking Teenage Female Diver… And Then Disappears
A shy hero who grabbed a shark’s tail and pulled it from a young woman diver as her blood filled the water said today: ‘All I want is the girl to be OK.’
The man declined to give his name or speak further about his courageous actions, but other divers said he had probably saved 19-year-old Elyse Frankcom’s life after the 12ft shark had bitten into her hip.
As she sank to the bottom of the sea, off the coast of Western Australia, the anonymous snorkeller grabbed the shark’s tail and pulled it until it let go and swam away.
Frank Pisani, senior skipper for Fremantle Sea Rescue, said the attack by the unidentified shark south of Perth could have been fatal had it not been for the actions of the snorkeller.
‘It had brushed him aside — and he’s a fairly large male — as it attacked the young woman. So he grabbed its tail and this caused the shark to swim away.
‘The girl then started to sink to the bottom and he grabbed her and brought her to the surface and got her back onboard the cruise boat she had been on.
‘She was suffering from very deep and wide puncture wounds but it could have been worse had it not been for the actions of this man.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Suspected Acid Attack on Mum, Young Son
A 25-year-old and her six-year-old son are in hospital in Melbourne on Monday night after liquid believed to be acid was thrown on their faces.
The woman answered a knock at the door shortly before 8pm (AEDT) and the liquid chemical was then thrown on her and her son by an unknown man who fled, Northcote police Sergeant Edwina Neale said.
The substance was also thrown on the woman’s car at the bottom of a block of public housing flats in High St, Northcote, in Melbourne’s north.
The woman and the boy suffered facial burns and were taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Children’s Hospital.
“I am not sure about the extent of the injuries but they both were experiencing burning sensations, their faces were red and the ambulance workers were washing their eyes out with water,” Sgt Neale told AAP.
Police were still investigating if the victim and offender knew each other but the man knew which car belonged to the woman and had also damaged it, she said.
The man is described as tall and thin, wearing a dark coloured hooded jumper.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Brazil’s First Female President: Rousseff Wants to Build on Economic Success
Brazil’s first female leader, Dilma Rousseff, may not have the charisma of her mentor Lula, but she does have a clear message: She wants to further boost the flourishing economy, to eradicate the poverty plaguing parts of the country and to deepen ties with top emerging economies — not with the US or Europe.
Dilma Rousseff appears before the international press corps wearing a white suit. “I want to be the president of all Brazilians!” she proclaimed, stretching her hand out in gesture to the opposition, as if handing them an olive branch. After a campaign that at times turned dirty, and in which she took several low blows, it was an encouraging symbol.
Rousseff, 62, is the first female leader of South America’s largest country. At her election party, she found the right tone with some simple words.
Rousseff is not a woman of fiery speeches and she doesn’t have the charisma or rhetorical talent of political star Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. And on this night, her political mentor doesn’t make a showing at the hotel in Brasilia — he doesn’t want to steal the limelight from Rousseff. “He thinks that today is her party,” a spokesman for Lula announced. “The president won’t be making any statement today.”
In her first speech as president-elect, Rousseff mentioned the importance of freedom of opinion twice. “I would rather have the noise of the press than the silence of a dictator!” she said. During the era of the military dictatorship in the 1970s, the ex-guerrilla was placed under arrest for several years and tortured.
Rousseff also said she didn’t want to engage in any war against the Brazilian press and that she didn’t want to muzzle journalists in the way that her left-wing populist counterparts in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have sought to do. But she said that the commentators at the country’s powerful television station TV Globo, which have fairly openly favored opposition candidate José Serra, should also show respect.
Like Lula and his predecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Rousseff — the daughter of Bulgarian immigrants — belongs to the generation of those who fought against the dictatorship. They may have been of different political persuasions but they were all dyed-in-the-wool democrats.
Brazil’s transformation from a fettered giant to a country of hope with aspirations to become a major world power didn’t begin with Lula. The transformation has its roots in 1994, the year the country introduced the real as its currency. At the time, social democrat Cardoso succeeded in getting a country that had been shaken to its core by hyperinflation and explosive debt back on track through economic and finance policy reforms.
