‘Coal War’ With Beijing Next Hit on U.S. Economy
Analysts warn of crunch coming over world demand for electricity
The next serious crisis for Americans could be a lack of coal to run the power plants that light up computer screens, heat microwave dinners and turn on the big-screen televisions, according to experts on the issue.
The situation is that hundreds of millions of people in nations like China are moving rapidly from the Stone Age to the 21st century as American dollars have flooded that part of the world, and officials have been struggling frantically to make enough power to run all of the gadgets the new lifestyle includes.
Similar circumstances also are developing in India and places like Indonesia, and the demand is sending the expense of coal through the ceiling, making relatively insignificant President Obama’s promise during his 2008 election campaign that he wanted to regulate those who build coal mines and coal-fired power plants until they were bankrupt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland Will Apply for Bailout Package
Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan confirmed today that Ireland had formally applied to Europe and the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.
He would not give an exact figure but said the amount would be in the tens of billions of euros and that the final figure was still subject to further negotiations.
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William Hague Calls the Future of the Euro Into Question
William Hague raised doubts about the future of the euro yesterday, suggesting for the first time that it was possible the currency could collapse.
The Foreign Secretary said he “hoped” the euro would survive, but added: “Who knows?”
His comments added weight to already frenzied speculation about the future of the eurozone as the European Union prepared to bail out debt-ridden Ireland.
As the crisis intensified yesterday, the head of the International Monetary Fund provoked outrage among eurosceptic MPs by saying that a Federal Europe with more sovereign power was the best defence against future problems.
Tory MPs described the suggestion as “absolutely perverse”.
Ireland is expected to agree a rescue loan to shore up its banks of up to £85 billion within days, but many fear loss of sovereignty will be the price of the bail-out.
Mr Hague, a long-standing critic of European monetary union, said he hoped the single currency would not collapse, but he acknowledged that this was possible.
He said: “No one has pointed out more of the problems than I have over the years in having a currency where we lock together the exchange rates and interest rates of countries with different economies.
“But I very much hope not. Who knows?
“If an economist knew that, let alone a politician, they would be very gifted people, but clearly we want to make sure there is stability in the eurozone and irrespective of the eurozone there is a specific case for assisting Ireland if Ireland asks for that assistance.”
Officials from both the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund were in the Irish capital yesterday to discuss the options for ensuring Ireland can cope with its struggling banks.
Mr Hague said: “It’s very much in the British national interest for the eurozone to be stable, however much we pointed out all the faults that it would have, and I pointed them out more than most.
“But the fact is that it exists and a very serious problem in the eurozone affects our economy, the jobs and the businesses in our country.”
The UK had a particular interest in supporting Ireland because of the interconnectedness of the two countries’ economies, he added.
“We stand ready to assist in the case of Ireland although no formal request has been made for that assistance, there are meetings that are going on a precautionary basis,” Mr Hague said.
Tory MPs, meanwhile, were incandescent about remarks by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, who called on the European Union to move responsibility for fiscal discipline to a central body, and away from the control of member states.
He said: “The wheels of co-operation move too slowly. The centre must seize the initiative in all areas key to reaching the common destiny of the union, especially in financial, economic and social policy.
“Countries must be willing to cede more authority to the centre.”
Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, said: “It is absolutely perverse to suggest the EU should be put in charge of financial discipline.
“The EU is hardly the greatest example of financial rectitude. They waste money on an industrial scale.”
Mr Davies said a bail-out of Ireland would be “throwing good money after bad to prop up something that is a busted flush.”
Many Tory MPs hold similar views and are calling on the Government not to give money to a rescue package which could drive Ireland deeper into EU control.
Douglas Carswell, MP for Harwich, said: “We must do what we can to help Ireland but rather than helping Ireland in a way that extends economic governance to Europe, we should be helping them in a way that ultimately helps them to take back economic governance themselves.”
The Treasury said it had not ruled out any options for financial aid to Ireland, including the possibility of a bilateral bail-out, although that appears unlikely.
Britain would be required to guarantee up to about £6 billion of support as part of the European stability mechanism, if that option is pursued.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Daisy Khan Exposes Herself
When the New York Times ran a profile of Daisy Khan in its “Style” section last week, they clearly meant to create flattering portrait. Instead, the piece, at least to me, revealed the woman’s true priorities and intentions — and why she must be stopped.
Khan, wife of imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his partner in creating the Cordoba House Islamic center on the edges of Ground Zero, has (if this profile is to be believed) one true goal: Islam uber alles. The organization she presides over seeks to glorify Muslims, not (as she claims) to promote interfaith projects. Her focus is Islam, not America. She has skipped out on work (she boasts), shirking her obligations to her clients and her employers, abandoning her responsibilities as a member of American secular society, secretly slipping out of her office in order to attend prayer sessions at a local mosque — while, of course, accepting full salary for a job she only performed part-time. Imagine if a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, tried to get away with that.
Islam, evidently, forms the core of Khan’s sense of self. As a newcomer to America at 16, she says, she found herself explaining herself to fellow students, all deeply curious about the exotic life they imagined she had lived in India. They asked her if she’d ridden an elephant back home (a reasonable question), or perhaps a camel. Had she arrived from Spain, they might instead have asked her if she could play the castanets, or had ever fought a bull. These were bright, naïve, curious kids. They asked questions.
But Daisy did not respond by identifying herself as a newcomer from India. She didn’t react by taking on the role of explaining, for instance, the problems of being an immigrant, or of being a new kid in class. No. “I realized,” she told the Times, “that I actually was a spokesperson for Islam.”
Islam? If the memories she relates are accurate, no one had even asked her about her faith. So why Islam?
Odder, too, the Times notes that the woman who claims to have recognized her calling at 16 to become a “spokesperson for Islam” actually abandoned the faith in her twenties. What’s that about?
Actually, such inconsistencies appear frequently when looking closely at Daisy Khan’s activities and statements. Though she insisted to the Times that she and her husband are “law-abiding citizens,” an apartment building they own in New Jersey has been cited for numerous health and fire violations. Moreover, just last week, a Hudson County, N.J. judge placed the building in custodial receivership, putting a local realtor in charge of correcting the violations using monies from October rents, since Khan and Rauf had failed to act themselves. The couple has also been cited for tax violations regarding the non-profit statuses of their various organizations, including Khan’s own American Society for Muslim Advancement.
Nonetheless, the Times’ adulation of Ms. Khan drips from this portrait like sugar syrup, with descriptions of her as a “modern Muslim” (whatever that is) and “eloquent” — questionable, if you’ve ever really listened to her. This, after all, is the woman who claims that “a religion becomes accepted when its food is accepted,” citing the popularity of falafel in America as an example of an accepted “Muslim” food. She really said this. Falafel, which was brought to America by Israelis and is considered Israel’s “national dish” is, according to Khan, a “Muslim” food — which, I guess, would make spaghetti and meatballs Catholic. (That falafel originated in Egypt, and that Egypt once had a thriving Jewish population, doesn’t seem to make much difference to Miss Daisy — any more than does the fact that the enormous popularity of shoarma — another Middle Eastern dish — in Germany and the Netherlands has done nothing to ease the growing tensions between those countries’ Muslim and non-Muslim populations.)
