Belgium Joins Financial Markets’ Hit List
Hold the moules et frites: Belgium has joined Portugal, Spain and Italy on the hit list of countries that could be heading for financial crisis.
In the bars of Antwerp and the cafes of Bruges, the talk is less of Christmas markets and the quality of the hot chocolate than the rising cost of financing a national debt that has reached 100% of annual national income.
Like Ireland, which was struggling last night to fend off criticism of its latest austerity package, there are signs that international bond investors are starting to view Belgium as another country living on borrowed money and borrowed time. To make matters worse, the country has a broken political system that has left it without a government since April.
International money market traders today pushed the cost of insuring the country’s debts to record levels. The interest payments still fall short of those being charged to Spain’s government the Portuguese, but analysts said the gap was narrowing quickly. “Belgium is having to pay a political risk premium because it still doesn’t have a government in place to make decisions over how to curb its spending and its debts, which is what the market wants to see,” said one analyst.
While the rest of the continent has wrestled with the question of what to cut and when in an effort to control government spending, the 10m Belgians have been locked in a three-year row between Flemings and Walloons over how to govern a county on the outskirts of Brussels.
In April the government of two times prime minister Yves Leterme collapsed after he failed to resolve what had become a constitutional crisis centred on the ethnically divided constituency Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. An election in June split the country with Laterme’s Dutch-speaking and largely Flemish Christian Democrats gaining the most seats, but socialist parties from both halves of the country forming the largest bloc.
The majority of Flemish people want a dose of British-style austerity, but socialists refuse to agree any cuts. In the febrile atmosphere of trading in government debt, any country without a coherent plan can be viewed as irresponsible or with something to hide. In short, the next Ireland.
The premium to insure Belgium’s debts rose 5% today: it now costs £155,000 for an investor to insure £10m of Belgian bonds against the possibility of default. The cost for Spain and Portugal The cost of insuring Spanish and Portuguese debt also rose again, to £312,000 and £510,000 respectively.
A spokesman for the Belgian government denied the country was in trouble, saying .it had lived comfortably with high debts for many years, and that was mostly owned by Belgians themselves. “This makes the character of our debts very different to the UK. We are net savers. So our government does not need to refinance its debts in the same way as the UK, which has borrowed more internationally,” he said.
He conceded the political situation was unresolved, but argued the country remained stable. “It is unfortunate that we must wait for the formation of a new government, but it is a democratic process and we will resolve it in time.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
China, Russia Quit Dollar
St. Petersburg, Russia — China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.
Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.
“About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies,” Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.
The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.
The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
“That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries,” he said.
Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.
The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Dubliners Angry at Government Rather Than IMF
For Ireland, it is the hour of truth as the government prepares to present its four-year plan. Draconian budget cuts are expected, but most Irish people are accepting them fatalistically. Most are angry at the government, rather than the experts from the IMF and the ECB.
The worst thing for many in Ireland is the international headlines. Anyone walking past a news agent in the Dublin city center is unable to avoid Ireland’s new image in Europe. The headlines shout of the Irish people’s “shame” and “humiliation.”
“I am very ashamed,” said Patricia Shaw. The 59-year-old accountant didn’t think she would ever have to experience something like this. In the 1970s, she emigrated to London, like so many of her compatriots. She returned home in 2002, lured by the Irish economic boom.
And now this.
Some commentators are bitterly speaking of the “Republic of IMF.” “Under new management,” seared one Irish Independent cartoonist in the caption appearing next to a drawing of the country’s new leaders: Thick pin-striped suit-wearing officials from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, who are watching over a witless Prime Minster Brian Cowen.
After weeks of resistance, the Irish government yielded to pressure and applied for aid from the euro rescue fund from the IMF and the European Union. The step turned the once-proud Celtic Tiger into the second country after Greece to become an official euro-zone economic basket case. The current talk is of a loan of up to €90 billion ($119 billion) for Ireland, which in sheer numbers would be smaller than the €110 billion given to Greece. Taken as a percentage of gross domestic product, however, the Irish bailout would be much bigger than the one received by Athens.
The Irish are even being forced to accept money from the British, a people from whom they had to fight for their independence over 80 years ago. Ireland’s larger next-door neighbor has said it is prepared to contribute a loan of €7 billion ($9.3 billion) to the resuce. What Ireland is expected to give up in return is currently being negotiated with IMF experts.
‘Better Chopra than Our Hopeless Lot’
On the streets of Dublin, anger over the foreign paternalism appears to be limited. Passers-by in the city’s main shopping streets seem relieved that someone is finally keeping a close eye on the conservative-Green coalition government. “I am very pleased that the IMF is here,” said dentist Margaret Shannon.”The government is incompetent and corrupt.”
“The people are delighted that experts are now in charge,” said Brian Lucey, a finance professor at Dublin’s presitigious Trinity College. Indeed, there are few signs of major protest in the Irish capital. A lone poster from the Socialist Party hangs on a lantern post in front of parliament, inviting people to an “public meeting” to oppose any drastic remedy the IMF might propose.
But the people’s anger is largely directed at Prime Minister Cowen’s government, which is to present its four-year plan on Wednesday afternoon. The conservative politician has frittered away any remaining trust. After his party’s junior coalition partner, the Greens withdrew their support for Cowen on Monday, the prime minister was forced to announce that new elections would be held in the beginning of 2011. Now it appears to be just a matter of time before he steps down.
In recent days, desperation over the country’s political leadership has at times taken a turn for the ugly. Ministers driving to work in their official vehicles have been cursed at. A few dozen members of the opposition Sinn Féin stormed the gates of the parliament building. And on Monday evening, there were angry attacks on the Irish public broadcaster RTE’s “Frontline” talk show against Energy Minister Eamon Ryan, a member of the Green Party. Labor leaders have called on the country’s union members to convene for a major protest comprising several tens of thousands of people on Saturday.
The emissaries from the IMF and EU, on the other hand, are being perceived here as rescuers. “Better Chopra than our hopeless lot,” summed up the tenor of reader letters sent in to the Irish Independent newspaper. Ajai Chopra is the leader of the IMF’s expert team in Dublin.
“We know that we have to take our medicine,” Shaw said. “We have partied for years and now we have to atone for it. It’s a very Catholic feeling of guilt.”
The four-year plan to be presented by the government on Wednesday is being anticipated with a certain amount of fatalism. The framework is already known: €15 billion is to be saved by 2014, including €6 billion next year alone. Some details have already been leaked and the cuts will affect almost all parts of Irish society.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland Slashes 10bn Euros From Public Spending in Four-Year Austerity Plan to Secure Bailout
Ireland today announced an unprecedented 15billion euro austerity plan just days after accepting a huge bailout from the UK and other nations.
The four-year strategy will see 10bn euro of painful cuts and 5bn euro of tax increases, including a cut in the minimum wage and a hike in VAT.
The National Recovery Plan is a precondition for the country’s 85bn euro from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, which includes £7bn from Britain.
Ireland’s prime minister Brian Cowen, who is resisting calls to resign over the financial crisis, today warned ‘no one could be sheltered’ from the cuts.
He rejected claims he will stand down after the 2011 Budget is unveiled in December to allow a new leader to fight the imminent general election.
Mr Cowen today likened the agreed bailout to an overdraft as negotiations on exactly how the money can be drawn out continue.
He said in the Dail: ‘We’re talking about here, an overdraft, if you like. It’s a contingency, it’s available to us as required.’
Measures being brought in include cutting social welfare by 3 billion euro (£2.5bn), reducing the public sector pay bill by 1.2 billion euro (£1bn) and increasing VAT by 2 per cent.
The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has lowered its long-term rating on Ireland’s financial reliability by two notches to A from AA- and warned that there could be further downgrades
The four-year plan includes:
The minimum wage being cut by one euro to 7.65 euro (£6.48); VAT increasing 1 per cent to 22 per cent in 2013 and to 23 per cent in 2014; Public sector workforce being cut by 24,750, bringing levels back to 2005 levels; An increase in student fees; Water metering brought in by 2014; Carbon tax charges doubling to 30 euro (£25) a tonne However, the plan does not touch the country’s ultra-low corporate tax rate — which contributed heavily to the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom, by attracting companies to the country.
The Irish government has resisted strong pressure from the EU to raise the tax, and it will remain at 12.5 per cent.
Markets were volatile when they opened today, with the FTSE 100 switching between positive and negative territory as bank stocks continued to fall.
It came after sharp falls in share prices yesterday and the euro dropping further to 1.9 per cent lower than the dollar.
Banking and economic experts across Ireland and Europe have raised concerns in the last 24 hours that it might not solve the problem.
There are also worries in some circles of a sustained bank-run by fearful customers.
Irish banks have already seen £19billion in deposits leave the country this year.
Guaranteeing Ireland’s solvency is also seen by EU governments, and officials in Dublin, London, Brussels and Frankfurt, as essential to protecting the Euro as a currency.
‘Contagion’ has been the fear across Europe with worries the Irish financial and economic chaos will spill over to troubled nations like Portugal, Spain and Italy.
A statement in the National Recovery Plan said the measures would ‘dispel uncertainty and reinforce the confidence of consumers, businesses and of the international community’.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Ben Talal Buys 1% of GM for 500 Million Dollars
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 24 — Saudi group Kingdom Holding Company, owned by billionaire Al Waleed Ben Talal, announced that it purchased 1% of US car manufacturer General Motors in exchange for 500 million dollars.
The report was made by the Al Arabiya website which specified that the US company is again selling shares on the stock market after risking bankruptcy last year and being saved after a massive intervention by the US government. The Kingdom Holding Company stated that the Saudi billionaire justified his move basing it on GM’s strong brand appeal, the interesting offer and development opportunities both in Brazil and in China.(ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Time Running Out for Savings Banks to Close Mergers
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 19 — The Bank of Spain will intervene if the merger process between savings banks is not finalised by the end of the year. This is what was repeated today by the Vice Premier, Elena Salgado, after the warning launched in recent days by the governor of the Central Bank, Angel Fernandez Ordonez, in statements to Telecinco. “It is true that the processes of assembly and configuration of the government bodies are slow, because the statutory terms must be respected,” observed Salgado, “but the boards of directors must be elected by the end of the year for all nine savings banks, otherwise the Bank of Spain will intervene.” Salgado has guaranteed that “if matters are carried out as promised, no second wave of mergers will be necessary.” And she insisted on the fact that the structure of Spanish savings banks is solvent, with levels of defaults that are “very acceptable and distant” from those before the economic crisis. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Officer ‘Has His Arm Broken’ And Another is Knocked Out as Latest Tuition Fees Protest Turns Ugly in Whitehall
Police officers appeared to be seriously injured today as angry demonstrators protesting against the hike in tuition fees again brought chaos to the streets.
Around 10,000 students and protesters flooded London for a new demonstration just a fortnight after anarchists unleashed mayhem at the Tory Party headquarters.
Scotland Yard, determined not to be caught on the hop a second time, ensured hundreds of officers were on duty and quickly reinforced numbers as flashpoints developed.
Two officers so far have been taken to hospital, one with a broken arm and another with a leg injury. Shocking footage outside the Foreign Office showed another being dragged to safety, apparently knocked out cold.
Huge crowds had attempted to break the security cordon outside the building but the line of police was quickly bolstered to ensure the barricades were not breached, unlike a fortnight ago.
The Territorial Support Group, who are more highly-training in public order containment, were then rushed in after protesters tried to batter their way to Downing Street using a barrier.
A Metropolitan Police van parked in the middle of Whitehall was targeted by youths who leapt on the roof, smashed the windscreen, hurled sticks and sprayed graffiti.
Witnesses said a smoke bomb was thrown inside the van as protesters, some covering their faces with scarves, hit the windows with wooden sticks.
Student Zoe Williams tried to intervene when youths started rocking the van from side to side but was given short shrift.
She said later: ‘Some kind of anger and aggressive behaviour can show the Government that we are not joking around and will just let them do it [hike fees] anyway but showing we’re this violent and ready to take it to this level is detrimental.
‘A lot of people aren’t here to support the cause, they are doing it to have a day off school and be rebellious and burn stuff. It really does dampen the efforts of other people.’
Fireworks were let off nearby, greeted by cheers and whistles, as a light was smashed on the back of the vehicle. There had been fears of serious injury when it was rocked and came close to toppling over.
The van was abandoned a short distance from the Royal United Services Institute where Met boss Sir Paul Stephenson has been giving a speech on terrorism.
Students eventually managed to break inside the vehicle and looted police uniform and equipment, including body armour.
So far, three people have been arrested for violent disorder and theft.
Tom Lugg, 23, studying mental health nursing at Kingston University, Surrey, said: ‘It shows the young people of Britain are pretty angry.
‘I don’t agree with what some of them are doing but we have to empathise. Why should the next generation have to pay more? The Tories are hitting working families, just like they did with the Poll Tax.’
In other areas of Whitehall there was a party atmosphere, with students jumping up and down to dance music as helicopters hovered overhead.
The protest has been dubbed Day X, with parents, teachers and trade unionists invited to join students.
Many of the rallies have been organised by the Education Activist Network and the campaign group Youth Fight For Jobs.
A delegation of students were due to present a letter to Nick Clegg expressing their disgust over the Lib Dem U-turn on fees and his office in Sheffield is also likely to be targeted.
The letter reads: ‘No amount of twisted reasoning from either you or Vince Cable can hide what everyone can see: you have lied to us.
‘We call on you to withdraw LibDem support for Conservative cuts to our education system, or face the disappointment and anger of a generation that has been betrayed.’
Protesters had also shown their anger last night by hanging an effigy of the Deputy PM on the gallows and chanted: ‘Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue.’
Such is the fury at the Lib Dems change of heart that Mr Clegg has been warned not to cycle to work in case he is attacked.
Musician Jarvis Cocker and Miss England Jessica Linley, who is a law student at Nottingham University, are also among the crowds today.
The protesters have now been ‘kettled’ or contained in a cordoned off section of Whitehall, with police talking about bringing in water and loos for the crowds.
They had apparently been hoping the demonstrators would disperse but shortly after 3pm appeared to have changed their strategy.
Met Chief Inspector Jane Connors said: ‘We’re confident in the adaptable policing plan that we have got in place today.
‘We have got reserves that will enable us to be flexible and to move resources around tow here they are needed to ensure that we don’t have the same activity that we had last time.’
But Jenny Jones, a member of the Met Police Authority, questioned their methods. She wrote on Twitter: ‘Police have kettled demo. Mad. Just makes crowd distressed.’
University workers have organised simultaneous rallies in Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Cambridge.
In an early sign of trouble elsewhere, around 50 students stormed the Great Hall at the University of Birmingham this morning after security had tried to force them out.
In Sheffield, around 1,000 students gathered in the city centre, many from schools as well as the two universities.
There were reports of pupils walking out of a number of secondary schools before gathering at Sheffield University Students’ Union.
Many in the crowd appeared to be of school age, some as young as 13 or 14. A line of police guarded the front of the Victorian town hall as the crowd chanted and waved placards.
In Manchester, where several thousand protesters had gathered, a group of several hundred broke away from the main demonstration and headed towards the town hall.
Around 3,000 protesters had made their way from Manchester University student union shouting ‘No ifs, no buts, no education cuts’.
There were some minor scuffles between protesters and police in Bristol, where around 2,000 people joined a demonstration.
About three dozen police officers were blocking the entrance to the town hall, where protesters were sitting down reading books.
In Cambridge, more than 200 students scaled a fence of the Senate House — a building reserved for graduations — and marched into the grounds of King’s College shouting and waving placards.
Bystanders reported a huge police presence and said officers were using batons and their fists to push back the students.
Around 3,000 people staged a noisy but peaceful protests in Liverpool and another 2,000 took to the streets of Bristol — which again remained mostly peaceful.
Youth Fight for Jobs spokesman Paul Callanan claimed the fees hike will create a two-tier education system. ‘Education will become a privilege for the few that can afford it,’ he said.
Mark Bergfeld, of the Education Activist Network, said: ‘We’re there to build a mass movement, we’re there to build a movement which can overcome the divisions between the different people, between the different sections of society and actually start to generalise the fight against austerity.’
Police have been monitoring all information sources in a bid to avoid a repeat of the violence two weeks ago, which saw the Tory Party headquarters overrun.
The Met has admitted that its policing of the protest had been an ‘embarrassment’ and are determined not be be caught out for a second time.