Lula Gave a Voice to Millions of Poor
Lula continued with Cardosa’s stability policies and added an overdue social welfare component to them. Lula’s major contribution to society as a statesman was that he gave a voice to the millions of poor and brought marginalized people back to the fold — all without alienating the country’s ruling elite. That’s also why, at the end of his term, he enjoys an approval rating of more than 80 percent.
Rousseff’s election victory is testament to how democracy in Brazil has matured, despite all the defects that still remain. Elections in Brazil now run smoother and more securely than in the United States and the electronic voting system is regarded as exemplary world wide. The fact that in a Catholic country a divorced woman could take the top job is a sign of a functioning democracy — in the past it would have been unthinkable.
So what awaits Brazil in the Rousseff era? Even on her victory night she was already giving indications about her economic strategy: Former Minister of Finance Antonio Palocci was sitting beside her in the car as she traveled to her first appearance as president-elect. He is expected to be the central figure in her cabinet and may well become finance minister or Rousseff’s chief of staff. Rousseff intends to revive Brazil’s economic miracle…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s Secret Visit to Inverbrackie
THE Immigration Minister toured the controversial Inverbrackie Detention Centre in secret this morning, then avoided angry Woodside by holding a press conference 20km away.
Two weeks after surprising locals and even Premier Mike Rann by announcing plans for the controversial detention centre, Mr Bowen visited the Adelaide Hills to meet community leaders and announce the formation of a community reference group.
The group includes vocal critics of the plan, such as resident Briohny Pitts and Woodside Commerce Association spokesman Doug Mansell. It will advise the Department of Immigration on community issues but has no specific powers.
Mr Bowen toured the Inverbrackie site before the meeting and defended his decision not to notify the media or any locals beforehand.
“There’s nothing secret about it, but when I go through centres, it is not as a media event,” he said.
“I go there as a fact-finding mission for myself.”
He avoided the main street of nearby Woodside, where many locals are angry at the Government’s decision, and travelled 20km to Stirling to meet members of the newly formed Inverbrackie Community Reference Group.
He also said there was no bushfire action plan for the detention centre, in case of a catastrophic bushfire day, but one would be prepared by the time asylum seekers were living there in the second half of December.
Lobethal resident and detention centre opponent Daniel Kelly was not invited to the meeting but parked outside the Adelaide Hills Council chambers in his ute, which prominently displayed a sign saying: “No Julia! Not Inverbrackie. Try Warradale.”
“It’s not a matter of fear, it’s just common sense,” he said. “It’s going to make it very attractive to people overseas who want to jump the queue and do the same thing.
“It’s five-star accommodation compared to where they’re coming from.”
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said Mr Bowen should hold public forums in Woodside rather than conduct a closed-door meeting in Stirling.
“He should be prepared to answer questions from the community broadly rather than this sterilised form of consultation that has only been done under sufferance,” he said.
Mr Morrison, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and local federal MP Jamie Briggs are expected to hold a public meeting in Woodside tomorrow.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Agents Market Asylum Dream
ON Tuesday last week, 17-year-old Zabih received the phone call he has been dreaming of from his cousin in Australia.
“He told me that Afghans have suffered a lot but finally things are getting better for them now that your government is allowing asylum-seekers and families to live in the community,” the affable young Afghan refugee told The Australian at his family’s restaurant in suburban Islamabad.
Zabih’s family had already applied unsuccessfully for legal refugee status in Australia. Now he believes the asylum-seeker route is their best option.
On the same day, in a different part of Islamabad, a Pakistani father with a sick daughter sat down with a trusted travel agent and began plotting his family’s asylum path to Australia.
“This man told me his daughter requires a kidney operation that’s going to cost 3.5 million Pakistani rupees ($140,000) so he plans to apply for a visa (on medical grounds) for his family and when he gets to Australia he will seek asylum and then healthcare for his daughter is free,” said the travel agent, who asked to remain anonymous.
He didn’t know whether the father knew about Julia Gillard’s new compassionate asylum-seeker policies, which will allow many families to live freely in the community, send their children to school and draw a Centrelink allowance.
But he added: “Last year he was planning to apply to Canada. Now he says as an Ahmadi Muslim (an Islamic sect considered heresy across Pakistan) it is an easy process to get a refugee visa in Australia. He said he was 96 per cent sure he will get asylum.”
