Italy: Libya’s Strategy to Take Control of Unicredit is ‘Obvious’
Verona, 29 Oct. (AKI) — Libyan investors sought control of UniCredit as they built up stakes in Italy’s largest bank, Flavio Tosi, mayor of the northern Italian city of Verona, told la Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.
“It’s obvious” there was an attempt to take over the bank, Tosi told the newspaper.
Verona-based Fondazione Cariverona’s almost-5 percent stake inUniCredit makes it one of the company’s biggest shareholders.
The banking foundation was among critics of former UniCredit chief executive Alessandro Profumo who oversaw the company as Libya built up its stake becoming the banks largest investor.
Tosi is a member of the Northern League party a close ally of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — which had been vocal in its criticism of Profumo, who resigned in September.
The Libyan Investment Authority and the Central Bank of Libya together own about 7.6 percent of UniCredit.
UniCredit internal auditor Ranieri de Marchis is preparing a report that will be presented in coming days to a company committee on the possibility that UniCredit investors from Libya and Abu Dhabi are linked and together own 12.6 percent of the bank.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: the Age of Dissimulation
Years from now, when historians seek an overarching concept to define our times, they could do worse than refer to it as the Age of Dissimulation. Today our leading minds devote their energies and cognitive powers to figuring out new ways to hide reality from themselves and the general public.
Take US President Barack Obama’s senior counterterrorism advisor for example. On Sunday, John Brennan spoke on Fox News about the latest attempted Islamic terrorist attack on American soil.
Since the Obama administration has barred US officials from referring to terrorists as terrorists and effectively barred US officials from acknowledging that Islamic terrorists are Muslims, Brennan simply referred to the Islamic terrorists in Yemen who tried to send bombs to synagogues in Chicago as “individuals.”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Out of Suburbia, The Online Extremist
For months, the radical young Muslim convert had been waging war online, championing violent jihad from his computer in Northern Virginia.
Zachary Adam Chesser often wrote scathingly about people who voiced support for the mujaheddin but who made no move to join them. The fact that he remained safely in the United States clearly troubled him as 2009 gave way to 2010.
In March, Chesser begged the fighters already abroad to “not forget those of us who have lagged behind.”
“Your fingers glide over cold steel whilst mine merely grace the empty plastic of my keyboard,” the 20-year-old white suburbanite posted to his Web site, themujihadblog. “If I die in this land then what will I say to Allah? ‘O Allah I was just going to wait until the mujahideen reached America. I swear I would have joined them, but they took too long.’ “
Chesser, who pleaded guilty in federal court Oct. 20 to supporting Somali terrorists and threatening the creators of “South Park” for mocking the prophet Muhammad, hadn’t been a Muslim long. He converted to Islam in 2008, soon after graduating from Oakton High School in Fairfax County.
His emergence online as a Muslim extremist followed at warp speed. By the time federal agents arrested him in July for trying to travel to Somalia and join the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab, he’d gone from breakdancing high school kid to bearded radical in little more than two years.
For Chesser, it was the latest — and perhaps most unlikely — in a series of identities he’d experimented with, then discarded.
Other attempts to define himself had proved harmless. “If he’d lived in L.A.,” observed one person close to him, “he would have been a Scientologist.”
Instead, Chesser faces up to 30 years in prison and a label that will haunt him for the rest of his life: terrorist.
While much about what prompted Chesser’s transformation remains a mystery, he illustrates a growing phenomenon in the United States: young converts who embrace the most extreme interpretation of Islam.
Of the nearly 200 U.S. citizens arrested in the past nine years for terrorism-related activity, 20 to 25 percent have been converts, said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. More than a quarter have been arrested in the past 20 months. The center provided The Washington Post with saved copies of Chesser’s postings, most no longer available on the Web.
“Many of these converts are basically white kids from the suburbs” in search of a community, said Segal, whose group has produced numerous papers on those arrested, including Chesser. They are overwhelmingly male, frequently in their 20s and eager to “become something more than they are, or be part of something greater,” he said.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Providence College Newspaper Censors Dr. Trifkovic
On October 21, members of the Providence College chapter of Youth for Western Civilization along with fifty of their peers attended a presentation by Dr. Srdja Trifkovic. As reported on the YWC site, the event was officially hosted by the College Republicans and was an eye opening talk that revealed the complex inner nature of Islam and its inherently antagonistic relationship with Western civilization.
Dr. Trifkovic veered away from the politically correct script that conservatives typically spout based upon egalitarian, assimilationist premises, and instead deconstructed the first principles of Islam to expose the danger it poses to Western civilization. Although a few leftists tried to derail Dr. Trifkovic’s focus by either theatrically crying during the middle of the presentation, or belittling his stellar credentials during the Q&A session, the majority of the crowd was in overwhelming support of his message.
Given the significant turnout for the event, I was under the naïve impression that Dr. Trifkovic’s presentation would receive some fairly significant coverage from the student run weekly newspaper, The Cowl, whose representative attended the speech to take notes and observe the lecture. A few days later I ran into the writer who attended the presentation who informed me that The Cowl would not be running an article relating to the event, with some vague mumblings about it being too controversial. I later on emailed him asking for a more clear reason why the event would not be covered. Some excerpts from the email response I received from this writer stated that…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
SOS: Save Our Society, Vote on the Issues
by Phyllis Chesler
Call me narrowly partisan, call me a flaming fanatic—actually, I am neither—but given what I know, there is simply no way that I can vote for any American candidate who supports President Obama’s position on Israel or on the Islamic world. I am thinking of Obama’s low bow to King Abdullah, his maiden-voyage speech in Cairo, his 2010 public shaming of the Israeli delegation at the White House, going so far as having refused to feed them or to pose with them for photos—but of course, there is more, so much more. Doing absolutely nothing to stop Iran or to help Iranian dissidents is among the next 50 important issues that our president has either not grasped or has, indeed, handled as if he truly is either an empty suit or a Muslim Manchurian candidate. Or both.
I am not talking about his race. I am talking about his administration’s policies.
Obama’s administration has also invited “J” Street, a Soros-funded anti-Israel lobby, into its inner circle as a “pro-Israel” group; suggested that Israel has been the cause of American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq; demanded that Israel stop building on sovereign Israeli soil; and has refused to say that Israel is, indeed, a Jewish state.
America’s foreign policy in terms of both Israel and the Muslim world is a matter of the most profound national and international security, and the fact that I may not agree with conservatives or Republicans on certain issues is of lesser importance at this moment in history. All our precious and hard-won universal human rights, including women’s rights, will remain tattered pieces of paper if the pro-Islamist and anti-Israel agenda triumphs. Sadly, under Obama’s reign, this is well underway.
Further: Scapegoating Israel for the crimes of Muslim regimes will not help Muslim citizens who yearn to live free of terrorism and barbaric tyranny nor will it help Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents or infidels who are being savagely persecuted, exiled, murdered, blown up by Islamists in Muslim and Hindu countries. Islamic religious apartheid is real and growing. Israel is not an apartheid country—but both Islamic gender and religious apartheid are real apartheid practices.
President Obama has yet to suggest that he realizes this.
I cannot vote for someone who supports a civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as many candidates do. I am indebted to Janet Lehr at Israel Lives, for listing the candidates’ position on this. For example, Lehr mentions the following pro-civilian trial candidates for the Senate: NO NAMES WERE MENTIONED IN THE NRB VERSION OF THIS PIECE BUT THEY APPEAR IN THE ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS VERSION In Florida, Kendrick B. Meek, and in Indiana, Brad Ellsworth. Their opponents are Republicans Marco Rubio in Florida and Dan Coats in Indiana.
I am not talking about voting Republican because you are already a Republican or because you are so disgusted with Obama that you will vote Republican for the first time. I am talking about the issues that matter. If one party turns out to have the wiser position, then so be it…
| [Return to headlines] |
The Jewish Defence League is Calling on Followers and Supporters of Rabbi Meir Kahane From Canada and America to Gather at Ground Zero on Sunday November 7 at 3:30 PM
NEW YORK, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ — It has been 20 years since Rabbi Meir Kahane was murdered. He was the first Al Qaida target on American soil. And his vision is more important today than ever. Political Islam must be stopped. The forces of Political Islam built a Mosque on the holiest site of the Jewish People -The Temple Mount. And today, the forces of Political Islam are determined to build a Mosque at Ground Zero. The forces of Political Islam represent a clear and present danger. KAHANE WAS RIGHT!
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) Controversy Continues to Grow
Salman Rushdie: He (Jon Stewart) Said He was Sorry it Upset Me, but Really, it was Plain that He was Fine with It
The Yusef Islam controversy, brought about by an appearance of the Muslim singer at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, just keeps growing. Now Salman Rushdie, the author of “Satanic Verses” who had a fatwa issued against his life, has weighed in.
Apparently, Rushie talked to Jon Stewart to complain. Yusef Islam had publicly approved of the fatwa, issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that called upon Muslims of good will to kill Rushdie for what he considered the blasphemous nature of “Satanic Verses.” What transpired is quoted in Verum Serum:
“I spoke to Jon Stewart about Yusuf Islam’s appearance. He said he was sorry it upset me, but really, it was plain that he was fine with it. Depressing.”
One can only imagine what Jon Stewart would say if a Tea Party celebrity, say Sarah Palin, suggested that someone should be killed for blasphemy against Christianity. One suspects that he would not “be fine with it.”
A lot of people remember Cat Stevens fondly as the singer of “Peace Train” (which he performed at the rally), “Moonshadow” and many other songs of love and peace in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is hard, therefore, to equate Cat Stevens with Yusef Islam, who while still an artist of considerable talent, wants to kill people out of religious frenzy. It’s not just Salman Rusdie. Islam has said that he is agreeable to stoning women to death for adultery.
That last has no doubt broken the hearts of millions of women who grew up to the songs of Cat Stevens with the usual fantasies young women have for handsome, articulate pop stars.
Of course anyone has the right to go crazy, no matter how disappointing it is, though Islam bears watching in this era of terrorism. And Stewart has the right to use Yusef Islam as an act at his fake rally.
But no one is excused from advocating murder, nor is anyone excused from tacitly approving of that advocacy by using him as a music act.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
‘Weak, Opportunist’ Islam Will Fell West, Steyn Says
It’s the end of the world as we know it — so warns Mark Steyn, who spoke Monday in London about a western society he believes is ready to crumble in the face of Islam.
The conservative commentator came to the city’s Centennial Hall with a history of stirring supporters and opponents alike, a legacy organizers hope to repeat with a speech he calls, Head for the Hills: Why Everything in Your World is Doomed.
About 900 people — mostly an older crowd — filled the hall, with no pre-speech protests or demonstrations.
While Steyn’s views are well known as a best-selling author whose writings have led to clashes with Islamic leaders in Canada, he spoke more specifically of his planned talk in London during an Internet interview with the conservatives sponsoring his visit at StrictlyRight.com.
“If the Western World believed in itself, it wouldn’t be falling to such a weak but opportunist enemy as Islam,” Steyn said last month.
While Steyn was born in Toronto and came to age in England, his focus now is mostly on his adopted homeland — the United States.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi Vows to Clear Naples Trash Fast
‘No more rubbish on streets in three days’
(ANSA) — Acerra, October 28 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday vowed to quickly clear up a month-long Naples garbage crisis.
Speaking at a new incinerator here, the premier voiced confidence that local mayors and residents would rally round a plan to approve a contested dump outside Naples after the satisfactory results of toxic tests.
A new, even more controversial landfill in the Vesuvius National Park would be put on hold “indefinitely,” he confirmed.
As for the piles of uncollected refuse in Naples itself, he said they would be cleared away by the start of next week.
“There will be no more (uncollected) rubbish in Naples in three days,” Berlusconi told a press conference.
Striking the same upbeat tone he used in resolving a similar emergency shortly after coming to power in 2008, he said there was “no alternative” to the dump at the town of Terzigno, where tests have so far shown “no data outside the norms”.
The premier stressed that the tests, which began earlier this week, were being carried out “not just by us but also by the Higher Health Institute, by the Ispra environment agency and by experts from the towns involved”.
The tests at the dump are already “giving excellent results,” he insisted, adding that the foul smell at the site had been 90% eliminated and would disappear for good “within 3-4 days”.
The stench, he explained, had been caused by a refuse firm being temporarily unable to “stabilise” waste before it got to the dump. As for the minority of mayors who have not signed the clean-up accord, “we have good reason to think an accord can be accepted within 10 days,” he said. He said he would return to the Naples area then and hopefully clinch the deal with the mayors.
Turning his attention to the anti-dump clashes in which several policemen were hurt and a number of youths arrested last week, Berlusconi said peaceful residents’ protests had been infiltrated by agents provocateurs, “who appear to have been organised”.
The premier also stressed the importance of recycling and said a key new incinerator would be completed “in a year and a half”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Britain and France to Share Nuclear Secrets as Cameron and Sarkozy Sign Historic 50-Year Military Agreement
Britain and France have signed a new entente cordiale today agreeing to unprecedented military cooperation including the joint testing of nuclear warheads.
Nuclear secrets — which have been preserved for five decades — will be shared under the plans.
Britain will surrender testing of nuclear warheads which will be done at Valduc, near Dijon, from 2015. The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston will instead focus on developing new technology.
The ground-breaking agreement will even see French generals taking command of the SAS as part of a rapid reaction force.
Senior defence officials claim the historic deal, dubbed the ‘Entente Frugale’, will save millions and boost the fighting power of both countries.