Government plans to raise fees up to as much as £9,000-per-year from 2012 have caused outrage, particularly to the Lib Dems who had promised to oppose any hike during the election.
Parliament is due to vote on the increase before Christmas, with several top Lib Dems still likely to vote against despite Mr Clegg supporting the Tories over the change.
The Lib Dem leader insisted again today that he ‘massively regrets’ his U-turn after pledging to stop fee rises but urged students to examine the fine print.
Asked how it felt to have students hang him in effigy, the Deputy PM told the BBC’s Jeremy Vine: ‘I’m developing a thick skin.’
He said: ‘I regret of course that I can’t keep the promise that I made because — just as in life — sometimes you are not fully in control of all the things you need to deliver those pledges.
‘But I nonetheless think that when people look at the detail of these proposals (they will) realise that all graduates will be paying less per month than they do at the moment and the poorest quarter will be paying much, much less and we will be making it easier for some of the youngsters currently discouraged from going to university to go to university.
‘I hope that over time — perhaps not overnight — people will say “OK, this was controversial, it was difficult for the Liberal Democrats, but actually they have put something into place which will finally allow our education system to do something which it hasn’t done for generations, and that is to promote rather than thwart mobility.”‘
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Unions Shut Down Portugal Over Planned Cuts
Strikes have shut down public services across Portugal on Wednesday, as unions express growing public dissatisfaction about Portugal’s tough austerity measures. Meanwhile, borrowing costs for Portugal are rising sharply amid market fears that the country could be next in line for a bailout.
Portugal’s biggest unions are staging the country’s biggest strike in over 20 years on Wednesday in protest over the tough austerity measures about to be imposed to tackle the country’s debt crisis. As the minority Socialist government struggles to placate the markets’ concerns that Lisbon could be next in line for a bailout, the public and private sector unions have united in a day of industrial action.
Public services, including healthcare and transport, have been most affected. More than 500 flights have been cancelled and major ports paralyzed. All workers with Lisbon’s Metro, the city’s subway, joined the strike at midnight, though some buses are still in operation in the capital. Unions representing some 1.5 million workers called for the strike after the government announced another round of austerity measures to follow those imposed in May.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates has pledged to stay the course on deeply unpopular wage cuts and tax hikes to cut the massive budget deficit. And, on Tuesday, the main opposition party announced that it would not block the government’s 2011 budget, paving the way for its adoption this Friday in parliament. The country’s trade unions are opposing the planned cuts of around €5 billion ($6.85 billion), which include public sector pay cuts.
“It is unacceptable that workers are making all the sacrifices,” Joao Proenca, leader of the UGT union, told the Agence France Press news agency. “We cannot accept that the first, second and third priority in Portugal is the deficit.”
“It’s the workers who are paying for the crisis, not the bankers nor the shareholders of big companies,” 65-year-old pensioner Leandro Martins told Reuters.
Fears of Contagion
Following Greece’s huge debt problem and Ireland’s banking crisis, international investors are taking a far closer look at euro-zone countries’ public finances.
Any hopes that Dublin’s application for a joint bailout on Sunday from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund would soothe the market jitters have been dashed. There is concern on the markets that if Portugal is forced to apply for a bailout, pressure would also be increased on Spain, the EU’s fourth-largest economy. Indeed, the specter of contagion is looming in Europe these days.
On Wednesday morning, the interest rate on 10-year Portuguese bonds broke through the 7-percent barrier, while 10-year Spanish bonds rose to 5.08 percent at mid-morning from 4.91 percent at the start of trading.
Traders are “looking for their next target,” Emilie Gay, an economist at Capital Economics in London, told the Associated Press. She predicts that Lisbon is likely to have to ask for a bailout from the European rescue fund as soon as early next year, when it is due to start refinancing billions of euros in government bonds.
However, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has insisted that Portugal’s problems are very different to those faced by Ireland at the moment, because its banks are well capitalized. Still, the state of the Portuguese government’s finances remain a cause for concern. Although Portugal didn’t experience a similar real estate bubble to that of neighboring Spain or Ireland, it has had stagnant growth for years and has borrowed huge amounts to finance its public spending.
The country’s budget deficit for this year is expected to be 9.3 percent of GDP and the proposed harsh cuts are part of a government effort to reduce the deficit to the 3 percent demanded under EU rules for euro stability by 2013.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why the Euro Will Survive the Crisis
Europe is gripped by a sense of alarm, now that Ireland has become the second euro-zone country to ask for a bailout. Pessimists claim that the crisis means the euro is finished. But that scenario is unrealistic — in reality, there is little to suggest that the common currency is about to disintegrate.
The mood in Europe is currently one of alarm — yet again. First, the EU’s member states had to pull Greece back from the precipice of bankruptcy. And now they are having to save Ireland from financial ruin.
Earlier this year, when Greece was being rescued, there were those who warned of a domino effect among the euro zone’s troubled members. It now appears that their warnings have been confirmed, with the result that advocates of a doomsday scenario now expect the rest of their prophecies to also be fulfilled. As they see it, Portugal will soon be the next to fall, followed sooner or later by Spain and Italy as well. And by then, at the latest, it will be curtains for the euro zone. Game over.
Given the current situation, these scary predictions might seem seductively persuasive. But the fact is that they are rather unrealistic. The situation in Ireland is obviously anything but rosy. And it would be careless to ignore the possible dangers facing the euro. But at the moment there isn’t much evidence indicating that the currency union is under any serious threat, let alone that it is lurching into a crisis that will ultimately end in the death of the euro.
There are three reasons for believing that this is not the case:
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black, Hispanic Caucus Members Gain Clout
The black and Hispanic caucuses emerged from this month’s elections as among the largest blocs in the House, and their members said they planned to push hard for liberal priorities such as government spending to create jobs.
Members of the two caucuses will hold nearly a third of the Democratic seats in the next Congress—61 of the party’s 190 seats—with the outcome of several additional House races still up in the air.
While centrist Democrats bore the brunt of the midterm election losses, members of the black and Hispanic caucuses, all Democrats and most of them liberal, won 56 of 60 re-election bids. They will gain seniority as the minority-party members on congressional committees and will carry a louder voice among the Democratic House contingent.
Hispanic caucus member Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas will likely become the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, as the four Democrats ahead of him in seniority lost their elections. The black caucus’s Rep. Maxine Waters of California is set to become the No. 2 Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
Caucus members acknowledge that as members of the minority party in the House, they aren’t likely to be setting the agenda.
“We’ll have to make our case for our priorities from a minority position so it will obviously be more difficult to advance the CBC agenda,” said Bobby Scott (D., Va.), who will become the crime subcommittee ranking member. “What we spend our time on will depend to a large extent on what the majority does.”
Members of the caucuses said, for instance, they might seek to serve as a barrier if Republicans attempt to roll back health care and banking regulations.
“We have to…make sure our economic policies aren’t policies to just benefit the rich,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, (D., Calif.) chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
But the groups also plan to push hard in certain areas, starting with job creation.
Black caucus member Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D., Ill.) plans to introduce legislation on the topic early in the next Congress. “We need legislation that is comparable to the Works Progress Administration of 1935 that puts Americans to work,” he said. “If Democrats support that, it would make us worthy of a return to power. Short of that we do not deserve to be in power.”
Another member of the caucus, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), said the group strongly favored infrastructure investment. “We knew that would put Americans of all backgrounds to work,” she said.
The idea is likely to meet opposition from within the caucus. In an uncommon development, the Congressional Black Caucus next year will include at least one Republican, Allen West, who opposed the economic-stimulus program in his campaign.
Mr. West, an incoming freshman who won a House seat from Florida, said he would definitely join the caucus. In an interview, Mr. West said programs favored by the caucus haven’t worked, and that “failed liberal social-welfare policies” must be replaced by policies that generate private-sector growth.
Mr. West said he wanted to address unemployment among African-Americans and broaden the discussion within the caucus on “how do we extend long-term economic growth in that community.” The unemployment rate among African-Americans stood at 15.7% in October, compared with 9.6% for the work force overall.
Mr. West and Tim Scott, newly elected from South Carolina, are among only six African-Americans to be elected as Republicans to the House or Senate since the Congressional Black Caucus formed in 1969.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Scott said he hadn’t made a decision about joining the caucus. The most recent black Republican in Congress, Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, didn’t join the black caucus when he was in office. The other African-American Republican lawmakers all joined. Amid Hispanic lawmakers, Republicans in 2003 formed a separate organization, the Congressional Hispanic Conference…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Judge Confirms CAIR is Hamas
Unsealed ruling reveals ‘ample evidence’ tying group to terror.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has determined that the Justice Department provided “ample evidence” to designate the most prominent Muslim group in America as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator.
According to a federal court ruling unsealed Friday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations has been involved in “a conspiracy to support Hamas,” a federally designated terrorist group that has murdered at least 17 Americans and injured more than 100 U.S. citizens.
The 20-page order, signed by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, cites “ample evidence” that CAIR participated in a “criminal conspiracy” led by the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas’s main fundraising arm in the U.S. As a result, the judge refused CAIR’s request to strike its name from documents listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hassan Charged With Harassment
Muzzamil S. “Mo” Hassan was charged Friday with misdemeanor harassment and obstruction for the Erie County Holding Center disturbance he blamed on “white Nazis” who patrol the downtown lockup.
During brief court proceedings, City Judge E. Jeannette Ogden ordered Hassan, 45, returned on Nov. 29 for further proceedings on the complaint.
During a court appearance Wednesday for his upcoming trial for the decapitation slaying of his estranged wife, Hassan complained that up to 16 “white Nazi” guards attacked him Nov. 10, leaving him fearful that he will be killed and his death called a suicide.
Also during the appearance, Hassan said he was waterboarded.
In a legal turnabout, Hassan is charged with attacking the Holding Center guard he had accused in court of attacking him.
Undersheriff Mark N. Wipperman, who could not be reached to comment Friday, earlier denounced Hassan’s complaints as “preposterous.”
Wipperman called Hassan “a troublesome and problematic inmate” since his incarceration after the Feb. 12, 2009, beheading of his estranged wife, a week after she had begun divorce proceedings.
In City Court papers filed Friday, Hassan is accused of verbally and physically assaulting the Holding Center officer.
At about 8:45 p. m. Nov. 10, Hassan cursed and lunged at the guard after he had ordered Hassan and oth-
er inmates to get into their cells for nightly lockup, according to court papers.
The guard told superiors Hassan struck him in the chest and right arm. “Acting in self-defense,” the guard said, he wrestled Hassan to the floor until other guards came to his aid.
Though Hassan claimed he was bleeding following the disturbance, an examination showed no bleeding on Hassan and neither he nor the guard involved in the incident appeared injured.
Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III and Colleen Curtin Gable, the chief prosecutor in the murder case, both declined to comment on the latest case against Hassan.
Jeremy D. Schwartz, Hassan’s latest attorney, called the new charges improper “retaliation” for Hassan’s complaints.
Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk plans to begin jury selection in the murder case on Jan. 10. Schwartz has been given until Dec. 6 to decide whether he will represent Hassan during the trial.
Hassan has been diagnosed by one psychiatrist as suffering from “battered spouse syndrome.”
Aasiya Zubair Hassan, 37, was attacked in the office of the Muslim-oriented cable station the couple had launched together. Hassan turned himself in at Police Headquarters in Orchard Park.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Airport Security Abuse Dictated by Muslim Group
Obama claims that he’s told the U.S. Transportation Security Administration: “You… have to think through, are there ways of doing it that are less intrusive.” At this point, Obama said counterterrorism experts have told him that the current procedures are the only ones that they think can effectively guard against threats such as last year’s attempted Christmas-day bombing.
“Either [President] Obama is being deceived or he’s doing the deceiving. Any cop worth his salt will tell you there are definitely alternatives to this intrusive and time consuming nonsense,” said former police detective and expert in interview and interrogation Mike Snopes.
“The fact of the matter is that the Obama administration is bowing to the demands of groups such as CAIR and others who don’t want Muslims to be inconvenienced,” said Snopes.
Truth be told, there are alternatives to the current heavy-handed security measures being used at U.S. airports: Psychological profiling and transactional analysis.
A Program Kicked to the Wayside
The Council on American Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, began 2010 by complaining about a new security training program Transportation Security Administration security officers assigned to the nation’s airports.
The CAIR leadership had released a statement that claimed the TSA’s airport security directives amount to the profiling of Muslims.
According to TSA officials, security officers at major airports across the country would be trained to use “casual conversation” to flush out possible terrorists. Instructors would first teach officers what suspicious behaviors to look for in travelers. These can include nervousness, wearing a big coat in the summer or reluctance to make eye contact with law enforcement. Then, the officers carry on a supposedly casual conversation with passengers in hopes of spotting possible terrorists or to determine whether further scrutiny of a passenger is required.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
State, Judges Sued Over Firearms Rules
‘Do citizens need guns to their heads before they consider need justified?’
A new lawsuit has been filed against state officials and several judges in New Jersey over procedures that allowed them to refuse firearms permits for a kidnap victim, a man who carries large amounts of cash for his business and a civilian FBI employee who fears attacks from radical Islamists.
“Do citizens need guns to their heads or knives to their throats before the state considers their need to be justified?” said Alan Gottlieb, the executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which is pursuing the case.
[…]
“Law-abiding New Jersey citizens have been arbitrarily deprived of their ability to defend themselves and their families for years under the state’s horribly crafted laws,” said Gottlieb. “The law grants uncontrolled discretion to police chiefs and other public officials to deny license applications even in cases where the applicant has shown a clear and present danger exists.
“If being a kidnap victim, or part-time law enforcement officer, or the potential target of a known radical group does not clearly demonstrate a justifiable need,” Gottlieb continued, “the defendants need to explain what would.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tom Delay, Ex-House Majority Leader, Found Guilty in Money-Laundering Trial
A Texas jury Wednesday found Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader and Texas political powerhouse, guilty in a money-laundering trial involving contributions to political campaigns. The verdict was the latest chapter in a long legal battle that forced Mr. DeLay to step down. The trial also opened a window on the world of campaign financing in Washington, as jurors heard testimony about large contributions flowing to Mr. DeLay from corporations seeking to influence him and junkets to posh resorts where the congressman would rub shoulders with lobbyists in return for donations.
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British Muslim Family Who Lost Their Son to Extremists
In an unprecedented move, a British Muslim family has spoken openly about one of their own falling victim to radicalisation, a story which reveals serious flaws in how the UK deals with the threat of Islamist terror and the control order system.
“He was a very healthy, active individual,” is how Awais Arshad describes his younger brother Umar when he was an undergraduate studying pharmacy at Manchester University.
At 19 Umar was a normal student, studying for a pharmacy degree
A model student at school, Umar had won a place to study at the university in his home town in 2004.
At the time everything seemed to be going well for the family, who were well integrated into British life and ran a successful business, a garage.
Umar would attend the local mosque with his father and brother, but according to Awais his behaviour was not out the ordinary:
“We used to go there and read our prayers and come home — so we had a very good routine,” he says.
Dropped out from college
However, in 2006 Umar uncharacteristically failed his second year exams, and from there things started to go wrong.
Umar’s father Mohammed says he feels let down by the police
Dropping out for a year he began working at the garage with his father Mohammed. It was there that Umar was befriended by one of the many clients bringing in cars for repairs.
“He seemed at the time to be a nice individual who spoke very politely,” Awais says of the man. “He was fine — another friend.”
Umar was soon spending most of his time with his new friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and his family started to notice changes in his behaviour.
His mother says Umar began talking about religion and politics. He attended mysterious meetings about Islam, stayed out late and began to look ill, a view echoed by Awais:
“He seemed a lot weaker, he didn’t seem well, he didn’t seem himself. And this happened very suddenly. It wasn’t a space of a year or two years, it occurred within a month.”
The once demure boy told his mother that she had “lost her faith”, that she was following a wrong form of Islam.
Committed extremists
The family believe Umar was being fed hard drugs to create dependency and to prise him away from home.
He was spending more and more time at the central Manchester house rented by the man at the garage, a convicted heroin user.
Former Islamic radical Maajid Nawaz on the process of radicalisation
But there was far more to Umar’s radicalisation than hard drugs and the influence of one man.
The family did not know it at the time, but he had become friends with a group of committed extremists living on the other side of town in Cheetham Hill.
Living in the house was a 25-year-old Pakistani student Abdul Rahman, who would later be convicted of disseminating terrorist literature, and his friend from Pakistan Aslam Awan, who would later head to the Afghan-Pakistan border area to fight British troops.