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Sarrazin Wants ‘Terms’ For Migrants to Live in Germany
The former member of the German Central Bank’s executive board who sparked a fierce debate on immigration and integration issues with his controversial book has proposed “new conditions” for immigrants who want to live in the country. Those who force their daughters to wear headscarves or to marry their relatives have no place in Germany, Thilo Sarrazin said over the weekend.
Speaking to Germany’s Bild am Sonntag late last week, Sarrazin proposed severely limiting family reunification laws for immigrants, excluding the incorporation of immigrants’ children into the social welfare system.
“In my opinion, the option for relatives to follow an immigrant and be integrated into our social welfare system attracts the wrong kind of migrants,” he said, calling for the termination of social services for immigrants on a long-term basis or even permanently.
He also proposed removing Turkish or Arabic signs at public offices to “implement a whole new level of pressure on people to learn German.”
“The head of a household who speaks the German language but hinders his family from learning it has no business living in Germany. Those who prefer Turkish television programs to German, because they are on the war path with our language, have no business being in Germany,” he said.
Immigration summit
Calling a government-backed integration summit to take place Wednesday “pointless,” Sarrazin said that if the integration problems were to be solved then there should be harsh measures.
“That is impossible in roundtables based on consensus,” he said, referring to Wednesday’s summit.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited 115 envoys from immigrant associations, politics, sports and the economy to the summit, which aims to focus on language, education, the labor market and local integration policy. On Saturday Merkel called for more skilled immigrant workers in the country’s civil service in her weekly podcast.
Sarazzin also countered German President Christian Wulff’s statement that Islam was an integral part of Germany, saying German culture had developed without any influence from Islam and that 4 million Muslims in Germany had not changed anything in that regard.
“[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has warned Turks in Germany not to integrate. And Christianity was and is barely tolerated [in Turkey]. The [German] president has poured sugar over these rather negative conditions,” he said.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
BBC Accused of Neglecting Christianity as it Devotes Air Time to Pagan Festival
The BBC has been criticised for extensive coverage of a pagan festival to mark Halloween and accused of neglecting Christianity.
The corporation’s 24-hour news channel devoted considerable time to the celebrations in a riverside meadow where witches gathered to celebrate mark Samhain, the turning of the year from light to dark.
Dressed in hooded gowns, women were seen standing in a circle around a cauldron while ritualistic acts were conducted.
Diane Narraway, the coven leader, knelt before a ram’s head to say goodbye to the goddess of light while a broom was used to sweep a sacred circle in the grass.
As well as a clip of the event, the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott wrote a long posting on the website.
The festival was described on the BBC’s News website as part of the country’s ‘newest religion’ after the Charity Commission granted religious status to druids last month.
Christian leaders reacted with anger to the coverage, which was the fourth item on BBC One news at 6pm last night, and said it was yet another example of marginalising Christianity and giving undue airtime to other beliefs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Halloween ‘Pagan’ Says Church Group
‘Don’t trample on our culture,’ bishop says
(ANSA) — Vatican City, October 29 — Halloween is pagan and against the spirit of Christianity, an influential Catholic Church group said Friday.
Chiming in with the Vatican’s annual warnings on the festival, the (Pope) John XXIII Association said: “Halloween was born as the perpetuation of a pagan cult which evolved over time and linked up with esoteric and occult practices”.
“We are faced with a sort of revival of neopaganism which, as such, is in open contrast with the spirit of Christianity”.
“Does our society really need all these messages exalting horror,” asked the association’s head, Giovanni Paolo Ramonda.
“At a time which should be devoted to the holy memory of our saints and souls, people unthinkingly set up ‘noir’ banquets, crime dinners and afternoons for children in macabre masks.
“Everyone should be reminded that Halloween comes from an ancient pagan ritual in the British Isles practised by the Druids, the Celts’ ferocious priestly caste”.
The bishop of the southern Italian town of Locri, Msgr Giuseppe Fiorini Morosini, intends to alert his flock of the dangers they face with a message to be read out in all parishes on Sunday, October 31.
“Halloween is not a part of our culture. We aren’t against kids having fun but enjoyment cannot be pursued by destroying our holiest traditions and trampling on our culture. Death cannot be celebrated, instilling horror and dread”.
The Northern League party, which jealously guards northern Italy’s Celtic past, also came out against the feast this year, accusing it of being “inauthentic”.