But critics claim that the pact has been forced on Britain by budget cuts and will leave the Armed Forces dependent on their historical rivals, who opposed conflicts in Iraq and the Falklands.
David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarzoky will sign two treaties designed to end years of mutual suspicion and bind the Armed Forces of both nations together for 50 years.
The historic deal will see Britain and France share aircraft carriers from 2020, so that at least one is at sea at all times, leaving Britain dependent on French support to defend the Falkland Islands.
The countries will launch a brigade-sized Combined Joint Expeditionary Force — about 6,000 troops — including the SAS, SBS, Marines and Paras, to deploy on civil and military operations together and share more intelligence, air-to-air refuelling and cyber-warfare capabilities.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox insisted the move makes ‘perfect sense’ and stressed: ‘This is not a question of our military assets coming under the control of any other power than the United Kingdom.’
He claimed it would not stop the UK acting alone if it had a disagreement with France over policy.
‘There is nothing in this treaty that restricts either country from acting where we want to in our national interest,’ he told the BBC.
‘We’re talking about joint expeditionary forces with our forces in all three services working together to develop common practices, better inter-operability and to look to see where we get better common equipment. That makes perfect sense in a world where resources are tight but our interests are increasingly common.’
Dr Fox said the deal was not the same as allowing the European Union to have responsibility for defence.
‘Defence has to be a sovereign capability,’ he said. ‘If we decide to make a defence deal with France, where we operate together when it’s in our interest to do so but retain our capabilities to act independently when our nations require it, that’s very different from having a European Commission rule in our defence.’
Two years ago, a leaked French government document revealed most of France’s tanks, helicopters and jet fighters were unusable and its defence capabilities were on the verge of ‘falling apart’.
Under the terms of the defence pact, Britain’s only aircraft carrier capability for the next decade will be the French flagship the Charles de Gaulle.
From 2020, when the UK has its own new carrier, the two countries will agree to keep one of the two at sea.
But that means when Britain’s carrier is in refit, about 30 per cent of the time, the defence of the Falkland Islands could depend on help from the French government, which sold Exocet missiles to Argentina during the 1982 war. And they could simply say: ‘Non.’
Commander John Muxworthy, a Falklands veteran who is chief executive of the UK National Defence Association, branded the plan ‘utterly irresponsible’.
He said: ‘This compromises our operational integrity completely. If we need to send a carrier to protect one of our territories, and ours is in refit, and the French say, “Well, we don’t agree — you’re not using ours”, we’re not going to be doing much protecting.
‘It is not in the best interests of the nation. The Government is trying to paint the picture that this is the smart way to do defence, but the reality is that ministers are trying to disguise the cuts and have defence on the cheap.’
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Proposal to Ban Arabic Stations Meets Resistance
Danish People’s Party leader backs down following criticism
Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People’s Party (DF), has stuck to her guns in the face of harsh criticism following her proposal to ban access to two prominent Arabic news channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
Kjærsgaard would ban satellite dishes in public housing areas in order to prevent residents from receiving what she labelled “anti-western” channels.
“I thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” Naser Khader, the Conservative MP, told Politiken newspaper, proposing that the DF instead come up with a democratic response. He added that labelling Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya as “hateful Arabic TV-stations” shows that the DF does not have a proper understanding of the Arabic media.
Conservatives spokesperson Rasmus Jarlov stressed that a ban would “nourish the conspiracy theories that Denmark is attempting to repress Arab views”.
Henrik Dam Kristensen of the opposition Social Democrats urged Kjærsgaard to participate in a dialogue about integration, rather than discuss bans. He asserted that she is making a desperate attempt to “keep a debate going”.
Following criticism, Kjærsgaard acknowledged to Politiken newspaper that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” to implement the proposal.
The DF will now go directly to the Radio and Television Board to get Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya channels banned, but they will need to provide evidence that the two TV stations are a form of hate speech. In Kjærsgaard’s view, access to the two stations limits the integration capacity of residents who only get their news from these stations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds
Yersinia Pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, originated in China 2,600 years ago, according to a new study by an international team of medical geneticists. “What’s exciting is that we are able to reconstruct the historical routes of bacterial disease over centuries,” said Mark Achtman of University College Cork.
Dr. Bramanti’s team was able to distinguish two strains of the Black Death plague bacterium, which differ both from each other and from the three principal strains in the world today. They infer that medieval Europe must have been invaded by two different sources of Yersinia pestis. One strain reached the port of Marseilles on France’s southern coast in 1347, spread rapidly across France and by 1349 had reached Hereford, a busy English market town and pilgrimage center near the Welsh border.
The strain of bacterium analyzed from the bones and teeth of a Hereford plague pit dug in 1349 is identical to that from a plague pit of 1348 in southern France, suggesting a direct route of travel. But a plague pit in the Dutch town of Bergen op Zoom has bacteria of a different strain, which the researchers infer arrived from Norway.
The Black Death is the middle of three great waves of plague that have hit in historical times. The first appeared in the 6th century during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, reaching his capital, Constantinople, on grain ships from Egypt. The Justinian plague, as historians call it, is thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe and to have eased the Arab takeover of Byzantine provinces in the Near East and Africa.
The third great wave of plague began in China’s Yunnan province in 1894, emerged in Hong Kong and then spread via shipping routes throughout the world. It reached the United States through a plague ship from Hong Kong that docked at Hawaii, where plague broke out in December 1899, and then San Francisco, whose plague epidemic began in March 1900.
The three plague waves have now been tied together in common family tree by a team of medical geneticists led by Mark Achtman of University College Cork in Ireland. By looking at genetic variations in living strains of Yersinia pestis, Dr. Achtman’s team has reconstructed a family tree of the bacterium. By counting the number of genetic changes, which clock up at a generally steady rate, they have dated the branch points of the tree, which enables the major branches to be correlated with historical events.
In the issue of Nature Genetics published online Sunday, they conclude that all three of the great waves of plague originated from China, where the root of their tree is situated. Plague would have reached Europe across the Silk Road, they say. An epidemic of plague that reached East Africa was probably spread by the voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He who led a fleet of 300 ships to Africa in 1409.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Four Arrested for Murder of Swedish Footballer
Four people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Swedish second division football player Eddie Moussa and his brother in Södertälje in July.
One of the four suspects is suspected of murder, while the other three are suspected of being accessories to murder, according to a statement from police.
The men were arrested without incident during a Tuesday morning police raid in Södertäjle, south of Stockholm.
The men are known by police for previously criminal activities, but had not previously been targeted by police investigating the murder of the Moussa brothers.
“We’ve had a short interrogation with the men in which they were informed of the criminal suspicions against them. I don’t want to comment on their view of the suspicions,” county police spokesperson Ulf Göranzon told the TT news agency.
The 26-year-old Moussa was and his 40-year-old brother Yaacoub were shot dead in Café Oasen, a known gambling club in Södertälje’s Ronna shopping precinct on July 1st of this year.
According to witnesses, three men came into the premises shortly after 2am in the morning and began firing automatic weapons, killing the two brothers and injuring a third victim.
At the time, police suspected the killings may have been a targeted killing orchestrated by elements of the criminal underworld.
Göranzon wouldn’t elaborate on possible motives for the killings or comment further on what specific roles the men may have had in the shooting.
Eddie Mousssa was a promising young football star of Lebanese-Assyrian extraction who held both Swedish and Dominican passports. He debuted for Assyriska FF, a Södertälje-based club which played one season in Sweden’s Allsvenskan top-flight after winning promotion in 2004.
The club, which was founded only in 1974, has a large following in Södertälje and is considered by many to be a substitute national team for the Assyrian people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Assaulted for Being Blond
Several days ago a reader sent me the story of a crime in Toulouse. It involves the attack on two blond teenagers, 16, by three female middle-school pupils. The French press does not give the names, race or ethnicity of the perpetrators, but the readers’ comments at numerous websites leave little doubt that this was an anti-white crime.
Many websites carried the story. It aroused a great deal of interest because the criminals made no bones about the fact that they hated blonds and that their motive was based entirely on hair color. Here is the version from La Dépêche:
Because they did not like blonds, three middle-school girls, ages 14-15, suspected of having senselessly assaulted two 16-year old high-schoolers in the middle of the street while filming the scene with their cell phone, were arrested Wednesday in Toulouse.
Note: The incident occurred several weeks ago. “Wednesday” would be September 29.
The French text uses “gratuitement”, which I have translated as “senselessly”. The MSM press, in France and elsewhere, often refers to crimes as being “senseless”, when in fact there is a clear motive behind the act: anti-white racism…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Suspicious Package Sparks Massive Security Operation at Angela Merkel’s Office
A massive security operation was underway in the office of the German chancellor in Berlin today after a suspicious package was delivered to Angela Merkel’s workplace.
Police said they could not rule out the possibility it was explosives.
The building was evacuated as teams of specialists moved in to deal with the latest in a spate of terror-attacks seemingly linked to the Greek debt crisis.
Chancellor Merkel was in Brussels on official business when the alarm went out at 1pm. By dusk the bomb disposal experts were still at the scene.
According to German media reports, it was personally addressed to her but metal and other elements in it triggered detection machines that screen all her mail.
The sender of the mail was listed on the courier inventory as the Greek economics ministry, according to Germany’s Bild newspaper.
The alert came after parcel bombs exploded at the Russian and Swiss embassies in the Greek capital Athens on Tuesday. Three other devices, believed to have been sent by left-wing extremists, were intercepted.
The immediate theory behind the German terror alert is Berlin’s hard-line on Greece putting its catastrophic finances in order.
Mrs Merkel underwrote billions worth of credit to save Greece from collapsing into chaos due to the financial crisis — but the price was savage austerity measures that has split Greek society.
She demanded that Greeks pay their taxes, end corruption and slash mammoth perks for civil servants — all measures that have earned her the hatred of leftists as the cuts begin to bite.
‘This bomb, whether real or false, is seen as payback for bringing tough times to Greece,’ said a senior officer with the Federal Criminal Office in Berlin that is handling the incident.
Small bomb and gas canister attacks have been frequent in Greece since 2008 when the police killing of a teenager sparked the country’s worst riots in decades.
The package delivered to the Swiss embassy in Athens burst into flames but no-one was hurt.
Bombs were also found at the Chilean and Bulgarian embassies and one was intercepted at the offices of a courier company addressed to the German embassy.
Greek authorities closed down sections of the capital and checked dozens of potential targets, while all embassies were given additional police security following the bomb wave.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which caused no injuries. No warnings were given and no link has been made with the recently discovered Yemen-based mail bomb plot, which used much more powerful devices.
The attacks began Monday when a mail bomb addressed to the Mexican embassy exploded at a delivery service in central Athens, lightly wounding one worker.
Authorities searched surrounding streets and arrested two suspects shortly after the blast.
They were carrying mail bombs addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Belgian Embassy, along with handguns and bullets in waist pouches.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
German Minister Criticises Muslim Youths
Berlin — German Family Minister Kristina Schroeder on Tuesday criticised Muslim youths for displaying hostility towards Germans.
“Such abuse is unfortunately commonplace amongst youths in certain areas — in the school yard, but also in the underground,” Schroeder told daily tabloid Bild.
“We are dealing with fundamentally hostile attitudes towards other groups — particularly against Germans and Christians,” the minister continued, adding, “We need to act as decisively against this as against xenophobia.”
Her comments come amid a fierce debate currently taking place in Germany about the integration of the country’s 4 million Muslims, the majority of whom are of Turkish origin.
Schroeder emphasised that she was criticising a small group of Muslim youths, and said their hostile behaviour was down to “poor education and bad friends, as well as macho norms and family violence”.
She also announced plans to set up additional facilities to help children learn to integrate and speak German at 4 000 nurseries across the country.
In recent weeks the family minister also drew attention to the fact that ethnic German children were being bullied in schools that had a high quotient of pupils from immigrant backgrounds.
| — Hat tip: SF | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Mail Bombers Target Foreign Embassies During Wave of Attacks in Athens
Small mail bombs exploded outside the Russian and Swiss embassies in Athens today and police destroyed at least three more as they tried to halt a wave of attacks on foreign missions blamed on far-left domestic extremists.
Authorities closed down sections of the capital and checked dozens of potential targets, while all embassies were given additional police security.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which caused no injuries. No warning was given.
No link has been made with the recently discovered Yemen-based mail bomb plot, which used much more powerful devices.
The attacks began yesterday when a mail bomb addressed to the Mexican embassy exploded at a delivery service in central Athens, lightly wounding one worker.
Authorities searched surrounding streets and arrested two suspects shortly after the blast.
They were carrying mail bombs addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Belgian Embassy, along with handguns and bullets in waist pouches. One wore body armour, a wig and a baseball cap.
Police detonated the bombs along with a fourth device found at a delivery company and addressed to the Dutch Embassy.
One of the suspects was wanted in connection with an investigation into a radical anarchist group known as Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, which has claimed responsibility for a spate of small bomb and arson attacks over the past two years.
The explosions continued today with the detonation of a bomb in the courtyard outside a six-story building that is home to the Swiss Embassy.
Swiss Foreign Ministry official Georg Farago said Athens embassy employees regarded the package as suspicious after noticing ‘traces of metal’ on it.
The package burst into flames when the employees removed the external wrapping of the package.
‘At the same moment, there was an explosion. No one was injured,’ Farago said.
Soon after, a courier heading for another embassy became suspicious about a package and stopped at Parliament, where police explosives experts detonated a bomb.