Mohammed Arshad says his son fell under the gang’s control: “If they told him to sit down he would sit down, if they told him to stand up he would stand up.”
Police notified
By October 2006, Umar, it seems, had decided that he should join the jihad abroad. He told his family that he was leaving and would not be coming back.
Concerned about stories of youngsters being radicalised and for Umar’s welfare, the family contacted the police.
Abdul Rahman was convicted for disseminating terrorist information
“We went straight to the police and said he’s in the wrong hands please find a way of stopping him leaving the country,” Awais says.
“The following morning we were called by CID, then we had a visit from Special Branch, after which MI5 were involved. Now during this whole process we were outlining our fears in terms of what has happened to my brother.”
Umar was staying with the al-Qaeda supporters at Abdul Rahman’s house, and, unknown to the family, police had the group under surveillance as part of a wider terror investigation.
After four days, the family managed to contact Umar by phone and persuade him to return home.
However, MI5 and the police continued to monitor the Manchester radicals, and him…
| — Hat tip: GB | [Return to headlines] |
British MEP Kicked Out of Parliament After ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer’ Jibe at German Colleague
A sober debate about Ireland and the euro crisis degenerated into Nazi slurs in the EU parliament today after a UKIP member was ejected for screaming at a German MEP: ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer!’
The phrase — meaning one people, one empire, one leader — was a popular slogan for supporters of the Nazi party in wartime.
Lawmakers were left speechless after the rant by Godfrey Bloom, the UKIP member for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, at German MEP Martin Schulz.
It is not the first time Mr Schulz has been at the centre of controversy after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was ‘perfect’ for the role of a concentration camp guard when the pair clashed in the debating chamber in 2003.
Mr Bloom’s outburst, which also mentioned Spitfires and goose-stepping Nazis, came as Mr Schulz called for greater solidarity within Europe to deal with the Irish crisis.
‘He just said “ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer”, that’s what I just heard,’ Mr Schulz told the 736-member parliament in Strasbourg.
There was a moment of stunned silence before MEPs began chanting in unison: ‘Out, out, out…’
Parliament president Jerzy Buzek demanded Mr Bloom apologise, but the Euro-sceptic MEP was unrepentant.
‘The views express by “Herr” Schulz make the case. He is an undemocratic fascist,’ he told the parliament, before Mr Buzek ordered him thrown out of the chamber.
Mr Buzek said: ‘As you know, most of the members of the chamber cannot accept your behaviour.
‘I will therefore ask you to leave the chamber at this point.’
In February, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told EU President Herman Van Rompuy he had ‘the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk’.
‘Who are you? I’d never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you… I can speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying that we don’t know you, we don’t want you and the sooner you are put out to grass the better.”
Speaking outside the chamber, Mr Bloom added: ‘My father, as a Spitfire pilot, fought for freedom against Nazi domination of Europe.
‘As an MEP, I will fight against the destruction of democracy across Europe.
‘Schulz is an unrepentant Euro nationalist and a socialist. He wants one currency, one EU state, on EU people.
‘These Euro nationalists are a danger to democracy. These people are fanatics.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Naples Trash Poses ‘Serious Health Risk’
EC says situation ‘not very different’ from 2008
(ANSA) — Naples, November 22 — The mounds of rubbish lining the streets of Naples pose a serious health risk with rats and cockroaches growing fat and breeding on the trash, experts said Monday as a European Commission delegation visited the southern Italian city.
“There is a health-and-hygiene danger that may turn into a serious risk for public health,” said Naples University expert Maria Triassi in a joint statement with a fellow member of the Italian Institute for Public Hygiene, Andrea Simonetti.
“Immediate action is needed because Naples is in a grave condition because of the uncollected refuse in the streets which represent a great threat to its citizens,” they insisted.
The most serious risks are linked to “the presence of stray dogs, rats, cockroaches and insects, Triassi and Simonetti said.
“These all carry gastrointestinal diseases”.
The experts called on local and national authorities to clear the streets, free up contested dumps, persuade more of the population to recycle, and hasten the construction of incinerators.
The amount of uncollected refuse is currently standing at 2,900 tonnes and that could rise to 3,600 unless dumping goes ahead as planned Monday, officials said.
Naples has had waste-disposal problems for years but things really came to a head in 2008 when Premier Silvio Berlusconi won domestic and international headlines for sorting things out.
This time round, faced with stronger hostility to dumps many believe are toxic, he has so far been unable to repeat the feat.
After a preliminary tour of the city, the delegation from the EC said the situation did not appear to have improved compared to two years ago.
“After two years the situation is not very different,” said chief inspector Pia Bucella.
“The refuse is there in the streets, and there is still no plan for treating or recycling it”.
The EC delegation is assessing moves to comply with a sentence from the European Court of Justice condemning Italy for failing to meet rules on waste management.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Carfagna Hints at U-Turn Over Threat to Quit Govt
Minister frustrated at handling of trash crisis
(ANSA) — Rome, November 22 — Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna said Monday that she might retract her threat to quit Silvio Berlusconi’s troubled government after a confidence vote next month.
Carfagna said she planned to resign at the weekend, citing frustration at the way the trash crisis in Campania has been handled and complaining at the lack of internal debate in Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party in the southern region.
The former model and showgirl, who is among the centre-right administration’s most high-profile figures, also said she was angered by insults from fellow PdL members after raising these issues.
“I’ve made my decision and I’m obliged to go on with it,” the 34-year-old told Italian daily La Repubblica, following reports that Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa was trying to smooth the row over.
“I cannot give in. It’s a question of dignity. I am ready to go back on the steps I’ve taken, but only on the condition that the issues I raised are seriously addressed.
“The party is governed with dictatorial methods (in Campania) and it’s clear that this was underestimated at the national level”. Her announcement was another blow to Berlusconi, coming in the same week House Speaker Gianfranco Fini pulled his loyalists from the government having earlier this year left the PDL he set up with Berlusconi to form his own Future and Freedom for Italy (FLI) party, depriving the premier of a certain majority in parliament.
Berlusconi has said there will be early elections if the government does not survive a confidence vote in the Lower House on December 14.
Carfagna denied speculation she was quitting her post to join the FLI, saying she would leave politics altogether.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Embattled Berlusconi Calls for ‘Sobriety’
(AKI) — Italy’s embattled prime minister, Silvio Berlusoconi on Tuesday called for “sobriety” and urged politicians to show “a sense of responsibility”. The flamboyant premier has recently been embroiled in a new series of sex scandals and has seen his popularity slump. His government faces a confidence vote in December following the defection a key former ally.
“As far as internal questions go regarding the People of Freedom, I plan to tackle these very soon, and with my habitual ability to take into account various people’s opinions,” Berlusconi said.
“Meanwhile, I invite everyone to show a sense of responsibility and sobriety, out of respect for our activists and voters,” said the 74—year-old premier.
Berlusconi’s government faces a confidence vote in the lower and upper houses of the Italian parliament next month.
The Berlusconi government has been edging ever-closer to collapse since his key former ally, Italian lower houe of parliament speaker Gianfranco Fini broke away from the 74-year-old prime minister in July and deprived him of a safe majority.
Several fresh sex scandals have hit Berlusconi this autumn involving a prostitute and a teenage nightclub dancer who says she attended after-dinner sex games at his villa in Arcore, near Milan. The septuagenarian was earlier linked to a teenage underwear model and another prostitute.
He has decried what he calls “indecent attacks” against him.
The government has come under mounting pressure over Italy’s ailing economy and controversial legislation critics say is aimed at saving Berlusconi from prosecution for corruption and tax fraud.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: ‘No Terrorist Link’ To Explosion Near Loch Lomond
Police investigating an explosion near Loch Lomond are treating the inquiry as a criminal rather than a terrorist-related matter, the BBC understands.
Several agencies, including anti-terrorist police and bomb disposal teams were involved in the operation at Garadhban Forest, near Gartocharn.
A number of items were removed from the site after reports of an explosion on 17 November.
It has since been re-opened to the public after officers were stood down.
Police were called to the scene after reports of an explosion about midday last Wednesday.
The investigation centred around a wooded area about 300 to 400 yards from Ross Priory, a 19th Century function venue owned by Strathclyde University.
Items were removed following a fingertip search of the site by specialist officers.
The operation was scaled back on Monday.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: 60 Mln Deposit for Connery and ‘Goldfinger’ Accused
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 19 — A 60 million euro deposit for potential civil responsibility has been imposed by the investigating magistrate in the Goldfinger case, which concerns an alleged laudering of capital and involves, among others, the actor Sean Connery and his wife Micheline. Around 20 people are being investigated in the case, and they have been given ten days in which to come up with the sum, according to judiciary sources quoted today by Radio Cadena Ser.
The Goldfinger inquiry is looking into the illegal upgrading of the site home to Conner’s beachfront Malibu villa in Marbella, on the Costa del Sol. The mayor of Marbella, Julian Munoz, the former head of urban planning in the area, Juan Antonio Roca, and a well-known legal practice are also being investigated.
If the accused declare themselves insolvent, the investigative magistrate, Ricardo Pujol, has asked the judicial police to investigate if those under investigation, or companies to linked to them, have hidden funds abroad since April 2009, when the investigation began.
The villa belonging to the 80-year old Scottish actor and his 81-year old wife (as well as the large expanse of land on which it lies) was sold for 53 million euros, of which 37 million was transferred to foreign accounts, especially in the United Kingdom and in Uruguay, through a network of companies created by the legal practice that looked after Sean Connery’s interests in Spain. The initial project, which featured three urban plans, planned for the construction of five chalets on Connery’s plot of land, which later became 72 luxury flats. Despite being summoned by the magistrate on October 15, Connery and his wife failed to travel to Marbella, citing a lack of time to prepare the trip and health problems. The judge allowed for the couple to be interrogated by letters in the Bahamas, the tax haven where the actor and his wife have residence. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Court Hikes Penalty for Car Park Killing
A court of appeal has increased the penalty for the 24-year-old man convicted of manslaughter in death of a 78-year-old woman who was assaulted during a parking lot dispute in southern Sweden in March.
The man was sentenced to 22 months in prison by Lund district court over the killing, a penalty which the court of appeal has now increased to two years.
The court shared the district court’s judgment that the man was guilty of assault, aggravated assault and manslaughter.
In the district court the man was ordered to pay 25,000 kronor ($3,000) in damages to the 78-year-old’s husband. This sum has now been doubled to 50,000 kronor.
Lund district court convicted the man of assaulting and causing the woman’s death in a dispute over a parking space outside a supermarket in Landskrona in southern Sweden in march. The case gained a great deal of attention in the town and nationwide.
The attack caused her to fall over and sustain injuries to the back of her head that led to her death in hospital two days later. The man who was 23 years old at the time, was also found guilty of assaulting the woman’s 71-year-old husband.
The man’s conviction was immediately appealed by his lawyer Leif Silbersky, who argued in the court of appeal that his client should be freed.
The Lund court explained the lower sentence in that 24-year-old would have faced a slightly longer sentence of two years had he not suffered from psychological problems.
An examination carried out by the National Board of Forensic Medicine (Rättsmedicinalverket) found the he had long suffered from a form of constant anxiety and related stomach complaints which made him less well-equipped for jail than the majority of prisoners.
The court of appeal did not share the district court’s conclusion on the man’s psychological state and thus increased the penalty in accordance with legal praxis.
The case rested on the credibility of testimony from the deceased woman’s 71-year-old husband and a from a man who had witness the incident from a nearby restaurant.
Name and address details of the 24-year-old and his family were posted on several websites after his arrest. Because of the heightened threat level, the man and his lawyer hesitated before appealing an earlier remand ruling as they considered it “safer” for him to remain in custody.
The 24-year-old comes from a family of immigrants and his arrest led to ethnic tensions in Landskrona.
The right-wing extremist National Democrats called a public meeting in the town square to “protest against anti-Swedishness”. Seeking to counter a rising tide of racial antagonism, organizations including the Church of Sweden and the local Islamic society held their own anti-violence demonstrations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Parliament Votes in New Constitution
Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, voted for the most sweeping changes to the country’s constitution since 1974 on Wednesday, confirming Sweden’s place in the EU among a raft of other amendments.
The new consititution was passed with the backing of seven parliamentary parties, with only the Sweden Democrats’ 20 MPs voting against.
While the document contained many significant changes to Sweden’s constitution, public debate on the document has remained conspicuously silent, explained by some as due to the broad parliamentary unity.
“I had obviously wished there was more debate,” Per Bill, vice chairman of Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag’s, Committee on the Constitution (Konstitutionsutskottet, KU), told newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) on Wednesday.
The two main parties behind the constitutional reforms that will come into effect on January 1, 2011 were the Social Democrats and the ruling Moderates.
The amendments include forcing a prime minister to face a confidence vote within two weeks following an election and enshrining EU membership in the constitution.
It also strengthens judicial powers to make it easier to determine whether new laws contravene the constitution or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
In addition, it has eased pushing through demands for municipal referendums and lowered the barrier for electing independent candidates into the Riksdag to 5 percent from 8 percent of the votes in a constituency, a measure that is expected to result in more independent MPs.
The new agreement follows several years of constitutional inquiry followed by two parliamentary decisions in the Riksdag separated by an election. The first came in the spring of this year.
Future amendments will also require two parliamentary decisions with an election in between. The next parliamentary elections in Sweden are scheduled for September 14, 2014.
The 20 members of the Sweden Democrats refused to support the new constitution, critical that it makes it more difficult to leave the EU and disagreeing with calling Sweden a multicultural society.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Artist Says There ‘Too Much Snow’ For Amateur Terrorists to Kill Him
“I can feel pretty safe,” he said, adding, “Right now the weather is looking really good (for me). It’s too cold and there is too much snow for someone to try an amateur terrorist act.”
US monitoring group SITE said that a Swedish fighter with the Shebab militia, which has ties to al-Qaeda, urged Muslims to kill Vilks.
“Wherever you are, if not today or tomorrow, know that we haven’t yet forgotten about you,” said Shebab member Abu Zaid in a video.
“Know what awaits you, as it will be nothing but this: slaughter. For that is what you deserve.
“We will get hold of you and with Allah’s permission we will catch you wherever you are and in whatever hole you are hiding in,” Zaid said in a recruitment video with English and Swahili subtitles that calls for Muslims to join the radical movement.
Vilks dismissed the video as a desperate attempt for the organisation to recruit new members.
“That organisation has no resources to speak of. They are almost bankrupt,” he said.
“They send out that type of information to try to find volunteers that could interest them and to get attention. It’s something that can only lure in a few crazy people.”
The artist has faced numerous death threats and a suspected assassination plot since his cartoon of the Prophet was published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007, illustrating an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Three Terrorist Suspects Arrested in Amsterdam
AMSTERDAM, 24/11/10 — Three suspects have been arrested in Amsterdam for possible involvement in a planned terrorist attack on a Belgian target. They are Dutch, of Moroccan origin.
As well the Amsterdam arrests, seven suspects were arrested yesterday evening in the Belgian city of Antwerp. They had “mainly” Moroccan or Chechnyan backgrounds. Arrests were also made in Germany.
Belgium has requested the extradition of the three Moroccan Dutch. The suspects are said to have recruited supporters via the Internet and collected money for a Chechen terrorist group, the Caucasian Emirate. In the same investigation, arrests were made earlier in Spain, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
The men were apparently planning to make an attack in Belgium. The target of the attack had however not yet been specifically decided, according to Belgian media.
A spokeswoman for the National Antiterrorism Coordinator (NCTb) says there is no threat to the Netherlands. “It is a Belgian case.” The case does not have anything to do with the present terrorist threat in Germany either, the spokeswoman said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s EU Membership Big Error, Says Schmidt
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said Turkey’s possible European Union membership would be a big mistake, warning that Muslims may flock to Europe and asserting that they have difficulties adapting to German society.
Schmidt’s remarks are likely to add fuel to a heated debate over immigration in Germany. “Of course, I know that many Muslims have really adapted to the society. But I cannot forecast a positive development if the European Union presents membership to Turkey,” the former German chancellor said in remarks published in Bild on Tuesday.
