Frustrated With EU ‘Pressure Tactics,’ Africa Ready to Walk Away From Trade Talks
Raising the stakes ahead of an EU-Africa summit in Tripoli, Libya beginning on Monday, the nations say that if Europe does not abandon its demands that the continent radically liberalise its economies immediately, Africa says it is ready to walk away from the process. The position paper and political declaration from trade ministers — for the first time involving all five African regional economic communities active in negotiations over ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ and the African Union Commission together — are a catalogue of complaints.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
President Obama to Announce a Pay Freeze for Most Federal Workers
President Obama plans to announce a pay freeze for most federal workers later Monday morning, according to an administration official, the latest White House move intended to demonstrate concern over deficit spending.
The president’s announcement will effectively wipe out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise for most of the 2.1 million federal government employees in 2011. The president has frozen the salaries of his own top White House staff members since taking office 22 months ago.
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Time for Economic Restoration Now Climate Change Deception Exposed
Maurice Strong engineered the attack on capitalism and industrialism, its engine of growth, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Problems are only problems if you are unaware of them. Once identified you’re over halfway to resolution. American voters rejected the Obama administration’s policies of increasing government control through energy, environment and economic policies. They voted for cessation and reversal. Now the new politicians and chastened survivors must act accordingly. Debt and deficit are serious problems and the solution depends partly on reduced government spending, but mostly on a vigorous growing economy and that depends on energy. Maurice Strong’s plan to collapse the industrial economies recognized this with his focus on fossil fuels and CO2, so that’s where the solution must begin.
Keynote speaker Vaclav Klaus, elected President of the Czech Republic in 2003 made a memorable comment for me at the first Heartland Conference on Climate Change in New York. He said we’ve just emerged from 70 years of communism and asked, incredulously, why anyone would go back. He was referring to the US and Europe and identified environmentalism and climate change as the vehicles for the transit. He made his case effectively in his book Blue Planet in Green Shackles where he writes, “The themes in the contemporary dispute (or perhaps clash) are clearly about human freedom — not about the environment.” His warnings are not surprising given his personal experiences, but they’re supported by similar comments and actions by Russia and China. The contradiction is not surprising and parallels evolution of human, social, economic and political systems.
[…]
What To Do? Some Simple Inexpensive Solutions
There are simple steps essential to the US rebuilding energy sources and resources.
1. Put Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma in charge of a Commission to get climate and energy policies back from the edge of disaster. He is the only politician who understood the climate corruption and spoke out about it despite ridicule and nasty attacks. 2. Immediately cancel all plans for Cap and Trade or similar strategies. 3. Withdraw from the IPCC and cancel all research on climate carried out by government agencies. Reassign employees to extensive and better data collection on a multitude of environmental factors. This must include accurate information on all energy resources to avoid the exploitation of the argument we are exhausting resources, a fundamental tenet of the Club of Rome. 4. Produce reliable, fully documented, material that explains why CO2, especially human production, is not the cause of global warming or climate change. Launch a vigorous campaign to educate people about the science in ways they can understand. 5. Cancel all climate research funding and redirect it to identifying real problems with workable solutions. Academics have shown they’ll sell integrity for funding so have them produce really relevant rather than contrived work. 6. Produce reliable, fully documented, material that explains how the climate issue was manipulated. This must include the motive and the mechanism. 7. Cancel all subsidies to alternate energies. There are some uses for alternate energies, but they are very limited and very expensive, a problem completely masked by the subsidies. 8. Review and reduce all unnecessary restrictions on expansion of oil, coal and gas reserves established to reduce CO2. 9. Review and reduce all unnecessary restrictions on nuclear power development established after environmentalists, following Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, exploited public fears. It is no longer necessary with new technologies. 10. Reverse the Supreme Court decision that CO2 is a toxic substance. It was based on the falsified work of the IPCC. This will remove control of CO2 from the EPA…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Forget the 3D TV: Sales of Traditional Board Games Boom as Families Prepare for Austerity Christmas
The after-dinner board game used to be as much a part of Christmas as turkey and all the trimmings.
And now it appears that the traditional games are making a comeback — as sales of dominoes, backgammon, chess and Jenga have more than doubled compared to this time last year.
Department store John Lewis has reported a 150 per cent increase in sales of the classics, as parents try to save money as part of an austerity Christmas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ultra Elitist Environmental Group: Halt Economic Growth, Institute Rationing
The Royal Society has thrown its full weight behind the global warming movement, lending its absolute support for legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 80%, a process that will devastate the global economy and drastically reduce living standards everywhere.
It has been even more vehement than national governments in its advocacy of the man-made cause of global warming, calling for such drastic CO2 cuts to be made in the short term, not even by the usual target date of 2050.
Not surprising then that The Royal Society was also intimately tied to efforts to Whitewash the Climategate emails scandal.
The society has also conducted extensive research into geoengineering the planet, and continually lobbies the government to divert funding into it. A recently published lengthy UK Government report drew heavily upon the Society’s research and concluded that a global body such as the UN should be appointed to exclusively regulate world wide geoengineering of the planet in order to stave off man made global warming.
This information becomes even more disturbing when you consider the mindset of those who make up the membership of the Society. It is riddled with renowned eco-fascists, open eugenicists and depopulation fanatics.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Firesheep’ Developer: Facebook is Ignoring Huge Security Problem
SEATTLE — On a recent afternoon, I surprised a lot of people at a coffee shop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. I walked in, sat down, got onto the café’s free Wi-Fi network and fired up a free application called Firesheep.
Within a minute, the names of a dozen people on the same wireless network started to appear in the Firesheep program. The users were listed along with the names of multi-billion dollar websites like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, YouTube and The New York Times.
In some cases, the person’s Facebook profile picture would also appear, making it easy for me to identify them in the café.
With a simple click on the user’s icon in Firesheep, I could log into their account on Facebook or Twitter or a variety of other websites that do not use encryption to fully protect the browsing session with their users. I could easily assume someone else’s online identity and do nearly anything I wanted with their account.
Firesheep is a frighteningly simple tool that streamlines techniques malicious computer hackers have used for years to gain unauthorized access to personal accounts on the Internet. Firesheep takes these previously complex tasks and rolls them into a user-friendly program that even an average computer user like me can figure out.
“It’s like you are in my house and I did not invite you,” said a surprised Sarah Dooley.
After her Facebook icon appeared in my Firesheep list, I approached her as she typed away on her iBook. I showed on my computer her main Facebook page and described the simple steps it took to get into her account.
[…]
Firesheep has built-in filters that listen for people on an unsecured network who may be exchanging information with websites like Facebook.
A user’s initial log in to Facebook is encrypted and not vulnerable to hijacking. But every subsequent exchange between a Facebook user and Facebook’s servers, in what’s called a “session,” is unencrypted. And it is these exchanges that Firesheep is catching.
Firesheep lets its user essentially grab that cookie out of the air and place it on their computer. In doing so, the Firesheep user can take over the identity of the Facebook user and alter almost anything in the account — except for the initial login password.
“I wrote Firesheep because I was tired of having to deal with websites that were ignoring this problem of user privacy,” Butler told me in his first interview since releasing Firesheep. “Hopefully sites like Facebook and Twitter will see this and decide protecting user privacy is a priority for them.”
[…]
“Users of these sites don’t realize that this is happening, but the companies have known about this for a long time and have chosen to ignore this problem. Instead, they are putting money in privacy features and not making their websites secure,” Butler said.