“Halloween is not part of our identity,” said the Northern League’s mayor of the town of Calalzo di Cadore, Luca De Carlo.
Meanwhile Italian police said they would “raise their guard” this year against anyone planning to desecrate churchyards or morgues or stage occult rites in abandoned buildings.
“We have found dead animals in caves in the past and we shall be particularly vigilant against any private associations which are a cover for Satanic groups,” said a Rome police spokesman.
POPULARITY RISING.
Halloween is not a traditional date on the Italian calendar but has been growing in popularity in recent years, with trick-or-treating becoming more common and pumpkin sales rising.
Codacons, a consumer group, said some 10 million Italians will be celebrating the festival this year, with a turnover estimated at some 300 million euros ($420 million).
More than a million pumpkins are sold over the holiday while fancy-dress shops whose traditional bonanza used to come at Carnival time in February now make a killing in masks, costumes and accessories.
One place in Italy has a much longer Halloween history.
A small town in the southeastern region of Puglia, Orsara di Puglia, has been celebrating it for the past 1,000 years.
According to local historians, the only real difference between the American tradition and the town’s version of Halloween is the date.
Halloween, a secular take on All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day, is traditionally celebrated on the night of October 31, but in Orsara di Puglia the pumpkins come out on the evening between November 1 (All Saints Day) and Nov 2 (All Souls Day).
Hollowed-out and candle-lit pumpkins are placed outside homes on the evening of All Saints Day to keep away evil spirits and witches.
Townsfolks also light huge bonfires in the streets so as to illuminate the path of souls on their way to Purgatory.
Historians have traced Orsara’s tradition back to a short-lived 8th-century incursion by a Germanic people, the Longobards, who in more northern parts supplanted older civilisations and reigned as the Lombards.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Homophobic Attacks Increasingly Making Headlines
Homophobic incidents have increasingly been making the news in the Netherlands — once so proud of its international reputation for tolerance. Recently in the central city of Utrecht, homophobic threats and abuse drove a lesbian couple, a gay couple and a transgender woman from their homes. However, there are no reliable figures showing an increase in homophobic attacks.
René Tigges, a 40-year-old gay man, recently moved to Utrecht, unperturbed by the recent reports. He lives in a multicultural neighbourhood and has no intention of changing his behaviour. For example, he doesn’t worry about who’s watching when he kisses a male friend goodbye in the street.
“I just stay myself. If I’m in the street with a gay friend or if I walk him to the station, for instance, then I say goodbye just like anyone else would. I don’t start looking round, thinking ‘Oh, who’s watching, oh no, I shouldn’t do it, because someone might say something.’ No.”
Kissing Three kisses on the cheek is a normal greeting in the Netherlands, also between urban heterosexual men. Nevertheless kissing between men can draw horrified reactions from young Dutch Moroccans. And it is against such young men that complaints of homophobic abuse are most frequently directed.
One young Moroccan in Utrecht claims gay men only have themselves to blame. “They draw attention to themselves, act a bit disgusting. It’s not on, is it? If you’re doing your shopping then you start kissing. It’s disrespectful, isn’t it? Yes, it’s a provocation, you know what I mean. Man-woman, okay, but you’ve got to show a bit of respect.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Woman’ Accused of Transgender Tube Murder is Actually a Man Undergoing a Sex Change
A man accused of pushing a transgender human rights lawyer under a Tube train is in the process of becoming a woman, a court heard today.
Unshaven Nina Kanagasingham, 34, of Chichele Road, Cricklewood, north-west London, appeared at the Old Bailey today charged with the murder of David Burgess — also known as Sonia.
This is the first time since his arrest that it has been revealed Kanagasingham is actually a man.
Judge Timothy Pontius asked: ‘This defendant is in the process of undergoing a sex change. Has it been completed?’
He was told it had not, and that the defendant wished to be referred to as Nina.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cameron Won’t Make Me a Minister… I’m a White, Married, Home Counties Christian, Says Tory MP
A new Tory MP has made a scathing attack on David Cameron for promoting women and people from the ethnic minorities over ‘white, Christian, married’ men.
John Glen, the party’s former head of research, said his background effectively ruled him out for a ministerial job under Mr Cameron.