Similar comments were also made recently by Thilo Sarrazin, a former board member of the German central bank whose remarks outraged immigrants in the country. Sarrazin maintained that Muslim immigrants in Europe were unwilling or incapable of integrating into Western societies and that studies had proven that “all Jews share the same gene.” Schmidt said he does not agree with Sarrazin, who argued that abilities of people are determined by their genes, but he concurs with his claim that Muslim immigrants cannot adapt to German society.
Schmidt said if Turkey is accepted as an EU member, millions of Muslims will travel across Europe without restraint and fill European employment markets and social systems. “In this case, you could also add Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Syria to your future planning. We would bring disputes among Turks and Kurds to our European cities. This will be a big, wrong development,” Schmidt said in remarks translated by the Anatolia news agency.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Asian Gang Raped Girls as Young as 12 After Picking Them Up on The Streets for Sex
An Asian gang of ‘sexual predators’ cruised city streets for girls as young as 12 — usually white — who were then plied with drink and drugs and raped or abused.
Up to 100 ‘vulnerable’ girls may have been groomed or abused or supplied cocaine by married fathers Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat, and their seven friends.
A court heard the pair used Liaqat’s BMW saloon to trawl for victims, pulling up alongside girls outside shops, schools or on housing estates.
After ‘chatting up’ the girls and obtaining their mobile numbers, they offered rides in the car and embarked on a ‘campaign of calls and texts’ to groom the girls.
Many of the victims initially considered the men as boyfriends. But instead of being wined and dined, Saddique, 27, and Liaqat, 28, plied them with vodka and cocaine before taking them to ‘parties’ in hotels or flats with other gang members to rape or degrade them.
News of the case comes little more than a fortnight after an Asian sex gang operating 45 miles away from Derby in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, were jailed for abusing white girls as young as 12. A similar gang from Rochdale, Lancashire, who turned a white private schoolgirl into their sex slave were jailed in August.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Convicts ‘Must Get the Vote’
EUROPEAN judges last night ordered Britain to change the law to allow prisoners the right to vote.
They gave the Government just six months to comply.
The European Court of Human Rights said the UK’s failure to end its total ban had violated international law.
PM David Cameron has said the thought of giving prisoners the vote makes him “physically ill” but that the Government has no choice.
In the Commons, Labour’s Steve McCabe said the move was “simply unacceptable” and a concession to the Liberal Democrats.
But Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said giving prisoners the vote will help them prepare for life outside jail.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled against Britain’s blanket ban in 2004 and governments have since been considering how to comply.
Reports suggest prisoners with long sentences could still be excluded or judges could withhold the right to vote at the time of sentencing.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Derby Sex Gang Convicted of Grooming and Abusing Girls (1)
A gang of men has been convicted of systematically grooming and sexually abusing teenage girls in Derbyshire.
Many of the victims were given alcohol or drugs before being forced to have sex in cars, rented houses or hotels across the Midlands.
One girl described a sexual assault involving at least eight men.
The nine men were convicted during three separate trials at Leicester Crown Court, though reporting restrictions have been in place.
Tom Symonds has the background to the case.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Derby Rape Gang ‘Targeted Children’by Tom Symonds
It started, as many police investigations do, with a routine car check.
In Staffordshire, officers pulled over three men and were concerned to see two young teenagers with them. They had been reported missing from a care home in Derby.
It was not long before the newly created sexual exploitation unit at Derbyshire Police was alerted and Operation Retriever began.
What the officers uncovered now stands as one of the most serious cases of sexual abuse in recent times. After three separate trials, carried out in secret, nine men have been found guilty of offences ranging from rape to intimidating witnesses. Their victims totalled 27 teenage girls.
‘Under the radar’
Two of the men in the car were Abid Saddique and and Mohammed Liaqat. Both had families and, it became apparent, both had secret lives.
They were released but put under surveillance. Council CCTV camera footage given to the BBC shows their silver BMW driving around Derby after midnight looking for teenage girls.
Spotting a pair by the side of the road, they made repeated attempts to entice the girls into their car. Police later found bottles of vodka and plastic cups hidden under the seats so victims could be offered a drink.
Officers had been monitoring the live cameras, ready to step in if any girl got into the car.
On 24 April 2009 the surveillance abruptly ended when two tearful teenagers stumbled out of a Derby flat police were watching and called 999. They claimed they had been raped. The officers had not known they were there.
In statements the girls not only made forceful accusations against Siddique and Liaqat but also named other girls the pair had abused.
That became the pattern. Each victim led to more victims. Eventually police had a list of 27 teenage girls and they arrested 13 men, aged between 26 and 38.
Det Supt Debbie Platt, who led the police investigation, said: “I was personally shocked at the scale of the abuse we uncovered. It hadn’t been reported and it was happening under the radar.
“It was like a campaign of rape against children. When you see the impact these offences have had on them it is awful.”
The girls had been carefully groomed by their abusers. Typically they would meet them on the street, be invited out for a drive, a drink, a cigarette or drugs. They would be driven to a secluded area, a park, or one of the rented houses the men lived in, and forced to have sex.
Sometimes five or six men would be involved and they would video the attacks on mobile phones. The rapes were often violent, some girls were locked up to prevent them getting away. Others were thrown out of the car when their ordeal was over.
Searching one of the flats, officers found extensive forensic evidence that the rapes had taken place.
Internally trafficked
One 16-year-old victim described the grooming in a BBC interview: “There’s part of you that thinks I’ve met this lovely nice man and he’s taken me out for a lovely nice meal and there’s part of you that looks at these men like a father figure, as weird as it sounds.”
One of the victims described her abusers as “low-life people” Police believe no money changed hands between the dozen or so men involved but the girls were driven around the Midlands to be raped in houses, hotels and B&Bs. It was a form of internal people trafficking now recognised to be a growing problem in the UK.
Another worrying aspect to this case is the way in which the two key offenders deliberately targeted children who seemed vulnerable.
The 16-year-old victim said they took advantage of “the fact that no-one does care”.
“I think they are low-life people,” she said. “They haven’t got any aspirations in life and I will never ever understand what has made them so evil and ignorant that still to this day they think they’ve not done anything wrong.”
One of the girls was in a care home, another with council foster parents and many were known to social services in the city.
There are now questions about why they were allowed out at night, sometimes going missing, and whether the various agencies worked well enough together to protect them.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Derby Sex Gang Convicted of Grooming and Abusing Girls (2)
A gang of men from Derby has been convicted of systematically grooming and sexually abusing teenage girls.
Many of the victims were given alcohol or drugs before being forced to have sex in cars, rented houses or hotels across the Midlands.
One girl described a sexual assault involving at least eight men.
The nine men were convicted during three separate trials, culminating in the convictions at Leicester Crown Court of the two ringleaders.
Reporting restrictions had been in place until the end of the third trial.
Twenty-seven girls came forward to say they had been victims, the youngest of whom was 12 and the oldest was 18. Convictions have been achieved for 15 of those.
Liaqat and Saddique were said to be the leaders of the gang Abid Mohammed Saddique, 27, and Mohammed Romaan Liaqat, 28 — both married with children — were said to be the leaders of the gang.
Saddique, of Northumberland Street, Normanton, Derby, was convicted of four counts of rape as well as two counts of false imprisonment, two of sexual assault, three charges of sexual activity with a child, perverting the course of justice, and aiding and abetting rape.
Liaqat, of Briar Lea Close, Sinfin, Derby, was found guilty of one count of rape, two of sexual assault, aiding and abetting rape, affray, and four counts of sexual activity with a child.
Both pleaded guilty to causing a person under the age of 18 to be involved in pornography.
They will be sentenced on 7 January.
‘Complex investigation’
Derbyshire Police said they believed no money changed hands between those involved, and said such instances of abuse were a growing problem in the UK.
Detectives said it had been the most horrendous case of sexual exploitation they had ever faced.
The undercover investigation by Derbyshire Police, Operation Retriever, was split into three trials which have run since February.
Speaking after the hearing, Det Insp Sean Dawson said: “These convictions have brought an end to a lengthy and complex investigation that has been brought to court thanks to the bravery of the victims in this case.
“These two men are predatory sex offenders who, with their associates, have systematically abused and raped teenage girls.
“We are shocked by the scale of abuse we have uncovered and the impact it has had on the girls who were the victims of these callous men.
“Child sex exploitation is something that parents and carers across the country should be aware of.
“Parents and carers should talk to their children, take an interest in what they are doing and warn them not to go off with strangers, no matter how tempting it might seem.”
Thirteen men were charged in relation to Operation Retriever and 11 stood trial for a string of charges, not all sexual, relating to the case.
Of the original 13, a total of nine have been convicted of offences against vulnerable girls ranging from rape to false imprisonment…
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Father Fury at ‘Untouchable’ Billionaire Playboy Suspect Who Fled to Yemen as Inquest Rules His Daughter Was Unlawfully Killed
The father of a murdered Norwegian student has hit out at the ‘untouchable’ billionaire fugitive who fled hours after her semi-naked body was discovered.
Martine Vik Magnussen, 23, was raped and murdered after a night out at a trendy club in Mayfair, central London.
Her father Petter, pleaded for prime suspect Farouk Abdulhak to return from his native Yemen to face justice.
Speaking outside the Wesminster Coroner’s Court, Mr Magnussen labelled the hearing ‘a room filled with brutality’.
He said:’This really shows the absurd situation that surrounds this case. We have a suspect that has fled to a country where he is untouchable.
‘But I appeal to the suspect here to put himself before the British authorities, to have his case tried, so my family and I can get on with our lives as best we can.’
Mr Magnussen added that he is ‘very satisfied’with the way his daughter’s murder has been handled by police and the “continued energy” they have to solve it.
The inquest heard Martine was last seen leaving the club with prime suspect Farouk Abdulhak.
The 23-year-old billionaire playboy remains in hiding in his native Yemen which refuses to extradite its citizens.
Forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Carey said the victim, who had been drinking and had taken cocaine, suffered multiple injuries.
He said abrasions found across her head, neck and face, as well as her body, were inflicted as she fought off her attacker.
In an emotional statement during the inquest, Miss Magnussen’s father, Odd Petter, appealed to Abdulhak to give himself up to end his family’s misery.
Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, Coroner Dr Paul Knapman said Miss Magnussen died from ‘compression to the neck’, which could mean she was strangled or smothered.
He said: ‘I fully understand the feelings of Mr Magnussen. This court has every sympathy in his frustration and grief.’
The inquest heard Miss Magnussen was last seen leaving the Maddox nightclub with Abdulhak, where she had been celebrating end of term exams, on Friday March 14 2008, at 3.20am.
Her body was found at about 10.20am on Sunday morning when officers smashed down a padlocked door in the Great Portland Street block of flats where Abdulhak lived.
The inquest heard their suspicions were aroused when officers found an item of clothing she had been wearing in his flat.
Pc James Tauber, who knocked the basement door down, said he found her body after spotting an arm sticking out of a pile of building rubble.
Dr Carey, who conducted the post-mortem examination, said there were at least 43 cuts and grazes to several areas of the victim’s body, including 10 to her face and neck.
Detective Inspector Richard Ambrose told the inquest Miss Magnussen and Abdulhak had been friends for up to eight months and she sometimes stayed at his flat.
Mr Ambrose said: ‘It would appear that Mr Abdulhak had fled the country within 14 hours of Martine going missing. We traced that he had been to Egypt and subsequently Yemen.’
He added: ‘But the upshot is, whether Abdulhak returns or not is purely his choice at the moment and he chooses not to.’
Earlier, the inquest heard Miss Magnussen was from a ‘close and loving family’ and had an older brother and younger sister.
Coroner’s officer Lynda Morris said: ‘Martine was the more extrovert of the three. She had a great sense of humour and would always make people laugh. When meeting people she had the ability to put them at ease and make them feel special.’
Detective Chief Inspector Lee Presland, who is responsible for the murder inquiry, said Abdulhak remains the prime and only suspect.
In a statement, he said: ‘The murder of a young woman in the prime of her life, was a horrific act that has affected me deeply both as a police officer and a father.’
Abdulhak, whose father is billionaire businessman Shaher Abdulhak, founder of Shaher Trading, is believed to be in the remote village of Thaba Abous in southern Yemen.
The suspect is living in a large family holiday home and monitored around the clock by armed guards.
Miss Magnussen’s family are considering whether to bring a civil compensation case against the Abdulhak family for damages.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Juries Should Have Less Power, Senior Judge Demands
The right of jurors to decide who is telling the truth in criminal trials should be restricted, a senior judge declared yesterday.
Lord Justice Moses said trial judges should rule on matters of fact, and juries, instead of weighing all the evidence as at present, should simply be given a list of questions to answer.
The Appeal Court judge seemed to be calling for a ‘tick-box’ jury system as he told the Bar Council in a speech: ‘The factual issues should be debated in court by counsel, resolved by the judge and the issues in the form of questions written down before speeches to the jury.’
His call is likely to alarm supporters of the jury system, who fear that both politicians and judges are anxious to rein in jurors’ independence.
[Reader comments following the article provide interesting reading.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Men Charged After £5 Million Heroin Seizure
A FATHER and son from Birmingham have been charged with importing Class A drugs after heroin worth more than £5 million was seized by the UK Border Agency.
The estimated 80kg of heroin is the biggest detection of the Class A drug in the UK this year.
It was discovered at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk after being shipped to the UK from Asia in a single container listed as being filled with chilli powder. Gulab Mohammed, 50, and Khalid Mohammed, 28, of Hugh Road, Small Heath, appeared at Telford Magistrates’ Court on Monday and were remanded in custody to reappear at the same court next Tuesday. Three other men, also from Birmingham, were arrested and bailed until January 10.
None of them have been charged.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Fanatic is £2.6m Crack Dealer
A MUSLIM fanatic who sparked fury by dressing as a suicide bomber at a demo was jailed yesterday over a £2.6million drugs racket. Omar Khayam, 26, was sent down for 13 years for having heroin and crack cocaine.
In 2006 he horrified the nation by turning up at an extremist protest in a fake bomber’s vest and black headscarf.
But yesterday he was exposed as a hypocrite as drug dealing is expressly forbidden by Islam.
The teacher’s son was held days after cops stumbled across a massive narcotics factory in Bedford last December, Luton Crown Court heard.
Two officers who had gone to arrest a man for an unrelated offence spotted a suspicious powder on the floor.
A search later turned up 26 kilos of heroin, a third of a kilo of crack cocaine and nearly £125,000 in cash.
Mixing bags, scoops, scales, face masks and a hydraulic press were also seized.
Experts estimated the street value of the heroin alone to be worth £2.6million.
Police began a hunt for men seen arriving at the factory on CCTV and Khayam was arrested in a car in Milton Keynes in May this year.
He later admitted two charges of conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Sentencing him, Judge John Bevan QC said: “Dealing in heroin and cocaine is an odious and pernicious trade.”
It also emerged Khayam had previously served a 51/2 year sentence after being convicted in 2003 of conspiracy to supply a class A drug and possession of cocaine.
Abbas Lakha QC, for Khayam, claimed he had only become involved in the factory because of a drug debt he owed.
Mr Lakha added: “He was beholden to others and was not at the top end.”
Khayam infuriated families of 7/7 bombing victims in London with his sick stunt outside the Danish Embassy in 2006.
He was protesting against a Danish newspaper’s cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed.
At first he feigned remorse at the anger he had caused, but then vowed to wear the vest again at future demos.
Last night Khayam’s second drugs conviction heaped more shame upon his family because the Muslim holy book the Koran bans taking or dealing in drugs.
Judge Bevan described the fanatic’s involvement in the protests as “fantastically stupid”. He added: “I am told your history has been blighted by one stupid act outside the Danish Embassy and the publicity it received. It was entirely your fault.”
A second man, Mohammed Arfaan, 27, was jailed for six years.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nine Pensioners Died From Cold Every Hour Last Winter as Bill Prices Soar
Nine elderly people died every hour from cold-related illnesses last winter against a background of soaring energy bills.
Official figures show the number of deaths linked to cold over the four-month period reached 25,400 in England and Wales, plus 2,760 in Scotland.
Charities and energy company critics claim the UK has the highest winter death rate in northern Europe, even worse than much colder countries such as Finland and Sweden.
There are fears the toll could rise this year following a recent barrage of price rises that may frighten elderly people into not turning on their heating.
While the UK death rate is high, the total was down by around 30 per cent compared with 2008/9 because there were fewer flu outbreaks, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Dot Gibson, of the National Pensioners Convention, said: ‘Since 1997 we have lost more than 300,000 pensioners during the winter months because of cold-related illnesses, yet the Government seems incapable of acting. No other section of our society is so vulnerable and treated so badly.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Philip Lawrence’s Killer Held Over Alleged Robbery
The killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence has been arrested for an alleged robbery — just four months after leaving prison for the school gate murder.