What is notable to me in this is the viewpoint it suggests of “us” and “them”: an “us” food and a “them” food, an “us” food she wants “them” to eat. It’s a mindset. It’s a kind of imperialism. Mind you, it’s not that she makes a big deal about falafel. It’s that she makes a big deal about falafel in addition to all the other stuff: the imposition of her will on Americans who oppose the Cordoba project, the self-promotion, the very nature of an organization that calls itself the American Society for Muslim Advancement.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Delta Flight Makes Safe Emergency Landing at JFK
NEW YORK CITY (BNO NEWS) — A Delta Air Lines flight made a safe emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on late Sunday afternoon, officials said.
Delta Air Lines Flight 30 had declared an emergency after having unspecified engine problems. “There is some sort of engine problem with the plane,” a spokesman for the New York City Fire Department said while the aircraft was still in the air.
The spokesman said the plane, a Boeing 767-300 with nearly 200 passengers on board, was dumping fuel before it attempted to make an emergency landing at JFK Airport. Delta Flight 30 had just begun a flight from New York to Moscow when its trouble began.
The aircraft landed safely at approximately 5.50 p.m. EST, without any reports of injuries.
Further details were not immediately available.
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Plane Safe After Emergency Landing at Kennedy Airport
A plane made an emergency landing at Kennedy International Airport Sunday after experiencing engine trouble shortly after takeoff, officials said.
A spokesman for the Port Authority said the pilot complained of an unspecified engine problem and determined that the plane needed to return immediately to the airport.
The Fire Department scrambled more than 100 firefighters and rescue personnel to the airport. When the plane landed, officials determined that there was no fire to put out, a spokesman said.
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Ron Paul Says Enough is Enough; Blasts TSA
Here’s most of what Ron Paul said (below). This is one of the most important “set yourself free” speeches that has ever been uttered in the halls of the U.S. Capitol — by anyone! This tells you why Ron Paul is uniquely qualified to be the next U.S. President: He appears to be the only U.S. politician who truly understands the freedoms of the People and why it is the job of the People to keep the government in check:
Ron Paul’s speech (edited for brevity)
I rise this evening to announce that I introduce some legislation today dealing with the calamity we have found at our airports with the TSA. Something has to be done. Everybody’s fed up. The People are fed up. The pilots are fed up. I’m fed up.
What we’re accepting and putting up with at the airport is so symbolic of us just not standing up and saying Enough is Enough! Our government, Congress as well as the executive branch are doing nothing.
Can you think how silly the whole thing is? The pilot has a gun in the cockpit, and he’s managing this aircraft which is a missile, and we make him go through this groping X-ray exercise, having people feel inside their underwear, it’s absurd!
And it’s time we wake up. The bill I’ve introduced will take care of this.
We have to realize that the American people have been too submissive. We have been too submissive. It’s been going on for a long time and this was to be expected even from the beginning of the TSA. And it’s deeply flawed.
You know, the way I see this, if this doesn’t change, I see what has happened to the American people is we have accepted the notion that we should be treated like cattle.
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EU: March of the Euro Police: The Shocking Powers of Prosecution the EU Has Over All of US
The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today.
A Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered an alarming array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public.
These include:
- Europol, the £60-million-a-year European criminal intelligence agency, whose officers have diplomatic immunity.
- An 800-strong paramilitary police force called the European Gendarmerie Force.
- The European Arrest Warrant, which now allows British citizens to be seized in the UK and sent without appeal to foreign jails for months or years without bail while awaiting trial.
Europol now has more than 650 officials at its headquarters in The Hague, from where it directs investigations across Europe.
When its Euro police officers are operating in the UK they have diplomatic immunity and cannot be touched by the British judiciary.
Europol’s director is Rob Wainwright, 43, a Welsh-speaking former British civil servant who joined Europol last year. He and his officials will move into a new £8.5 million building next year.
[…]
The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) can also be used to extradite Britons who have been tried and convicted in their absence by a foreign court.
Meanwhile, the European Commission plans to turn Eurojust — a judicial co-operation body set up in 2002 — into an EU prosecutor using powers given by the Lisbon Treaty.
Also new, the European Investigation Order (EIO) gives foreign police forces the power to compel British police to carry out investigations on their behalf. These may include interrogation of suspects, interception of communications and bank records, and the handing over of DNA samples and fingerprints.
British police can be forced to investigate offences which are not crimes in the UK, or which they consider to be minor offences.
[…]
So can Britain stop any of this? The answer is almost none of it. The Lisbon Treaty removed Britain’s veto in justice and home affairs. Once Britain has opted in to any part of EU legislation on policing and criminal law, there is no opting out.
Investigation and prosecution programmes are multiplying so rapidly in the EU that, according to Stephen Booth of the think-tank Open Europe, 17 law enforcement systems and databases currently operate or are being developed.
Six of these systems require the collection or storage of personal data at EU level.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Interior Minister Wins Right to Reply to Mafia Writer
Maroni said Saviano slandered the Northern League
(ANSA) — Rome, November 19 — Interior Minister Roberto Maroni on Friday won his battle for the right to reply to anti-Mafia writer Roberto Saviano after a massive row over the author claiming mobsters were ‘talking” to the Northern League party.
Northern League heavyweight Maroni demanded time on Saviano’s hit Monday night show on state broadcaster RAI after the writer made the comments in a monologue on about how Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta had spread outside their southern base.
Maroni said the comments were slanderous, adding: “I’d like a face-to-face with him to see if he has the courage to say those things looking me in the eye”.
The row then escalated when Saviano, whose 2006 book Gomorra (Gomorrah) on the Neapolitan Camorra mafia was an international bestseller, claimed that the lawyer of jailed Camorra boss Francesco ‘Sandokan’ Schiavone had once said something similar to him.
However, there was a truce in hostilities when both expressed delight at Wednesday’s arrest of top Camorra boss Antonio Iovine.
“The minister is satisfied,” said Maroni’s spokeswoman Isabella Votino after RAI confirmed he would be given time on next Monday’s episode of Vieni Via Con Me, which Saviano co-hosts. “He’ll be in the studio to take part in the show”. Maroni had said he would appeal to President Giorgio Napolitano, after one of the heads of the RAI channel it is broadcast on said he could reply elsewhere Saviano, who spends much of his time in hiding and is under 24-hour police protection after enraging mobsters with Gomorra, a play on the word ‘Camorra’, had justified his comments by saying they were based on the results of judicial probes into mafia attempts to penetrate northern Italy’s political environment. He cited the example of a local League councillor who allegedly met a man linked to ‘Ndrangheta, while stressing that the councillor had never been put under investigation. Maroni responded that he was well aware that ‘Ndrangheta were trying to infiltrate northern Italy’s political and economic spheres, pointing out that he had taken several steps to counter this.
These measures include a special commission he set up to watch out for mafia attempts to muscle in on contracts for the 2015 Milan Expo.
“But here we are talking about something else — it was said that ‘Ndrangheta talks to the League in the North,” said Maroni.
“I reject that statement. It’s a serious falsehood”. The minister reiterated that the current government has fought hard against organised crime, saying a string of recent operations against ‘Ndrangheta, the Camorra and their Sicilian cousins Cosa Nostra have put the clans on the back foot.
Saviano’s comments also sparked indignation from other members of the League and of Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, their government allies, although the writer was backed by many in the centre-left opposition. Last Monday’s edition of Vieni Via Con Me, which Saviano co-hosts, had already sparked polemics before going on air and attracting over nine million viewers, more than 30% of the overall audience share.