“Those privacy controls don’t really matter if you can steal an entire user’s session or you can see everything they are doing,” said Gallagher, who help trouble shoot the plug-in. “It’s the elephant in the room they’ve been disregarding.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In Plain Sight
Communists no longer hide what they’re doing. Now they boldly spout their anti-American rhetoric at every opportunity. In fact, some of them are openly calling for an armed revolution now, to bring down our Republic — while hiding behind the very Constitution they seek to destroy.
They deny us our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech and Press, while claiming its protection for themselves. They squelch any expression of our religious belief or patriotism, while demanding the freedom to spread THEIR lies.
They seek to deny our Second Amendment right to Keep and Bear Arms — our right to self-defense — while they will use violence to impose their will on the rest of us.
That’s not new, of course. But for generations, their efforts were fruitless in America, so what changed the situation? The answer is simple: their diligence, and our lack of it. They stuck to their game plan, and carried out the steps of the Communist Manifesto.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It Just Isn’t Christmas Without a Muslim Bombing
Mistletoe. Egg nog. And now Muslim terrorism. Last year’s Christmas bomber was an African Muslim who stuffed his underwear full of plastic explosive and tried to detonate it on Flight 253.
This year it’s another African Muslim who tried to get an early start on Christmas terror by trying to car bomb a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
Last year’s Christmas terrorist hailed from Nigeria. This year’s mad Muslim bomber comes from Somalia. And they bring with them tidings of a new season. A season in which holiday shopping now comes with massacre plots mixed in with the radio jingles and cheer.
If gift wrapping and church going are Christmas traditions, carrying out massacres during other people’s holiday celebrations is a Muslim tradition. In Israel, holidays are a time for extra special caution. The Passover massacre in which dozens of senior citizens attending a holiday meal were murdered, the Yom Kippur War in which Muslim armies invaded Israel on the holiest day of its year or the Purim bombing outside a Tel Aviv mall using a nail bomb, are just some of the obvious examples of Muslim religious tolerance at work.
It’s not limited to Jews or Christians either. In 2008, a number of bombs went off in Delhi just before Diwali. And back in 1991, Muslims planned to massacre thousands of Hindus during Diwali. Had they succeeded, the death toll might have been bigger than 9/11. Nearly two decades ago, North America was put on alert that importing Muslim immigrants, also meant bringing along their genocidal tendencies. Like renting rooms to tenants whose dogs have a little rabies problem, importing Islam, also means bringing in the same people who have been murdering Christians, Jews, Hindus and countless others around the world, ever since Mohamed’s namesake first preached that he had a unique revelation and an exclusive license to kill, rob, rape and subjugate in the name of Allah.
While the news stories will insist that Mohamed Osman Mohamud (twice the Mohammed for twice the mayhem) was “lured” into a life of terror, he was just doing what Muslims since the time of Mohammed have naturally done. “O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you”, the Koran proclaims to the devout Muslim. For Mohamedx2, the “unbelievers” were grouping together at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland. And his goal was simple enough, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave dead or injured.”
For Muslims this is a religious war While we may go on denying it, for Muslims this is a religious war. And what better target for terror, than an infidel’s religious event?
The clergy at interfaith conferences may yammer on about how we’re all the children of god, but Muslims know better. They are the slaves of Allah and we are heretics and idol worshipers. It’s their duty to fight us, until we submit and accept Muslim rule. The more we resist, the more they’re obligated to kill us until we give in and there’s a mosque on every corner and the Koran replaces the Constitution. It’s a religious duty for a Muslim to make the Way of Allah triumphant all across the globe. To Muslims, this is a sacred duty and a way of life, that is not a detail, but the heart of the Koran.
Unlike Christians and Jews, the Islamic holy texts are not a complicated structure that takes place across a swath of history—but an enormously simple one dominated by a relatively brief period and a single categorical imperative, to expand, dominate and rule. For the Muslim, life is complicated, but Islam is simple. And even the most secular and westernized Muslim will sooner or later feel an imperative to escape from the complications of modern life, into the pure simplicity of Islam. The media charges that such escapees misunderstand Islam, but in actuality they understand it quite well. It is a reversion to the barbaric, an Islamic narrative that sweeps aside the complexities of civilization and personal choice for something more elemental.
Goggling when university grads, doctors and other high end professionals suddenly embrace their “Inner Mohammed” and go on killing sprees is foolish. Modernity for the Muslim is a sham inflicted by colonialism and globalism on his own country and multiculturalism when he’s abroad in the West. It is not the natural product of his own advancements, and no matter how often he’s told that his people invented everything from telescopes to planes, it’s always a poor fit.
Civilization is not something the Muslim invented, but something that was forced on him in defiance of his law, his culture and his traditions. And if he does everything in his power to bring it down in ashes, to burn, loot and rape his way across the continent, and every continent that was foolish enough to allow him entry in the hopes that he would be a good citizen and a worthwhile member of society, then its governments have more of the blame than he does.
The United States has taken in large numbers of Somalis. A poor idea even if they had not been coming over from a disaster area of a country, whose own version of the Taliban, the Islamic Courts Union made even the Afghan version look mild by comparison. A country where the motto is “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God”, where the law is Sharia law and the beheadings and floggings come fast and furious. Our newfound Somali citizens have since then done their parts to make America a more dangerous and more Muslim place.
In Minneapolis, Somali Muslim cabdrivers tried to deny service to infidels carrying duty free liquor. They’ve intimidated and shaken down companies who are afraid of being condemned as Anti-Muslim or Islamophobic. This August a baker’s dozen of Somali immigrants were arrested for funneling money, weapons and fighters back home. Last year it was another eight. And the hits keep on coming out of Minnesota’s “Little Mogadishu”.
But Oregon has its own “Little Mogadishu”. Before the influx of Somali Muslims, the American experience with Mogadishu was limited to the Battle of Mogadishu in which American military personnel were brutally murdered in the streets of that godforsaken urban slum masquerading as a city. Today there are Little Mogadishus everywhere. Sweden’s Little Mogadishu suffers from riots and arson. And the usual terrorist recruitment. And their American Swedish cousins over in Minnesota are burdened with their own Little Mogadishu. Oregon’s “Little Mogadishu” in Cedar Riverside has come of age, producing not just social problems, but a plot of Muslim mass murder.
Not that this is a bad thing of course. For a while it was a running joke, that the best way to upgrade your country was to attack America, lose and then wait to get rebuilt. That’s the way it is in the Little Mogadishus too. The liberal solution to Muslim terrorist is to treat it as a social problem, throw some community centers, job opportunities and social services at it. And if some of that money filters back to the terrorists. If the social services centers become stealth mosques and the graduates of OSU choose bomb throwing over pigskin tossing, that just means not enough money has been sunk into making them feel at home. Meanwhile the Little Mogadishus keep growing, until they’re not so little anymore.
Over in Oregon, Mohamed Osman Mohamud has made his own contribution to American culture. And the media assures us that this was one of those once in a million events. Nothing to see here, folks. We’ll find out soon enough that he had personal problems. Maybe his rap career didn’t work out. The girl he liked wouldn’t go out with him and agree to be his third wife. And the camel’s milk wasn’t flowing like honey anymore. Not that it really matters. Everyone has stressors. And if we are to keep Muslims stress free, for fear that they’ll start flipping through a Koran and shooting up the joint, then even the most ardent devotee of the Lady overlooking Liberty Island must ask himself if the price of Muslim immigration is really worth it.