Learco Chindamo was freed in July, 15 years after the killing, and was allowed to remain in Britain.
Scotland Yard said: “We can confirm that a 30-year-old man was arrested this morning on suspicion of robbery. The man was arrested at 5.55 at an address in Catford, SE6, and is currently being held in custody at a central London police station.”
Lawrence’s widow, Frances, told the Daily Telegraph that the news was “very, very distressing on many levels”.
Chindamo was jailed indefinitely for the murder outside St George’s Roman Catholic school in Maida Vale, west London, in 1995.
The 48-year-old father of four was killed after going to help a pupil who was being attacked by a gang.
Among the attackers was Chindamo, then 15 years old, who went on to brag about the killing hours later.
He was convicted of the murder in October 1996, jailed indefinitely and ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years.
A judge ruled that he could not be deported to Italy, where he was born, because it would breach his human rights as he had spent most of his life in Britain.
Chindamo was known to have moved to a secure probation hostel in London in July after a decision to release him on parole.
Sources said he was freed from Hollesley Bay open prison in Suffolk after his probation arrangements were completed.
The Telegraph said Chindamo, who had spoken of wishing to atone for the killing, was expected to be recalled to prison for the potential breach of his licence.
Frances Lawrence told the newspaper it felt as though the British legal system had given Chindamo “every help” while she and her family had been “hung out to dry”.
She said of hearing about the news: “My first thought was ‘My God’. I feel shocked. I find it odd that he is arrested so soon after the ‘atonement’. What does it say about the justice system and the notion of what is justice?
“True justice surely cannot pick and choose who it supports. In this case it appears Mr Chindamo is being given every help, while my family is being hung out to dry.”
She said she had been kept in the dark about where Chindamo was living after he was freed.
“The last few months have been the worst time for me since Philip died and the lack of communication with so many people.”
The newspaper said Chindamo was alleged to have robbed a man of his wallet and mobile phone, and that it was understood the victim was threatened with violence.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Student Martine Vik Magnussen Unlawfully Killed
A Norwegian student whose semi-naked body was found buried under a pile of rubble in central London was unlawfully killed, an inquest has ruled.
Martine Vik Magnussen, 23, was murdered after a night out in Mayfair in 2008.
The inquest at Westminster Coroners Court heard she had been strangled and had tried to fight off her attacker.
The court heard she was last seen leaving a nightclub with prime suspect Farouk Abdulhak, who remains in hiding in his native Yemen.
Yemen refuses to extradite its citizens, so the 23-year-old billionaire can only face justice if he gives himself up.
‘Filled with brutality’
Forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Carey said the victim, who had been drinking and had taken cocaine, had suffered multiple injuries.
He said abrasions found across her head, neck and face, as well as her body, had been inflicted as she fought off an attacker.
Speaking outside the inquest, her father Odd Petter labelled the hearing “a room filled with brutality”.
He said: “We all think that this sort of cross-border crime has to be resolved politically in the long term. I sincerely hope it will.
“But I appeal to the suspect here to put himself before the British authorities, to have his case tried, so my family and I can get on with our lives as best we can.”
Miss Magnussen was last seen leaving the Maddox nightclub with Mr Abdulhak, where she had been celebrating end of term exams, on 14 March.
After her friends reported her missing, officers broke down a padlocked door in the Great Portland Street block of flats where Mr Abdulhak lived.
The inquest heard their suspicions were aroused when officers found an item of clothing she had been wearing in his flat.
Pc James Tauber, who knocked the basement door down, said he had found her body after spotting an arm sticking out of a pile of building rubble.
Det Insp Richard Ambrose told the court Mr Abdulhak had fled the country within 14 hours of Miss Magnussen going missing.
Mr Abdulhak, whose father is billionaire businessman Shaher Abdulhak, founder of Shaher Trading, is believed to be in the remote village of Thaba Abous in southern Yemen.
Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, coroner Dr Paul Knapman said Miss Magnussen had died from “compression to the neck”, which could mean she had been strangled or smothered.
Miss Magnussen’s family are considering whether to bring a civil compensation case against the Abdulhak family for damages.
| — Hat tip: GB | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Wanted by USA, Living in Peace in Mitrovica
(ANSAmed) — PRISTINA, NOVEMBER 24 — Kosovo’s Asllan Bajrami (age 30) is wanted by the FBI of the USA which accused him of collusion with terrorism, but the man is living in peace and in full view in the northern area of Kosovska Mitrovica, the divided city of northern Kosovo.
The USA and Kosovo still have no extradition treaty, so the fact that Bajrami is wanted by the FBI is not a major problem for a man that lives on a monthly State unemployment cheque worth 75 euros and has a wife and three children.
In September 2009 a Serb tribunal sentenced Asllan Bajrami in absentia to eight years in prison after being charged with selling weapons to Islamic terrorists. According to the prosecution, the man was preparing to purchase land in Kosovo to set up a base for the training of Islamic terrorists, with the purpose of carrying out attacks abroad. There was also mention of a planned attack against a US Marines base in Quantico, Virginia, and potential terrorist attacks in Kosovo, Jordan and the West Bank.
Asllani Bajrami was arrested in June by forces working for Eulex, the European mission in Kosovo, but was recently released for the lack of convincing evidence against his person by the USA, and by the lack of an extradition treaty between Pristina and Washington.
Asllani Bajrami continues to deny all charges, stating that he is a victim of the secret services. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia Better Off Outside the EU
By James Bissett
One of the participants at the conference Serbia: The Strategy for Survival, jointly organized by Geopolitika magazine and The Lord Byron Foundation in Belgrade on November 5, was the LBF Chairman, James Bissett. On his return to Ottawa he presented his impressions in an interview to CKCU FM’s Monday’s Encounter radio program.
ON THE SURFACE, if you are in the middle of Belgrade, on Knez Mihajlova Street, people seem to be busy or enjoying themselves in the coffee houses. They are quite well dressed and you would get the impression that everything is fine. But after you’ve been there for or a while — and I’ve spoken to a number of people who are in a position who know what is going on — you realize that this is not so. There is high unemployment; there is a lot of corruption, the mafia still running things. There is lot of uncertainty and instability. People are struggling just to make ends meet. But the spirit, on surface, is that of the old Belgrade I know. They live in uncertain times, and that they realize it. Some polls seem to suggest that a majority of people in Belgrade support the Tadiæ government and feel if they join the EU that all of their troubles will be over. They put lot of trust in the notion that by joining the EU they would be considered part of ‘Europe’ and the past would be forgotten. Joining the EU is looked upon as the panacea for all their past and current problems.
Does Serbia need the EU?
I do not think it does. Germany and other countries will still invest in Serbia whether it is part of the EU or not. If you are a businessman and if you can make money by investing you do it. The EU and Brussels would like to dominate every aspect of life in Serbia, and they will do so if Serbia joins the EU. If Serbia stays out, then private businessmen from Western Europe, from Asia and other places, will invest in Serbia and do so without the entire encumbrance of layers of bureaucracy and regulation that will be imposed upon them if Serbia becomes a member of the Union. EU membership also means inspections to be done from Brussels. Businesses will be closed if they do not meet the exact regulatory procedures and machinery will have to be replaced. Serbia will be expected to join NATO, and the first thing they will be required to do is to buy American made military equipment to meet American military standards.
Are the people of Serbia aware of what the membership would bring to the country?…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Christians Protest Over Church Construction
CAIRO (Reuters) — More than 200 Orthodox Coptic Christian hurled stones at police in a protest over what they said was the refusal of the authorities to let them finish building a new church, witnesses and security sources said.
A security source said some 13 protesters were detained in scuffles in the Giza area of Cairo. Security and medical sources said several police and protesters were injured in the protest.
Police fired tear gas to break up the demonstration.
A security official and a medical source said one person was killed but did not confirm if it was a protester or an officer.
Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 79 million population and often grumble about unfair treatment in the Muslim-majority country.
Church permits are often a source of tension, as Christians say they are not given the same freedom to build places of worship as Muslims.
The Coptic protestors blocked the road near the governor’s office in the area. The church under construction is in Giza.
Egyptian newspapers said the authorities had sought to stop work on the church because it did not have a permit.
Christians said they did have permission and were continuing to work without machinery, which was being blocked from entering the site, the reports said.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Islamists Lay Siege to Coptic Church Near Pyramids
The Egyptian Union of Human Rights calls for local government chief to be dismissed for fuelling interreligious tensions. Police forces surround church under construction, seizing four concrete mixing vehicles. Thousands of Copts surround the building to protect it.
Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Copts and Egyptian security forces clashed on Sunday outside the Saints Mary and Michael Church in Talbiya, near the Pyramids, Giza. Police want to stop the church construction, which is in its final stage. This is the second time in ten days that security forces try to enter the religious compound, which is under 24-7 protection by priests and worshippers. The siege began at midnight, and lasted six hours. As of 9 pm, the church was full of worshippers praying, aware that security would try to move in.
Security forces surrounded the church compound and seized four concrete mixing vehicles on their way to the site. The concrete was spoiled.
At the same time, some 2,000 Copts joined those already in the church. Demonstrations and sit-ins took place in front of police.
Christian religious authorities said that the church would continue to be protected until the matter is not settled.
Naguib Ghobrial, president of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights, issued a statement calling for the dismissal of the head of the local government in Omraniya who ordered the security forces in.
“The Church has all the permits,” he said. “By this behaviour, the chief of the local authority is encouraging Islamists to fight with Christians because of the Church. This encourages sedition.”
Protestors are adamant that they have all necessary construction permits. They slam the decision of the head of the local government in Omraniya to stop work on the church, which is nearly complete except for the domes.
Samira Ibrahim Shehata, a volunteer worker at the church, who has been on guard at the Church premises since 11 November, said, “I want to know why a hundred mosques can be built, and not one church”.
About a million Copts live in the Talbiya area, but they have no church. Worshippers who want to attend religious services must travel back and forth for several kilometres.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Kariouan: Over 60 Stabbings on Day of Eid
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, NOVEMBER 22 — On the day of Eid, knives were not used only for the traditional slaughter of rams, but also in a series of bloody attacks in areas surrounding the central Tunisian holy city of Kairouan. This is according to the French language weekly Tunis Ebdo, which reports that over 60 people were treated for stab wounds in the accident emergency unit at Kairouan’s hospital on November 16.
The newspaper says that the incidents were the result of bad blood often caused by heavy alcohol consumption. Although Islam forbids it, there is a growing number of alcohol consumers in the country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladeshi Man Lashed 100 Times for Having Sex With Filipina Maid in the UAE
The pair — a Filipina maid and her Bangladeshi boyfriend — were also ordered to be deported after the harsh punishment meted out just 20 miles from Dubai in Sharjah.
Police arrested the couple after a house owner reported how she saw the man, only identified as S.M., leave the home.
Both the maid — identified in court documents as N.M. — and her lover then admitted to unlawful sex and were handed the harsh punishment because they are both Muslims.
They admitted to having sex several times at the house owned by the maid’s sponsor, the employer who previously backed her to stay in the country.
The man is believed to have already undergone his punishment, sustaining horrendous welts on his back and legs.
But the man’s ordeal may not yet be over — it was reported that the man may face a year in prison for illegally entering the sponsor’s home.
According to Sharia law if Muslims commit adultery they will be lashed and deported if they are expatriates, but non-Muslims will only be jailed and deported.
The case is reminiscent of that of two British people deported for having sex on a Dubai beach in 2008.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Gulf: Japanese Oil Tanker Explosion Was an Attack
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, NOVEMBER 22 — The explosion in the strait of Hormuz of a Japanese oil tanker on July 28 was the result of an attack. This is according to a statement by the US Ministry of Transport, which has been quoted by the Khaleej Times, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates.
The blast on the M-Star left one sailor injured, but caused no significant damage to either cargo or sea traffic in the area, which is a transit point for 40% of the world’s crude oil.
Responsibility for the attack had been claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade, a group linked to Al Qaeda.
American authorities have said that the claim of responsibility is “valid”, and have warned that the group is still active in the region and could strike again. However, political analysts have pointed out that the group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks carried out by other groups.
A number of explanations were put forward in the aftermath of the incident, from the impact of an unusually large wave to a collision with a submarine or a terrorist attack. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Christian Pastor Charged With Apostasy
The Assize Court of the province of Gilan, in Iran, has officially charged Pastor Youcef Nardarkhani with denying that Mohammed was a prophet. The court stated that this resulted in apostasy because Nardarkhani believes in Jesus and has shared his faith with others, according to The Voice of the Martyrs.
The indictment, which was issued by a public prosecutor in the presence of a jury, stated, “He has frequently denied the prophet hood of the great prophet of Islam and the rule of the sacred religion of Islam. … He has proven his apostasy by organizing evangelistic meetings and inviting others to Christianity, establishing a house church, baptizing people, expressing his faith to others and denying Islamic values.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: ‘Christians Being Targeted by Plots Hatched Abroad’
Baghdad, 23 Nov. (AKI) — Iraq’s Christians are being targeted by plots hatched outside Iraq and Al-Qaeda is infiltrating the country thanks to neighbouring states, according to the head of the Baghdad governorate’s human rights commission. Shanain Gaeed al-Makassees was speaking to Adnkronos International (AKI) after a series of recent attacks against Christians in the Iraqi capital, including that on a church which killed 58 people including two priests.
“Unfortunately, our Christian brothers have lately been the victims of plots organised abroad and executed by Al-Qaeda terrorists,” said al-Makassees.
He was in Rome for meetings with the Italian Senate upper house of parliament’s human rights commission, and human rights bodies in the surrounding Lazio region and province of Rome.
The initative was organised by the non-governmental organisation ‘A bridge for human rights in Iraq and for the protection of prisoners and torture victims’
Al-Makassees said a member of Iraq’s police force had recently told the human rights commission there were countries bordering Iraq which fund Al-Qaeda and which help its terrorists enter the country.
“Many” of the terrorists who carried out the 31 October attack against the Baghdad’s Christian cathedral were foreign miiltants, and victims had included security forces deployed to defend the Christian worshippers, as well as Christians attending church, he noted.
“We citizens of Baghdad, are used to living in peace and harmony with Iraqi Christians, because we have always done so,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Jocelyne Saab: Lebanon Needs Freedom of Imagination
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 19 — She chose a difficult film for her appearance at the MedFilm festival and she knows it. But Jocelyne Saab is also aware of the fact that she is in a position to take this kind of liberty, seeing that her frenetic activity as a director, photographer and journalist has secured her the Career Prize of the film review which is dedicated this year to her country as well as to Spain.
Her career began as a war correspondent, taking her to Paris and to Egypt, to Iran, Kurdistan and to Vietnam. Jocelyne Saab has shot more than twenty documentaries that have been broadcast worldwide by French, Italian and European networks, by NBC in the USA and by NHK in Japan. In Egypt she faced down the anger of traditionalists and fundamentalists by shooting her scandal-provoking film Dunia (2005), the story of a young women in search of herself and her freedom in a country where female circumcision is still a widespread practice: the film brought her, among other awards, that of the Jury’s Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
These days Jocelyne Saab’s impish figure has been putting in appearances at the Festival, small in build, a dark page-boy cut and lively expression that belie her 63 years. “Yes,” she said to ANSAmed following the lukewarm reception that greeted her film “What’s Going On”, “I know that this is a difficult film for the public. But it is a film about freedom of the imagination, which has ceased to exist in Lebanon, despite appearances”. Many years of war, she says, have deprived this country of its freedom to use its imagination. And she wanted to make this “surreal” work, she explains, because for Lebanon “the time has come for change”, and surrealism has been the hallmark of her era. It has been “a great shift” she explains.
In her “very political” film, which nonetheless at times makes references to Antonioni and to Pasolini, there are books, she says, which contain this freedom to imagine, but which are also ransomed by some of those areas of Beirut that have become symbols of death. There are women, “who seem to be free but who still have a long way to go, especially in their dealings with men,” there is “the hunger for nature” and “for beauty” in a cement-grey urban environment as well as for “memory,” in a country whose people “feel the fear of war each day but prefer not to talk about it”. And Lebanon also has a need to break its stereotyped mould as the Switzerland of the Middle East on the one hand, and as a war-torn country on the other. For this reason too, the books and the poetry, the true stars of the film, have such a central role for Saab.