The PdL were furious at being excluded after PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani and House Speaker Gianfranco Fini were invited to give monologues on the values of the Left and the Right respectively.
Fini appeared on the same day he pulled his ministers from the government, leaving it on the brink of collapse, having split earlier this year from the PdL he founded with Berlusconi and forming his own party, Future and Freedom for Italy (FLI).
The appearance of euthanasia-supporting relatives of two deceased people at the centre of high-profile right-to-die cases also caused controversy.
Berlusconi was among the targets of Oscar-winning Italian director Roberto Benigni’s satire when he starred on the first episode of the show last week.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Foreigners 37% of Country’s Rising Prison Population
Rome, 19 Nov. (AKI) — Italy’s prison population last year rose almost 12 percent with foreigners making up 37 percent of the country’s 64.8 thousand inmates, Italian statistics agency Istat said in a newly released report on Friday.
One-fourth of Italy’s prisoners were locked up for using drugs, making it the leading cause for imprisonment last year, Istat’s annual statistics report on Italy said.
Leo Beneduci, secretary general for Osapp, a penitentiary police union, this week put Italy’s inmate population at 69,158 detainees. He said there are just 44,868 beds creating pressure for prisoners and guards alike.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Johann Hari: The Religious Excuse for Barbarity
Why are we sitting silently while our treatment of many of our animals regresses to the standard of the sixth century?
If you are engaged in an act of cruelty, there is an easy, effective way to silence your critics and snatch some space to carry on. Tell us all that your religion requires you to do it, and you are “offended” by any critical response. Erect an electric wire fence around your nastiest actions and call it “respect”.
There’s a good example of this religious modus operandi playing out on a dinner table near you — and this week, we found out it is becoming more and more common. In Britain, it is a crime to kill a conscious cow or sheep or chicken for meat by slashing its throat without numbing it first. The reasons are obvious. If you don’t numb an animal, it screams as you hack through its skin, muscle, trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins and major nerve trunks, and then it remains conscious as it slowly drowns in its own blood — a process that can take up to six minutes. So we insist that an animal is stunned before its throat is slashed, to ensure it is deeply unconscious. There isn’t much humanity in our factory farming system, but this is — at least — a tiny sliver of it, at the end.
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But there is a loophole in the law. You are allowed to skip all this and slash the throats of un-numbed, screaming animals if you say God told you to. If you are Muslim, you call it “halal”, and if you are Jewish you call it “kosher”. Back in the Bronze Age, or the deserts of sixth-century Arabia, it was sensible to act this way. You needed to know your meat was fresh and the animal was not sick, so you made sure it was alive and alert when you killed it. As Woody Allen once said, it wasn’t so much a commandment as “advice on how to eat out safely in Jerusalem”. But we have much better ways of making sure meat is fresh and healthy now. Yet for many religious people it has hardened into a dogma, to be followed simply because it was laid down in their “holy” texts long ago by “God”.
Of course, they claim that this practice isn’t cruel at all. Henry Grunwald, chairman of the main body overseeing the certification of kosher meat, Shechita UK, says that when you slash an animal’s throat “there is an instant drop in blood pressure in the brain. The animal is dead.” Similarly, Raghib Ali, of the Oxford Islam and Muslim Awareness Project, says: “It’s not cruel, it is better for the animal.”
This has been proven by science to be false. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) is the Government’s senior panel of independent scientific experts on this area, and their investigation found that “the prevailing scientific consensus that slaughter without pre-stunning causes very significant pain and distress”. The FAWC chairwoman, Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, explains: “To say [the animal] doesn’t suffer is quite ridiculous.”
To give just one example: after you cut a calf’s throat, in 62 per cent of cases, large clots form at the back of its carotid arteries, which means blood pressure to the brain massively slows and the animal doesn’t black out at all. It stays conscious as it bleeds to death from its throat in agony.
Kosher butchers never numb their animals. Most halal butchers now use some stunning, but the RSPCA warns that it is at a much lower dosage to guarantee the animal is still alive when it is killed — so it doesn’t properly protect them from pain. The attempts by religious people to explain this away and claim it is in fact a kindness to the animal are a pseudo-science: the intelligent design of animal welfare. That’s why making meat like this is a crime in countries from Spain to New Zealand, where an ethnically Jewish Prime Minister banned it this year.
Yet in Britain this kind of animal cruelty is becoming standard. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic abandonment of the numbing of animals before killing them, in the name of “respect” for a religious minority. The BBC’s You And Yours programme says that halal meat now “accounts for around a quarter of the UK’s meat trade”. It is served unlabelled and as standard meat in Wembley Stadium, Twickenham, on all British Airways flights, at Nando’s, Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza and even swanky Ascot racecourse. There has been a huge expansion, then, in the suffering of living creatures — and we are supposed to applaud it as an advance for tolerance.
The halal and kosher meat industries are fighting even tepid proposals by the European Union to ensure that all meat made from unstunned animals must be clearly labelled. They claim this will render their businesses “economically unviable”. Isn’t that an extraordinary confession — that if people knew what they were buying, the companies would go bust?
Atheists who criticise religion are constantly being told we have missed the point and religion is really about compassion and kindness. It is only a handful of extremists and fundamentalists who “misunderstand” faith and use it for cruel ends, we are told with a wagging finger. But here’s an example where most members of a religion choose to do something pointlessly cruel, and even the moderates demand “respect” for their “views”. Their faith makes them prioritise pleasing an invisible supernatural being over the screaming of actual living creatures. Doesn’t this suggest that faith itself — the choice to believe something in the total absence of evidence — is a danger that can lead you up needlessly nasty paths?…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Loch Blast Link to ‘Imminent’ Attack
ONE of Scotland’s foremost terrorism experts has warned the explosion at Gartocharn near Loch Lomond last week may indicate a terrorist attack on Britain is imminent.
Professor David Capitanchik, terror expert from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, told Scotland on Sunday that the blast, which was heard several hundred yards away and has raised the possibility of an al-Qaeda style training camp operating in the area, bore the hallmarks of a test run. “Terrorists get training in Pakistan, or Afghanistan, they get shown the materials and how to put the bombs together. But the critical thing is how to detonate it.” he said. “I would think they were planning for something imminent.”
Forensics officers, including counter-terrorism specialists from the Metropolitan Police and Royal Navy explosives experts, were yesterday still carrying out a fingertip search of the blast area, where it is believed several devices have been recovered.
A wide area has been closed off to the public and, on Friday, Met helicopters with thermal imaging equipment flew over the area. A tree is thought to have snapped in half during the explosion, reported to the police on Wednesday afternoon by a dog walker.
A former senior security source said: “This is somebody who is testing the viability of an explosive. They are testing out a mixture or some sort of device to see if it works.”
He added: “I think it’s pretty clear this is a big concern. Ever since Mumbai (a terrorist attack on the Indian city], when gunmen entered the building carrying explosives, we have been concerned about that.
“So someone testing devices to see if they will work is a worry.”
He said the investigation would focus on specific hallmarks of terrorist activity.
“What they will be looking for is any traces or fragments which they can analyse to what nature of explosive it is — commercial, military or homemade.
“Depending on which it is and what debris they can find, they may be able to trace it back to who would use this, who would have exploded it.”