Police then found explosive devices at the Bulgarian Embassy and a central Athens courier company — where the German embassy had returned a suspicious package — and set them off in controlled explosions.
A fifth bomb went off on the grounds of the Russian Embassy.
Sarkozy said his office took threat seriously and that French authorities were working with Greek police.
‘The threat is very serious. We are extremely vigilant and I am following it very closely,’
Sarkozy said during a joint press conference in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Ruby’ Phone Call Probed
‘Italy in serious trouble if I go’, Berlusconi says
(ANSA) — Milan, November 1 — A phone call from Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s office to get a Moroccan teenage dancer out of a scrape in May was at the centre of an encounter Monday between a former Milan police chief and one of Italy’s best-known prosecutors.
Prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, a prominent investigator since the 1990s Clean Hands probes and more recently in several cases regarding the premier, questioned ex-police chief Vincenzo Indolfi for about an hour.
Indolfi has been reported as insisting the Milan police station “followed procedures” in releasing Ruby, 17, after she was accused of stealing from an acquaintance of hers.
Berlusconi last week appeared to confirm reports that he called the station in person to ask for preferential treatment for the girl, claiming she was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, though the premier has since retracted this admission.
Italian dailies have published wiretap transcripts apparently showing it was Berlusconi who made the call.
The Italian centre-left opposition has accused Berlusconi of abuse of office and called for his resignation, while centre-right House Speaker Gianfranco Fini, a nominal but uneasy ally, has said the premier “should go if (the phone call) turns out to be true”.
Berlusconi said in a book due for publication Friday that “any defection on my part would bring serious trouble for the centre right and the country”.
Ruby, who turned 18 Monday, has won international headlines with accounts of allegedly sexy parties at the premier’s Milan villa and claims she was given lavish gifts.
The premier has denied any impropriety as he did over a 2008-2009 friendship with a Neapolitan teenager and a summer 2009 night with a prostitute who secretly taped their encounter.
On Friday Berlusconi, 74, said he “loved life and women and no one could change his lifestyle”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Five Thousand Euros for Going to a Party
Investigation into “protection network” for minor. Berlusconi and Ruby — “I’m a man with a heart”
MILAN — For now, three details are certain in the story of parties, prostitutes and politicians at Silvio Berlusconi’s Arcore home as told, controversially, to the Milan public prosecutor’s office by a 17-year-old Moroccan girl. The main point to emerge is that the restless teenager — a runaway from home and shelters who has three charges of theft to her credit along with simulating sex in front of children in one shelter and swopping accusations of prostitution with other residents — really did go to Silvio Berlusconi’s Arcore residence. “I didn’t know the girl” and “I never so much as shook her hand” but “I could have met her a couple of times at dinner with the prime minister” confirmed the TG4 news bulletin director Emilio Fede yesterday. Mr Fede is under investigation on suspicion of complicity in prostitution, along with TV entrepreneur Lele Mora and Lombardy regional councillor Nicole Minetti, as a result of the girl’s statements.
The second certainty is that the minor did receive cash payments even though she swears that she only met the prime minister at the parties and did not have sexual relations. The sums involved are not huge (gifts apart) but still run to multiples of the one thousand euros received by Patrizia D’Addario for spending a night with Silvio Berlusconi at Palazzo Grazioli. We are talking about five thousand euros a time, which it is suspected may have been paid out of Mr Berlusconi’s family “strongbox”, long administered by his trusted associate, Giuseppe Spinelli. Years ago, Mr Spinelli was investigated with Mr Berlusconi over the Medusa film company and the Macherio residence, and was a director of both the Dolcedrago holding company and the Idra real estate company that owns Arcore…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ruby: “Silvio Showed Me the Audi and Said: It’s for You”
The young woman’s statements at the centre of the new investigation involving the Premier. The public prosecutors will hear the police officers regarding the Palazzo Chigi phone call
In order to avoid confusion and to remain anchored to reality, it is necessary to follow what the police officers “do.” And surrounding this “detective story” centrepiece certain fundamental details, however surreal, must be highlighted. Fact one: some detectives are on a mission in Genoa: they have gone there to search for Ruby, the minor invited to the Premier’s parties in Arcore, the girl of the moment in terms of the media (and perhaps also in historical terms). And to look for her “traces.” Fact two: other police officers, ordinary agents, ranking officers and officials, all on duty at Via Fatebenefratelli 11, know that a summons to the Court House is imminent. The magistrates intend to gain a slightly better understanding, and as soon as possible, of what happened on the night of 27-28 May last. That a sort of “diplomatic fraud” was perpetrated (Palazzo Chigi calls spreading the false news that “she’s Mubarak’s niece” in order to have the Premier’s female friend released from a public office) by now is a circumstance — however incredible — taken for granted. And even the Egyptian Embassy has made a point of informing us that any kinship between the President of Egypt and this self-possessed Moroccan girl passed off as his “niece” simply “doesn’t exist.”
Now we come to the details. The 17-year-old has many friends in the Liguria region. She has them especially on the “night” scene, notwithstanding her address at a home for minors. Websites are being filled with her photos and her discotheque performances. In Genoa, too, Ruby hardly has been discreet about the Premier’s image and about his life in Milan. A month ago she was detained at the Brignole station, following the usual procedures in cases involving minors, moreover in this case a girl wearing heavy make-up and carrying 5,000 euros in cash. Too much money, the police officers think, for someone who should be in a foster home. Question: What do you do? Answer: “Don’t think ill of me, I’m a model and I do fashion shows for Lele Mora.”…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Police Figures Show Only 25 Percent of Actual Crime
THE HAGUE, 02/11/10 — The crimes included in official police statistics represent around 25 percent of the actual number of crimes in the Netherlands.
Victims make a police report of about 26 percent of crimes, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS). The most important reason for not reporting crimes is that reporting “does not help anyway” (36 percent).
The most important reasons to do report an incident were that the police “had to know” this (25 percent) and for the insurance (23 percent). Making a police report is often a requirement for an insurance claim.
Property crimes (such as break-ins, theft and muggings) are the most reported. Among those having something stolen from their car, 70 percent make a report. Half (50 percent) report a break-in or attempted break-in to their home. If people’s bicycles are stolen, 40 percent take the trouble to report this.
Crimes of violence are seldom reported. Only 3 percent of sexual offences prompt a report, and this is just 11 percent in the case of threats and 35 percent for assaults.
Nor do the police get to know much about vandalism offences (damaging or theft from a car, other vandalism). About one in six of vandalism offences result in a report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sex Abuse Victims Meet Vatican Spokesman
Vatican City, 1 Nov. (AKI) — Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi has met survivors of clerical sex abuse, Vatican Radio reported Monday on its website. Lombardi told the group the Catholic church could and must do more to support abuse survivors and ensure all children in its care were protected. But he said paedophilia was a wider problem that remained “an intense scourge in today’s world.”
“We know very well that what has happened in the Church is but a small part of what has happened and continues to happen in the world at large, “ Lombardi said.
Internet pornography, sexual tourism and trafficking which exploits the poverty of people in various continents, were havens for paedophiles, he noted.
Lombardi urged victims to unite with the Church to stamp out paedophile sex abuse.
Around 100 sexual abuse victims including Italian victims on Sunday marched in Rome near the Vatican to demand Pope Benedict XVI take firmer action against priests who committed abuse.
The protesters included about 55 deaf Italians from a notorious Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona, where dozens of students say they were sodomised by priests.
“Hands off our children” and “Church without abuse” the demonstrators chanted at the protest organised at the Castel Sant’Angelo by US victims’ organisation Survivors Voice.
Victims of paedophile clergy claim the pope has not done enough to help abuse victims or implement the greater transparency and accountability the Vatican has promised in abuse cases.
Lombardi rebutted these accusations.
“Not only the Pope,” he said, “but many Church communities in various parts of the world have done and are doing a lot, by way of listening to victims, as well as in the areas of prevention and formation,” he said.
The abuse of thousands of children by clergy in several continents over many decades was covered up in a scandal that has rocked the Catholic church and tainted the credibility of the papacy itself.
Sunday’s protest oganisers had tried to hold the march on Vatican soil but were forced to stage it nearby after the Holy See denied permission. About 25 police officers blocked the torch-bearing protesters from walking up the wide avenue that leads to St Peters, although Vatican Radio said the protesters were allowed to leave personal messages for the pope.
It is standard Vatican practice to ban non-Vatican-sponsored events from St Peter’s Square. When Lombardi approached the group to offer his solidarity, he was reportedly sworn and spat at. He later arranged the private meeting with the two protest organisers and several other victims.
Benedict himself has faced allegation that as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, when he headed the Vatican morals watchdog and earlier as Archbishop of Munich, he failed to defrock predator priests.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Verdict Reached in Malmö Teen Pimping Trial
A court in Malmö in southern Sweden sentenced several men to prison on Tuesday for their role in selling a mentally handicapped 14-year-old girl for sex.
Threats force judge out of teen pimping trial (28 Sep 10)
Ten face trial in teen pimping scandal (27 Sep 10)
Ten charged in Malmö teen pimping scandal (15 Sep 10)
The 18-year-old man believed to be the ringleader of the teen pimping scandal was sentenced to one year in prison for aggravated pimping.
A 35-year-old man was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for child rape as well as aggravated pimping.
Prosecutor Ulrika Rogland had requested a sentence of eight years in prison for both men, who had been charged for taking advantage of the 14-year-old girl and taking payment from other men who then had sex with the girl.
A 51-year-old man was also sentenced to two years in prison for child rape.
A total of ten men were originally charged in the case, which related to how the 14-year-old girl, who had been diagnosed with learning difficulties, was in March drugged with alcohol and narcotics and then abused sexually by several men.
The case carried additional significance because it represented the first time prosecutors in Sweden attempted to classify pimping crimes as human trafficking, as the girl had been taken to several locations where she was taken advantage of sexually.
The start of the trial was also delayed after threats were made to the judge originally assigned to preside over the hearings.
“I’m not totally happy, but on the other hand, not totally unhappy either,” said attorney Jan-Anders Hybelius, who defended the 18-year-old that prosecutors had pointed out as the ringleader.
Hybelius explained that his client hadn’t been convicted of human trafficking, and was also freed child rape charges. But he 18-year-old was found guilty of aggravated pimping and sentenced to one year in prison.
“I’m going to speak with him and then we’ll make a decision about an appeal,” said Hybelius.
Four of the men originally charged in the case were freed of all charges.
A 27-year-old man was found guilty of aggravated fraud and sentenced to one year in prison, and a 17-year-old was fined for purchasing sexual services.
Prosecutors’ attempts to gain convictions for human trafficking were unsuccessful.
Rogland said that she plans to appeal at least certain aspects of the ruling.
“I very much to have a higher court rule on whether what has happened can be considered human trafficking,” she told TT.
Rogland also pointed out that a couple of the men who had sex with the 14-year-old were convicted of aggravated child rape, while others weren’t found guilty of the same crime.
“I don’t understand the logic,” she said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Racial Shootings in Malmö Continue, Putting Residents on Edge
Upwards of 18 shootings have occurred over the past year
Swedish police are investigating up to 18 apparently racially motivated shootings that have occurred in Malmö over the past year. There have been seven shooting incidents in October alone, with reports of shootings as recently as last weekend.
The one common thread is that all of the shooting victims have immigrant backgrounds.
Police have received upwards of 200 tip offs related to the case and have reason to believe they may have obtained a DNA sample stemming from a scuffle over the past weekend, in which an Iraqi tailor was headbutted and fired at by a man believed to be the gunman.
According to the Øresund Bridge Consortium, 25,000 Danes currently live in the Malmö area and over 20,000 commuters cross the bridge every day. Copenhagen Police have not issued any travel restrictions or warnings to residents travelling to Malmö.
The case has generated international attention, with media outlets in the United States,Canada, Australia, and the Middle East covering the story. The Swedish press has drawn parallels to a similar case in the 1990s in which 11 immigrants were shot in and around Stockholm.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Entente Frugale: Cost-Cutting 50-Year Deal That Will See French Take Command of the Sas and Britain Share Nuclear Secrets
Britain and France will sign a new entente cordiale today which will put the security of the UK and her overseas territories in the hands of the French for 50 years.
The ground-breaking agreement will even see French generals taking command of the SAS as part of a rapid reaction force.
Nuclear secrets — which have been preserved for five decades — will also be shared under unprecedented plans to merge the testing of warheads.
Senior defence officials claim the historic deal, dubbed the ‘Entente Frugale’, will save millions and boost the fighting power of both countries.
But critics claim that the pact has been forced on Britain by budget cuts and will leave the Armed Forces dependent on their historical rivals, who opposed conflicts in Iraq and the Falklands.
David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarzoky will sign two treaties designed to end years of mutual suspicion and bind the Armed Forces of both nations together for 50 years.
The historic deal will see Britain and France:
- Share aircraft carriers from 2020, so that at least one is at sea at all times, leaving Britain dependent on French support to defend the Falkland Islands
- Launch a brigade-sized Combined Joint Expeditionary Force — about 6,000 troops — including the SAS, SBS, Marines and Paras, to deploy on civil and military operations together.
- Britain will surrender testing of nuclear warheads which will be done at Valduc, near Dijon, from 2015. The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston will focus on developing new technology.
- Share more intelligence, air-to-air refuelling and cyber-warfare capabilities
- Work more closely on counter terrorism, particularly with regard to the Channel Tunnel
- Force British and French defence companies to collaborate on future missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles
Defence Secretary Liam Fox insisted the move makes ‘perfect sense’ and stressed: ‘This is not a question of our military assets coming under the control of any other power than the United Kingdom.’