In grounding its decision to award the Career Prize, the jury stated that “Such surreal and magical works,” are signs of an ongoing search for new viewpoints in Jocelyne Saab’s investigation of her society and are therefore “also equally true and real”.
On the other hand the Lebanese author has always tackled reality face on, if not impacted with it. As when, as she tells us, in Egypt during the filming of “Dunia” and “I suffered feeling so much violence aimed in my direction”, with the hostility and condemnation for having brought the practice of female circumcision into question. These acts of mutilation “are a crime against their integrity” not just in a physical sense, but also psychological as a person, and only after the film was the practice proclaimed to be extraneous to the principles of Islam by the highest Sunni authorities. “But that film was above all the story of a woman who grabbed hold of her right to decided for herself, just like the heroine of a Greek tragedy”. It is a conquest that is no mean feat to keep up, also in light of the fact that the leading actress later decided to wear the Muslim veil.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Statement of Support for Lebanon Shows His Lack of Support for Lebanon
By Barry Rubin
Even when you say the right thing it can only highlight the fact that you haven’t been doing it. Take President Barack Obama’s statement on Lebanon. The wording is all correct, yet it only makes the fact that this has nothing to do with actual U.S. policy stand out even more vividly.
Thus, when Obama said that he is committed to keeping Lebanon free of “terrorism,” the fact is that-in part due to weak U.S. policy-the country is largely under the control of Hizballah, a terrorist group. Right now, Hizballah doesn’t have to make many terrorist attacks since it has already used terrorism successfully to gain veto power over state policy.
Obama’s statement was timed for Lebanon’s Independence Day, but that is only all the more ironic because Lebanon has once again lost its independence to Iranian and Syrian control. The message was also prompted by growing tension over the special tribunal investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
Pretty much everyone in Lebanon knows the Syrians killed Hariri and it seems increasingly demonstrated by the tribunal investigation that Hizballah was involved. But what a hollow joke it is to speak of this when the Syrians and Hizballah hold such overwhelming power as to intimidate anyone else in Lebanon from doing anything about it.
Probably, even if the tribunal issued a report saying that Syria and Hizballah were guilty, Hariri’s own son-Said, leader of the Sunni Muslims and the Sunni-Christian moderate alliance-would denounce it as false. That’s tragic and one major reason why he would have to defend his own father’s murderers is that he knows he cannot rely on the United States.
“I am committed to doing everything I can,” said Obama, “to support Lebanon and ensure it remains free from foreign interference, terrorism, and war.”
—Why, then, has not the U.S. government broken off its engagement with Syria-which has been leading nowhere-to protest Syria’s growing interference in Lebanon (not to mention involvement in killing American soldiers in Iraq and other misdeeds)?
—Why doesn’t he mention the U.S. pledges in 2006 to support a strong UN force capable of keeping Hizballah out of the south, stopping arms smuggling, and even helping the Lebanese government disarm that militia? Obama has not lifted a finger to get tough on these issues. He has stood by and watched while the UN force has been intimidated into passivity by Hizballah. In a real sense, Hizballah took on the entire world, supposedly under U.S. leadership, and won total victory.
— Syria and Iran have given their side lavish financial and military support. They have helped commit acts of violence to intimidate those favoring a sovereign and independent Lebanon. Where is the U.S. counter-effort, including covert operations and behind-the-scenes funding? The Saudis-not Obama—tried their best to fight the radical Islamist axis without help from Obama.
And so, Obama has not done “everything I can,” he has done almost nothing at all. The moderates tremble and the radicals rejoice at this fact. Is there anyone in Lebanon, or even the Middle East, who doesn’t know this?
And then there’s this statement which in theory sounds good but is actually a disaster:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Shoeless Queen Dons ‘Beekeeper’ Hat as She Visits Abu Dhabi Mosque
No sooner had the Queen and Prince Philip stepped off their chartered British Airways flight from London than they were taken straight to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the country’s largest.
The floor of its main prayer hall is covered in a 35-ton carpet which took 1,200 Iranian women two years to stitch by hand.
In keeping with tradition, the Queen removed her shoes before entering and padded in in stockinged feet.
While other female members of the party wore a traditional ‘abaya’ or full-length cloak over their clothes and a ‘sheela’ or scarf, the Queen wore a gold brocade coat embroidered with Swarovski crystals over her matching dress, both designed by her dresser, Angela Kelly.
She tied a gold lame shawl over her pill box hat to cover her hair.
Not only was the Queen the first visiting head of state to visit the mosque but it is seen as hugely symbolic here that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England should visit a place that, despite its young age, is a national shrine.
Before entering the main chamber, the Queen paid her respects at the tomb of Sheikh Zayed, founding father of the United Arab Emirates.
This visit, her first in 31 years, is designed to underline a renewed spirit of co-operation between the UAE and Britain’s Coalition Government. The Queen will be accompanied throughout by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague.
In an unusual departure from convention, the royal couple are also being accompanied by the Duke of York in his capacity as a trade ambassador for Britain.
Arriving in Abu Dhabi last night, Prince Andrew gave his first — very warm — public thoughts on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.
‘I think this is the most wonderful piece of news that the UK has had for a long time… I’m aware that the United Kingdom has taken Kate to their heart, I think that’s absolutely wonderful news,’ said the Duke, who also married in Westminster Abbey, to Sarah Ferguson in 1986.
‘I think a spring wedding will be absolutely fantastic. I understand it’s going to take place over a bank holiday weekend so it’s another excuse for a good party and I think it’s wonderful news — it’s absolutely great.’
Commenting on the importance of the Queen’s trip, which will also include a two-day state visit to neighbouring Oman, Andrew said: ‘I think you have to look back to the fact this is a long standing relationship between the UAE and the United Kingdom which reaches back over 40 years when the UAE was a protectorate.
‘A lot of work has gone on in the intervening period. Since the new Government came in there’s been an increased level of concern for this particular region in terms of investment, in terms of business opportunities.
‘This has been reciprocated by the UAE and other countries in the region.
‘The Queen’s visit here is extremely important not only for the relationship between the UK and UAE…but also for the wider region.’
| — Hat tip: A. Millar | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: French Cooperation Financing Projects Worth 20.4 Mln
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 22 — The French Agency for Cooperation has announced a 20.4 million euro plan to co-finance a number of urban development projects launched in Syria by the European Union. The move aims to improve urban infrastructure and the quality of life in Syrian cities. 20 million in funds will come at a favourable rate, while the remaining 400,000 will be donated, says the Italian embassy in Damascus in a newsletter. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: Bomb Attack Strikes Shia Religious Procession
(AKI) — A car bomb attack targeting a Shia religious procession in north Yemen killed at least 15 people on Wednesday in an area known for the presence of Shite rebels.
Shites were celebrating Al-Ghadeer, the day on which they commemorate the anointment of Ali, one of the key figures of their faith, as successor to the Prophet Mohammed.
Fifteen people were killed and 30 others wounded in the car bombing that targeted a Shia procession in Al-Jawf province,” rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a news report
The celebration is a source of contention between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.
Arab-language Al-Jazeera reported that the attack was a suicide bombing.
The son of rebel leader Abdullah Bin Abdan may have been among the victims of the attack, Al-Jazeera reported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghans Can Draw on Pre-Islamic Past to Solve Identity Crisis
The recent discovery of a 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery highlights a rich and complex hidden history
“Thirsty when the water jug is full” is a popular proverb that Afghans use to describe the state of their country. The truth of this saying has once again been confirmed with the recent discovery of an impressive 5th century Buddhist monastery to the north of Kabul.
Judging by geological surveys and historical accounts, the monastery and the copper mine that lies underneath it are only a small part of the natural and cultural abundance that lies buried underneath the ground. It is almost as if there are two Afghanistans, a monochrome — poor — one above, and a colorful — rich — one below.
Afghans have long suspected that the cultural poverty and material scarcity they suffer from is unnecessary. But although the discovery of monastery and the copper mine below it confirms their suspicion, in the current climate of greed and corruption, the exploits of both treasures are likely to be looted rather than shared.
Aside from the probability of looting, the monastery is facing an additional threat. The Chinese company exploiting the mine is urging archaeologists to speed up the excavation even at the risk of leaving behind an unfinished job.
Afghans are now left with the dilemma of choosing between economic growth and cultural heritage, as having both appears to be a luxury they cannot afford. But economic growth has always come at a price to Afghans. If today it comes at the cost of history, a century earlier it came with the threat of a foreign invasion. That is why Afghan rulers of the late 19th and early 20th decided against building railways in spite of the trains’ multiple economic advantages. Trains would have improved trade, connecting Afghanistan to the wider world. But at the same time they could have been used for transporting British or Russian troops, facilitating a military invasion.
Needless to say, the fear of invasion prevailed over the advantages of progress, with Afghanistan remaining isolated but independent. A century later, economic consideration is likely to overshadow historical heritage, jeopardising the survival of the Buddhist site.
The moral high ground appears to be with those who choose economic growth over cultural heritage. After all, the people who are alive now should be given priority over the dead objects of the past, no matter how precious. This argument sounds convincing but the truth is more complex. In reality, archaeological surveys can play a crucial role in a nation’s destiny. In Afghanistan, for example, the lack of a comprehensive archaeological survey has meant that unlike Iran, Egypt or Lebanon, Afghans were not able to formulate a secular identity based on a pre-Islamic past.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
British MP Urges Loan Write-Offs for Pakistan
A British politician and the first-ever Muslim member of parliament Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar has urged the international financial institutions to write-off all debts against Pakistan as the country was facing the aftereffects of the recent devastating floods. Sarwar, who is also the chairman of Pakistan International Foundation (PIF), was addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday. Supporting his campaign against foreign debts, he said that he had started a movement in collaboration with other overseas Pakistanis to urge European countries, including his own country, England, to write-off Pakistan’s loans. Sarwar said that Pakistan was facing several problems in the rehabilitation of the flood-affected people, and it was the time for the international financial institutions to keep in view the flood situation in the country and write-off all loans without any further delay, as it was the only option for the people to survive. He said that his foundation had played an effective role in the rehabilitation of the flood-hit people and provided free medicines worth five million pounds. staff report
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Burns Victims Find Help Amid Afghan Misery
[…]
In Afghanistan, Herat has a reputation for self-immolation, a regional trend, according to doctors, picked up by Afghan refugees in Iran. It may be an unfair label but the figures speak for themselves. In the next largest city there are six beds for burns victims; in Herat it’s 54, and they often have so many patients they are forced to double up.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Global Warming Fraudsters Exposed in Media Lies on Pakistan Monsoon
Leading monsoon expert proves global warming media doomsayers lied to the public on the severity of this year’s floods in Pakistan.
Madhav Khandekar was an expert reviewer for the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 Report. In his latest study he proves Pakistan did not suffer “unprecedented” monsoon floods this year. Rains were only 5% above average.
Madhav, who is presently studying monsoon inter-annual variability in the context of global warming and climate change issues, proves conclusively that the India/Pakistan subcontinent has had similar or worse monsoon floods at least SIX TIMES in the last 150 yrs.
But even more significant, the records show no human impact whatsoever on the subcontinent’s highly changeable climate. New Study Acclaimed as ‘Excellent’
Dr. Khandekar, an expert in weather and climate science for over 53 years, sets the record straight in a new study, ‘2010 Pakistan floods: climate change or natural variability?’ World leading climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr. reviewed this latest research and described it as “excellent.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesian Cleric Jailed for Marrying 12-Year-Old
SEMARANG, Indonesia — An Indonesian Muslim cleric who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.
Judges at the Semarang District Court said Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, 46, was found guilty of sexually abusing a minor.
The cleric, who also ran an Islamic boarding school and owned several businesses, hosted a lavish wedding in Central Java province in 2008 that was attended by thousands of people.
He claimed at the time he hadn’t done anything wrong because he had no plans to consummate the marriage until the girl reached puberty.
But few in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million were mollified, especially when he went on to say he also intended to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9.
Muslim men can have up to four wives in Indonesia but they must be older than 18.
Complaints came from the religious affairs minister, child rights groups and the Indonesia Ulemma Council — the country’s top Islamic body.
In addition to sentencing Widianto to prison, presiding Judge Hari Mulyanto ordered him to pay a 60 million rupiah ($6,690) fine.
Widianto, who said he would appeal, has been in detention since early last year.
Police returned his young wife to her parents soon after the wedding.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Asia Bibi Report to Zardari, But Islamist Parties Threaten Minister Bhatti
Islamist parties are turning the Bibi case in a weapon against the government. Reports that she has already been released have been denied. Minorities Affairs minister is convinced that a pardon will be granted shortly. Bhatti says that extremists have threatened him.
Lahore (AsiaNews) — Pakistan’s religious parties have come down heavily against the government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). They are also critical of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer for his “unIslamic” attempts to obtain a pardon and exile for Asia Bibi in the United States. They have called for his immediate removal from office and punishment. Various Islamic organisations have held demonstrations and rallies against the government and the country’s “secular” lobby, accusing Mr Taseer of being part of an “international conspiracy” to change the blasphemy law.
At a meeting of the Jamaat e Islami, Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan said that the central government and Governor Taseer were trying to free the Christian woman and send her abroad in violation of Islamic laws and the law of the land in collusion with foreign powers rather than follow the law and file an appeal against her death sentence.
He condemned the campaign by Taseer and the country’s secular lobby for the release and exile of Ms Bibi. He said that this would prove to be the final nail in Zardari government’s coffin, as the country would foil every conspiracy to abolish the Blasphemy Law.
Another organisation, Aalmi Tanzim Ahle Sunnat (ATAS), staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club, condemning what they called a “conspiracy” to amend the blasphemy law and exile a blasphemy convict.
Here too Governor Taseer was harshly attacked. ATAS chief Pir Afzal Qadri and others rejected the argument that the blasphemy law was the work of General Zia-ul-Haq, claiming instead that it was created by the Prophet Muhammad, the caliphs and all those who came in the following centuries.
Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti is set to meet President Zardari today to hand him the Asia Bibi report. Bhatti denied rumours that she had already been released.
He said that the pardon should be granted very soon, adding that Asia Bibi would be at risk because extremists have threatened to kill her.
“There is a shared willingness to amend it [the blasphemy law] to avoid its distorted use against minorities,” he said. “We must build a consensus in favour of its abolition, but that is not easy to do politically.”
If Ms Bibi is freed, extremists have threatened Mr Bhatti as well. “I am not afraid of these threats,” he said. “I am ready to sacrifice everything for the justice that I believe in.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Taliban True Followers of Islamic Ideology: Pakistan Minister
The Taliban are “the true followers of Islamic ideology”, says a Pakistan minister who also believes that “America is the biggest terrorist of the world.” According to federal Minister for Tourism Maulana Attaur Rehman, “Ulema and Taliban are the true followers of Islamic ideology and America is the biggest terrorist of the world, which is creating hatred against them.”
Dawn quoted Rehman as saying at a public gathering in Allai area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Tuesday that terrorism could not be brought to an end until the US and the world gave equal rights and respect to the Muslims.
“It is a misconception that ulema and Taliban are against co-existence of people with different religions. In fact it is America which is against the interfaith harmony to maintain its hegemony on the world,” said Rehman.
The Pakistan Army has been battling heavily armed Taliban guerrillas in the mountainous Waziristan region. The well-entrenched rebels put up a stiff resistance against the advancing soldiers.
The country has faced a string of terror strikes and the Taliban has been blamed for the Dec 27, 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi.
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
UK-Based Taliban Spend Months Fighting NATO Forces in Afghanistan
British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.
A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he lived most of the time in east London, but came to Afghanistan for three months of the year for combat.
“I work as a minicab driver,” said the man, who has the rank of a mid-level Taliban commander. “I make good money there [in the UK], you know. But these people are my friends and my family and it’s my duty to come to fight the jihad with them.”
“There are many people like me in London,” he added. “We collect money for the jihad all year and come and fight if we can.”
His older brother, a senior cleric or mawlawi who also fought in Dhani-Ghorri, lives in London as well.
Intelligence officials have long suspected that British Muslims travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan each year to train with extremist groups.
Last year it was reported that RAF spy planes operating in Helmand in southern Afghanistan had detected strong Yorkshire and Birmingham accents on fighters using radios and telephones. They apparently spoke the main Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, but lapsed into English when they were lost for the right words. The threat was deemed sufficiently serious that spy planes have patrolled British skies in the hope of picking up the same voice signatures of the fighters after their return to the UK.