Chief superintendent Calum Murray, divisional commander, Argyll, Bute and West Dunbartonshire, last night maintained that terrorism-related activity could not be ruled out.
He said: “The location of this explosion poses a significant challenge in terms of the size of the area and the terrain we are searching.
“This is a meticulous and painstaking operation which is understandably taking some time.
“It is only right that we carry out the most thorough of investigations and avoid speculating on the nature of this incident until we have thoroughly considered and analysed any potential evidence we may find. Police are following a number of positive lines of enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the explosion on Wednesday afternoon.
“The area remains cordoned off and it will take considerable time to search the location.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Pupils ‘Learn to Cut Off Hands of Thieves’
Muslim children are being taught how to chop off thieves’ hands and that Jews are plotting to take over the world at a network of Islamic schools, it has been disclosed.
Up to 5,000 pupils attending weekend schools across Britain are being exposed to textbooks claiming that some Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and that some offences could be punished with stoning. One book for six year-olds warns that those who do not believe in Islam will be condemned to “hellfire” in death.
Another text for 15 year-olds teaches that thieves who break Sharia law should have their hands cut off for a first offence and their feet amputated for a subsequent crime. Teenagers are presented with diagrams showing where the cuts should be made.
Tonight’s Panorama on BBC One will claim that the books were discovered at a network of 40 private schools teaching the Saudi Arabian national curriculum. The programme claims to have uncovered evidence apparently linking the schools to the Saudi embassy. Officials at the embassy deny any link.
Panorama also found examples of private Muslim schools using extremist sentiments on their websites.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said last night that extremism, homophobia and anti-Semitism would not be tolerated in schools.
However, researchers claimed in a separate report that the education system was “not equipped” to deal with the threats posed by extremist organisations. The Policy Exchange think-tank said the Coalition’s new free schools, run by parents, teachers and charities, could be exploited by organisations seeking to indoctrinate young people. It also claimed that checks on groups running private schools were “piecemeal, partial and lack depth”. Mr Gove said Ofsted had been ordered to monitor part-time education providers closely.
The schools featured on Panorama were apparently organised under an umbrella group called Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland. They give Muslim children aged six to 18 a grounding the Islamic faith.
According to the BBC, a book for 15 year-olds teaches about Sharia law and its punishments. “For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence,” it says. Two diagrams show where cuts should be made.
For acts of sodomy, children are told that the penalty is death. A textbook says there are different views on whether this should be done by stoning, or burning with fire, or throwing over a cliff. Textbooks for 15 year-olds revive the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which teach that Jews want world domination.
In a statement, the Saudi embassy said: “Any tutoring activities that may have taken place among any other group of Muslims in the United Kingdom are absolutely individual to that group and not affiliated to or endorsed by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.” The Saudi Ambassador told the BBC it was “dangerously deceptive and misleading” to discuss some of the texts outside of context.
* Panorama is on BBC One at 8.30pm on Monday night.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Respected Muslim Cleric Jailed After Molesting 15-Year-Old Girl Who He Was Supposed to be Teaching the Qur’an
A Muslim cleric has been jailed for a year after sexually assaulting a young girl while he was meant to be teaching her the Qur’an.
Hafiz Rahman, 67, was paid by families to teach their children after stepping down as a respected Imam.
He went to the 15-year-old victim’s home and molested her when they were left alone.
A judge described the attack as the ‘worst breach of trust imaginable’ and said he believed it would have continued if the girl’s father had not unexpectedly returned home.
A jury of eight men and six women at Portsmouth Crown Court took less than two hours to find Rahman guilty of sexual activity with a child.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: West Midlands Police Community Safety Officer Jailed for Conning Birmingham Women
A WEST Midlands Police Community Safety Officer has been jailed for a year for conning two women out of nearly £8,000 by lying to them that he was in debt.
The force has condemned the criminal actions of Naeem Naguthney who told his Birmingham victims he was suicidal due to the amount of money he owed.
It is not the first time the 33 year-old has landed himself in trouble with his employers.
Two years ago he was reprimanded after he stopped two Christian preachers from handing out Bible extracts in the heart of the Muslim community in Alum Rock, Birmingham.
Naguthney, a Muslim, accused Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, of committing a hate crime.
The move sparked fear that the area had become a no-go a zone for non-Muslims.
Following the controversy the force moved Naguthney to work in Erdington.
But he then proceeded to con vulnerable women out of thousands of pounds by feeding them untrue sob stories about his debt problems while on duty.
Before he was jailed Naguthney enjoyed a trip to Goa, India, where he met former England football star John Barnes at a football tournament.
Naguthney pleaded guilty to willful misconduct in a public office and dishonestly making a false representation to make gain for self or other at Stafford Crown Court earlier this month.
As well as been jailed for 12 months he was ordered to pay one of his victims, Sandy Christopher, £6,400 compensation.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Vikings Brought Amerindian to Iceland 1,000 Years Ago: Study
The first Native American to arrive in Europe may have been a woman brought to Iceland by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago, a study by Spanish and Icelandic researchers suggests. The findings boost widely-accepted theories, based on Icelandic medieval texts and a reputed Viking settlement in Newfoundland in Canada, that the Vikings reached the American continent several centuries before Christopher Columbus travelled to the “New World.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Withdraw Your Forces,’ Al Qaeda Warns France
The head of al Qaeda’s North African branch has released a purported audiotape saying France would have to negotiate personally with Osama bin Laden to secure the release of French hostages seized in Niger and that their safety hinged on the withdrawal of French troops in Afghanistan.
In a purported audiotape aired on the Arabic Al Jazeera TV station late Thursday, Abdelmalek Droukdel, the head of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said the lives of five French nationals captured in a uranium mining town in the northern African nation of Niger in September depended on a French troop pullout in Afghanistan.
“If you don’t stop intervening in our affairs and the oppression of Muslim people, and if you want peace for your citizens that we hold hostage, you must withdraw your forces from Afghanistan as soon possible according to a set timetable that you will announce publicly,” said the message.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Director Jolie Wraps Shooting Controversial War Movie
Sarajevo, 19 Nov.(AKI) — Hollywood movie star Angelina Jolie on Friday wrapped shooting in Sarajevo, which has created controversy and protests by Bosnian women, victims of war.
The film, “Untitled Love Story” is an account of a Muslim woman, raped by a Serb soldier during 1992-1995 war. But according to the script, they later fall in love and go together through the horrors of the war.
Bosnian organization Women, Victims of War said the film was insulting to the women raped during the war and the authorities withdrew the shooting permit, forcing Jolie to shoot most scenes in Hungary.
But the permit was reinstated after Jolie’s assurances that offensive parts will be taken out and final scenes were filmed in Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the surroundings.
Sarajevo daily Dnevni avaz said the scenes were shot under tight securitry closed to journalists. Jolie herself hasn’t shown up in Sarajevo because she was finishing work in Hungary, the paper said.
Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and her husband Bred Pitt, helped many Bosnian refugees following the end of the war in 1995.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Western Sahara: NGO Accuses Moroccan Ministers of Genocide
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 17 — Was it “genocide”, as an NGO has accused in presenting its case to the Audencia Nacional, or a “peaceful” intervention in the Gdeim Izik camp by the Moroccan security forces as Interior Minister, Taleb Cherkauim, said yesterday in Madrid? Tension rise between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which has asked for the intervention of the UN Blue Helmets in the former Spanish colony to prevent “a bloodbath”; whilst in Spain all the groups in the Senate, with the exception of the PSOE, have condemned the “attacks” by Morocco on the Saharawi people, demanding “steadfastness” with regard to Rabat. The case was presented to the high court of Madrid by the Spanish League for human rights over the death of a Spanish citizen of Saharawi descent, Baby Hamday Buyema, during the dramatic stages of the dismantling of the Laayoune camp on November 8, which ended with a heavy death toll. The NGO accuses three Moroccan ministers and the civil governor of the city of the “brutal offensive” undertaken to dismantle the camp that was playing host to 20,000 Saharawi citizens, who were demanding better living conditions. The plaintiffs are asking the magistracy for a series of documentary evidence and the summoning of the Spanish Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jimenez, as a witness. Defending the competency of the Audencia Nacional, given that a Spanish citizen was among the victims, and others figure amongst the list of people injured during the clashes. According to the legal action, over 100 people could have been killed who have not been identified and some 600 people are missing. Judge Ismael Moreno is set to decide on the admissibility of the case.
The accusations by the League are joined by those from the Euro-Mediterranean network of NGOs for human rights, which are urging Morocco to respect commitments undertaken. Meanwhile, the Spanish government has asked Rabat to allow a small group of journalists to enter Laayoune, to report on the situation in the former Spanish colony. The request was put forward by the Vice Premier and the Interior Minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, to his Moroccan colleague, Taleb Cherkaui, during a meeting yesterday. So far Morocco has only allowed correspondents from French media to enter (French dailies Le Monde, Figaro and France Presse) but no Spanish media, accused once again yesterday by Cherkaui of prevaricating the facts and fanning tensions.
Accompanied on a visit to Madrid by a general wanted by the French justice system over the death in Paris in 1986 of socialist Ben Berka, a fierce critic of the government in Rabat, Cherkaui said in Madrid that “the militia of terror”, in his opinion active in Laayoune, use similar methods to the ones used by the Maghreb branch of Al Qaeda. This is an accusation that, according to many Spanish observers, hides the attempt to link the Polisario Front (the pro-independence movement in the Sahara linked to the Algerian National Liberation Front) to Al Qaeda.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: More Attacks, Mortars to Israel
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 19 — Attacks on Israeli territory from Gaza are continuing. Early this afternoon, at least four mortar attacks were launched from the Gaza Strip towards the nearby Israeli city of Ashqelon. The devices exploded in an uninhabited area and caused no casualties or damage.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources say that one person was injured by Israeli fire in the area of Khan Younes, south of Gaza. No further details of the incident have yet emerged.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Is Iran’s Regime Officially Running — Or Merely Helping — A Pro-Nazi Site?
By Barry Rubin
Is Iran’s government sponsoring an Internet site that extols the German Nazis, their history and achievements, including the antisemitism that the current Iranian regime also supports? Or is it merely permitting one to operate in its highly censored communications’ system?
Here are the facts. There is a discussion group site entitled IranNazi that has an Iranian internet URL. It is written in Persian and seems to have begun on August 24. All the material on the site is pro-Nazi and features pictures of Adolph Hitler, the swastika, and goose-stepping German soldiers. There is an English-language part as well.
This site pretends to be an association for the research of Nazism and to be “completely historical and scientific.”
It includes such topics as claims that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the well-known antisemitic forgery is true; insistence that the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis never happened and is in fact a lie; makes the prediction that Israel will collapse in five years; and highlights cartoons and satire ridiculing the Holocaust. All four of these positions are also taken by the Iranian government and official media.
The main page includes the following message: “This website is under Islamic Republic of Iran laws and it is under the supervision of the working committee on Digital Media of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.”
The site is registered to this place under the IRNIC, Iran’s domain manager and an arm of the government. It is owned by a company in Isfahan. There is also evidence, however, that the site goes through a server in Arizona. The Phoenix hosting company is called Atjeu.com. This doesn’t prove, however, that the site is not sponsored by the Iranian government. It does go out on the state-controlled server and is allowed to claim government sponsorship.
Iran does not have freedom of speech and certainly not freedom of the Internet. Given the tight censorship in Iran and the fact that all sites are closely monitored, permission to publish—especially to claim government sponsorship—is evidence of state backing.
So is this, then, a state-backed site, showing just how far the regime has gone in boosting Nazism historically and antisemitism or a private initiative by some Iranian immigrants in the United States who are supporters of the Iranian regime? Is the statement on the site, which has not been suppressed by the government, accurate? It isn’t completely clear.
A very well-informed and highly credible Iranian notes that the fact that it isn’t blocked “is a significant indication that the government at least does not have problem with it.” The deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance is Muhammad Ali Ramin, who was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor on Holocaust issue and founder of Holocaust Institute in Tehran and the president of the conference of Holocaust; A Global Perspective, which denied that the mass murder of Jews never took place.
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesians Outraged by Maids’ Torture in Saudi Arabia
The death of one Indonesian maid and the torture of another by their Saudi employers within one week triggered riots in Indonesia, and condemnation by the government in Jakarta.
The two tragedies had also promoted calls by Saudi activists to pressure their government to impose strict rules to thwart any future maltreatment to foreign workers in their country.
The two cases of the physical abuse suffered by the Indonesian maids, one of them dead and the other in a critical condition, were reported this week. The first case is 23-year-old Sumiati Salan Mustapa who was transferred to a hospital in Medina, in western Saudi Arabia, while in a state of unconsciousness.
Mustapa sustained severe burns and wounds, some parts of her skin were removed, and her legs were hardly moving. Medical examinations revealed that she lost a lot of blood and suffered from malnutrition. When the private hospital to which she transferred was unable to treat her, she was transferred to the King Fahd Hospital.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Book on Situation of Women Causes Controversy
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 17 — The publication of the book “Muslim women between religious equity and the comprehension of fundamentalists”, written by former Education Minister Mohammed Al Rasheed, has triggered serious controversies in Saudi Arabia.
The book, according to the website of satellite television network Al Jazira, makes requests that are considered to be audacious for the Saudi community.
The writer of the books states that women must be allowed to carry on any trade, without exception, and that Saudi women should be allowed to teach at schools for men and vice versa. The former Minister also criticises the policy that forbids men and women to be together in their houses, and the law that forbids women to drive cars. Talking with Al Jazira.net, Adnan Bahareth, social researcher, describes the book as a “Trojan horse”, through which the former Minister tries to make a comeback. Bahareth continues by saying that this strategy is often used by liberals. The content of this book, Bahareth explains, is audacious and in line with what the West wants. In his opinion, the West wants to change the social map of the Saudi Kingdom through the women in the Country, Westernising the Country. The researcher thinks it is possible that “Muslim women between religious equity and the comprehension of fundamentalists” is aimed more at other countries, like the United States, than at Saudi Arabia. Anwar Al Aseery, producer of a documentary about the fight of Saudi women, disagrees. In fact he sees the book as a case of “intellectual attraction” in which the writer tries to take advantage of a stage of political change regarding the social organisation, women in particular, who are considered to be a crucial incubator for any kind of future change. Women, Al Aseery continues, have changed from a project of change to an instrument in the fight between two conflicting projects. The Saudi writer Mansur Al Naqeedan has a different point of view. He claims that the laws and traditions of the Saudi society are the obstacles that made it impossible for King Abdullah Ben Abelaziz to change the situation of women, since he took office five years ago. Apart from blocking social reform, Al Naqeedan adds, some commit serious offences against women by using fatwas and religion.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Woman Defying Driving Ban Dies in Car Accident Along With 3 Others
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi police official says a young woman in her twenties defying a driving ban in the capital died along with three female friends when her car overturned.