He claimed it would not stop the UK acting alone if it had a disagreement with France over policy.
‘There is nothing in this treaty that restricts either country from acting where we want to in our national interest,’ he told the BBC.
‘We’re talking about joint expeditionary forces with our forces in all three services working together to develop common practices, better inter-operability and to look to see where we get better common equipment. That makes perfect sense in a world where resources are tight but our interests are increasingly common.’
Dr Fox said the deal was not the same as allowing the European Union to have responsibility for defence.
‘Defence has to be a sovereign capability,’ he said. ‘If we decide to make a defence deal with France, where we operate together when it’s in our interest to do so but retain our capabilities to act independently when our nations require it, that’s very different from having a European Commission rule in our defence.’
Two years ago, a leaked French government document revealed most of France’s tanks, helicopters and jet fighters were unusable and its defence capabilities were on the verge of ‘falling apart’.
Under the terms of the defence pact, Britain’s only aircraft carrier capability for the next decade will be the French flagship the Charles de Gaulle.
But that means when Britain’s carrier is in refit, about 30 per cent of the time, the defence of the Falkland Islands could depend on help from the French government, which sold Exocet missiles to Argentina during the 1982 war. And they could simply say: ‘Non.’
Commander John Muxworthy, a Falklands veteran who is chief executive of the UK National Defence Association, branded the plan ‘utterly irresponsible’.
He said: ‘This compromises our operational integrity completely. If we need to send a carrier to protect one of our territories, and ours is in refit, and the French say, “Well, we don’t agree — you’re not using ours”, we’re not going to be doing much protecting.
‘It is not in the best interests of the nation. The Government is trying to paint the picture that this is the smart way to do defence, but the reality is that ministers are trying to disguise the cuts and have defence on the cheap.’
British and French forces earmarked for the rapid reaction ‘expeditionary force’ will train together from next year.
The plans will have serious implications for Nato because Britain and France could carry out operations outside the alliance, but officials say it is better than allowing the EU to develop military capabilities.
Mr Cameron said yesterday: ‘I do seriously believe that this link-up with the French is in the long-term interests of both our countries.
‘And to those who worry that this might in some way lead to sort of European armies — that is not the point. The point is to enhance sovereign capability by two like-minded countries being able to work together.’
New Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards said: ‘From a purely practical military perspective, we have been working very closely with the French ever since the First World War, but particularly in Nato,’ he said in a BBC interview ahead of the summit.
‘We lost some of that in the 1990s and the last 10 years or so, so we are almost going back to the very close co-operation we had in the Cold War era.
‘It makes absolute sense, from my perspective, as we are going to fight alongside the French, which has been our plan for a long time, to be as good at it in training as we possibly can be.’
Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said: ‘I support the Government’s emphasis on international co-operation, taking forward the good work of the last government.
‘We share common threats with countries such as France, from terrorism to privacy to cyber-attack. Deepening military ties is an essential part of modern defence policy.
‘Interdependence, however, is different from dependence, and binding legal treaties pose some big questions for the Government.
‘We know British aircraft carriers won’t have a strike force on them for a decade. Is today’s treaty going to usher in an era where we are reliant on our allies to fill in the gaps in the Government’s defence policy?’
Will we ever really trust the French?
Commentary by COLONEL TIM COLLINS
Horatio Nelson famously instructed his officers that, ‘you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil’.
The Duke of Wellington proclaimed: ‘We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France.’
Well it seems now we are to be one with them — at least militarily. I must admit I am sceptical.
I have served with the French many times; in Berlin during the Cold War, with their special forces on numerous operations when I was in the SAS and in Bosnia, both with the UN under French command and with Nato.
I recall serving alongside the French Foreign Legion in Bosnia when I was deployed with the SAS. They could not speak workable English and our French was basic to say the least.
In the hunt for war criminals, joint operations with France often ended with the blighter getting away — almost as if he had been tipped off. Yet acting alone or with the U.S. we usually got our man.
But the language barrier is not the only potential snag. The ‘advantage’ of sharing aircraft carriers — which would allow us to have a carrier available to us when our own is in for refit — is in fact nothing of the sort.
The problem is that, if we want to use a French aircraft carrier, we then have to seek the permission of the French.
That could present insurmountable difficulties. If, for instance, the Falklands crisis were to flare up again, would they agree to their aircraft carrier braving the French-made Exocet missiles they sold to the Argentinians to recover our islands?
I very much doubt it. After all, they were opposed to our Task Force setting off to recapture the islands in the Falklands War.
As for sharing nuclear secrets and research facilities with France, and merging the testing of nuclear warheads, what impact will that have on our relationship with the United States?
The fact that our Trident submarines currently act as an integral part of a collective global nuclear deterrent with the U.S. is a main pillar of the special relationship.
We are told that the U.S. is relaxed about this new arrangement with France, and that they regard the new Anglo/French relationship as a means of bolstering France’s global military engagement.
But what if the people of France object to an enhanced role for the French military in world affairs? Has anybody told them what happens when the French government do something the French people don’t like?
Last week in Boulogne, the evidence of burning barricades was still very visible on the blackened roads around the town. And that was about an increase in pension ages — not an unpopular war in a faraway land.
The truth is that for years, the French have punched below their weight. They have committed far fewer troops to Nato’s UN-mandated operations in Afghanistan than the British.
We have more than twice the number of service men and women in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the British have 10,000 fewer full-time Army personnel than the French.
The U.S. commander of the first Gulf War ‘Storming’ Norman Schwarzkopf jibed that ‘going to war without the French is like going duck shooting without an accordion’.
In the second Gulf war against Iraq, it was the U.S. which dubbed our new best friends ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ and rebranded French Fries as ‘Freedom Fries’ when they failed to support the 2003 invasion.
I hope I am wrong. I hope the mutual suspicion that has existed through the centuries has gone — a mutual suspicion, incidentally, that hampered our operations in Bosnia where the French had a relationship with the Serbs we never fully understood. But I can’t be sure of it.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK Far-Right Group Boasts Tea Party Links
London, England (CNN) — If you believe the mood music, the Tea Party’s rise may mark a political watershed in the U.S.
The conservative grassroots movement, which has capitalized on right-wing frustration with Barack Obama’s administration and the political establishment, is already shaping the agenda of American politics.
Tuesday’s midterm elections could herald its arrival on Capitol Hill with Tea Party candidates such Rand Paul, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, having beaten more moderate Republicans in earlier primaries, all seeking election to the Senate.
But while the Tea Party’s fiscal and social conservatism has chimed a populist chord with a growing army of American supporters, its popularity risks being hijacked by far-right groups in Europe with a more extremist agenda.
At a rally outside the Israeli Embassy in London on October 24, supporters of the English Defence League march through the streets waving union flags and the red and white cross of St. George, chanting: “I’m England ‘til I die!”
The hardline group pushes an anti-Islamic message with provocative marches through neighborhoods with large Muslim populations. It has cultivated links with European far-right groups with a similar agenda, such as controversial Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders’ anti-Muslim Party for Freedom.
English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon is open about the nascent links between the group and a handful of Tea Party activists in the U.S.
“Individuals from their movement have contacted individuals from our movement supporting what we’re doing, in the same way members from our group are supporting what they’re doing,” Lennon told CNN.
Lennon said EDL and Tea Party activists shared the common goal of fighting for freedom.
“Freedom is worth fighting for. And you’ll see people fight back for freedom,” he said. “That’s what you’re seeing in the U.S., you’re seeing in Britain, you’re seeing in Europe; the more Islam we have the less freedom we have, we’re opposed to it.”
Tea Party activist Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a surfing, hard-line Jewish politician from California who preaches a message of fear about Islamic extremism, is one of those who has embraced the EDL. Addressing the rally in London, Shifren said the group had “started the liberation of England.”
Shifren told CNN that a lot of people in the Tea Party movement were concerned by radical Islam, and said he had established some “outrageously beautiful relationships” with EDL members.
“We are absolutely on the same page,” said Shifren. “The EDL members tell me that they feel completely disenfranchised and out of the picture when it comes to their own government and I totally agree with them.”
But Board of Deputies of British Jews Chief Executive Jon Benjamin said Shifren was displaying “breathtaking naivete and ignorance” by associating himself with the EDL. He said the EDL was attempting to play minorities off against each other.
“Regrettably, this result will only embolden extremists at the other end of the spectrum, and particularly the insidious EDL, who want nothing more than to sow fear and mistrust in the hope of attracting greater support,” said Benjamin.
In the U.S., mainstream Tea Party activists deny they want links to extremists, either at home or abroad.
Adam Brandon of the conservative pressure group FreedomWorks told CNN the Tea Party was a “very peaceful non-violent movement” with no desire to court support among more extremist groups.
“Don’t let anyone who is angry, anyone who is violent, even come close to your movement because they will end up defining it,” Brandon said.
Those concerns are echoed by supporters of the British Tea Party, a loose alliance inspired by the success of the American movement which favors “lower taxes, less state interference, smaller government” — an agenda inspired by the grievances behind the original Boston Tea Party in 1773 which triggered the American rebellion against British colonial rule.
Acknowledging that heritage, British Tea Party supporters launched their campaign earlier this year by tipping tea off a bridge in Boston, Lincolnshire, in eastern England.
Simon Richards of the campaign group Freedom Association, said British Tea Party supporters had not desire to court the support of extremists and were “maybe a little more libertarian” than their American counterparts.
“It is a matter of grave concern because we’ve seen how the American Tea Party movement has been damaged by some small numbers of extremists and we’re very concerned that might happen here,” Richards told CNN.
Daniel Hannan, a Conservative Party lawmaker in the European Parliament and British Tea Party supporter, also said it was wrong to suggest there was any place for far-right extremists in Tea Party politics on either side of the Atlantic.
“I don’t think there is anything far-right about wanting lower taxes,” Hannan told CNN. “Americans are no more anti-tax, than Brazilians, or British, or Pakistanis or anybody else; nobody likes giving money to the government.
“Of course, there are going to be some nasty people in any large movement — that’s inevitable when you have a mass organization — but the essential idea that the government should live within its means is a remarkably moderate one.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [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 accused 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.
After the attack, she coolly told police: “I just pushed it (the knife) in like how it is if you punch someone.
‘I was trying to kill him because he wanted to invade Iraq.
‘I was not going to stop (stabbing him) until someone made me.
‘I wanted to kill him. I was hoping to get revenge for the people in Iraq.’
Mr Timms, 55, suffered potentially life-threatening injuries in the attack days after the general election in May this year.
The MP for East Ham underwent surgery at the Royal London Hospital after the knife punctured his liver and stomach, but he has now made a full recovery.
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.
The attack on May 14 this year happened at a local constituency meeting in Beckton, East London.
Choudhry, who had earlier booked an appointment asking specifically to see the MP, arrived at the Beckton Globe community centre at 2pm armed with a three inch kitchen knife and a longer five inch blade she had stashed in her bag hidden in a scarf and towel.
Mr Timms told the jury that he initially thought she was going to shake his hand when the woman, wearing a full Muslim black dress and headscarf, approached him.
He 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 added: ‘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.’
Stunned, the MP doubled over in agony, asking her: ‘What are you doing?’
He told the court: ‘I retreated into the gents’ toilet and lifted up my jumper and realised there was quite a lot of blood there so I realised I had been stabbed.’
Choudhry was placed in a “bear hug” by a security guard before police arrived.
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.’
Today the jury were shown the bloodstained weapon and CCTV stills of the attack.
Jeremy Dein, QC said he would not be offering any evidence in defence of his client who is now in custody.
Prosecutor William Boyce, QC, told the jury: ‘Mr Dein has already indicated to you he will not be addressing you on behalf of the defendant and he will not be inviting you to find the defendant not guilty.
‘From this perspective it seems from the Crown’s point of view, acting conscientiously, you could not come to any verdicts other than guilty on the three counts.’
The court heard that Choudhry from East Ham is not suffering from any mental illness.
At an earlier hearing, her lawyers entered a not guilty plea on her behalf after she refused to accept the authority of the court.
The trial continues.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Air Passengers Face New Pre-Flight Crackdown as Security Chiefs ‘Profile’ High-Risk Travellers
Airline bosses have raised fears passengers could be subjected to ‘ludicrous’ new security checks in the wake of the cargo plane bomb plot.
The chief executive of Europe’s biggest short-haul airline said ‘pandering’ to terrorists would create more costly and time-sapping security measures for the industry.
It emerged today that millions of air travellers face sweeping new security tests, including passenger profiling and checks against a secret watchlist.
Searches could be carried out according to race, ethnicity, age and gender — a move certain to anger civil rights groups fearing Muslims will be disproportionately targeted.
The examinations will also check for criminal convictions, immigration problems and links to terror suspects.
But Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary warned against overreacting: ‘Every time we have a terrorist scare, the first thing that goes out the window is common sense,’ he said.
‘We in the aviation industry are all for effective security measures such as taking knives off passengers, but we are all opposed to ludicrous and ineffective measures.’
Mr O’Leary added that ‘pandering’ to terrorists would create more costly and time-sapping security measures for the industry.
‘They are laughing away in their caves at the prime minister and his security team meeting to discuss printer cartridges,’ Mr O’Leary, said.
The new checks, which could be introduced before the Christmas holiday rush, emerged as a US official revealed that similar suspect packages were intercepted in September in what is believed to have been a ‘dry run’ for for last week’s ink bomb plot.