West may subscribe to multiculturalism, its Muslim imports subscribe to only one law. The law of Islam Multiculturalism is one thing. But that’s not what we have here. It’s not living side by side with chicken noodle soup and tandoori restaurants. Or stacking churches, synagogues, ashrams and Shinto shrines on every block. Because while the political and cultural elite of the West may subscribe to multiculturalism, its Muslim imports subscribe to only one law. The law of Islam. They may lapse at times. They may get through a university education, attend nightclubs and strip clubs, listen to the same music all the other kids their age do—but there’s still a ticking time bomb inside their heads. And that bomb is the same one that appears as the lit fuse on the turban of the cartoon Mohammad. The cartoon that Muslims were willing to kill over. The bomb is Islam. And when it’s lit, the result is mass murder.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
MPAC Trains 2,200 Transportation Security Officers
Last week, MPAC completed a quarterly training for Transportation Security Officers (TSO) with about 2,200 officers receiving training on cultural awareness about Islam and Muslims. This was an important achievement for MPAC and the Muslim American community in light of the recent airport security changes and because TSOs are responsible for screening passengers and luggage.
MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Civic Outreach Coordinator, Saadia Khan and MPAC volunteers, Nisreen Malhis and Sireen Sawaf, conducted the trainings at Los Angeles International Airport for the past two months. They discussed the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language to tenets. The four trainers taught the TSOs how to properly handle a Quran and discussed the different ways Muslim women and men choose to cover or dress. For example, the TSOs learned if a woman wears hijab and needs a secondary screening she should be screened in a private area by a female TSO officer.
The training sessions allowed trainers to discuss the common practice of Muslims praying in various areas of the airport, adding that they do this because LAX does not have a designated prayer area as other airports do.
The officers were extremely receptive and interested in the information presented. They had many questions regarding the meaning of jihad, sharia, and the rights of women in Muslim countries.
LAX is the third largest airport in the world, making it important for Transportation Security Administration to conduct cultural awareness trainings in order for officers to effectively and efficiently keep the airports secure rather than deciphering cultural tenets. MPAC commends LAX for taking the initiative to implement these trainings.
Earlier this year at the last quarterly training, the TSA invited asked Nirinjan Khalsa of the Human Relations Commission to highlight the Sikh religion.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Our Country is Fine But the Government is Broken
The problem we face is not a lack of good ideas to fix the economy, create jobs, and solve the problems facing our nation. The problem is that the current administration refuses to consider those ideas that would be effective in putting America back on the right track.
As far as the Soros-Obama administration is concerned, America is on the right track. And from their point of view, they are right. Capitalism is being crushed to pave the way for George Soros’ goal of global socialism. He has stated in interviews that the only thing now standing in his way is American capitalism which he intends to destroy if he can.
We can’t have incompetent, out of touch, bureaucrats in Washington with no private business experience dictating how businesses should be run. Some of them don’t even understand where these policies are taking the country, but continue to be loyal comrades to the party. Politicians, for the past two years, have been voting for legislative bills — written by Soros’ organizations — without reading them first or understanding what they mean for the country.
The federal government was neither created to run the country nor to control the economy. It was created to represent the country in areas where the individual states could not. These include areas such as foreign policy; national security and defense; immigration; border security; monetary, copyright, and standards of measure; interstate highways; a postal system; and uniform interstate commerce. Federal government today seems to think its job is to run the country and the economy, the Constitution be damned. Major changes are needed if we’re going to save our country from global socialism and liberal progressive ruin.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: Yodelling Offends Praying Muslims, Say Judges
An Austrian has been fined for yodelling while mowing his lawn, according to a report.
The Kronen Zeitung newspaper claims Helmut G. was told by a court in Graz, Styria, that his yodelling offended his next-door Muslim neighbours.
The men reportedly accused the 63-year-old of having tried to mock and imitate the call of the Muezzin. The daily paper writes the Austrian was fined 800 Euros after judges ruled he could have tried to offend them and ridicule their belief. The Muslims, whose nationalities were not revealed by the report, were right in the middle of a prayer when the Austrian started to yodel.
“It was not my intention to imitate or insult them. I simply started to yodel a few tunes because I was in such a good mood” the man told the newspaper today (Mon).
| — Hat tip: Lexington | [Return to headlines] |
German Police Officers Face Increasing Violence on Patrol
“People have always been resistant to our work as the police, we’ve experienced that over and over,” he told Deutsche Welle. “But this open animosity to police forces, especially as a show of strength, this has increased.” At times, Klinge says, it almost seems to be some sort of game for certain groups. Drug addicts are often aggressive towards the police, especially when under the influence. But Klinge finds it more alarming that even kids are now putting up a resistance. Recently, even a nine-year-old with a record fought the police tooth and nail.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Merkel’s Leadership Derided by US Diplomats
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks to German news magazine Der Spiegel over the weekend include embarrassingly frank US assessments of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is described as a weak leader.
In a message attributed to a US diplomat in Berlin dated March 24, 2009, the State Department is told that Merkel is “risk averse and rarely creative,” Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.
“The Americans argue that the chancellor views international diplomacy above all from the perspective of how she can profit from it domestically,” the magazine wrote.
Merkel’s vice-chancellor and foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, comes in for harsher criticism in the secret documents and is described as incompetent, vain and critical of America, the magazine said.
An embassy cable from Berlin from September 22, 2009, days before the general election that put him in office, describes Westerwelle as having an “exuberant personality” but little foreign policy experience.
“That is why he finds it difficult to take a backseat when it comes to any matters of dispute with Chancellor Angela Merkel,” the cable quoted by Der Spiegel says.
Meanwhile Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Germany’s most popular politician, is quoted as telling the US ambassador to Germany, Philip Murphy, in February 2010 that Westerwelle was the real barrier to a US request for an increase in the number of German troops in Afghanistan.
Guttenberg also disparages his boss, saying that Merkel has trouble implementing her own economic policies.
And Horst Seehofer, the head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is shown as unaware that half of 40,000 US troops in Germany are based in his state, which he also governs.
The State Department documents show Washington was kept abreast of coalition negotiations by an informant while Merkel was forming her current government in October 2009.
A German diplomatic source said that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had called Westerwelle on Friday to “express her regret about the impending publication of internal US documents.”
Meanwhile US Ambassador Murphy said Monday that there is no reason to apologise to either Westerwelle or Merkel for the information contained in the leaked documents.
“It’s not about apologies,” he said in an interview with daily Der Tagesspiegel.
“Luckily I am in constant contact with Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Westerwelle, which won’t change, and I am certain that we will get through both this difficult phase on both a governmental and personal level.”
Murphy added that he had the “utmost respect” for both politicians.
“There will be a few difficult days, but I am certain that the German-American relationship won’t be permanently damaged by these tensions,” he said. “We’ll survive.”
But the ambassador also said he was “furious” about the leaks, calling it “irresponsible to publish such documents” which only serve to “cause political and personal damage.”
Former US ambassador to Germany John Kornblum, who served in Berlin from 1997 to 2001, told broadcaster ZDF on Monday that the leaks were a crisis for German-American relations.
“Diplomacy…must function on the basis of trust, and when that trust if broken, as is the case now, then one must begin at almost zero again,” he said.
“The era in which we could speak to each other and say, ‘Don’t worry, that won’t make it into the papers,’ is over,” he said.
Kornblum rejected criticism that the US diplomatic corps functions like an intelligence service, though.
“If one has an informant, that doesn’t mean that it’s about intelligence gathering,” he told ZDF.
Late on Monday morning German officials blasted Wikileaks’ choice to release the information as illegal and a potential security threat, but said they would not undermine transatlantic ties.
“We regret this publication — these are confidential reports that were published illegally and on which we will not comment in detail. Foreign policy needs confidentiality,” Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular press briefing.