Maj. Fawaz al-Mouman said Sunday that the woman was driving her four wheel drive vehicle carrying 10 of her female friends on Saturday night in an open area often used by young men in car races.
The vehicle overturned and killed four of passengers including the driver, while the remaining six others were taken to a nearby hospital in northeastern Riyadh to treat their injuries.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Woman and Three Passengers Killed While Defying Driving Ban
A young woman driver and three of her passengers were killed in a crash in Saudi Arabia after she defied the kingdom’s ban on women motorists.
The woman, who was in her 20s, had been driving a 4X4 with nine girlfriends on Saturday night in the capital, Riyadh, in an open area often used by young men in car races.
Four of the women were killed when the vehicle overturned. The remaining six were injured and taken to a nearby hospital.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Islamist AKP Crimps Alcohol Consumption
Rome, Nov. 19(AKI) — Turkey’s ruling Islamist-rooted AKP party has ratcheted up taxes on alcoholic beverages to since it has been in power. As as a direct result, alcohol consumption in Turkey dropped 34 percent from 2003-2008, according to research by the Istanbul University of Bahcesehir.
According to the study, the government intends to bring tax on alcoholic beverages up to 30 percent.
Turkey’s ruling AKP or Justice and Development party is keen to discourage alcohol consumption, which it considers anti-Islamic behaviour.
In 2002, the first year the AKP was in office, the price of alcohol, including that of traditional drinks, soared 129 percent.
As a result of the tax hike on alcohol, the anice flavoured spirit raki became a luxury drink, retailing at 35 dollars per litre.
In his blog, the prominent Turkish economist and commentator Mustafa Sonmez accuses in the AKP of trying to put restaurants and shops out of business due with the high alcoholic beverage tax.
The squeeze on alcohol could have serious social as well as economic repercussions, pushing young people towards other, more affordable drugs, according to Sonmez.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Govt May Give Migrant Workers Cell Phones to Report Abuse
Jakarta, 19 Nov. (AKI) — The Indonesian government is mulling furnishing Indonesian migrant workers overseas with mobile phones to help them call home and report abuse by their employers, the Jakarta Post reported on Friday.
Indonesia has demanded an investigation into reports that a maid working in Saudi Arabia was killed by her employers and her body dumped in a bin.
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday made the announcement following a meeting with Cabinet ministers to discuss workers’ safety.
“Based on our experience, we often receive reports on our migrant workers too late,” Yudhoyono told a press conference, the Jakarta Post said.
“We are discussing whether to equip migrant workers with cell phones, along with contact numbers of our nearest consulate generals and embassies, so that they can instantly communicate with our officers and the system is effective.”
The president said the plan could be very helpful especially in cases where countries hosting Indonesian migrant workers had “closed” cultures.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran — India: Ayatollah Khamenei Calls for Support for the Muslims of Kashmir
In his speech to the Haj, the Iranian religious leader gives guidance to help the Muslims of Kashmir. Indian activists and religious leaders: it does not help religious freedom but foment violence, Tehran wants to distract the nation from internal problems.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) — “Today the major duties of the elite of the Islamic Ummah is to provide help to the Palestinian nation and the besieged people, to sympathize and provide assistance to the nation of Kashmir, “ to support the Muslim population “against aggression”. This is the message sent by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader, on the occasion of the Haj pilgrimage. Indian activists and religious leaders have criticized this message as a possible incitement to fundamentalism.
The Kashmir region has been divided between Pakistan and India since the two states separated. Both countries claim the entire territory, while China in turn controls the provinces of Aksai Chin and Shaksgam. In the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim majority, there is a strong nationalist and secessionist sentiment and fundamentalist groups that are active and carry out attacks. In 2008 there was wide popular Islamic protest (over 500 thousand people took to the streets, with repeated clashes with police in Srinagar that left at least six people dead and 100 injured) because the government had donated land to the Hindu temple of Sri Amarnath to build a shelter for pilgrims. Following protests, the government revoked the donation, but this sparked protests by Hindus (the majority in Jammu), violence against Muslims and renewed street clashes that have caused more deaths and hundreds of injured.
Lenin Raghuvanshi, a well-known human rights activist, said to AsiaNews that while it is right “to defend human rights in the region, however,” it is not a religious matter connected with Islam. Khamenei ‘s Haj message is religious fundamentalist way to look the issue of Kashmir ,which is going to support the Hindu Fascist forces in India in indirect way. Actually, Iranian Government wants to hide their own failure of rule of law in their own country, so they are using the way of religious fundamentalism. In Iran there is no freedom, not even religious freedom. There is no right of expression. Additionally, as the UN Security Council approves new sanctions against Iran over its suspect nuclear program, they are desperately seeking diversionary tactics”.
“In their country — continues Dr. Raghuvanshi — [the authorities] have targeted minority groups and anyone who wants to express himself. There is an absolute regime of torture. Now they are trying to attract public opinion by claiming Kashmir as a religious problem. On the basis of fundamentalism, they are seeking the support of the Islamic world”. “In a country entirely devoid of the right of expression, human rights and religious freedom, Khamenei only wants to raise populist sentiments for a religious platform that manipulates politics.”
Father Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Syro-Malankara Synod, told AsiaNews that “in the Middle East, Christians are persecuted by both the Islamic terrorism and Israeli violence. In Kerala [Indian state] there is the strange phenomenon that Marxists and Muslims are united against Israel and inactive against Islamic terrorism. Marxists attack Israel only because theyr are a U.S. ally. They continue their rhetoric against capitalism and the West, even though some of their leaders send their children to study in European countries or the USA”.
“This strange marriage between Marxism and Islam — continues the priest — I am afraid will pave way for recruiting terrorists from Kerala to Pakistan and for freedom of Kashmir as they see. Islamic terrorist can be recruited from Kerala and Kerala has become a seminary of Islamic fundamentalism, although the majority of Muslim are peace loving and respectful of other religions. However the majority seem to remain silent in the wake of fundamentalist tendencies increasing in the community.”
Even Sajan K. George, chairman of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) criticizes Khamenei’s words and “the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Kashmir.” “On 21 November 2006, four years ago, the coordinator GCIC Tantray Bashir Ahmed was killed by Islamic militants in broad daylight as he spoke with Muslim friends in his village to Mamoosa, Baramulla district. He was a Christian who converted from Islam, but he was given a Muslim funeral and was buried in the Islamic cemetery, for fear of reprisals. “
“In India we see a rise of Islamic fundamentalism in October, a group of Muslims attacked a Christian pastor near Bangalore, a school was burned and destroyed in Kashmir after a rumor that pages of the Koran had been burned.” “It is regrettable that Khamenei should make such inflammatory remarks, it is the duty of religious leaders of all religions to promote and work towards building of peace and mutual tolerance and understanding instead of sowing seeds of discord and division.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Region: Victory Over Islamist Movements: Possible
General Sir David Richards, commander of the British military and former NATO commander in Afghanistan, gave an extremely important and easily misunderstand interview to the Sunday Telegraph. The headline statement has been Richards’s remark that military victory against al-Qaida and the Taliban is not possible.