The dead body of an insurgent who had an Aston Villa tattoo has also been discovered in southern Afghanistan.
British military officials say there have been no recent reports of British Taliban in Helmand in southern Afghanistan and that the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters are Pakistanis. Not since John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was captured in late 2001, has the US admitted to having successfully captured an insurgent from a western country.
In the main US-run prison near Bagram airfield, there are just 50 “third country nationals” being held, a spokeswoman said.
“Most of these are Pakistani, with small numbers from other countries in the region,” she said.
According to a senior officer at the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s equivalent of MI5, foreign fighters tend to be Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis or from central Asia’s former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
‘No One Wants a Total Collapse’ of North Korea
The assault on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island by North Korean artillery this week was an act of war — and a reminder that the two countries are not yet at peace. North Korea is unstable, distracted by a transfer of power, and possibly nuclear-armed. However, editorialists at most German papers argue that world community prefers the status quo to a collapse of North Korea.
The sudden and unexpected shelling of a South Korean island in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday by North Korean artillery has done more than damage property and kill four people (two South Korean marines and two civilians). The most serious flare-up of violence since the end of Korean hostilities in 1953 has set Western teeth on edge and spurred a round of diplomatic head-scratching. What does North Korea want?
For years, a group of powerful nations has been talking with the communist government in Pyongyang to discourage it from building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal. (North Korea tested its first weapons in 2009, but it’s not clear how effective the warheads would be.) International talks are a game of cat-and-mouse, and if Pyongyang wants a negotiated solution, shelling a South Korean island this week was a bad idea. Pyongyang argues it was a response to southern naval maneuvers in disputed waters, but more is at stake than peace between the Koreas.
In mid-November, North Korea invited a group of nuclear scientists to visit a uranium-enrichment facility, as if to show off what the secretive nation could do. The official tour “confirmed longstanding suspicions that the country was seeking a second route to build atomic weapons,” the New York Times reported on Sunday. “(American officials) dismissed the North’s claim that it was simply trying to build nuclear power plants denied to them by the West.”
Breaking a Taboo
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, South Korea had to soft-pedal a statement by its defense minister, Kim Tae-young, who broached the taboo question of bringing American nuclear weapons back to South Korea. After the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire (but no formal armistice), Washington defended the south with tactical nuclear weapons. They were removed in 1991 as part of a wider vision of a “nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
“South Korea and the US have not discussed redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons,” a senior government official named Cheong Wa Dae said, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency. “The issue is not a subject of discussion.”
Complicating matters is that no one seems quite sure who’s making decisions in Pyongyang. Since ailing dictator Kim Jong-Il began publicly grooming his son Kim Jong-Un to succeed him, rumors have flourished that the military might be jostling for influence or that Jong-Un himself may have to prove his hold on power. German papers on Wednesday morning attempt an analysis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea, China’s Hidden Dagger
Communist China is central to all North Korean issues, from human rights to weapons proliferation.
The Korean War ended in a stalemate in 1953. Having begun on June 25, 1950, with the blessings of Joseph Stalin, an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953, left the peninsula divided between the Republic of South Korea and the Peoples Republic of North Korea. How long ago was that? Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected largely on the promise to go there and secure an end to the conflict.
By the time it was over the Red Chinese had intervened and American casualties were around 54,000 with 103,000 wounded. The North Koreans and Chinese were estimated to have lost ten times that number. The war was immensely unpopular with an American public that was still recovering from World War Two that had ended in 1945.
[…]
Whatever North Korea does is sanctioned by China. This fact has been largely shielded by U.S. policy from the American public. North Korea is known in diplomatic circles as “China’s hidden dagger.” The phrase is taken from an ancient Chinese military text called “36 Srategems.” It means the covert use of another country to annihilate your enemy. North Korea threatens South Korea and Japan, and by extension the U.S. which is committed to come to its defense.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Srdja Trifkovic: Time to Leave Korea
North Korea’s artillery attack on a South Korean island on Tuesday was the latest in a series of Pyongyang’s aggressive moves over the past year and a half. They started with ballistic missile tests in April of last year, soon followed by a nuclear test in May. Kim Jong Il, who may be mad, upped the ante last March with the sinking of a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, with the loss of 46 lives. Given his erratic ways and the hellish nature of his regime, America would be well advised to leave the Koreans, north and south, to sort out their differences well alone.
Contrary to the flawed and ignorant New York Times “analysis,” the artillery attack had nothing to do with North Korea feeling “under stress or threatened” by the international sanctions, or “frustrated” with the U.S. negotiating position on its nuclear enrichment program. If this were true, all that is needed is a signal from the White House that America is ready for another round of talks and the tension will subside.
Even less was the barrage connected to alleged “recent moves by the ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to position his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as heir apparent.” The claim that the Beloved Leader is trying to ensure “that the Kim family dynasty continues for a third generation by winning the loyalty of the powerful military with shows of force” is laughable. The loyalty of North Korea’s officers does not need to be “won,” as any hint that it is anything but total means the death of the suspect. In any event, at the metaphysical level of North Korea’s brand of dialectics, the succession debate is superfluous: it is Kim Il Sung—the Great Leader, the Beloved Leader’s father—who is still in charge of the country, having been appointed “Eternal President” by the Supreme People’s Assembly in 1994, four years before his temporal death.
North Korea is acting aggressively because it is weak. Its economy—a surreal mix of Stalinist central planning and Maoist autarky—cannot feed its twenty-odd million people. (Two million are estimated to have died of starvation over the past decade and a half.) Food and money assistance from the South have stopped coming. Kim wants the flow resumed, and he is being obnoxious in the hope of getting a bribe to be tolerable once again. If offered a peace treaty that’s to his liking, he may even become nice. If he gets nothing, he’ll do something even uglier in a few weeks or months. It is a crude ploy, but he is a crude man.
The only reason Kim’s histrionics matter to the United States is the existence of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the anachronistic and unnecessary presence of American troops in South Korea. The best way to deal with the problem is for the United States to withdraw all its troops from the Korean peninsula and let those most affected by Pyongyang’s behavior—South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia—deal with Kim as they deem fit…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Should South Africa be a BRIC?
The ‘s’ in BRICs is lower case, pluralising the grouping of the world’s large and dynamic emerging economies. But South Africa’s aspirations to make it BRICS with a capital ‘S’ became clearer when Russia revealed Pretoria had “applied” to join.
Just what an application to join the BRICs means is still a bit unclear. Although Brazil, Russia, India and China have met for two summits and are due to hold a third in China next year to discuss common interests, the acronym was coined in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, now chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset management and at the time the bank’s chief economist.
When Reuters asked O’Neill whether South Africa should be a member of the BRICs, he said “No”.
Speaking to a group of Reuters editors a few months ago, O’Neill outlined why South Africa was not only not among the BRICs, but not even among Goldman Sachs’ “N-11” — the next 11 emerging economies — a list which includes both Nigeria and Egypt.
“The country in Africa that has the real potential is Nigeria,” he said. “South Africa doesn’t have enough people in its working population. It’s a chronic problem.”
While Africa as a whole might be doing rather well, South Africa is a relative laggard. The IMF’s growth estimate of just under 3 percent for this year ranks it 36th out of 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Forecasts for next year put South Africa well behind the BRICs.Given that South Africa is the continent’s biggest economy and that it is already part of the G-20, it may be able to argue that it could represent Africa’s interests. President Jacob Zuma has been making a diplomatic push with BRIC countries and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, tipped as China’s next president, is in South Africa this week.
South Africa can also argue that it is a gateway to the continent for business in a way that it simply wasn’t a decade or so ago. And hosting a successful World Cup showed what a positive image of Africa it could portray.
But the growth figures show up the stark difference between a country slowly recovering from recession — struggling to increase productivity and burdened by high unemployment and social costs — and some of the world’s most vibrant economies.
Does South Africa deserve a place with the BRICs? Would there be a better way for Africa to be represented among the fast growing regions of the world?
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Haiti: Rage in the Time of Cholera
The cholera epidemic in Haiti is rapidly spreading. It has become the dominant issue leading up to elections set for Nov. 28. And as popular rage grows against international aid workers, protests have erupted in the ruins of Port-au-Prince.
The crowd, mostly men and a few women, runs past wreckage, mountains of garbage and corrugated metal huts. Sweat streams down their faces. It’s 10 a.m. and already oppressively hot in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, which has become a capital of the suffering, as the protesters run shouting through the streets. A man with a shaved head and deep-set eyes running in the middle of the crowd pauses for a moment, gasping for air, then says: “There was no cholera here before. The UN brought cholera into this country. They should get out of here!” He starts running again.
Roadside vendors gather up their wares and barricade themselves into their huts. An open truck is blocking the road in front of the crowd. Peacekeeping troops with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, are huddled together on the truck bed.
The protestors start throwing stones. The UN peacekeepers cock their rifles. The soldiers start shooting into the crowd. It breaks apart, only to coalesce again after a few blocks. This time it’s larger, louder and angrier, as the protesters shout: “Death to MINUSTAH!” Local police finally put a stop to the march with tear gas. The crowd dissipates, leaving burning tires behind.
Faces of Rage and Lethargy
The vendors soon return, and Haitian pop music starts blaring from one of the huts, the Ideal Barber Shop. An old woman sits in front of baskets of nuts and sweets, braiding her white hair into pigtails. When asked about the protesters, she insists she hasn’t seen any and that she has no information about them. None of the vendors wants to admit having noticed the street clashes. Instead, they shake their heads and stare into space.
Haiti has two faces in these days leading up to the parliamentary and presidential election on Nov. 28: the face of rage and the face of lethargy. The rage is directed against foreigners, against the foreign organizations that supposedly control the country and, most of all, against the United Nations and its 12,000 soldiers and police officers, including the Nepalese troops who — according to popular rumor — brought the cholera pathogen into the country. The story goes that the Nepalese secretly emptied their latrines into the Artibonite River, and that the first Haitian contracted cholera several kilometers downstream a few days later.
The epidemic spread rapidly around the entire country, and now more than 25,000 people have been infected. As of Tuesday this week at least 1,415 people in Haiti had died of the disease. The Dominican Republic tightened border security after a case was reported there. Another case was reported in Florida.
Epidemiologists do not completely dismiss the theory involving the Nepalese soldiers. After studying the pathogen and analyzing its DNA, scientists with the American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) concluded that it was a form of cholera that commonly occurs in South Asia. But they also warned against drawing premature conclusions. “Perhaps we’ll never know where this specific cholera bacterium came from,” says Jordan Tappero of the CDC. Edmond Mulet, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, believes that political forces in the country are fueling the protests shortly before elections.
A ‘Catastrophe Industry’
Conspiracy theorists have always warned that the foreign aid workers only came to Haiti to occupy it and suck it dry. Such assertions are in vogue because the UN troops and 14,000 foreign aid workers are now seen as an occupying force. A “catastrophe industry” has established itself in their country, say Haitians, an industry that turns a profit by pretending to provide aid. This election campaign revolves around the future of a country, a new beginning, dreams and hopes.
Charles Henri Baker, the candidate for the Respé Party, promises low-income housing, schooling for all and special loans for farmers. Leslie Voltaire, candidate for the Ansanm Nou Fò (Together We Are Strong) Party, wants to introduce school meals for all children and industrial investments to help the country recover. But what are such promises worth, if they are unaffordable?
Nineteen parties have fielded candidates in the election. They include the Farmers’ Party and the Solidarity Party, the Strength Party and the Key Party, a colorful jumble of names that could mean everything or nothing. They run radio ads and send text messages to thousands of mobile phones. They put up posters in the streets of Port-au-Prince, on the remains of buildings destroyed in the January earthquake, including what is left of the presidential palace. There have been six television debates, part of a cautious attempt to keep things in check and bring order to the chaos of Haiti. There have even been opinion polls in this election campaign. The last poll has former First Lady Mirlande Manigat in the lead, followed by Jude Célestin, the protégé of outgoing President René Préval, with 20 percent of the projected vote…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Peru President Says Yale to Return Inca Artifacts
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s president announced Friday that Yale University has agreed to return thousands of artifacts taken away from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.
The university issued a statement a few hours later expressing satisfaction at the results of its talks with Peru. The artifacts had been at the center of a bitter dispute for years, with Peru filing a lawsuit in U.S. court against the school.
President Alan Garcia said the government reached a deal with Yale for the university to begin sending back more than 4,000 objects, including pottery, textiles and bones, early in 2011 after an inventory of the pieces is completed.
He said the agreement came after Yale’s representative, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, came to Peru for talks on resolving the fight.
“We are very pleased that Yale University has responded so positively,” Garcia said at the Government Palace.
Garcia quoted Zedillo as saying Yale decided to return “all goods, pieces and parts” that were taken from Machu Picchu by scholar Hiram Bingham III between 1911 and 1915.
In a statement, the university said it “is very pleased with the positive developments in the discussions” with Peru.
“It has always been Yale’s desire to reach an agreement that honors Peru’s rich history and cultural heritage and recognizes the world’s interest in ongoing public and scholarly access to that heritage,” the statement said.
Peru’s government had waged an aggressive international media campaign in recent weeks seeking to pressure the school over the artifacts. That included a letter from Garcia to President Barack Obama seeking the U.S. leader’s help.
The Machu Picchu ruins, sitting 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) above sea level on an Andean mountaintop, are Peru’s main tourist attraction. The complex of stone buildings was built in the 1400s by the Inca empire that ruled Peru before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century.
Peru has been seeking for years to get the artifacts back. It says they include centuries-old Incan materials, including bronze, gold and other metal objects, mummies, skulls, bones and other human remains, pottery, utensils, ceramics and objects of art.
Peru filed suit against Yale in 2008 arguing that the university violated Peruvian law by exporting the artifacts without getting special permission from the Peruvian government and by refusing to return them.
Yale responded that it returned dozens of boxes of artifacts in 1921 and that Peru knew the university would retain other pieces. Yale described the artifacts as “primarily fragments of ceramic, metal and bone” and said it re-created some objects from fragments.
In 2007, the two sides agreed to give Peru legal title to the artifacts. Under that deal, the pieces were to travel in a joint exhibit and then be sent to a museum and research center in Peru’s ancient Incan capital of Cuzco. Yale would have paid for the traveling exhibit and partially funded the museum.
But Peru backed out of the deal because of a dispute over how many artifacts were to be returned.
Garcia added that Peru recognized that Yale’s possession of the artifacts had kept the pieces from from being “scattered in private collections around the world or maybe they would have disappeared.”
He said he would ask San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco to take temporary custody of the artifacts when they are brought back. He will ask Peru’s Congress to establish a special budget to create a museum and research center in Cuzco as a permanent home for the collection.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Refugee Child Denied Care by Swedish Hospital
A hospital in central Sweden refused to perform an operation on a 16-year-old unaccompanied refugee boy because the doctor didn’t think the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) would pay for the procedure.
The boy, originally from Somalia, sought treatment for a broken arm that hadn’t healed properly, Svergies Radio (SR) reports.
Pain from the poorly healed break, which occurred while the boy was living in a transitional housing facility in Italy, made it difficult for him to sleep, prompting him to seek medical attention in Sweden.
He visited Kärnsjukhuset, the largest facility within the Skaraborg Hospital system in Skövde, where he had his arm x-rayed by an orthopedic specialist.
While the doctor said an operation was necessary, he refused to go ahead with the surgery in part because he claimed the hospital would only reimbursed by the Migration Board for emergency care.
Even though health authorities for Västra Götaland region explained to the hospital that Swedish laws stipulate that children seeking asylum have the same right to healthcare as other children, the hospital nevertheless refused to treat the boy.
Now Mölndal municipality, where the 16-year-old first came when he first arrived in Sweden, has reported the hospital to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Blackburn Paedophile Makes Plea on Deportation
A HEARING has taken place into whether a convicted paedophile from Pakistan should be allowed to stay in the UK.
Zulfar Hussain, 48, was jailed in August 2007, for abducting underage girls in Blackburn and Burnley and sexually exploiting them.
He was placed in an immigration removal centre earlier this year and was set to be deported.
However, he won an appeal which allowed him to remain and potentially return to Blackburn to live with his wife and children.
The Home Office appealed the decision and Hussain, formerly of Cowell Way, Blackburn, has remained locked up pending a final decision.