“The German-American relationship is mature, it has grown so robust over the decades, it is such a deep friendship based on shared values that it will not be seriously damaged by this publication,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Targeted by Brussels on Nurses and Hospitals
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 24 — The European Commission has referred Greece to the European Court of Justice for medical equipment supply contracts to hospitals, particularly regarding safety standards for products and public contracts, which do not allow access to competitors from other EU countries. Brussels will ask the EU Court to levy big fines of 7,173 euros per day starting from the court’s previous ruling in March 2009, until a second ruling or when Greece adopts EU regulations if this takes place first. The fine proposed for the period of time after a second ruling if necessary, would be 43,725 euros per day until they adapt to EU rules. Meanwhile an ultimatum has been issued regarding their recognition of nurses’ qualifications. Athens has two months to put an end to their discriminatory system, which currently requires anyone who educated outside of the country to request recognition of their degree in Greece before being able to be registered on the list of nurses. If Athens does not change its rules in 60 days, they could be referred to the European Court of Justice. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: President Signs Naples Trash Decree He Had Rejected
Berlusconi to visit, decide if govt to take direct control
(ANSA) — Rome, November 26 — Italian President Giorgio Napolitano signed a decree on the Naples trash crisis that he had previously rejected on Friday when Premier Silvio Berlusconi will visit the southern city and decide whether the government should reassume direct control of the situation.
Some progress has been made in clearing the mounds of rotting refuse in recent days, but around 2,700 tonnes still lie uncollected and the emergency is far from over. Berlusconi, who solved a similar crisis soon after being elected in 2008, said he will decide further measures after talks in Naples later in the day, adding that the local authorities were to blame for the problem flaring up again.
“In Naples we’ll remind people that trash-management powers returned to the local authorities on January 1 2010,” said Berlusconi, who had temporarily put Italy’s Civil Protection Authority in charge of the area’s refuse in 2008.
“The government had resolved the situation, but to fix things definitively the local authorities needed to fulfill commitments, such as the construction of incinerators, one in east Naples and one in Salerno, and open new dumps.
“The local authorities have done nothing. After a meeting at the Naples Prefect’s offices, we’ll decide whether the government will take back control of a situation the local authorities have not solved”. The authorities are facing stronger hostility to dumps many believe are toxic than they did two years ago in Naples and the surrounding province, which has had waste-disposal problems for many years.
Indeed, plans to open new dumps in the area were shelved after weeks of violent clashes with local residents.
One of the reasons Napolitano sent back the original version of the decree was that it gave few details about alternatives.
The head of state was also concerned about the vague wording of the section on how new trash officials would be appointed, although he said in a statement that the government had dispelled his reservations with the revised version.
A European Commission delegation scolded Italy after a visit to Naples Monday, saying the situation did not appear to have improved compared to two years ago.
“The refuse is there in the streets, and there is still no plan for treating or recycling it,” said Pia Bucella, the chief inspector of the delegation that was assessing compliance with a European Court of Justice sentence condemning Italy for failing to meet rules on waste management.
Independent experts have said the uncollected trash poses a serious health risk and called on local and national authorities to clear it, free up contested dumps, persuade more of the population to recycle and hasten the construction of incinerators.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Judges Say Independence Threatened
Restore faith in justice says Napolitano
(ANSA) — Rome, November 26 — Italian judges on Friday said their independence was threatened by planned government justice reforms.
Speaking at the 30th annual congress of the prosecutors and judges’ union ANM, union chief Luca Palamara accused Premier Silvio Berlusconi of wanting to bring prosecutors to heel.
Palamara claimed Berlusconi had in the past benefited from tailor-made laws to dodge conviction and now planned to definitively resolve his judicial woes by hamstringing judges.
“Bills on wiretapping, trial caps and removing police from prosecutors’ control”, he said, were “no less insidious” than past moves to hamper investigations through a string of laws.
The premier has repeatedly denied wanting to undermine the judiciary and argues that the reforms would bring Italy into line with other Western countries where the defence and the prosecution are on a par and police get instructions from the justice ministry.
Berlusconi has never received a definitive conviction in about a dozen trials ranging from corruption to fraud.
Some of the trial have been affected by law changes made by his own government.
He has two trials pending, for allegedly suborning a witness and alleged tax fraud, but they have been frozen by a ‘legitimate impediment’ law up for review by the Constitutional Court on December 14.
Government plans also include separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors and splitting the judiciary’s self-governing body, allegedly to bring it under political control.
Palamara said the planned reforms would “alter the current separation of power laid down in the 1948 Constitution”.
“There will inevitably be a return to the past with prosecutors subject to the executive,” he argued.
This was particularly “serious”, Palamara said, because of the level of corruption in Italian public life, as he claimed was highlighted by a string of recent scandals.
He noted that, according to the latest standings from international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Italy lags behind all developed countries.
“Even Malaysia, Turkey, Tunisia, Croatia, Macedonia, Ghana, Samoa and Rwanda are better than us,” he said.
In another ranking, of where business would like to invest, the ANM chief said Italy was behind Zambia, Mongolia, Ghana and Rwanda.
Berlusconi has issuied frequent blasts against a minority of allegedly left-leaning prosecutors he says are trying to hound him out of office.
The spokesman for the premier’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, Daniele Capezzone, repeated this on Friday in reacting to Palamara’s charges.
He said the ANM “keeps talking like a political party”, something he described as “an Italian anomaly”.
Capezzone vowed that the justice reforms “will go through”.
According to political analysts, however, the chances of the reforms passing quickly are minimal because the government risks falling in a confidence vote on December 14.
Italian politics has been in turmoil since House Speaker Gianfranco Fini broke with Berlusconi in July and formed his own party which has deprived the government of a safe majority in the House.
Fini has frequently been at odds with the PdL’s plans for changing the balance of power between the executive and the judiciary.
He repeated his determination to stand up for the ANM in a message to Friday’s congress, saying “the autonomy of the magistrature constitutes the foundation of its independence”.
Among other things, Fini has in the past effectively blocked the trial-capping law, saying it would deprive thousands of Italians of a chance of justice.
Instead of the government’s reforms, the ANM has promised to reform itself, partly to get rid of political factions.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano welcomed this on Friday and stressed that the ANM was an “essential talking partner” for moves to restore the public’s faith in the judicial system.
The ANM said that, thanks to Fini and Napolitano, it felt “less alone”. photo: Palamara
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi ‘Laughs Off’ Wikileaks Revelations
Premier ‘does not feel attacked or offended’, Frattini says
(ANSA) — Rome, November 29 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi “laughed” when told of US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks on his partying lifestyle, effectiveness and close relationship with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin, sources close to the premier said Monday.
In one cable, the premier was said to be “feckless” and “ineffective” while his “wild parties” meant he “does not get sufficient rest”.
In another, Berlusconi is described as “physically and politically weak”.
The Italian premier is “increasingly becoming a mouthpiece for (Russian Premier Vladimir) Putin in Europe” and the pair exchange “lavish gifts,” another cable said.
Berlusconi issued no public response on Monday but Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Corriere della Sera daily that the revelations were “mostly gossip” and would not hurt US-Italian ties.
“Berlusconi has defended Russia’s right to be heard in the most important world bodies while at the same time never falling short of his commitments to the United States, and we didn’t need Wikileaks to explain that,” La Russa said.
“Just ask any diplomat,” La Russa said.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said “much” of the Wikileaks materials had already been seen “on the front pages of opposition newspapers, dating back a long, long time”.
He said Berlusconi “did not feel attacked, targeted or offended,” by the content of the cables.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Nab Suspected Sicilian Serial Killer
Investigators confident they have the ‘Monster of Cassibile’
(ANSA) — Rome, November 29 — A 69-year-old pensioner has been arrested on suspicion of being the serial killer who has terrorized the Sicilian town of Cassibile for over a decade, police said Monday.