Many have seen this quote as one more example of a disturbing trend in which the West lacks the willingness to attain victory — the patience and staying power to fight the revolutionary Islamist threat whose very existence is denied by all too many. This is certainly a real issue and reasonable concern, but Richards isn’t joining that kind of thinking.
The great, secret weapon of these radical forces is a refusal to compromise or give up. No matter how long the battle goes on, how many are killed or how their countries are wrecked, these extremists will go on fighting. This gives them two tremendous advantages:
First, they can wear down (or think they are wearing down) their enemy by outlasting them. The idea is one of winning victory by getting the other, stronger side to give up because its people fear death or don’t want to continue paying the financial price of the conflict, or just lose interest.
Second, they can play on internal defeatist forces on the part of the West. Just by forcing them to kill your people, wreck your buildings and inflict suffering, they can be made to feel so guilty as to abandon the struggle.
There are many in Western political, intellectual and media circles who advocate appeasement, concessions and even surrender. But this does not seem to be what Richards is saying.
According to his interview, Richards views this is as a necessarily protracted struggle; his estimate is that the battle will go on at least 30 years. He points out that military means alone cannot root out an idea.
Richards claims one cannot defeat ideas merely by fighting wars. Islamism, he avers, isn’t going to disappear, nor does he wish to challenge the right of “fundamentalist” Muslims to hold their beliefs.
Instead, he puts forward a practical, functional definition of victory: contain the enemy, prevent it from attacking you. In his words: “You can’t [achieve victory through combat]. We’ve all said this — [General] David Petraeus [the US head of NATO forces in Afghanistan] has said this… In conventional war, defeat and victory is very clear cut and is symbolized by troops marching into another country’s capital. First of all you have to ask, do we need to defeat it [Islamist militancy] in the sense of a clear-cut victory? I would argue that it is unnecessary and can never be achieved…
“I don’t think you can probably defeat an idea. It’s something we need to battle against as necessary, but in its milder forms why shouldn’t they be allowed to have that sort of philosophy?
“It’s how it manifests itself that is the key, and whether we contain that manifestation — and quite clearly al-Qaida is an unacceptable manifestation of it.”
I think a lot of what Richards says is reasonable, though it also contains some dangerous implications. He is obviously not advocating retreat, since he says the NATO operation in Afghanistan has been largely successful and opposes withdrawing in the near future. The problem, rather, is that he is (understandably) focusing on his job of being a British general and fighting wars.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
China Advancing Laser Weapons Program
Technology equals or surpasses U.S. capability
Not only is the Chinese military advancing rapidly in the field of anti-satellite, anti-missile laser weapon technology, but its technology equals or surpasses U.S. laser weapons capabilities currently under development, informed sources have told WorldNetDaily.
According to Mark Stokes, a military author specializing in Chinese weapons development, Beijing’s efforts to harness laser weapons technology began in the 1960s, under a program called Project 640-3, sanctioned by Chairman Mao Zedong. The Chinese, he said, renamed the project the “863 Program” in 1979, after a Chinese researcher named Sun Wanlin convinced the Central Military Commission “to maintain the pace and even raise the priority of laser development” in 1979.
Today, Beijing’s effort to develop laser technology encompasses over “10,000 personnel — including 3,000 engineers in 300 scientific research organizations — with nearly 40 percent of China’s laser research and development (R & D) devoted to military applications,” Stokes wrote in an analytical paper provided to WorldNetDaily.
| [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Shows Off Its ‘Stunning’ New Nuclear Plant to American Scientist
North Korea has built a new, highly sophisticated facility to enrich uranium, according to an American nuclear scientist.
Siegfried Hecker was taken to the new unit during a recent trip to the North’s main Yongbyon atomic complex.
It had 2,000 recently completed centrifuges and the North told him it was producing low-enriched uranium meant for a new reactor.
He described his first glimpse of the new centrifuges as ‘stunning’.
[…]
Hecker, a former director of the U.S. Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory who is regularly given rare glimpses of the North’s secretive nuclear programme, acknowledged that it was not clear what North Korea stood to gain by showing him the formerly secret area.
[…]
‘Instead of seeing a few small cascades of centrifuges, which I believed to exist in North Korea, we saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges, all neatly aligned and plumbed below us,’ Hecker, a Stanford University professor, wrote.
Hecker described the control room as ‘astonishingly modern,’ writing that, unlike other North Korean facilities, it ‘would fit into any modern American processing facility.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Addicts Mix HIV Drugs With Marijuana in South Africa’s Deadly New ‘Whoonga’ Craze
AIDS patients in South Africa are being robbed of their lifesaving drugs so that they can be mixed with marijuana and smoked, authorities and health experts say.
The concoction is called ‘whoonga’ and it adds a bizarre twist to the war on AIDS in the world’s worst-affected country just as it embarks on a massive distribution of medications.
Whoonga’s spread is so far limited to eastern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’s most AIDS-stricken province, but AIDS and addiction specialists worry that it could reach other parts of the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Prehispanic Decapitated Ballgame Player Sculpture Discovered by Archaeologists in Mexico
A Prehispanic sculpture that represents a beheaded ballgame player was discovered by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) at El Teul Archaeological Zone, in Zacatecas, one of the few Mesoamerican sites continuously occupied for 18 centuries. The life-size finding took place during research work conducted for the opening to public visit of the ceremonial site in 2012. The quarry dates from 900-1100 of the Common Era and evidence determines that the sculpture was created beheaded, maybe to serve as a pedestal for the heads of sacrificed players of the ritual ballgame.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Immigrant-Hunting Candidate, PP Withdraw Videogame
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 17 — After a tidal wave of controversies, the People’s Party have withdrawn the videogame in which the candidate for the Catalan elections on November 28, Alicia Sanchez Camacho, appears as a heroine “hunting” immigrants and supporters of national independence. The vice secretary for communication for the PP, Esteban Gonzalez Pons, has attributed the responsibility for the campaign to “an error of the company that made the videogame”, announcing its withdrawal from the party website. In statements to Radio Cadena Ser, Pons said that the idea to dress Alicia Sanchez Camacho as Lara Croft, converting her into Alicia Croft, “was a good idea” because she represented the candidate who was dealing with “territorial problems” but “not illegal immigration.” In the videogame ‘Rescue’, the heroine Alicia Croft travelled in the skies above Barcelona in the claws of Pepe the seagull, launching “resolving ideas” in the form of a lightbulb, to “transform and resolve the problems of Catalonia.” Emulating the famous Lara Croft, the main character of the videogames was fed “by elements that unite them”, such as the bull or the ass, to earn points and to be able to shoot the real targets: an aeroplane from which illegal immigrants parachuted, a pro-independence balloon or a mouth that represented linguistic imposition in Catalonia. At the end of the videogame, Pepe the seagull appeared to congratulate the player and invite Catalan people to vote on November 28, to turn fiction into reality. Pons announced that the game will be modified with the elimination of references to immigrants and supporters of national independence, after a wave of criticism from all Catalan parties, the PSOE and, above all, the eco-communists of the ICV-EUiA, whose candidate, Joan Herrera, defined it as an “apologia of violence and a frivolisation of human life.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Pope Drops Catholic Ban on Condoms in Historic Shift
The Pope has signalled a historic shift in the position of the Roman Catholic Church by saying condoms can be morally justified.