US agents first found suspicious packages from Yemen back in September and linked them ‘several weeks ago’ to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to a US official.
‘The boxes were stopped in transit and searched,’ the official said, confirming that the packages contained no explosives.
‘At the time, people obviously took notice and — knowing of the terrorist group’s interest in aviation — considered the possibility that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) might be exploring the logistics of the cargo system’, the official added.
‘When we learned of last week’s serious threat, people recalled the incident and factored it in to our government’s very prompt response’.
The dry run contained household goods including books, religious literature, and a computer disk and were shipped by ‘someone with ties to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’, the official said.
Passenger profiling has been resisted by previous Home Secretaries because it means far greater numbers of travellers will be stopped, searched and barred from flying.
The crackdown came amid further developments in the investigation into the cargo plane bomb plot.
It emerged the two ‘ink bombs’ from Yemen contained 300 grams and 400 grams of explosive PETN, 50 times more than is needed to blow a hole in a plane.
New restrictions will be also placed on freight planes coming from Somalia — the African state known to be home to Al Qaeda cells.
And toner cartridges larger than 500g will also be banned from hand baggage on flights departing from the UK, and on cargo flights unless they originate from a shipper cleared by the Government.
But under the prospective rules people could find themselves placed on enhanced Home Office no-fly lists, which will see them turned away when they arrive at the airport.
Alternatively, they will be added to a larger list of those who should be subject to special measures such as enhanced screening.
Many of the passengers will not know why they are being put through rigorous full body searches and other checks.
More controversially, Home Secretary Theresa May has refused to rule out the introduction of passenger profiling.
This will anger libertarian Tory MPs and Liberal Democrats who have made much of their wish to end the ‘Big Brother’ state.
But Mrs May told MPs: ‘We are in a constant battle with the terrorists. They are always looking for another way, another innovative way, in which they can try to get around our defences.
‘Our job, and the job of our security and intelligence agencies and the police, is to ensure that we are doing all we can to make sure that there are no gaps in our defences.’
Earlier Mr Cameron had stressed Britain must take every possible step to ‘cut out the terrorist cancer’ in the Arabian Peninsula.
He praised the work of police and intelligence agencies in preventing terrorists ‘killing and maiming many innocent people, whether here or elsewhere’.
The package found at East Midlands Airport surprised many experts by its size.
Tests in the U.S. have shown that just 50g of PETN can blow a hole in an aircraft and both ink bombs were far bigger than the 80g of explosives the Christmas Day bomber carried in his underwear.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian who studied in Britain, tried to detonate his device over Detroit.
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| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cameron’s Fury as Prisoners Get the Right to Vote After Coalition Loses Out Yet Again to Europe
Prisoners are to have the right to vote after the Coalition conceded defeat in a long-running battle with Europe.
The Government has confirmed it will change the law to remove the voting ban on the 70,000 inmates of British jails.
It is being forced to do so after admitting it cannot win its fight against the European Court of Human Rights, which has been urging prisoners to seek compensation for being denied a voice in elections.
David Cameron is said to be exasperated and furious but accepts the government has little choice but to end the 140-year blanket ban.
The climbdown comes days after he faced criticism for failing to achieve a cut or freeze in the budget of the European Union.
Giving rapists and burglars the vote will be highly unpopular among many of his backbenchers, who believe criminals have forfeited their democratic rights.
But the policy will be more popular with Lib Dem members of his coalition.
The move comes after government lawyers advised that failure to comply with a 2004 ECHR ruling could cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds in litigation costs and compensation.
A representative of the government is expected to signal the move in a statement to the Court of Appeal tomorrow.
No decision is thought to have been taken on exactly how the change will be implemented and on which inmates are to be given the right to vote.
It is possible that the ban could be retained for murderers and others serving life sentences and that judges will have a say when passing sentence.
An unnamed senior Government source said: ‘This is the last thing we wanted to do but we have looked at this from every conceivable angle and had lawyers poring over the issue.
‘But there is no way out and if we continued to delay then it could start costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions in litigation.’
Convicted killer John Hirst, who took the case to the European Court of Human Rights, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The whole thing about this is that in this system where you’ve got a democracy, that people can put pressure and lobby in Parliament for changes in the law and improved conditions, but you can’t do that if you haven’t got the vote.
‘All prisoners can do is riot, if they’ve got a complaint, so you’ve got to give them this legitimate channel to bring their issue in.’
Sentenced prisoners were originally denied the right to take part in ballots under the 1870 Forfeiture Act, and the ban was retained in the Representation of the People Act of 1983. Prisoners on remand, fine defaulters and those jailed for contempt of court can still vote.
Following a legal challenge from prisoner John Hirst, the ECHR ruled in 2004 that the blanket ban was discriminatory and breached the European Convention on Human Rights.
However the Strasbourg-based court said that each country can decide which offences should carry restrictions to voting rights.
The former Labour administration kicked the issue into the long grass with a series of consultations.
Former justice secretary Lord Falconer said he disagreed with the European Court of Human Rights ruling but accepted that the Government had to comply with it.
He said countries should be able to say that convicted prisoners cannot vote.
‘But in relation to the blanket ban right across convicted prisoners, the European Court of Human Rights said that’s not in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights’, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
‘I disagree with that conclusion but it’s what their view is and we have ultimately got to comply with it.’
Lord Falconer added that it would be ‘incredibly disproportionate and wrong’ for the UK to simply pull out of the ECHR.
David Green, director of the think-tank Civitas, said the Government’s hand was being ‘forced by the European Court of Human Rights’.
‘It is another example of judges acting as if they were politicians,’ he said.
‘It is judicial empire-building.
‘The Government should make only the smallest possible concession — perhaps by giving the vote to prisoners sentenced to six months or less. The ban should remain for all the others.
‘If it leads to further legal action, so be it. In the longer term, Parliament should pass a law making the decisions of the British Parliament superior to any rulings of the European Court.
‘By implication, interpretations of the Convention by British courts should also have precedence over any external court.’
Losing the right to vote was part of the punishment of a prison sentence and making politicians more responsive to the concerns of criminals was ‘the last thing a law abiding society needs’, he said.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: the Moment Muslim Student Inspired by Al Qaeda Ink Bomber Pulled a Knife on an MP Before Stabbing Him as ‘Punishment’ For Voting for the Iraq War
This is the dramatic moment a student prepares to plunge a knife into Labour MP Stephen Timms during a visit to his constituency surgery.
Roshonara Choudhry, who was today convicted of attempted murder, was also revealed to be in possession of a hit list of other politicians who had voted for the war.
Choudhry’s attack on Mr Timms in May this year, was captured on CCTV cameras.
Although the exact moment she stabbed him in the stomach wasn’t picked up on film, our sequence of pictures highlight the events leading up to the horrific attack.
Student Choudhry told detectives she attacked Mr Timms as a ‘punishment’ and ‘to get revenge for the people of Iraq’, prosecutor William Boyce QC told the Old Bailey.
The 21-year-old was believed to have been acting alone after becoming radicalised after watching online sermons by Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been linked to the cargo plane bomb plot sent from Yemen.
He is also thought to be behind a mass shooting at a US army base in Fort Hood, Texas, as well as the failed Deroit underpants bomb plot on Christmas Day last year.
A source said: ‘Choudhry had researched the voting records of a number of MPs around the Iraq war.’
She stabbed East Ham MP Mr Timms as he held a surgery at the Beckton Globe community centre on May 14.
The student smiled and pretended she was going to shake hands with the former Government minister before knifing him twice in the stomach.
Choudhry, of Central Park Road, East Ham, was convicted of attempted murder and two knife possession charges by an Old Bailey jury today.
The court heard that Mr Timms, 55, Labour MP for East Ham and a former Treasury minister, has since made a full recovery.
Choudhry is due to appear via videolink for sentence tomorrow.
The jury retired for just 14 minutes before returning the guilty verdicts, in what was described as an ‘unusual’ case by the judge, Mr Justice Cooke.
Choudhry, who refused to go to court, had told her barrister Jeremy Dein QC that she did not accept its jurisdiction, and did not wish him to challenge the prosecution case.
There were no closing speeches by Mr Dein or prosecutor William Boyce QC and the evidence was concluded in about half a day yesterday before the judge gave a short summing up and sent the jury out today.
The court heard that Choudhry was dressed all in black when she went to see the MP, for a pre-booked appointment, shortly after 3pm on May 14.
Mr Timms said: ‘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.’
‘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.’
‘I retreated into the gents’ toilet and lifted up my jumper and realised there was quite a lot of blood there so I realised I had been stabbed.’
The MP’s assistant Andrew Bazeley prised the kitchen knife away from Choudhry and she was placed in a ‘bear hug’ by a security guard before police arrived. Another knife was found in her bag.
When asked by police why she had stabbed him twice, Choudhry said: ‘I was not going to stop until someone made me. I wanted to kill him… I was going to get revenge for the people of Iraq.’
The court heard that Choudhry was ‘anxious’ as she waited for the MP to arrive at the centre and asked security guard Faisal Butt where he was.
Mr Boyce, prosecuting, said that, when she went in to see Mr Timms, she ‘moved around the desk towards him’ and he thought it was to shake his hand.
‘He put out his hand accordingly. The defendant put out her left hand as if to shake his.
‘But it was a ruse, because in her right hand, which she had concealed behind her bag and/or clothing, she had a kitchen knife with a three-inch blade.’
Choudhry told police: ‘I purposefully walked round the side of the desk so I could get close to 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 and I hit him in the stomach with it. I put it in the top part of his stomach like when you punch someone.
‘I was trying to kill him because he wanted to invade Iraq.’
Asked why, she answered: ‘Punishment.’
‘He shouted at me “What was that for?” I think I stabbed him again. I think I did it twice. I tried to attack him again. People started to scream.’
A knife with a five-inch blade was found wrapped in a red towel.
Choudhry said she had taken two knives — which were found to have been both newly purchased and ‘razor sharp’ — in case one broke during the attack.
She said she had chosen to stab him in the stomach because she was not strong and it was a soft part of the body.
Prosecutor Mr Boyce said Choudhry was not suffering from mental illness.
After the stabbing, Mr Timms was given first aid before being taken to the Royal London Hospital.
He had suffered two small lacerations to the left of his liver, and a small perforation of the stomach — injuries which could have been life-threatening due to possible loss of blood and infection had he not been treated.
Jurors were shown CCTV images of what happened featuring the ‘black figure’ of Choudhry and Mr Timms in a purple jumper.
The MP could be seen ‘courteously’ standing to greet her, said Mr Boyce.
‘He thinks she is there on constituency business.’
Mr Boyce said that, within seconds, a knife could be seen protruding from her right hand and the MP then ‘reeling and staggering’ away.
She could later be seen held in a ‘bear hug’ by Mr Butt, he said.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Three Men Found Guilty of Child Sex Offences.
THREE men involved in a sex crime trial at Sheffield Crown Court have been found guilty of sexual offences against young girls.
Umar Razaq (24), of Oxford Street, Clifton, was convicted of one charge of sexual activity with a child and his brother Razwan Razaq (30), of Oxford Street, Clifton, was convicted of two charges of sexual activity with a child.
Zafran Ramzan (21), of Broom Grove, Broom, was found guilty of two charges of sexual activity with a child and one of rape. He was found not guilty of two other rape charges.
Another defendant, Shalzaad Hussain, (22), of Clough Road, Masbrough, was found not guilty of sexual activity with a child and was discharged.
Verdicts are awaited on a further four men who all deny all the charges against them.
They are Adil Hussain (20), of Nelson Street, Rotherham, Saeed Hussain (29), of Hatherley Road, Eastwood, Mohsin Khan (22), of Haworth Crescent, Moorgate and Shazad Akbar (23), of Shirecliffe Lane, Shirecliffe, Sheffield.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Two Catholic Cemeteries Vandalised
(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, NOVEMBER 1 — Two Catholic cemeteries have been vandalised in central Bosnia, which was the setting for bloody conflict between Catholic Croatians and Muslims during the war from 1992-1995.
The FENA agency reports that around twenty tombstones were destroyed and damaged in two small towns near Travnik, which has an ethnic Croat population. Its inhabitants returned to the town after the war years.
The vandals struck on the eve of All Saints Day and of the day dedicated to the memory of the dead, which are celebrated by Bosnia’s Catholics.
The war in Bosnia left around 100,000 people dead in three years and more than two million refugees, over half of the population before the war. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Olmert: Terror’s Origin is Islam
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticized PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy as well as Western nations, for their inability to fight terrorism effectively, and offered his solutions to this failure.
Olmert addressed the Israeli government’s role in the war on terror during a national security conference on Tuesday, organized by the Israeli Export and International Cooperation Institute.
“One of the problems in the war on terror is not the knowledge or technology, but the readiness of governments to invest in the war on terror for political reasons,” he said. “I heard what the Shin Bet chief said about terrorists’ use of technology. This technology also allows those combating terrorism to fight, and that encourages us to develop new tools.”
‘Get out of political comfort zone’ Olmert blamed Western nations for lack of cooperation against terrorism. “The origin of terrorism is within Islam,” he said. “To fight terrorism, we need a judicial resolution that allows for the fight.”
“Governments must get over the political convenience and adjust themselves to reality,” he said. “Perhaps it would have been possible to prevent the attack on the Twin Towers if they would have looked into the places where it wasn’t politically comfortable to look. Those terrorists were educated in the US. We must decide what we want.”
The former PM also hinted that the responsibility for Israel’s political standing lies upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoulders.