Officers said Giuseppe Raeli had been charged with five murders and four attempted murders between 1998 and 2009, although he may also be behind other killings in the town near Siracusa and the surrounding area.
Police said they were searching the home of Raeli, who has no criminal record, to look for further evidence, although investigators are confident he is the ‘monster of Cassibile’. “We are absolutely certain we have found the man known as the monster of Cassibile,” said Siracusa Prosecutor Ugo Rossi.
“We probed almost 15 cases and found some signs of him in incidents dating back to 1991”. Before now the ‘monster of Cassibile’ had been blamed for eight murders between 1997 and 2004 linked by the use of a 12 caliber rifle and their apparent senselessness.
However, investigators said Monday that they believe economic motives were what spurred Raeli to kill, sometimes for small sums he was owed by clients of his wood-supply business.
Cassibile was the town where the Allies signed the Second World War Armistice with Italy in 1943.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Media Diagnose Swiss Identity Crisis
Following the latest sign of growing hostility to immigration in Switzerland, opponents of the initiative marched through Zurich on Sunday, smashing up shop windows. In the capital Bern, there were about 500 protesters, some of whom threw snowballs and bottles at police in front of parliament. “The bad mood hits foreigners but not the rich,” was the headline in Der Bund of Bern. The yes to the People’s Party’s initiative showed that “questions of Swiss identity and culture, triggered by rapidly growing social change and migration, bother Swiss people like virtually nothing else”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Vote to Expel Foreign Criminals is ‘Slap in the Face for EU’
Switzerland’s vote to automatically expel criminal foreigners drew condemnation from across Europe on Monday. Commentators said the decision would breach treaty obligations. Amnesty International called it ‘black day for human rights’ in the nation that voted to ban the construction of minarets last year.
European commentators on Monday condemned Switzerland’s vote over the weekend to automatically expel foreigners accused of certain crimes, calling it a slap in the face for the European Union and a breach of the Alpine nation’s international treaty obligations.
The expulsion initiative, put forward by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), was supported by 52.9 percent of voters in a referendum on Sunday, with 47.1 percent voting against it. The SVP has become Switzerland’s biggest political movement by tapping growing fears about immigration. It was behind the vote a year ago to ban the construction of new minarets in a decision that drew international criticism.
The SVP said foreigners were responsible for nearly 60 percent of murders in the country last year.
The Swiss branch of Amnesty International said Sunday had been a “black day for human rights in Switzerland” and that the country was undermining international agreements including the European convention on human rights.
“Amnesty International fears that, in the future, people could be deported from Switzerland to a country in which they face torture or the death penalty,” the organization said in a statement…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The World Reacts to Massive Diplomatic Leak
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, depicted as a vain party animal in the US State Department cables disclosed by WikiLeaks on Sunday, “had a good laugh” upon learning of the revelations. Others aren’t as sanguine. A US Representative wants to designate the Internet platform as a terrorist organization.
The dispatches from Rome were hardly complementary. A cable from June 9, 2009 describes Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as “feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader.” The cable says he has an “overweening self-confidence” that has “made him deaf to dissenting opinion.” A separate dispatch says that Berlusconi’s “frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean that he does not get sufficient rest.”
The assessments about the Italian head of government come from the more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, many of which were made publicly available on Sunday evening. Several news sources, including SPIEGEL, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Spanish daily El País, have now begun a series documenting findings from an analysis of those dispatches.
There are several world leaders who come in for particular critique, including Berlusconi. He is described as “physically and politically weak” in the dispatches which also make it clear that the US State Department under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was eager to find out if there was any truth to the rumors that Berlusconi and his good friend Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had teamed up to pursue private business interests together, something both vehemently deny.
But according to a report in the Italian news wire ANSA on Sunday, Berlusconi wasn’t particularly bothered by the reports. He “had a good laugh” about the reports, according to ANSA, citing Berlusconi confidants. Others in his government, however, weren’t nearly as sanguine. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called the leaks “the 9/11 of world diplomacy.”
Frattini’s assessment would appear to be shared by the US. The White House condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents soon after they were made public, saying “such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.” Even before the dispatches were made public, the US began contacting foreign governments in an effort at damage control.
WikiLeaks as a Terrorist Organization?
US Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York and the incoming chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, has requested the administration of US President Barack Obama to “determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization,” according to the website CNET News. “WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria,” King wrote in a letter to Clinton, which has been seen by the website. “WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.”
Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has likewise called for WikiLeaks to be shut down. “By disseminating these materials, WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world. It is an outrageous, reckless and despicable action.”
Over 1,700 of the newly released documents originated in the US Embassy in Berlin, and many of them are no less complimentary of German politicians than they are of Berlusconi. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is referred to as “risk averse and rarely creative.” She also, one of the Berlin dispatches makes clear, “seems uncertain at times” in her relations with Obama. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is described in a Sept. 18, 2009 cable as being short on substance, lacking in “gravitas,” vain, arrogant, critical of America and “too opportunistic to be trusted as foreign minister.” He is, one of the dispatches says, an “enigma” who faces a “steep learning curve” on foreign policy issues.
Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, the sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is seen as having “only shallow foreign policy expertise” and is “uninformed about basic things.” A cable notes that he has “natural instincts to utter populist pronouncements.”
‘Downright Ludicrous’
And German Development Minister Dirk Niebel, of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), Merkel’s junior coalition partners, is called an “unlikely choice” for the post and “is not considered an expert on development assistance.”
Indeed, it is the FDP party of Niebel and Foreign Minister Westerwelle which might end up having the most to fear in Germany from the WikiLeaks revelations. Cables from Berlin immediately following September 2009 parliamentary elections in Germany make it clear that US Ambassador Philip Murphy was kept well informed about ongoing negotiations to form a coalition government between Merkel’s CDU and Westerwelle’s FDP. The source was charged with taking notes for the FDP during the negotiations — notes he then passed on to the Americans as discussions were continuing.
On Sunday evening, Niebel said “I consider the accusations to be downright ludicrous.” Niebel was a guest on a talkshow hosted by the German public television station ARD. “I dispute that there is an informant.” He also said that he didn’t anticipate that US-German relations would be harmed by the publication of the dispatches. But he added that “one will have to think much harder about how open one speaks and with whom.”
Former US ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, said that “one reason why diplomats enjoy working in Germany is that Germans are very communicative. One can really find out whatever one wants. You just have to be a bit friendly.”
Westerwelle also expressed doubt that there was an FDP informant who had passed along information from the coalition negotiations to the US ambassador. “I don’t believe this story as it has been presented,” he told reporters on Monday. “Just because it says it there doesn’t mean that it is right.” Westerwelle also said that he didn’t consider “gossip and chit-chat” about European politicians to be particularly relevant. He said he is more concerned about potential dangers to security from the publication of the documents.
Israel Could Benefit from Leaks
Ruprecht Polenz, a member of Merkel’s CDU and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German federal parliament, said, “I do think that the damage is considerable.” The US, he said, must now move to reassure allies that they can be trusted. “Otherwise, partners might not continue being open with them.”
But Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert countered that view, saying that nothing will change in US-German relations — the friendship is “robust and tight,” he said on Monday. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble — who, the dispatches make clear, is widely respected among US diplomats — said the publication of the dispatches was “bad and unappetizing.”
Several other countries reacted to the leaks on Monday, with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari calling them “unhelpful and untimely.” The Foreign Ministry in Pakistan said in a statement that “we condemn the irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents.” Russia has said it prefers to examine the documents before reacting.