A spokesman for the UK Borders Agency confirmed his hearing had taken place on Wednesday and that a result was expected in two to three weeks.
Hussain and his co-accused, Qaiser Naveed, 34, formerly of Colne Road, Burnley, were convicted of child abduction, sexual activity with a child and supplying youngsters with heroin.
Naveed did not oppose his deportation and has returned to Pakistan after serving half his five-year, eight-month sentence.
Hussain’ successful appeal against deportation was based on his ‘right to a family life’ as he had lived in Blackburn with his family for 10 years.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
USA: Fewer Jobs: More Despite Loss of 1 Million Jobs, 13.1 Million Arrived 2000-09
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — New Census Bureau data collected in March of this year show that 13.1 million immigrants (legal and illegal) arrived in the previous 10 years, even though there was a net decline of 1 million jobs during the decade. In contrast, during the 1990s job growth was 21 million, and 12.1 million new immigrants arrived. Despite fundamentally different economic conditions, the level of immigration was similar for both ten-year periods.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
African-Centered Education Has a Strong Backer
Milwaukee educator Taki Raton sees the problem with failing black students in very stark terms.
For him, the issues are black and white with very little gray.
“Black people are the only ones who can teach black children, it’s as simple as that,” he told me, in no uncertain tones.
Raton, currently a writer and lecturer who runs an educational consulting firm, also founded Blyden Delany Academy, a well-respected private school, which operated under Milwaukee’s choice program for 10 years. Raton closed the school a few years ago because of financial concerns, but while Blyden Delany was open, it was consistently praised by black parents in Milwaukee with children enrolled in the institution.
Raton doesn’t think that was anything out of the ordinary. Blyden Delany was African-centered — some call it Afrocentric — in its approach to teaching black students. Raton and a legion of similarly minded black educators in Milwaukee and across the nation believe that distinction makes all the difference.
“We know what we’re doing,” he said, referring to African-centered schools in general. “We don’t have the kind of problems other schools have because we’re following a classical model for African-centered education.”
The basic model, developed by black educators and activists, is a simple one that has often created controversy when proposed for a traditional public school system.
It goes like this: All black staff, all black student body, and all black school board.
More important, Raton said, the entire curriculum was based on African principles that are considered part and parcel of a framework taught to all students. As a result, African-centered schools have higher graduation rates, fewer discipline problems and more respect for education than other schools.
But for black educators like Raton, African-centered learning isn’t about wearing dashikis or taking on African names. It’s about adapting a curriculum that gives black children the inspiration to succeed above all else.
“We teach the children the very best things about black people, we hold up the best examples of our race for them to duplicate. We don’t have discipline problems because we emphasize character and good behavior; it runs throughout the school.”
Most African-centered curricula focus on teaching students principles such as self-esteem, civility, responsible citizenship and other values said to be taken from a classical view of traditional African society. The schools also use African-American history to provide cultural and academic information to students to help them to understand their role in society as young black Americans.
Raton said there were more than 75 African-centered schools across the nation, with particular schools in big cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia lauded by experts for their quality.
“It’s not voodoo; we know it works,” Raton said.
Some have reservations about African-centered education and the claims of academic superiority over other public schools.
When Milwaukee Public Schools dipped a cautious toe into the Afrocentric education pool in the 1990s by introducing that curriculum into several local schools, it met with mixed results.
Some Afrocentric schools prospered, but others were criticized by various members of the community for exclusionary practices — even reverse racism — because of the insistence on maintaining predominantly black staffs.
I covered the Afrocentric movement at MPS during that time and remember many people uncomfortable with the idea of all-black schools totally run by black educators, including the staff. There was even criticism from black school board members who saw Afrocentric education as teaching ethnic myths not based on reality.
Raton, who worked at various Milwaukee public schools during the time, thinks the African-centered movement in Milwaukee failed because of a lack of commitment from the School District and individual educators.
“You have to really be devoted to this to make it work,” he said.
These days, just as in many other cities across the nation, MPS faces a majority of failing black students while it continues to search for answers on how to improve graduation rates. The African-centered education movement is still regarded largely as a niche market.
Like many African-Americans who remember all black schools before court-ordered desegregated plans, Raton believes the education of black children began to suffer after they were bused to predominantly white schools.
“Throughout history, people have always stayed with their own kind,” he said. “The bottom line is we are not all the same. Black children are not going to grow up and be white.”…
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Pope Repeats No to Gays in New Book
Homosexuality can never be ‘morally just’, Benedict says
(ANSA) — Vatican City, November 23 — Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Vatican’s condemnation of homosexuality in a new book presented here Tuesday.
Homosexuality, he said in Light of the World, is a “great trial” a person may be faced with but which can never be “morally just”.
“It remains something that is against the Nature that God originally willed”, the pontiff told German journalist Peter Seewald, who posed 90 questions in the book’s 18 chapters.
Stressing that priests cannot be gay, Benedict said “the choice of candidates for the priesthood must, therefore, be very thorough”.
He said great care must be taken to ensure that priestly celibacy “is not identified with a tendency towards homosexuality”.
The book has already been widely excerpted, with the pope’s admission that condoms might be justified in certain very rare cases like those involving prostitutes gaining headlines. Other issues included the sex abuse scandals which have roiled the Catholic Church, with the pope saying it was time to recover “the right and need for penalties”, something which he said had been lost during the 1960s when there was an emerging “conviction” that the Church “should not punish”.
Benedict also admitted “delays” in tackling the case of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ order, the late Mexican priest Father Marcial Maciel, who was found to be a serial abuser.
The pope called Maciel “a false prophet who led an immoral and contorted life” whose case was addressed “only with great slowness and great delay, in part because he was in some ways very well covered”.
In other points, the pope voiced hope of unifying the Church in China and further rapprochement with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Returning to other controversial moments in his pontificate, he repeated that he did not know ultratraditionalist bishop Richard Williamson was a Holocaust-denier when he rehabilitated him, and said he had never urged Catholics to pray for the conversion of Jews when approving a Latin version of a Good Friday prayer that has angered the world’s Jewish community.
As well as saying he would resign if he were no longer “physically, psychologically and spiritually” capable of carrying out his duties, the 83-year-old pope also warned Catholics that there would be an “authentic Last Judgement” for everyone.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Real Death Panels Coming Our Way
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics and an influential New York Times columnist, also has a blog, “The Conscience of a Liberal.” On ABC’s “This Week” (Nov. 14), during a discussion on balancing the federal budget against alarming deficits, he proclaimed the way to solve this problem is through deeply cost-effective health-care rationing.
“Some years down the pike,” he said, “we’re going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes.” That would mean the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission “should have endorsed the panel that was part of the (Obama) health-care reform.”
Sarah Palin was one of the first, and the most resounding, to warn us of the coming of government panels to decide which of us — especially, but not exclusively, toward the end of life — would cost too much to survive.
She was mocked, scorned from sea to shining sea, including by the eminent Paul Krugman for being, he said, among those spreading “the death panel lie” as part of “the lunatic fringe.” (Summarized in “Krugman Wants ‘Death Panels’“ Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Nov. 15).
Soon after he had left the ABC Studio, someone must have alerted Krugman that — gee whiz — he had publicly rooted for death panels!
[…]
Noel Sheppard of media watchdog Newsbusters was not fooled by the professor’s attempt to extricate himself from embarrassment.
“As the government has deep budgetary problems,” Sheppard reminded Krugman, “the cost-benefit analysis will naturally morph toward financial restraint thereby further limiting a patient’s options and therefore his or her rights.”
[…]
In his regular fact-based commentary (“Secondhand Smoke,” Nov. 16), Smith’s headline is: “Berwick Wants to Do Away With 80% of ‘Dinosaur’ Patient/Doctor Office Calls.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Einstein’s ‘Biggest Blunder’ Turns Out to be Right
What Einstein called his worst mistake, scientists are now depending on to help explain the universe.
In 1917, Albert Einstein inserted a term called the cosmological constant into his theory of general relativity to force the equations to predict a stationary universe in keeping with physicists’ thinking at the time. When it became clear that the universe wasn’t actually static, but was expanding instead, Einstein abandoned the constant, calling it the ‘“biggest blunder” of his life.
But lately scientists have revived Einstein’s cosmological constant (denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda) to explain a mysterious force called dark energy that seems to be counteracting gravity — causing the universe to expand at an accelerating pace.
A new study confirms that the cosmological constant is the best fit for dark energy, and offers the most precise and accurate estimate yet of its value, researchers said. The finding comes from a measurement of the universe’s geometry that suggests our universe is flat, rather than spherical or curved.
Geometry of the universe
Physicists Christian Marinoni and Adeline Buzzi of the Universite de Provence in France found a new way to test the dark energy model that is completely independent of previous studies. Their method relies on distant observations of pairs of galaxies to measure the curvature of space.
“The most exciting aspect of the work is that there is no external data that we plug in,” Marinoni told SPACE.com, meaning that their findings aren’t dependent on other calculations that could be flawed.
The researchers probed dark energy by studying the geometry of the universe. The shape of space depends on what’s in it — that was one of the revelations of Einstein’s general relativity, which showed that mass and energy (two sides of the same coin) bend space-time with their gravitational force.
Marinoni and Buzzi set out to calculate the contents of the universe — i.e. how much mass and energy, including dark energy, it holds — by measuring its shape.
There were three main options for the outcome.
Physics says the universe can either be flat like a plane, spherical like a globe, or hyperbolically curved like a saddle. Previous studies have favored the flat universe model, and this new calculation agreed.
Flat universe
The geometry of space-time can distort structures within it. The researchers studied observations of pairs of distant galaxies orbiting each other for evidence of this distortion, and used the magnitude of the distortion as a way to trace the shape of space-time.
To discover how much the galaxy pairs’ shapes were being distorted, the researchers measured how much each galaxy’s light was red-shifted — that is, budged toward the red end of the visual spectrum by a process called the Doppler shift, which affects moving light or sound waves.
The redshift measurements offered a way to plot the orientation and position of the orbiting pairs of galaxies. The result of these calculations pointed toward a flat universe.
Marinoni and Buzzi detail their findings in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Nature.
Understanding dark energy
By providing more evidence that the universe is flat, the findings bolster the cosmological constant model for dark energy over competing theories such as the idea that the general relativity equations for gravity are flawed.
“We have at this moment the most precise measurements of lambda that a single technique can give,” Marinoni said. “Our data points towards a cosmological constant because the value of lambda we measure is close to minus one, which is the value predicted if dark energy is the cosmological constant.”
Unfortunately, knowing that the cosmological constant is the best mathematical explanation for how dark energy is stretching out our universe doesn’t help much in understanding why it exists at all.
“Many cosmologists regard determining the nature of dark energy and dark matter as the most important scientific question of the decade,” wrote Alan Heavens of Scotland’s University of Edinburgh in an accompanying essay in the same issue of Nature. “Our picture of the universe involves putting together a number of pieces of evidence, so it is appealing to hear of Marinoni and Buzzi’s novel technique for testing the cosmological model, not least because it provides a very direct and simple measurement of the geometry of the universe.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hardy Bugs Could Survive a Million Years on Mars
It was already nicknamed “Conan the Bacterium” for its ability to withstand radiation. Now it seems Deinococcus radiodurans could, in theory, survive dormant on Mars for over a million years.
Lewis Dartnell at University College London and colleagues froze the bugs to -79 °C, the average temperature at Mars’s mid-latitudes. Then they zapped them with gamma rays to simulate the dose they would receive under 30 centimetres of Martian soil over long periods of time.
The team worked out that it could take 1.2 million years under these conditions to shrink a population of the bacteria to a millionth of its original size.
Earlier studies suggested that the bacterium can endure four times as much radiation in the Martian cold as at room temperature. If a cell is frozen, radiation does less damage to it because the free radicals it creates are much less mobile. “Cold is good in that respect,” Dartnell says. “It improves the chances of cells surviving radiation.”
Antarctic bugs
Dartnell’s team also isolated three new strains of bacteria from the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, where winter temperatures drop to -40 ºC.
The hardiest of the bugs, a new strain of Brevundimonas, could persist for 117,000 years on Mars before its population would be reduced by a factor of a million, the team’s work suggests.
“The more we learn about Earth life, the more likely it appears that it could survive in other parts of the solar system,” says Cassie Conley of NASA in Washington DC.
High vacuum
But even if terrestrial microbes could survive on Mars itself, they might not fare so well on the journey there, she cautions. To simulate spaceflight, she suggests that the experiments be repeated in a high vacuum, which can desiccate microbes. “In space, you suck off nearly all the water molecules,” Conley says. This removal of water could make it more difficult for cells to repair radiation damage.
Conley, who makes sure NASA missions minimise the risk of contaminating other worlds with microbes, says the agency’s policy on planetary protection already takes into account that some microbes are amazingly radiation resistant.
“The policy is that we won’t contaminate other planets or moons, because just one colonising event could screw up our ability to study indigenous life forever,” she told New Scientist.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Kind of Light Created in Physics Breakthrough
Physicists have created a new kind of light by chilling photons into a blob state.
Just like solids, liquids and gases, this recently discovered condition represents a state of matter. Called a Bose-Einstein condensate, it was created in 1995 with super-cold atoms of a gas, but scientists had thought it could not be done with photons, which are basic units of light. However, physicists Jan Klärs, Julian Schmitt, Frank Vewinger and Martin Weitz of the University of Bonn in Germany reported accomplishing it. They have dubbed the new particles “super photons.”
Particles in a traditional Bose-Einstein condensate are cooled down close to absolute zero, until they glom onto each other and become indistinguishable, acting as one giant particle. Experts thought photons (packets of light) would be unable to achieve this state because it seemed impossible to cool light while concentrating it at the same time. Because photons are massless particles, they can simply be absorbed into their surroundings and disappear, which usually happens when they are cooled down.
The scientists needed to find a way to cool the photons without decreasing their numbers.
“Many scientists believed that it would not be possible, but I was pretty sure that it would work,” Weitz told LiveScience.
To trap the photons, the researchers devised a container made of mirrors placed very, very close together — about a millionth of a meter (1 micron) apart. Between the mirrors, the researchers placed dye molecules — basically, little bits of color pigment. When the photons hit these molecules, they were absorbed and then re-emitted.
The mirrors trapped the photons by keeping them bouncing back and forth in a confined state. In the process, the light packets exchanged thermal energy every time they hit a dye molecule, and they eventually cooled down to about room temperature
While room temperature is nowhere near absolute zero, it was cold enough for photons to coalesce into a Bose-Einstein condensate.
“Whether a temperature is cold enough to start the condensation depends on the density of the particles,” Klärs wrote in an e-mail. “Ultra-cold atomic gases are very dilute and they therefore have very low condensation temperatures. Our photon gas has a billion times higher density and we can achieve the condensation already at room temperature.”
The researchers detail their findings in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Nature.
Physicist James Anglin of Germany’s Technical University Kaiserslautern, who was not involved in the project, called the experiment “a landmark achievement” in an accompanying essay in the same issue of Nature.
In effect, getting the photons to condense into this state caused them to behave more like regular matter particles. It also showcased the ability of photons, and indeed all particles, to behave as both a point-like particle and a wave — one of the most perplexing revelations of modern quantum physics.
“The physics behind the Bose-Einstein condensation is the transition from a particle-like behavior at high temperatures to a wave-like behavior at cold temperatures,” Klärs wrote. “This is true for both atomic and photonic gases.”
The researchers said the work could have applications down the line for creating new kinds of lasers that generate very-short-wave light in the UV or X-ray bands.
“That definitely will take some years,” Weitz said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thoughts of Religion Prompt Acts of Punishment
McKay points out that being religious can be costly in various ways: donating money, suffering painful rites and avoiding pleasures, for example. So the team wondered how religion survived, despite these apparent costs. “The answer may be that these sacrifices enable the group to secure more cooperation. The punishing may be unpleasant but it’s in the service of the greater good for that particular group or religion, enabling them to thrive and spread the word,” he says. Chris Frith of University College London says previous studies have shown that people will impose punishments at a cost to themselves, and that this is a powerful means of maintaining group cooperation and reducing selfish behaviour. Fehr and McKay’s study suggests religion may enhance such behaviour, Frith says, and thus have a survival value. But other motivations are possible too, Frith adds. “Appropriate secular ideas, such as socialism should, in principle, be equally effective in priming group-oriented behaviour.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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