“The Goldstone Report came out a year after (I left office),” he said. “If there was a policy of peace in Israel, we wouldn’t have had the problems that occurred with Goldstone. I had an agreement with the UN that if the investigation takes place, it will not be published before Israel reads it. What happened later, I don’t know. I wasn’t prime minister.”
Olmert also slammed Israel’s current leadership over its testimony before the flotilla raid commission of inquiry.
“I recently heard that the political leadership is only responsible for approving the operation, and is not responsible for its technical details,” he said. “I’m telling you: There never was a defense minister who was unfamiliar with the technical details of an operation before approving it. Whoever said otherwise was not telling the truth, to put it mildly.”
‘Dialogue will end terrorism’ Olmert suggested that improving the dialogue with the Palestinians will allow Israel to get a better grasp on terrorism.
“The reason that terrorism in the West Bank is almost nonexistent, compared to Gaza, where they are armed, is because of our presence there, but also because there is a political leadership that is committed to dialogue and the war on terror. It doesn’t allow for terrorism. What happens in Judea and Samaria isproof that the Palestinians are building serious infrastructure and taking responsibility. It is a positive sign of a better political future.”
He also said Israel must work on its relations with any nation willing to join it in the fight.
“We must maintain close ties with the nations that want to fight terrorism even though they disagree with us,” he said. “At times you wouldn’t believe the nations that are in touch with us. Sometimes this connection is passive, and sometimes it goes against politics, but they are in touch with us and the security forces.”
“The reasons for terrorism are fantasies and hatred,” he concluded. “I believe that quality of life has an effect on terrorism. When I was in charge, we made efforts to change the reality in the West Bank, and also win legitimacy when we fought terrorism.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Al Neimi Exposes Hypocrisy of Arab Society
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, OCTOBER29 — Illegal maternity and an unforgiving society; the hypocrisy of marriage, which often constitutes entrapment for women; domineering fathers; children as exchange currency; infidelity; sex without love and power controlling every single breath and movement of individuals.
With “The Book of Secrets” (published by Feltrinelli, 112 pages, 11 euros), her first book written in 1994 and only today available to Italian readers, the Syrian writer Salwa al-Neimi “strikes a blow” to contemporary Arab society, exposing its hypocrisy and its shortcomings, with no concern for the consequences, but rather proud and aware of the deep sense of shock that her writing provokes in readers. These are eight intense short stories in which the writer expresses herself with great strength and courage and a desire for freedom and redemption, not only for herself, but for all Arab women.
“These novellas were published for the first time in Egypt in 1994 and then in Damascus,” Salwa al-Neimi tells ANSAmed, surrounded by thousands of papers towering over her desk at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, where she has lived and worked since the mid-1970s. “At the time I thought that they would remain confidential and that perhaps only a few brave friends would read them”. Things did not turn out this way, though, and after finding a brave publisher, Salwa al-Neimi managed to unsettle readers halfway around the world, especially with her second book, “The Proof of the Honey”, which was released in Lebanon in 2007 (and brought to Italy by Feltrinelli in 2008) and later translated into 20 languages, the latest Japanese. Yet in spite of her success, her writing has been censured.
“In some Arab countries, my books are sold under the counter and can be downloaded for free from the Internet, and I’m happy about that,” she says, smiling. The book trade in the Arab world is not yet ready to accept uncomfortable or ‘scabrous’ texts.
“Lebanon, but also Gulf states, are beginning to take steps with the creation of new literary prizes,” she says. The problem, however, lies in self-censure by writers. “To get their work published, they limit themselves, avoid tackling certain issues and write what those in power want to read”. Al-Neimi, too, who with great irony and critical passion mocks the framework surrounding Arab society, refuses to discuss certain topics.
“I don’t say everything that I think politically. Maybe I will in the future”. Neither does she like to talk about religion, even though issues such as marriage and sex recur frequently in her texts. “Arab society is multiple and I enjoy telling of this complexity,” she says.
Salwa al-Neimi is also involved in the emancipation of Arab women, although she is sceptical — as is the main character in her stories, who attends “conferences in which no concrete results are ever reached” — and continuously fights for them on the front line. “Figures suggest an improvement in the level of education, which is the basis for making them fully-fledged citizens”. She says that she is optimistic about the future. “Power can do nothing against freedom of women”. It is here, and not in religious figures, that she sees the real cancer on Arab society. “It is not movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that worries me, its power and nothing more”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Crisis Widens Gap Between Gulf, Rest of Arab World
(ANSAmed) — ROME, 25 OTT — The Arab World Competitiveness Review 2010 finds that the global economic crisis has further widened the competitiveness gap between the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the rest of the Arab world region. The review, published ahead of the 2010 World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa due to kick off tomorrow in Marrakesh (Morocco), sees Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait outperforming other economies at a similar level of development in terms of competitiveness. In the overall ranking of 139 economies, they place 17th, 21st and 35th.
United Arab Emirates is the only economy from the region that has reached the most advanced innovation-driven stage of development because of its diversified structure. It places 23rd within this group and 25th overall. Kuwait places second among the factor-driven economies (lowest stage of development).
Tunisia and Morocco (efficiency-driven) rank 32nd and 75th in the overall ranking and outperform Egypt (81), Algeria (86) and Libya (100), which remain in the factor-driven stage of development. According to the report, the Arab world’s competitive strengths lie in sound and transparent institutions, macroeconomic stability and business sophistication. Countries will need to accelerate efforts in raising the efficiency of their labour markets, furthering the development and stability of financial markets, and reforming education. GCC countries have reached OECD levels on a number of categories of the index, such as institutions, infrastructure, as well as efficiency of goods, labour and financial markets.
North Africa outperforms the Levant region in terms of infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, market size and innovation. The Levant region outperforms North Africa in terms of education, efficiency of goods, labour and financial markets, and business sophistication.
As the special focus highlights, while the access to education has improved greatly, the quality lags behind best practice in OECD members in most countries. Reforms in the GCC economies have significantly improved the quality of education over the past years, while North Africa and the Levant stagnated.
Over the past five years, efforts on average have improved the region’s competitiveness and yielded better results in key areas such as health and primary education, higher education and training, and technological readiness.
“Uncertainty and the shifting balance of economic activity towards the developing world will require strategic responses from policy-makers across the Arab world to best place the region’s economies on a sustainable economic footing going forward,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, quoted in a press release on the subject.
“In such a global economic environment, it is more important than ever for countries to put into place the fundamentals underpinning economic growth and development.” Masood Ahmed, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, said, “Enhancing MENA’s competitiveness will be key for the region’s ability to grow faster, create more jobs and fully reap the benefits of globalization. This will imply improving the quality of education, developing a more favourable business environment, as well as deepening and diversifying trade flows.” Education is the key to the future competitiveness of all Arab countries, but although access to primary education is as good as in OECD countries, tertiary education remains elusive to the vast majority of young people and the progress has been slow with respect to the quality of education,” said Margareta Drzeniek Hanouz, Senior Economist and Director, Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance, World Economic Forum and co-author of the review. “On a positive note, the education gap between boys and girls has been closed, although this does not yet translate into higher labour market participation for women.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: Saudi Friends and Foes
It seems that, thanks to Saudi Arabia, the latest effort to kill Americans with sophisticated bombs failed. Thanks to Saudi Arabia, we are certain to be subjected to more such attacks in the future.
The preceding paragraph captures the double game we confront from a kingdom that, on the one hand, is routinely characterized by American officials as a reliable U.S. ally in the volatile Middle East, a crucial source of oil and a trustworthy recipient of sophisticated weaponry. On the other hand, it is also the wellspring of shariah, the supremacist totalitarian doctrine that is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia and that animates and enables jihadists worldwide — thanks to immense support from Saudi royals, government agencies, businessmen, clerics and “charities.”
In a report Sunday on the intercepted Hewlett Packard printers whose ink cartridges were transformed into potent bombs and dispatched from Yemen, the New York Times declared that Saudi Arabia in recent years had been forced to “wake up to a reality it had long refused to acknowledge. The puritanical strain of Islam fostered by the state, sometimes called Wahhabism, was breeding extremists who were willing to kill even Muslims for their cause.” Now, the paper concluded, “Saudi Arabia’s problem…has become the world’s problem.”…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Adulteress ‘To be Executed Wednesday’
Tehran, 2 Nov. (AKI) — An Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery and helping kill her husband, will be executed on Wednesday, according to a statement by a group that opposes stoning in Iran.
“The Islamic regime of Iran plans to execute Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani immediately,” said a statement on the International Committee Against Stoning (ICAS).
The group didn’t give details on the method that will use to execute Ashtiani, but following an international campaign , Iran in July said a stoning sentence had been suspended.
Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006 and according to human rights activists forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes. She later recanted that confession and has denied wrongdoing.
Ashtiani’s son and lawyer have been arrested and tortured by Iranian authorities, ICAS has said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Now Ahmadinejad Comes Under Fire From the Revolutionary Guards Elite Force… Formerly His Most Staunch Supporter
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under unprecedented criticism from the Revolutionary Guards, the elite military force usually considered his most staunch supporter.
A harshly worded article in the Guards’ monthly magazine echoes criticism of Ahmadinejad from other parts of the Iranian establishment.
It also shows that attempts to mend rifts within the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite have yet to work.
Ahmadinejad and his close aides have faced criticism from lawmakers, the judiciary and some powerful clerics for saying parliament is no longer at the centre of affairs and is promoting an ‘Iranian’ rather than an ‘Islamic’ school of thought.
In an article entitled: ‘Is parliament at the centre of affairs or not?’ the magazine, Payam-e Enghelab (Message of the Revolution), asks: ‘Does being on top justify whatever action the government thinks is right, disregarding the law?’
Re-elected in June 2009, Ahmadinejad faced down huge demonstrations from an opposition movement which says the vote was rigged — which he denies.
Divisions among the hardliners have become more apparent in the months since the protests were put down, through sometimes violent repression.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has its own navy, air force and command structure separate from the regular armed forces.
Along with its voluntary militia, the Basij, it played a key role in quelling the post-election unrest which was the worst seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The rifts prompted Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to call for all branches of government to support the president whose government he has hailed as extremely successful.
‘National unity is very important and must be strengthened with every passing day… and by that I am addressing both officials and ordinary people,’ Khamenei said during his recent visit to the holy city of Qom.
But Payam-e Enghelab’s criticisms were similar to those voiced by parliament, the judiciary and clerics. ‘Dealing with marginal and unnecessary issues by some politicians has become the country’s main issue,’ the magazine said, referring to the controversy about the ‘Iranian’ school of thought which many of Ahmadinejad’s fellow conservatives say smacks of secular nationalism.
‘Adopting these kinds of stance has no benefit but creating separation and division in the Islamic Revolution front and casting doubt about fundamental stances,’ it said.
The harshest words were about Ahmadinejad’s remark about parliament’s reduced power, which some critics have said was a contradiction of the stance of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the deeply revered late leader of the Islamic Revolution.
‘The superficial interpretation of Imam Khomeini’s remarks and changing them in a way that meets a few people’s interests for a short time is an irreparable mistake,’ it said.
Indignation about Ahmadinejad’s apparent disregard for parliament has pushed some former rivals within the legislature — in the hardliner ‘principlist’ camp and more moderate ‘reformists’ — closer together.
Ali Motahari, a prominent hardline MP who is an outspoken critic of Ahmadinejad, was quoted by the reformist Sharq newspaper as saying:
‘The prominent figures of principlists and reformists have formed an unwritten alliance.’
The pressures on Ahmadinejad from within the hardline camp at home comes as Iran faces tighter economic sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear programme which some countries fear is aimed at making a bomb, something Tehran denies.
Iranians are also bracing themselves for the impact of Ahmadinejad’s cornerstone economic plan: slashing billions of dollars of subsidies for essentials like food and fuel.
Economists outside Iran have said sudden hikes in prices of items like gasoline — likely to happen in the coming weeks — could reignite popular unrest.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Woman Who Faced Death by Stoning ‘Will be Hanged Tomorrow’
An Iranian woman who faced being stoned to death will hang tomorrow, a human rights group has claimed.
The International Committee Against Stoning said that the authorities had given the go-ahead for the execution of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.
Her fate has provoked international outcry after she was sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery.
Under huge pressure, Tehran eventually ruled that the 43-year-old mother-of-two would be hanged instead.
Ashtiani has been on death row ever since.
‘The authorities in Tehran have given the go-ahead to Tabriz prison for the execution of Iran stoning case Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani,’ the human rights group said on its website.
‘It has been reported that she is to be executed this Wednesday, 3 November.’
Officials in Iran were not available to confirm or deny the report.
Ashtiani’s stoning sentence was suspended after prominent political and religious figures called it ‘medieval’, ‘barbaric’ and ‘brutal’.
Brazil, a close ally of Iran’s, offered to give Ashtiani asylum.
A government spokesman said in September Ashtiani’s adultery conviction was under review but a second charge of being complicit in the murder of her husband was still pending.
Under the Islamic law in force in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, murder is punishable by hanging, adultery by stoning.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fended off questions about the case from reporters when he attended the UN General Assembly in September, saying it had been fabricated by hostile Western media and called the United States hypocritical for its record on executions.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait Sheikh: Integral Veil is Unacceptable
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, OCTOBER 20 — “I understand European governments that ban the use of the niqab [the veil that covers the whole of the face] or that want to introduce rules forbidding its use. The integral veil is unacceptable and is not even a religious precept”. These are the comments of the Kuwaiti female Sheikh Hussah Sabah Salem al-Sabah, who is currently in Milan for the launch of the “Al Fann, the art of Islamic civilisation” exhibition, which is being held at Palazzo Reale until January 30.