One of the few countries which may stand to benefit from the WikiLeaks revelations appears to be Israel. Countless documents indicate that several countries in the Middle East are much more concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons than they have let on in public. One dispatch reveals that Saudi Arabia had urged the US to “cut off the head of the snake” by attacking Iran, a sentiment shared by other countries in the region. The cables also reveal that North Korea may have provided Iran with missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe.
“These (disclosures) don’t hurt Israel at all — perhaps the opposite,” Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser to ex-prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, told Israeli radio according to the Associated Press. “If there is something on the Iranian issue that, in my opinion, happens to help Israel, it is that these leaks show that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia are far more interested in Iran than they are in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Angry Young Girls: Binge-Drinking Culture ‘Creating a Generation of Aggressive and Out-of-Control Women’
The number of teenage girls who are physically aggressive and lash out at school and at home has risen at an alarming rate, experts claimed yesterday.
More and more girls are binge drinking and — tired of being regarded as the passive sex — are emulating male behaviour.
The disturbing trend has been noted by the British Association of Anger Management, which is dealing with increasing numbers of ‘out-of-control’ and aggressive young women.
The association’s findings echo statistics which found the ‘ladette’ yob culture was on the rise, with 200 women convicted of violent crime every week.
The number of women found guilty of murder, vicious assault or other attacks has risen by 81 per cent since 1998.
Leading anger management psychotherapist Mike Fisher said there was a strong link between the rise in binge-drinking among young girls and their physical aggression.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Channel 4 Stirs Up Anti-Muslim Bigotry [Reader Comment About West Midlands Police — Britain’s First Islamist Constabulary.]
[…]
Lamia, 27 November 2010, 2:49pm
the police are quick to act in arresting a 15 year old girl for incitement to racial hatred in these circumstances.
The police in question are, of course, West Midlands Police, just as it was West Midlands Police who arrested Councillor Compton but couldn’t bring themsleves to find anything wrong in a preacher advocating the killing and torture of gay people. With the West Midlands Police we have our first British example of an Islamist constabulary. It applies its powers differently to Muslims and non-Muslims. In effect it is trying to operate a blasphemy law concerning Islam, by misuse of race hate laws, even though the state has not passed such any such law.
The West Midlands Police force should be a national scandal. It should be investigated and purged of Islamists. I wish some of our hundreds of MPs would do the country a service and push for this to happen.
[JP note: See also the West Midlands Association of Muslim Police’s webpage at the West Midlands Police’s recrutiment website. One wonders, though, that with the constabulary’s leadership so firmly wedded to Sharia principles, whether a separate association is in fact necessary:
https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/wmprrecruit/wmpr2010811144827.asp
The West Midlands Association of Muslim Police provides support for all colleagues, the organisation and our communites through effective leadership.
“Making a difference to Policing by engaging partners and facilitating change for a better tomorrow”
The association will support colleagues by maximising the use of existing organisational systems, processes and structures for the benefit of members and non members. They welcome members from a diverse background, and work in partnership internally and externally to achieve their aims.
- Increase the number of Muslim Officers and Staff at the same time impacting on the representation of BME’s within the service.
- Actively engage in a series of events that assists the progression of Muslim and other minority staff.
- Successfully deliver regular and well-attended networking opportunities..
- Develop a sound working relationship with the Police Federation, staff unions and associations. In relation to supporting members who have welfare needs and help our members to achieve resolutions, retain skills and assist to minimise litigation proceedings.
- Facilitate and delivery Islamic awareness inputs to management and staff within the organisation.
- Provide Operational advice to inform the decision making on issues affecting Muslims and the likely outcomes of any courses of action.
- Engage with Muslim communities and deliver inputs to reflect the organisation, and build bridges between the communities and the police service.
- Build contacts with the main Muslim stakeholders, especially under represented groups such as the youth and women.
- Increase full, associate, and corporate membership of the association and the involvement of members in all activities.
For more information, contact Maskeen Ali, Chair — West Midlands Association Muslim Police on 0345 113 5000 ext. 7802 6052, or email: m.ali@west-midlands.pnn.police.uk.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Government to Make U-Turn on Election Promise to Jail Knife Thugs
Ministers will risk a public backlash by going back on a Tory election promise to jail knife thugs.
Leaked papers reveal the criminals will escape with community punishment.
The plan has been drawn up by Ken Clarke in the face of protests from Cabinet members. They fear that the Coalition — which has already said it will cut prisoner numbers by 3,000 — will be seen as ‘soft on crime’.
There will also be deep backbench unease at the ditching of another key Tory manifesto pledge, which would have put up to 8,200 more knife offenders behind bars at any one time.
The promise, made in the wake of a spate of brutal killings of teenagers, was expected to be included in a forthcoming sentencing green paper.
Yet, despite the public clamour for more knife-wielding louts to be imprisoned, the leaked papers say Mr Clarke believes that ‘robust community-based punishments are an appropriate and more effective response for adult knife possession offenders’.
Currently, fewer than one in four is jailed, a situation that is likely to continue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Is This Masked Muslim Man a Well Known London Boxer?
Anthony Small refuses to deny claims he took part in poppy burning outrage
BOXER Anthony Small has refused to deny claims that he was among a group of Muslims who caused public outrage by setting fire to a wreath of poppies on Remembrance Day.
Small, 29, who was dropped by his manager, after joining fellow Muslims to protest against British troops when they returned from Afghanistan, refused to deny that he was one of the men protesting in the poppy-burning demonstration when The Voice contacted him.
The rumours that Small was among the protestors started when a photograph of a black man with his face partly covered appeared in media reports of the poppy protest. One Online blogger claimed that the masked man was Small.
The Islamic activist from Lewisham told the Voice that he was in support of the demonstration which led to the poppy burnings.
“It doesn’t matter whether I took place in the demonstration or not, the point is that, I’m in the support of the demonstration. If I was in the demonstration the reason why I covered my face was because it was not about Anthony Smalls but instead those wearing the poppy that are supporting mass murdering,” he told The Voice.
In reference to the first demonstration which led to Smalls parting from his manager he said: “Getting punched in the head for a living is not the best way to earn your money,. Look at the history of boxing look at Mohammed Ali and more.”
“My main focus consists of working with his fellow Muslim brothers to stand up for the poor and the needy and bringing the message of Islam to the people in the UK.”
Small added: “The purpose of the demonstration was that to inform people that by wearing a poppy means that they are supporting present day soldiers who are killing innocent men, women and children.
“Many are not aware that wearing a poppy means that they are supporting these soldiers.
“When people see the poppy being burnt they are shocked but the point of the burnt poppy was to get peoples attention.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lollipop Man [Crossing Guard] Banned From Stepping Into the Road
A lollipop man has been banned from stepping off the pavement to help children cross the road because of ‘bonkers’ health and safety rules.
Ron Warrick has been helping youngsters from St Mary’s Primary School in Shenfield, Essex, across a busy road for the past 18 months.
But after the county council spent £30,000 on safety improvements at the busy junction, Mr Warrick was stripped of his lollipop because it is ‘unsafe’ for him to step into the road.
Now he just presses the button at the pedestrian crossing and waits on the pavement while youngsters cross the road.
Liz Cohen, who has two children at the school and has been campaigning for safety improvements for the past six years, said: ‘What I don’t understand is that he walked out into the middle of the road for 18 months.’
Another mother, who did not want to be named, blasted the changes. She said: ‘It’s absolutely bonkers — whoever heard of a lollipop man who cannot go into the road, it’s like the punch-line to some ridiculous joke.