He said: ‘I don’t anticipate any early calls to Government. I’m a white, Christian, married bloke from the Home Counties so I probably don’t fit the description of what the leadership wants at the moment.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Christian Couple Barred From Fostering Children Because of Their Views on Homosexuality Go to Court
Gay rights laws are eroding Christianity and stifling free speech, Church of England bishops warned yesterday.
Senior clerics, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, spoke out ahead of a High Court ‘clash of rights’ hearing over whether Christians are fit to foster or adopt children.
The test case starting today involves a couple who say they have been barred from fostering because they refuse to give up their religious belief that homosexuality is unacceptable.
Supporters hope their legal challenge will set a precedent for the rights of Christians to foster children without compromising their faith.
But senior bishops fear that if the ruling goes against them, it could have devastating consequences for those with religious beliefs.
Either way, they believe the case will determine whether Christians can continue to express their beliefs in this country.
In an open letter, they warned that Labour’s equality laws put homosexual rights over those of others, ‘even though the Office for National Statistics has subsequently shown homosexuals to be just one in 66 of the population’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why is Sexual Harassment in Egypt So Rampant?
Young, old, foreign, Egyptian, poor, middleclass, or wealthy, it doesn’t matter. Dressed in hijab, niqab, or western wear, it doesn’t matter.
If you are a woman living in Cairo, chances are you have been sexually harassed. It happens on the streets, on crowded buses, in the workplace, in schools, and even in a doctor’s office.
According to a 2008 survey of 1,010 women conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s rights, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed.
I know, it has happened to me. Last week, I was walking home from dinner when a carload of young men raced by me and screamed out “Sharmouta” (whore in Arabic.)
Before I could respond, they were gone, but I noticed policemen nearby bursting with laughter. I am old enough to be those boys’ mother, I thought.
This incident was minor compared to what happened in 1994, shortly after I moved here. It was winter, and I was walking home from the office, dressed in a big, baggy sweater, and jacket. A man walked up to me, reached out, and casually grabbed my breast.
In a flash, I understood what the expression to “see red” meant. I grabbed him by the collar and punched him hard in the face. I held on to him, and let out a stream of expletives. His face grew pale, and he started to shake. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he whispered.
But the satisfaction of striking back quickly dissipated. By the time I walked away, I was feeling dirty and humiliated. After a couple of years enduring this kind harassment, I pretty much stopped walking to and from work.
Of course, harassment comes in many forms. It can be nasty words, groping, being followed or stalked, lewd, lascivious looks, and indecent exposure.
At times it can be dangerous. This is what a friend told me happened to her: “I remember I was walking on the street, when a car came hurtling towards me. Aiming for me! At the last minute he swerved, then stopped, and finally laughed at me. I learned later that it was a form of flirting.”
Why is sexual harassment in Egypt so rampant? There could be any number of reasons, but many point to disregard for human rights.
“Egypt is more interested in political security, than public security,” said Nehad Abu el Komsan, the Director for the Center for Women’s Rights. She says that often means officials focus more on preventing political unrest than addressing social ills.
Some also blame the spread of more conservative interpretations of Islam from the Gulf over the past 30 years. They say such interpretations demand more restrictive roles for women and condemn women who step outside of those prescribed roles.
“Four million Egyptians went to the Gulf,” el Komsan says. “They returned with oil money, and oil culture, which is not very open, related to the status of women. All of this changed the original culture of the Egyptian,” she adds, “which included high respect for women.”
“The concept of respect for some reason doesn’t exist anymore,” says Sara, a young Egyptian activist. “I think Egypt has lived a very long time in denial. Something happened in Egyptian society in the last 30 or 40 years. It feels like the whole social diagram has collapsed.”
What is being done to raise awareness and combat Sexual harassment? Currently Egypt has no law that specifically deals with the problem, but that could change. The government is drafting legislation that would give a clear definition for sexual harassment.
In the past, women who have been sexually harassed here have been too afraid or ashamed to speak up. That too is changing slowly. In 2008, in a landmark court case, a man was sentenced to three years of hard labor for grabbing the breast of Noha Rushdi Saleh, a brave woman determined to seek justice.
The trial was covered extensively in the Egyptian press, and brought the problem of sexual harassment out in the open.
The latest campaign to combat sexual harassment is a joint Egyptian and American website called Harassmap, due to go online in December.