“If a woman wants to cover her head with a hijab, she is free to do so. But the niqab is unacceptable. There is not a passage of the Koran in which it is written that a woman must cover her face,” the Sheikh told ANSAmed. It is, she says, “religious fanaticism that has nothing to do with Islam”.
In response to a question on the sad story of Sakineh, the Iranian woman accused of killing her husband and sentenced to death by stoning, Sheikh al Sabah said that “before being able to resolve a problem as big as stoning, we must remedy the issue of the veil”.
The wife of the Kuwaiti Prime Minister maintains that it is possible to ban the niqab by law. Indeed, it is the right thing to do. “It is a question of national security. We must know who is behind the veil”. There then follows an equally important issue: communication between human beings. With a symbolic gesture, taking a sheet of paper and placing it in front of her face, Sheikh Hussah asks “how can we communicate if in front of me there is a wall that separates us?”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Furious Public Occupies Private TV Station
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 18 — A group of “offended” viewers has attacked the satellite television channel Scope, accusing it of insulting certain members of the Kuwaiti royal family in one of its programmes. This is according to the satellite channel, Al Jazeera, which says that Scope was forced to interrupt the broadcast because the public had destroyed many transmitters. The director of Scope says that the attackers were armed with guns and knives and, as well as damaging material, also attacked television technicians.
Fajr Assad, the owner of the satellite channel and a well-known author, said that she had received death threats after the broadcast of the programme ‘Good and bad’, which went out last Saturday. The owner says that there were around 150 attackers and that they were looking for her, the director of the channel and the presenter of the programme.
The prosecutor’s office had previously accused Fajr Assad of inciting the overthrow of the Kuwaiti government in a television drama entitled ‘Your voice has arrived’. The presenter of ‘Good and bad’ had alluded to the possible involvement of the accusation of one of the members of the royal family, who has an important position in the Ministry of Information. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon — Iraq: In Lebanon, Religious Leaders React Unanimously to Baghdad Attack, Politicians Divided
Christians but also Muslims slam the attack. Among political leaders, some like Geagea call on the Iraqi government, the Arab League and Security Council to do “their duty” to protect the defenceless Christian minorities. Others, like Kalaban, consider the attack an “imperialist action”. For Hizbollah, it “bears the [. . ..] of hallmark of Zionism”.
Beirut (AsiaNews) — The hostage taking incident at Baghdad’s Saydet el-Najat (Our Lady of Perpetual Help) Cathedral and the subsequent bloodbath have confirmed some of the worst fears expressed by some of the ‘Fathers’ who took part in the recently concluded Special Synod of the Bishops of the Catholic Church in the Middle East. The whole region has become to some extent inhospitable for Christians, which means that Christians who opt for emigration are making the right choice.
As expected, Lebanese political leaders have reacted to the atrocities, as they are wont to do, with verbal condemnations that are as strong as they are gratuitous.
Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination in the country, has been more practical. Anticipating a new wave of Christians fleeing Iraq, a delegation that included a US Chaldean bishop, Mgr Ibrahim Ibrahim, has been touring the region. Its first stop was at the Maronite Patriarch’s Residence in Bkerke in Lebanon, followed by visits to Amin Gemayel and Samir Geagea.
The delegation asked the Maronite patriarch, former President Gemayel and Geagea to make sure that fleeing Christians are welcomed in Lebanon and treated with greater humanity. “In this country, there are 6,000 to 7,000 Iraqi refugees and their situation leaves a lot to be desired. However, we count on people of good will, in Lebanon, to help them overcome their difficulties and become self-sufficient,” Bishop Ibrahim said.
In his view, “the Iraqi government, the United States and the United Nations” bear “full responsibility” for the Baghdad massacre. “In the name of what religion are the meek of the earth massacred?” he asked.
After receiving the Chaldean delegation, Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces, appealed to the Iraqi government, the Arab League and the Security Council, urging everyone “to do their duty” towards Iraq’s “defenceless” Christian minorities.
“Imperialist action” for Kabalan
“Not in the name of Islam,” said Abdel Amir Kabalan, vice chairman of the Higher Shia Council, who said that his religion “condemns any attack or aggression against human beings.”
“In the East, Muslims and Christians must continue living together as brothers.” For this reason, he urged Iraqi Christians to “hang onto their land” and “not submit to people who are fighting Islam and Christianity by means meant to distract attention.” In his view, the attack is an “imperialist action”.
The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, said, “After the synod [. . .], the circles of dialogue will multiply. The East will once more show that it is a model of coexistence among religions. However, the attack has demonstrated [. . .] that some people are bent on destroying this civilised image of Islamic-Christian relations”.
In a communiqué released yesterday, Hizbollah said that such attacks “were unheard off before the Americans’ occupation, who are working to reawaken and expand confessional and sectarian sensitivities.” For the self-styled ‘party of God’, the attack “bears the clear and hypocritical hallmark of Zionism, because the Zionist project has always had as an objective e the fragmentation of the region in entities that are hostile to one another in order to impose a single hegemony.”
Meeting for concerted action in Saida
The Iraqi issue is the topic of discussion for today’s monthly meeting of Muslim and Christian religious leaders organised by Ms Bahia Hariri in the city of Saida.
The religious and secular leaders of Lebanon’s Syriac community, the leadership of the Kataeb party and the Higher Greek-catholic Council have also condemned the attack.
However, in an unusual statement, the Syriac Union, through its chief Ibrahim Mrad, urged Iraqi Christians to “arm and defend themselves” as they wait for a “realist” solution to their problem, a solution that would “include setting aside an autonomous territory for Christians” that “would enable them to remain attached to their land and history.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Missing in the Rise of Islam in Turkey and Iran: A U.S. Strategy
It is now clear that the West has no coherent strategies to cope with Iran and Turkey, the two important powers in the greater Middle East.
Iran and Turkey dominate this zone of the greater Middle East, which extends from the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, and from the Pamir Mountains to the Mediterranean. It is a region which contains perhaps 70 percent of the world’s known oil and gas energy reserves, is a major center of religious and ethnic rivalry; and is home to the Arab-Israeli dispute, international terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
If the West is to cope with this reality, then it needs to better understand both of these powers, historically, and to understand the nature of the force which essentially drives them: political Islam.
Iran and the Ottoman Turks experienced conflict and occasional wars for almost 250 years, but there has been no serious war between Iran and Turkey since 1747 (the battle of Kars). Border disputes, however, have persisted between them.
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the Turkish Republic came into existence in 1922. When Reza Khan came to power in Iran and founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to power in Turkey, relations and cooperation between the two countries improved and it continues to the present day. During the Cold War, both were allies of the U.S. and formed a line — or, indeed, a “Northern Tier” — against the USSR. In 1953, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, during his trip to the Middle East, for the first time referred to the “Northern Tier” as a political/military concept aimed at a collective security region on the southern borders of the Soviet Union.
The situation changed, however, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Now, Iran and Turkey keep their distance from the U.S. and are close to Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Iran changed its direction in 1979 to the detriment of U.S. interests, and changed the balance of power in the region against the U.S. and the West.
This change also marked the beginning of the rise of political Islam and modern jihadist movement, often exemplified by international terrorism, and mostly as a result of the growing weakness and strategic miscalculations of several U.S. administrations.
Iranian history and Persian culture have been exemplified by tolerance and religious freedom, but the theocratic administration which emerged in 1979 in Iran was an aberration; it not only propagates radical Islam, but it also attempts to destroy and extirpate the roots of Persian history, civilization, and culture which, for three millennia, have been the strategic reserve and guardian of Iran. The theocratic administration continues to obliterate memories and appreciation of Iran’s past glories, and has consistently held a policy of indoctrinating students in schools and universities. Anti-democratic and anti-female behavior has become emphasized by the clerical leadership, as has enmity towards recognition of Iran’s non-Muslim past.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Series of Rapid-Fire Blasts in Iraq Kills 76
Rapid-fire bombings and mortar strikes in mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad killed 76 people and wounded nearly 200 on Tuesday, calling into question the ability of Iraqi security forces to protect the capital.
The blasts — at least 13 separate attacks — came just two days after gunmen in Baghdad held a Christian congregation hostage in a siege that ended with 58 people dead. Tuesday morning, hundreds of Christians gathered at a downtown church to mourn their lost brethren.
“They murdered us today and on Sunday, they killed our brother, the Christians,” said Hussein al-Saiedi, a 26-year-old resident of the Shiite slum of Sadr City where 21 people were killed in the most deadly incident of the day. He said he was talking to friends on a busy street, when the blast occurred.
“We were just standing on the street when we heard a loud noise, and then saw smoke and pieces of cars, falling from the sky,” he said. People were fleeing the site in panic, frantically calling the names of their relatives and friends. “They (the government) say the situation is under control. Where is their control?”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the coordination of the blasts, the complexity of the operation and the predominantly Shiite targets point to al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents. Iraq has been plagued by conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects since the 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, which was dominated by the minority Sunnis. It was supplanted by a Shiite-dominated government that remains in power until today.
The bombings began at about 6:15 p.m. The assailants used booby-trapped cars, roadside bombs, mortars and at least one suicide bomber on a motorcycle. Though most of the neighborhoods hit were Shiite-dominated, a couple struck Sunni neighborhoods as well.
The attacks stretched from one side of Baghdad to the other and were spread out over hours, indicating a high degree of coordination and complexity from an insurgency that just a few months ago U.S. and Iraqi officials were saying was all but defeated.
The casualty information all came from police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Earlier Tuesday, hundreds of grieving Christians and other Iraqis packed a funeral service for members of the faith killed in the militant siege on a Baghdad church. The attack, which an al-Qaida-linked group claimed it carried out, left 58 people dead and dozens wounded.
The complex attack carried out Sunday evening on parishioners celebrating Mass at the Our Lady of Salvation church in an affluent Baghdad neighborhood emphasized the ease with which militants can still strike in Iraq and the particularly dangerous position that the country’s Christians occupy among Iraq’s sectarian structure.
Iraq’s top Catholic prelate, Chaldean Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, urged the government to protect the nation’s Christian community and not let their promises just be ink on paper.
“We are gathered here in this sacred house to say farewell to our brothers who were just the day before yesterday exclaiming love and peace,” Delly told a weeping congregation at the Chaldean St. Joseph Church in central Baghdad.
In a show of force, Iraqi security forces flooded the streets around the church where black-clad parishioners mourned for the dead parishioners.
But as the security forces concentrated their efforts in the central Karradah neighborhood where the funeral took place, militants appeared to have spread out in a ring across the capital where the evening attacks took place just hours later.
The immediate reaction from many Iraqis was frustration with the attacks that continue despite assurances that the city and country are safe.
“Where is the government?” said Adnan Anbar, a 42-year-old man from Sadr City who was crossing the street when the blast went off. “What are all these checkpoints about,” he said, referring to the hundreds of police and army checkpoints scattered all over Baghdad.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Christians Criticize Israel, But Turn a Blind Eye to Islamic Violence
Il Giornale, October 19, 2010
Religious leaders lay the blame for the situation in Palestine on Jerusalem. But the Jewish State is the only one where the followers of Christ are on the increase.
It’s not hard to imagine how worried the Catholic Church is about its Christians in the Middle East, and this is why it has dedicated a lengthy working session at the Synod of Bishops to problems in that area. Islam does not like Eastern Christians: it has forced them to flee and now they account for only 6% of the population in the Mideast. There is only one country where the number of Christians has grown. In Israel, from their 34,000 in ‘49, they have become 163,000 and will be 187,000 in 2020. In Muslim countries, on the other hand, Christians are on the wane, but the 50 churches present in the Holy Land seem not to notice. They prefer to dump on Israel, where they enjoy full freedom of worship and expression. It’s useless to hearken back to the time of Islamic conquest in the 7th century when Christians accounted for 95 percent.
According to the report by the US Department of State on religious freedom, in 2007 in Turkey, there were two million Christians, and today there are 85,000; in Lebanon they have gone from 55% to 35%; in Egypt their number has been halved; in Syria, from half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%; while in Saudi Arabia, they speak of “invisible Christians”. In Iran, Christians have become virtually non-existent. In Gaza, the 3,000 who remain are subjected to continuous persecution. All this the Christian hierarchies talk about under their breath, and this is understandable; but it is not acceptable, in such a high-level venue as the Synod, to severely criticize Israel, just to avoid offending your persecutors.
And there are even some in the Catholic Church who think this way. After an authoritative name—that of the Custodian of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa—was unthinkingly used as the signature of a document written in a tone of theological excommunication towards the State of Israel, Pizzaballa called a press conference to warn that no church in the Holy Land had signed the document. His way of announcing that he is no longer willing to play that game. But if you go to the www.kairospalestine.ps website, the names of top-level signers are clearly visible on the document, drawn up back in December 2009, and which will be presented today at the Synod. Among them, are, in fact, the Latin Patriarch Mons. Fouad Twal, Pizzaballa himself (a good, intelligent Franciscan and fine intellectual), Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, Armenian Torkon Manougian and Copt Anba Abraham, as well as Lutheran Manib Yunan and Anglican Suheil Dawani.