‘If the council think it’s too dangerous for Ron to cross the road then why on earth do they think it’s safe enough for our children to go across there?’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: 2 Mln Euros From EU for Female Employment
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 19 — As part of the “Women on the labour market” project, the EU has assigned 2 million euros to Croatia from EU pre-accession funds to be used for the promotion of female employment. The project is being carried out as part of the “Human Resources Development” operational project with financial support through the IPA pre-accession programme funds.(ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Record-High Export of Defense Army Industry
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 18 — Serbia’s defense army industry has become the biggest exporter of army equipment and arms in Southeast Europe in the last three year, reports daily Blic.
Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac said that it had just closed the deal for the construction of three military factories in the north of Africa, worth EUR400 million.
The Minister did not disclose all the details of the deal, but it has been said that it involves planning, building and supervision of works on the military factory facilities, underground shelters and storages. This deal raises the total value of Serbia’s defense army export in the last three years to USD1.2 billion (around EUR877.4 million).(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cartoons: Israel and Palestine Dialogue Through Strips
(ANSAmed) — CAGLIARI, NOVEMBER 19 — The Egyptian cartoonist Magdi El Shafee is arriving in Italy. The author of the graphic novel, which has become a literary cause célèbre after all copies, which were affected by censorship, were ordered to be destroyed in his home country, is among the dozens of guests at the third edition of Nues, the Festival dedicated to cartoon strips from the Mediterranean area, which is directed by Bepi Vigna and will be held in Cagliari from December 1-8.
The event has a focus on the Middle East, “to bring about dialogue, through the language of cartoons, cultures that have an urgent need to talk to one another”, explains Vigna. Israel and the Palestinian Territories are represented by Uri Fink, the most popular Israeli cartoonist, and the “Memory of Naji Al-Ali”, thirty-five panels dedicated to one of the most famous Palestinian cartoonists, who was killed in London in 1987, which tell the stories of the barefoot child in rags who became one of the symbols of his people’s struggle.
There is also an event dedicated to Naji Al-Ali, which will culminate with the screening of a documentary made in 1999 by the director Kasim Abid.
But Nues consists of laboratories, six exhibitions and meetings. The event, which is organised by the cultural association Hybris — International Cartoon Strip Centre, will be held between the former Liceo Artistico, the Hostel Marina and the Caffe Savoia. Among the guests are two influential Italian cartoonists, Igort and Otto Gabos, both Cagliari-born, who will present their latest works at the Festival. There will also be an homage to the father of the graphic novel, Will Eisner, and the rediscovery of two Sardinian cartoonists, Giovanni Manca and Giuseppe Porcheddu, who were active in the first half of last century. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Documents Chart Eight Years of US Views of Turkish Government
Official U.S. documents leaked Sunday and Monday not only have the potential of damaging ties between Turkey and the United States, they offer a telling insight into Washington’s perception of Turkey’s government over the past eight years.
The documents reveal how the U.S. describes the prominent leaders of the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP — Abdullah Gül, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu — while analyzing whether it has a hidden agenda that could “Islamize” the entire country accompanied by a “neo-Ottomanist foreign policy.”
Relying on the chronological order of leaked cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, one can see how this perception has shown differences over the eight years of the AKP and under different U.S. administrations.
The first cable cited by the WikiLeaks was sent in early 2004 by Eric Edelman, a former U.S. envoy to Turkey who hit the headlines a month ago for harshly criticizing the AKP government. As the title of his cable indicates — Erdogan goes to Washington: How strong a leader in the face of strong challenges? — Edelman questioned the abilities of Erdogan and his party to run Turkey.
“Who are we dealing with?” asked Edelman in his cable, proving his administration’s failure to fully read Erdogan and his party’s motives.
“Erdogan has a strong pragmatic core,” he wrote. “It was this pragmatism that led him away from the radical Islamist milieu of his past, a point noted to us unhappily by his [radical] former spiritual leader Kemal Hoca.”
A clear failure in reading Erdogan could be seen again in Edelman’s assessment that the party could lose power if it failed to overcome the challenges of 2004.
“Erdogan has traits which render him seriously vulnerable to miscalculating the political dynamic, especially in foreign affairs, and vulnerable to attacks by those who would disrupt his equilibrium. First overbearing pride. Second, unbridled ambition stemming from the belief God has anointed him to lead Turkey,” Edelman said, adding that the appointments of narrow-minded religious persons to critical posts were complicating the AKP’s ability to run the country.
Nearly a year after the aforementioned cable, Edelman’s note sent to Washington analyzed Erdogan and the AKP’s first two years in power.
“PM Erdogan and his ruling AKP seen to have a firm grip on power,” he said.
Recalling that Turkey could obtain the right to start full membership negotiations with the European Union under Erdogan’s rule in December 2004, Edelman ironically described the Turkish prime minister’s performance in Brussels.
“As PM Erdogan strode through the EU corridors of power Dec. 16-17 with his semi-pro soccer player’s swagger and phalanx of sycophantic advisors, he may have seemed a strong candidate for European leader of the year,” Edelman said.
“In short, Erdogan looks unbeatable. But is he?” he asked.
“But there’s always a Monday morning and the debate on the ground here is not so neat. With euphoria at getting a date having faded in 48 hours, Erdogan’s political survival and the difficulty of the tasks before him have become substantially clearer,” Edelman said.
Edelman said afterward that he thought some party officials approved of the membership bid just because it would help marginalize the military while others saw it as a tool “to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Elderly California Dentist Rode a Horse Overnight in Daring Escape From Iran, Wikileaks Reveals
Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi, an American of Iranian descent, went back in 2008 to visit his parents’ graves. The visit was only his second trip to Iran since he left in 1979.
Then 75, he spent four weeks visiting family and friends without incident and went to the Tehran airport for his scheduled flight out.
After clearing customs, Vahedi was paged over the loudspeaker, told to report to an office and once there had his passport confiscated.
The next seven months were a virtual house arrest. Vahedi believes he was held because his grown-up Los Angles-based sons promote popular Persian pop singers.
Vahedi would have to pay government officials a $150,000 bribe and have his sons stop their work to get his passport back, he was led to believe. Even then there was no guarantee he would ever get out of Iran.
Weighing his options, Vahedi decided to escape. He paid two drug smugglers to take him on horseback over the mountains of western Iran and into Turkey.
In the weeks leading up to his departure, he trained for the altitude by hiking in the hills outside of Tehran and getting extra heart medication.
On January 7 2009 Vahedi boarded a bus from Tehran to Urmia. Once there, he met a car and drove into the mountains where he met the two men and a single horse.
In the freezing cold and without appropriate clothing, Vahedi rode 14 hours overnight and crossed into Turkey. At one point during the ride he fell off the horse and was convinced he would die on the ground by freezing to death.
His guides, to whom he’s paid $5,000 to start, hugged him for warmth.
Once they crossed the Turkish border, Vahedi paid out another $2500 and was handed off to a third man.
After some food and rest, Vahedi then took a ten hour bus ride from Van to Ankara and showed up at the U.S. Consulate.
In their cable, U.S. diplomats describe the dentist as ‘suffering some aches and pains’ but, he ‘in good health.’
They also reported he broke down crying several times as he described his ordeal.
The American officials were able to convince Turkey not to deport the man back to Iran as punishment for his illegal entry.
He finally flew home to California four days later and has yet to speak publicly about the ordeal.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Explosions in Tehran — Nuclear Scientists Targeted, One Dead
Mehr reported that the “terrorists” were riding motorcycles.