After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms.
He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.
While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act — even outside marriage.
Asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms,” he replied: “It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”
He stressed that abstinence was the best policy in fighting the disease but in some circumstances it was better for a condom to be used if it protected human life.
“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes.
“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
The announcement is in a book to be published by the Vatican this week based on the first face-to-face interview given by a pope.
In the interview, he admits he was stunned by the sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Catholic Church and raises the possibility of the circumstances under which he would consider resigning. The 83-year-old Pontiff says in passages published exclusively in The Sunday Telegraph today that he is aware his “forces are diminishing”.
However, he appears determined to fight for the place of faith in the public domain.
His language in attacking the use of recreational drugs in the West and its impact on the rest of the world is particularly striking.
He describes drug trafficking as an “evil monster” that stems from the “boredom and the false freedom of the Western world”. Most significant, however, are his comments on condoms, which represent the first official relaxation in the Church’s attitude on the issue after rising calls for the Vatican to adopt a more practical approach to stopping the spread of HIV.
The Pope’s ruling is aimed specifically at stopping people infecting their partners, particularly in Africa where the disease is most prevalent.
However, it will inevitably be seized upon by liberal Catholics in Britain who oppose the Church’s stance against contraception.
High profile Catholics such as Cherie Blair have stated publicly that they use birth control.
The Pope’s comments are surprising because he caused controversy last year by suggesting that condom use could actually worsen the problem of Aids in Africa.
He described the epidemic in the continent as “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.
The Vatican amended an official version of the remarks to indicate that he said merely that condoms “risk” aggravating the problem.
However, there have been growing calls for the Church to clarify its position.
Theologians suggest that condoms are not a contraceptive if they are intended to prevent death rather than avoid life.
The Pope’s comments in the book, Light of the World, are likely to be welcomed by Catholic leaders in the West who have struggled to explain its current teaching.
Asked last year whether a married Catholic couple should use condoms where one of them had Aids, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Church in England and Wales, disclosed the confusion over the issue. “Obviously that’s a sensitive point and obviously there are different views on that,” he said.
Hardline Catholics are likely to be surprised and dismayed by the Pope’s comments as they argue that condoms can be used only as contraceptives.
There has been great anticipation before the book’s release, heightened by its author, Peter Seewald, who said in a teasing comment that it could be “a big sensation”.
“It is the first time that a Pope gives an account of himself in this form,” he said.
“It is the first personal interview with a pope in the Church’s history.”
The Pope gives his most personal account of the distress caused to him by the clerical sex abuse scandal, with particular reference to Germany and Ireland.
He says: “It was really almost like the crater of a volcano, out of which suddenly a tremendous cloud of filth came, darkening and soiling everything, so that above all the priesthood suddenly seemed to be a place of shame and every priest was under the suspicion of being one like that too.” He did not consider resigning over the crisis but does raise the possibility of a pope resigning if he were to lose his mental capacities.
“If a Pope clearly realises that he is no longer phys-ically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” He tells of the last time he saw Pope John Paul II, his predecessor; talks of his reluctance to be Pontiff; and speaks of his increasing frailty.
“I had been so sure that this office was not my calling, but that God would now grant me some peace and quiet after strenuous years,” he says. While the Pope stresses the importance of dialogue with Islam, he nevertheless says the religion needs to “clarify … its relation to violence” and suggests it can be intolerant.
The Pontiff is highly critical of the “craving for happiness” in the West.
“I believe we do not always have an adequate idea of the power of this serpent of drug trafficking and consumption that spans the globe,” he says.
“It destroys youth, it destroys families, it leads to violence and endangers the future of entire nations.
“This, too, is one of the terrible responsibilities of the West: that it uses drugs and that it thereby creates countries that have to supply it, which in the end exhausts and destroys them.”
He continues: “A craving for happiness has developed that cannot content itself with things as they are.”
Talking about sex tourism, he says: “The destructive processes at work in that are extraordinary and are born from the arrogance and the boredom and the false freedom of the Western world.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Launching Into the Age of Private Spaceflight
As NASA steps down from spaceship and rocket development, the private sector is stepping up. Can business revive the old spirit of adventure?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Life Found in the Deepest, Unexplored Layer of the Earth’s Crust
At this point, after finding microorganisms that don’t mind extreme temperatures, pressure, aridity and other hardships, we shouldn’t be surprised that bacteria’s dominion over the Earth extends to just about anywhere we look. A new expedition to the Earth’s crust has reached unprecedented depths—down to the deepest layer of the crust—and found that even there, microorganisms are tough enough to survive.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim Inquisition
Earlier this month, several thousand people took to the streets of Brussels to raise the red flag against the ongoing Muslim violence against Christians. The demonstration was triggered by a massacre in Baghdad which left at least 52 dead after the al-Qaida linked “Islamic State of Iraq” stormed a Catholic church during Sunday Mass. This appalling attack is just the tip of the iceberg of the ever-growing Muslim intolerance. It has many people worried — and rightfully so.
For years, many Muslim countries have not just looked the other way when individuals or groups sought to carry out jihad against “infidels”; they have laws on the books making it illegal to do anything even remotely inflammatory against Islam. This witch-hunt atmosphere has, of course, lead to arbitrary detentions, assaults, mob attacks and murders.
Just recently, it reached yet another zenith of malice after a Christian-Pakistani woman and mother of five was sentenced to death by hanging for allegedly speaking ill of Muhammad. She rotted in jail for 17 months before the verdict. She, her husband and lawyers have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. They’re now filing an appeal.
The whole premise is based on the infamous blasphemy laws which have been adopted in many Muslim nations. A recent report from the Human Rights First organization cites dozens of cases in which Christians and other nonbelievers have been persecuted, jailed, maimed or executed in countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
What many people don’t know is that since 1999, Muslim countries have been looking to legalize such laws on the international level through the UN. The initiative is called the “Defamation of Religions” resolution, and will basically make it the norm to legally discriminate against any citizen who believes in a religion different than the official one of the state. It’s due to come up for a vote again in the next few weeks.
The main driving force behind this travesty is the Organization of Islamic Conference (IOC) — an organization of more than 50 countries with a majority or large Muslim population. Proponents of the idea are using political correctness in the West to argue its merits. If an individual starts bashing on a religion, it should be the country’s right to put a clamp on that criticism. That might sound like a good way to stop hate crimes and discrimination in a democracy, but in the Muslim world it’s an excuse to do just the opposite.
Let’s make it 100% clear — the IOC is not interested in freedom of religion; it sees such freedom as dissent. We all know what happens to people living under dictatorships who dissent — exactly what’s happening right now to Christians and other minorities in parts of the Islamic world.
If by some chance this resolution passes, the human rights violations will just get worse. Most Western countries understand the threat and are opposing the concept, but it gives us all an inside look at the true nature of Muslim-Christian relations.
Many Christians see the writing on the wall and are getting out while they can. In its story on the aforementioned protest in Belgium, the Associated Press reported that the Christian population in Iraq alone has dropped by more than two-thirds in the past decade.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
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