The previous Latin Patriarch, Michel Sabbah, a die-hard apostle of the Palestinian cause, will present the document that speaks in the name of “us Christian Palestinians”. In it, it says: “The military occupation is a sin against God and against man”, actually excommunicates Christian supporters of Israel, takes sides against the very presence of Israel, likens the defensive barrier that has blocked 98% of terrorism to apartheid, attacks the settlements invoking the name of God and conceptually cancels the Jewish state, imagining it to be a mixture—Islamic, Christian and also perhaps a bit Jewish. It even legitimizes terrorism when it talks about the “thousands of prisoners who languish in Israeli jails” and which are “part of the society around us”. In fact, “resistance to the evil of occupation is a Christian’s right and duty”.
Monsignor Twal has issued a number of statements in recent days. He has said that, instead of two states for two peoples, there should be just one, ignoring the current idea that Arab refugees and birth rates would sweep away the Jews. And, secondly, he said that “100%” of the reason why Palestinians are running away is Israeli occupation. He is probably referencing the freedom of movement denied by the barrier and safety checks which increase or decrease depending on the terrorist threat, completely ignored by Twal. But there is a flaw in the Patriarch’s reasoning: Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing, and significantly so, as has already been stated. From 1997 to 2003, the Christian population has increased by 14%, while in Cisjordan, under the Palestinian authorities, it has decreased by 29%. Bethlehem, the city where Jesus was born and where the Christian presence has always been one of its distinctive characteristics, has remained semi-abandoned by fleeing Christians. Yes, the Israeli occupation does impede movement, but the kidnapping, crime and reprisals of Tanzim and Hamas against Christians are even more terrifying…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Government “Threatens” Syria: Promote Terrorism, Take Over Lebanon, Block Peace, And We Won’t Let You Make Apple Ipads!
By Barry Rubin
If you think I’m exaggerating about the current administration’s cluelessness toward the Middle East just read the State Department daily press conference transcripts. Even journalists covering these events are often shocked by what they hear.
Today’s topic is Syria, but it’s just an example and many others could be found. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley begins by referring to a speech by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice in which she says:
“We continue to have deep concerns about Hezbollah’s destructive and destabilizing influence in the region, as well as attempts by other foreign players, including Syria and Iran, to undermine Lebanon’s independence and endanger its stability.”
In saying this, Rice is praising a UN report about what’s going on in Lebanon which reveals, though nobody makes this point, the total failure of the organization and the United States to keep the promises made in 2006 in order to end the Israel-Hizballah war.
So given this situation one would think U.S. policy is now prepared to do something about Lebanon’s becoming an Iran-Syria puppet, Syria’s continued support for anti-American terrorists in Iraq and sabotage of any peace process, and the obviously failed U.S. effort at engaging Syria.
Nope. Not a chance.
A reporter asks: “With these strong statements…it looks like the meetings the Secretary [of State] had with the Syrian foreign minister and the visit by his deputy here to Washington didn’t lead to any improvements in relations with Syria. Do you agree on this?”
No, Crowley won’t agree since if he does the United States will have to do something. He just wants to let everyone knows that the United States told Syria it is very very naughty:
“We were very clear about our expectation that Syria would play a more constructive role in the region. We expressed during that meeting our deep concern for Syrian interference with Lebanon’s sovereignty. We also expressed in that meeting hope that Syria would make progress in its thread of the Middle East peace process.”
No, Syria won’t “play a more constructive role,” so why the expectation? Yes, Syria will continue to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty so what are you going to do with that “deep concern?” No, Syria won’t “make progress” toward peace with Israel so why the “hope”?
Jumping Jupiter! You’ve been watching all of this continuously for nineteen months, isn’t it time to get the point?
Understandably, a reporter asks: “Do you see any evidence that [the Syrians] have actually taken that message on board?….It doesn’t seem like they’re listening if they’re still doing things that you have to complain about as publicly as Ambassador Rice did.”
Precisely. So what does Crowley say?
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Killings of Taliban Militants ‘Show Weariness With Insurgency’
Rawalpindi, 1 Nov. (AKI) — By Syed Saleem Shahzad — The reported killing in Pakistan of former Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s brother and that of a key Taliban commander show people are tiring of the bloody campaign of violence waged by militant insurgents in recent years, according to the country’s top military spokesman.
“The people see no reason for the continuation of the armed struggle by the militants,” General Athar Abbas told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Late Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud’s brother Yaqoob Khan was reportedly shot dead by unidentified assailants in North Waziristan tribal region’s Mir Ali area in northwest Pakistan, television reports said Monday.
Khan’s reported slaying, which was not immediately confirmed by officials, followed the shooting dead late on Friday of key Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Adnan Afridi by a rival group.
Afridi’s killing took place near the northern garrison town of Rawalpindi. He was said to be a close ally of TTP commander Hakimullah Mehsud and was believed to be heading militant recruit activities from various cities of of the country.
Hakimullah Mehsud became TTP leader after Baitullah Mehsud was killed in northwest Pakistan’s tribal belt in a United States drone strike in August 2009.
The presence of the high profile network around the federal capital, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi, had already placed security forces on high alert.
But on early on Monday, the militants showed their muscle.
Militants carried out an attack on a NATO supply convoy in the town of Pabbi located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North West Frontier) province, one and a half hour’s drive from Islamabad.
Just an hour later, militants carried out an attack on Swabi, 65 kilometers from Islamabad.
Pakistan launched a major ground and air offensive in South Waziristan, in Dera Ismail Khan where Adnan came from and in Orakzai last year to flush out Taliban militants from the area who have been blamed for some of the country’s worst violence.
Local people are tired of militant attacks and want these to stop, according to Abbas.
“They are demanding militants to stop their activities in the area,” he told AKI.
In response to the Pakistan army’s offensive, militants attacked a military check post, killing two soldiers in South Waziristan.
The attack took place in the Badar area, 30 kilometres north of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, continuing a pattern of retaliatory attacks against security officials, according to analysts.
Defense analyst Baseer Haider Malik said the militants were likely to try and regroup despite the military operations against them.
“If the militants have a prolonged agenda, which they have , and this is going to suit them, because they are going to disperse. The army is after them.
“So they are going to make use of this time and they are likely to regroup whatever way they can,” said Malik, a retired lieutenant colonel from Pakistan’s army.
A new wave of fear has crept into the lives of people in the tribal areas after militant attacks destroyed a boys’ school in Koza Bandai.
It was the third attack in which a school was destroyed since the Pakistan army’s offensive. The Taliban in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat district have claimed responsibility for these attacks and have admitted killing a member of the peace committee from the Dairai area.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mauritania: Govt Forum for Charter Against Aqim
(ANSAmed) — NOUAKCHOTT, OCTOBER 29 — A “national charter” to deal with the threat of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the opening of a “dialogue with the extremists” who surrender were the recommendations of the anti-terrorism forum that concluded yesterday in Nouakchott, and which Mauritanian Prime Minister Ould Mohamed Laghdaf said that he wants to “enforce to the letter”.
In the final document issued at the end of five days of work, reports AFP, the forum organised by the Mauritanian government, “recommends a political charter to be drafted to deal with terrorism and extremist ideals” and for the “creation of a centre to teach the culture of moderation”. The forum also envisioned “the adoption of a social policy to combat the factors that favour terrorism, such as ignorance, poverty and exclusion”.
Finally, the participants in the forum said that they are in favour of “dialogue with extremists who accept handing themselves over to the authorities before they are arrested”. “We never negotiate with those who use weapons against the country. We will respond to these people with force,” said Defence Minister, Hamadi Ould Hamadi at the end of the forum. He added that “the army is able to guarantee safety throughout the country” and also “along the over 4,300km border with the Western Sahara, Algeria and Mali”, a vast desert land where the AQIM operates.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi: Protracted EU Summit to Discuss it
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 29 — Silvio Berlusconi has caused this autumn’s European Council to last around one hour longer. The Italian Premier forced the leaders of the 27 member States to include issues that concern Italy, like illegal immigration, the need for a European Defence and the problem of delocalisation of European companies. The news was reported by the Italian Premier shortly before he left Brussels. “I have protracted the Council by around one hour”, said Berlusconi, who pointed out to the other State and government leaders that the African countries on the Mediterranean “expect a financial response” from the European Union. Immigration, he added, is not “only a problem of Italy or Greece, because illegal immigrants move across Europe and to the north in particular”. Berlusconi added that the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has “guaranteed” him that the EU will soon contact these countries to deal with the question within a European framework. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Christians and Jews Once Again in the Muslim Line of Fire
The truth of Islamophobia is as obvious as the difference between the Middle Eastern Jewish and Christian immigrants to America, and their Muslim counterparts. Jews and Christians from the Middle East came to America as refugees. Muslims came here, not as refugees, but because there was more economic opportunity here than in their own overpopulated countries. That is the difference between the Mizrahi, the Maronite, the Copt… and the Muslim.
And that is the ugly truth at the heart of it all. Muslims are not victims. They are victimizers. They have reduced every minority in the Middle East to second-class status, and then when those minorities try to demand some semblance of human rights, they’re machine gunned, set on fire, bombed and shelled to within an inch of their lives. And then the victimizers laughingly dispatch flotillas to the aid of their own fanatical terrorist gangs.
Islamophobia? What Islamophobia. The last remaining Jewish and Christian communities look carefully to their Mukhbarat (secret police) minders and denounce America and Israel. Then they go back to the few remaining houses of worship that they have, and hope that no one will kill them this week. They do their best to send their children out of the country. To Europe, to America, to Israel. Anywhere but a Muslim country. Not because there’s anything wrong with Muslims. Allah forfend. No, it’s because, like the Soviet anecdote about the man who punched a hole in an American diplomat’s tire and tried to breathe in the escaping gas, they want to breathe the air of freedom.
| [Return to headlines] |
UK: Schools Given Right to Sack BNP Teachers by Tories
Headteachers will be given new powers to sack teachers who are members of the BNP or other ‘extremist’ groups.
The previous government ruled out banning BNP members from teaching after an independent inquiry decided it would be ‘disproportionate’.
But Michael Gove, the education secretary, said he couldn’t see how membership of the far-right party ‘can co-exist with shaping young minds’.
His decision to overturn the existing rules follows the case of a BNP activist who used a school laptop to post comments describing some immigrants as ‘filth’.
Adam Walker, a teacher at a school in Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, wrote on an online forum that Britain was a ‘dumping ground for the filth of the third world’.
But he was cleared of racial and religious intolerance by a disciplinary panel in June.
Mr Gove told The Guardian: ‘I don’t believe that membership of the BNP is compatible with being a teacher.
‘One of the things I plan to do is to allow headteachers and governing bodies the power and confidence to be able to dismiss teachers engaging in extremist activity.
‘I would extend that to membership of other groups which have an extremist tenor.’
The move was welcomed by the NASUWT teaching union.
General Secrertary Chris Keates said: ‘I hope this is something Michael Gove takes forward as quickly as possible.
‘It is an important part of safeguarding the interests of young people.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Biologist: Space Travelers Can Benefit From Genetic Engineering
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — NASA’s human spaceflight program might take some giant leaps forward if the agency embraces genetic engineering techniques more fully, according to genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter.
The biologist, who established the J. Craig Venter Institute that created the world’s first synthetic organism earlier this year, told a crowd here Saturday (Oct. 30) that human space exploration could benefit from more genetic screening and genetic engineering. Such efforts could help better identify individuals most suited for long space missions, as well as make space travel safer and more efficient, he said.
“I think this could change the shape of what NASA does, if you make the commitment to do it,” said Venter, who led a team that decoded the human genome a decade ago.
Venter spoke to a group of scientists and engineers who gathered at NASA’s Ames Research Center for two different meetings: a synthetic biology workshop put on by NASA, and Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement, organized by the nonprofit Space Studies Institute.
Astronauts with the right (genetic) stuff
Genetics techniques could come in extremely handy during NASA’s astronaut selection process, Venter said. The space agency could screen candidates for certain genes that help make good spaceflyers — once those genes are identified, he added.
Genes that encode robust bone regeneration, for example, would be a plus, helping astronauts on long spaceflights battle the bone loss that is typically a major side effect of living in microgravity. Also a plus for any prospective astronaut: genes that code for rapid repair of DNA, which can be damaged by the high radiation levels in space.
Genetic screening would be a natural extension of what NASA already does — it would just add a level of precision, according to Venter.
“NASA’s been doing genetic selection for a long time,” he said. “You just don’t call it that.”
Last summer, the agency chose just nine astronaut candidates — out of a pool of 3,500 — for its rigorous astronaut training program based on a series of established spaceflight requirements and in-depth interviews.
A new microbiome
At some point down the road, NASA could also take advantage of genetic engineering techniques to make long space journeys more efficient and easier on astronauts, Venter said.
As an example, he cited the human microbiome, the teeming mass of microbes that live on and inside every one of us. Every human body hosts about 100 trillion microbes — meaning the bugs outnumber our own cells by a factor of at least 10 to one.
While humans only have about 20,000 genes, our microbiome boasts a collective 10 million or so, Venter said. These microbes provide a lot of services, from helping us digest our food to keeping our immune system’s inflammation response from going overboard.
With some tailoring, the microbiome could help us out even more, according to Venter.
“Why not come up with a synthetic microbiome?” he asked.
Theoretically, scientists could engineer gut microbes that help astronauts take up nutrients more efficiently. A synthetic microbiome could also eliminate some pathogens, such as certain bacteria that can cause dental disease. Other tweaks could improve astronauts’ living conditions, and perhaps their ability to get along with each other in close quarters.
Body odor is primarily caused by microbes, Venter said. A synthetic microbiome could get rid of the offenders, as well as many gut microbes responsible for excessive sulfur or methane production…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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