Rebecca Chiao, co-founder of Harassmap explains how it will work: “ We can receive reports by SMS, by Twitter, by e-mail, or by phone. When an incident happens, they will send us their location. The computer will receive this, and we will look at the reports coming in and map them on a Google map of Egypt. It will show the hotspots. When the hotspots emerge, we have planned community outreach that will occur around these hotspots.”
Downtown Cairo is one of these hotspots. In 2008, during the Eid holiday, which marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, gangs of young men went on a rampage, groping women and, in some cases, ripping off womens’ shirts.
This incident also got a lot of attention in the media here. Police arrested dozens of men. With the renewed efforts to raise awareness about the issue, and the government’s move toward putting a new law in place, there is hope that women will be able to feel safer on the streets.
But the only real protection women can have is when the attitudes of men change.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Climate Change Hysteria Falters. Water is the New Target
A sign of desperation is the shift to much larger targets
Self-proclaimed environmentalists and people who use the environment as a vehicle for political control, often the same people, have not quite destroyed environmentalism.
They are running out of exotic scares as coral bleaching, ocean acidification and a multitude of other claims prove unwarranted.
A sign of desperation is the shift to much larger targets, but they pose the problem that people know a little more and basic questions raise immediate doubts.
Water is the latest target. More and more stories about running out of water appear. Most are linked to the false claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that droughts will increase in severity with global warming. It’s illogical because higher temperatures mean increased evaporation and more moisture in the air to create precipitation, but that doesn’t stop them. It’s part of the ongoing standard chain that links too many people with too many demands on limited resources causing environment collapse. The real goal is total political control, the shut down of industry and ultimately elimination of people.
Water Is Not A Problem
There is no shortage. As with climate and all the other issues used to panic people, there is lack of information and understanding. I know from chairing public hearings on water how it raises passions. Wars have been fought and future conflicts are possible because of the unequal distribution, but none of this is necessary.
Science incorrectly assumes the oceans have remained essentially unchanged for 600 million years. The theory is that as the Earth cooled the various elements settled out in layers according their specific gravity. Water is used as the base with a specific gravity of one. The error of the claim of constant volume is that every time a volcano erupts more water vapor is released into the atmosphere adding to the total.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Final Phase of Global Warming War and Another Legal Defeat for Doomsayers
Climate science is complex and to many people hard to fathom, but you don’t need to be a scientist to sense fraud when key global temperature data is destroyed or withheld from public examination.
Forceful speeches dismantling the falsities of global warming junk science were delivered within the mother of all parliaments at a spectacularly successful 2010 Climate Fools Day Event in London (October 27). In the fore was the world’s leading long-range weather forecaster, Piers Corbyn, who was presented with a new science award and cash prize of $10,000. Corbyn had predicted the Moscow heat wave and Pakistan floods weeks in advance and he says human emissions of greenhouse gases play no part whatsoever in controlling weather or climate. First Government Abandons Pretense of a Global Warming Record
But it wasn’t Corbyn’s outstanding science that won the day but rather a story of how astute application of the law had dealt Antipodean warmists a fatal blow. I recounted to an amazed audience how climate realists in New Zealand had hauled their errant government to court where the burden of proof is of the demanding legal standard. Therein a pro-green New Zealand Government had been humiliated into abandoning all pretenses to possessing a bona fide official climate record in the scandal now referred to as ‘Kiwigate.’
Along with other legal analysts I explained that the Kiwi government, in such circumstances, had no choice but to capitulate or face complete courtroom defeat and political suicide. In my speech I urged parliamentarians to heed the implications of this astonishing news.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is the International Space Station Worth $100 Billion?
Asking the International Space Station to justify its existence is a tall order. NASA estimates the station has cost U.S. taxpayers $50 billion since 1994 — and overall, its price tag has been pegged at $100 billion by all member nations.
To put that in perspective, the Large Hadron Collider — the world’s largest particle accelerator, near Geneva — was a relative bargain at a total of $9 billion, and even its contributions are likely to be too abstract to hold most people’s attention.
Yet at least its research goals — it is aiming to discover new fundamental particles that will revolutionize our understanding of the nature of matter and the universe — are ones most scientists can get behind.
Now, as NASA celebrates the 10th anniversary of astronauts living on the space station — and with construction essentially complete, the question remains — will the International Space Station ever really pay off scientifically? [Graphic: The International Space Station Inside and Out]
“I think it’s time to start showing what station can really do,” David Leckrone, a former senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, told SPACE.com.
While the space station has taught NASA and its partners much about the science and engineering of keeping people alive in space, critics charge that the outpost hasn’t led to enough advancements in basic science — including biology, chemistry and physics — that could affect life back on the ground.
Return on investment
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Offensive Jihad
The One Incontrovertible Problem with Islam
A recent MEMRI report titled “Arab Columnists: Stop Talking About Offensive Jihad,” alludes to the ultimate problem between Islam and the non-Muslim world: offensive jihad, or jihad al-talab — the Islamic imperative to subjugate the world. The report opens by saying “One dominant theme during Ramadan in the Arab world is the discussion, in the media and in religious circles, of the commandment of jihad and the obligation therein to wage war against the infidels.” It then focuses on two recent op-eds, written by Arab-Muslims, that discuss the need to suppress Muslim talk of offensive jihad.
One writer, Khaled Al-Ghanami, states that the “wiser” supporters of offensive jihad believe that Muslims “must sit and wait until the era of our strength returns.” In the meantime, according to these Muslims, “there is nothing shameful about taqiyya [deception] until the time is ripe.” Al-Ghanami bemoans the fact that such Muslims operate naively “on the assumption that the world doesn’t read, doesn’t monitor… and is not paying attention to the calls for killing, tyranny, and aggression that we are spreading.”
Similarly, Abdallah Al-Naggar writes: “Today, the Muslims’ circumstances are different [i.e., they are weak], and talk of this aspect [of jihad] requires a smart approach, one that stresses the aspect of self defense, instead of aggression and onslaught,” since discussing offensive jihad “arouses the enmity of people”; thus, “there is a need for wisdom [i.e., kitman] in our impassioned discussions of war and battles.”
These writers are insightful enough to understand that Islam’s imperative for Muslims to wage offensive jihad is the one insurmountable obstacle for peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Best not to keep reminding the infidel world, then.
Consider: most of the things Islam gets criticized for — lack of democracy, male-female relations, draconian punishments, etc. —are intra-civilizational to Islam; that is, they affect Muslims alone. As such, it is for Muslims to decide on their utility; for it is the responsibility of every civilization to reform itself from the inside, not through outside “help” or coercion, the former mistrusted, the latter resented. Modern democracy in the West developed only after the people of the West wanted it bad enough to fight for it themselves, and only after centuries of bloody — but internal — conflicts. Feminism was not forcefully imported from some alien civilization but homegrown in the West. Pragmatically speaking, then, so long as sharia’s mandates affect Muslims alone, non-Muslims have no legitimate grievances.
And this is the dividing line: what one civilization maintains as “right” and “normal” for itself is acceptable. However, when one civilization tries to apply, through force, those same principles onto other civilizations — whether the West trying to import liberalism to Islam, or Islam trying to spread sharia-style fascism to the West — that is objectively wrong. After all, the age-old argument that “we must supplant your ways, with our ways, for your own good,” works both ways, and in fact has been an oft cited justification for offensive jihad since the 7th century. Or would the reader be surprised to learn that jihadists (i.e., terrorists) regularly posit their war as an expression of altruism to “liberate” Westerners from their self-imposed “delusions”? Even Al Qaeda partially justifies its jihad against America for being “a nation that exploits women like consumer products”; for not rejecting the “immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.” In short, if the “white man’s burden” is to “civilize” Muslims, the “Muslim man’s burden” has long been to “civilize” Westerners, namely, by enforcing sharia law. To justify the one is to make allowance for the other.
Yet while civilizations continue to quarrel over the philosophical position of man, one fact remains: all humans — secular or religious, Muslim or non-Muslim, from antiquity to today — agree that being forced to uphold a particular lifestyle against their will is wrong, bringing us right back to our topic: the purpose of offensive jihad is to do just that — forcefully impose a particular way of life on non-Muslims, culminating with dhimmitude for those who, after being conquered, refuse to convert.
Worse, offensive jihad is part and parcel of Islam; it is no less codified than, say, Islam’s Five Pillars, which no Muslim rejects. The Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” states that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.” Scholar Majid Khadurri (1909-2007), after defining jihad as warfare, writes that jihad “is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Frightening post
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