Police say terrorists in both attacks were motorcyclists and attached magnetic bombs to the bodyworks of the physicists’ cars. The two academics were on the way to Shahid Beheshti University in north Tehran when they came under attacks.
[…]
The Iranian regime said the Zionists were behind the attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed and Another Wounded in Separate Bomb Attacks
An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and another injured in separate attacks in Tehran today.
The scientists were targeted in two different locations by men riding motorcycles who attached bombs to their car windows as they drove to work.
One device killed Dr Majid Shahriari, a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at the Tehran University, and wounded his wife.
The second blast seriously wounded nuclear physicist Dr Fereidoun Abbasi. His wife was also injured.
Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Dr Shahriari was involved in a major project at the country’s chief nuclear agency, though he did not give specifics.
State television swiftly blamed Israel for the attacks.
At least two other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in recent years in what Iran has alleged is part of a covert attempt by the West to damage its controversial nuclear program.
One of those two, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, was killed in an attack similar to today’s in January.
Mr Mohammadi, a 50-year-old professor from Tehran University, had just left his house on his way to work when a remote-controlled bomb rigged to a motorbike exploded.
‘Don’t play with fire. The patience of the Iranian nation has limits. If it runs out of patience, bad consequences will await enemies,’ the official news agency IRNA quoted Mr Salehi as saying as he met Dr Abbasi at his hospital bedside.
Mr Salehi, one of Iran’s vice presidents, was apparently referring to Israel and the U.S., which Iran alleges are trying to damage its nuclear program.
Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme is at the center of a bitter row between Iran on one side and the U.S. and its allies on the other. Uranium enrichment is a process that can be used to produce both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
A number of world powers suspect Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons, an allegation the government denies.
Tehran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment has brought on multiple rounds of U.N. sanctions against the country.
Washington has strongly denied allegations of links to previous attacks. There are several active armed groups that oppose Iran’s ruling clerics, but it’s unclear whether they could have carried out the apparently coordinated bombings in the capital.
Most anti-government violence in recent years has been isolated to Iran’s provinces such as the border with Pakistan where Sunni rebels are active and the western mountains near Iraq where Kurdish separatists operate.
The assailants, who escaped, drove by their targets on motorcycles and attached the bombs as the cars were moving. They exploded shortly thereafter, state television reported.
Dr Shahriari, the scientist who was killed, was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. His wife, who was in the car with him, was wounded.
Dr Salehi, the nuclear chief who also heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said Shahriari was one of his students and his death was a big loss.
He said: ‘Shahriari had good cooperation with the AEOI. He was involved in one of the big AEOI projects which is a source of pride for the Iranian nation.’
He didn’t provide any details on the project. But the AEOI is involved in Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
Dr Salehi added: ‘The enemy took our dearest flower, but must know that this nation, through resistance and all its might, will make efforts to remove problems and achieve its desires.’
A second, separate attack in the capital Tehran wounded nuclear physicist Dr Abbasi. His wife was also in the car with him, and she was also wounded.
A pro-government website, mashreghnews.ir, said Abbasi held a PhD in nuclear physics and was a laser expert at Iran’s Defence Ministry and one of few top Iranian specialists in nuclear isotope separation.
Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes, for example separating natural uranium from enriched uranium. This is a crucial process in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power stations, and is also required for the creation of uranium-based nuclear weapons.
The site said Abbasi has long been a member of the Revolutionary Guard, the country’s most powerful military force. It said he was also a lecturer at Imam Hossein University, affiliated to the Guard.
The attacks bore close similarities to another in January that killed Tehran University professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed in Motorbike Attack
An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and another wounded in two separate but similar attacks in the capital, Tehran.
The scientists were targeted by men on motorbikes who attached bombs to the windows of their cars as they drove to work, officials said.
The scientist killed has been named as Majid Shahriari.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused “Western governments” and Israel of being behind the killing.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Leaked Documents Reveal Tension Between EU and Turkey
Leaked US State Department documents on Sunday (28 November) make multiple references to EU accession state Turkey, painting an unflattering description of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s circle of advisers and highlighting the country’s frustrations with French resistance to its EU membership.
While Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is portrayed by American officials as a “perfectionist workaholic” but ill-informed, American perceptions of his support team are even less flattering, describing his advisers and foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu as having little understanding of politics beyond Ankara. Criticism of Mr Davutoglu included dispatches describing him as “dangerous” and having a “neo-Ottoman” vision.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Deal Aids Al-Qaida Backers?
Largest weapons sale in U.S. history to country ID’d as chief financier of terror group
JERUSALEM — The WikiLeaks revelation that Saudi donors are the chief financiers of al-Qaida comes just days after President Obama quietly moved forward with plans to sell $60 billion worth of fighter jets and military equipment to the Saudis — the largest weapons sale to a nation in U.S. history.
A New York Times summary of the WikiLeaks release of more than a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables relates the U.S. has information Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of al-Qaida and other Sunni terrorist organizations.
Just last week, Obama attempted to solidify the weapons deal to Saudi Arabia, despite questions raised about the deal by lawmakers and a congressional report that questions the wisdom of the sale.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: According to Latest Census, Non-Saudis Almost 8.5 Million
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 24 — The number of people living in the Saudi kingdom, according to the latest census carried out by the General Statistics Office, amounts to 27 million people, of which 68% are Saudi citizens. Quoting a statement by the statistics office, the Al Jazeera website emphasised that the exact number of citizens is 27,136,977 compared to 22,678,262 in 2005, equal to a 19.7% increase, or 4,458,715 people.
According to the census the number of Saudi citizens increased by 13,2%, or 2,180,236 people, increasing from 16,527,340 people in 2005 to the current 18,707,576.
On average males represent 50.9% of the population, compared to 50.1% in 2005. Non-Saudis amount to 8,429,401, in other words 31.1% of the total population compared to 6,150,922 in 2005.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
SMS Costs Less in Palestinian Territories, Yemen, Tunis
(ANSAmed) — TUNISI, NOVEMBER 19 — In the Arab world, the cheapest Countries for text messages are the Palestinian Territories, followed by Yemen and Tunisia, according to a research paper named “Sms and MMs rates in the Arab World: a regional comparison”, published by the Arab Advisor Group.
According to the report, the countries that are the most expensive, taxes included, are Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Oman and Sudan. The report covered 54 mobile communications operators in 18 Arab countries.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Region: Revolution, Not Terrorism, Is the Main Threat
The big strategic danger for Western interests in the region is the overthrow of entire countries, transforming into new Irans.
An Egyptian Islamist cleric, Ibrahim al-Khouli, was recently interviewed on Egyptian television, with a translation by MEMRI. And what can we learn from his words? A lot.
“What is the nature of our relations with [the West]? They are the relations of Crusader aggression against the land of Islam — in Afghanistan, in Iraq, which was destroyed and removed from history…”
Technically, at least the way it is expressed nowadays (in contrast to the way it was practiced historically), jihad must be defensive. However, it is easy to portray anything as defensive by dissociating cause and effect. Why did US forces go into Afghanistan? It was in response to the September 11 attacks. If there had been no September 11 attacks, US forces would not have gone into Afghanistan and the Taliban would probably still be ruling there.
Iraq is somewhat more complex, but of course the first US attack, in 1991, was in response to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and at the request of the Kuwaitis, Saudis, and other Arabic-speaking, Muslim-majority countries.
In 2003, whether the action was rightly guided or not, it was in response to a belief that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and breaking agreements in a way that would lead to future aggression. And that this Iraqi aggression would be against other Muslim-majority countries.
A particularly fascinating line is that Iraq has been “removed from history.” What does this mean? That Iraq’s fate is not to be a happy, peaceful or democratic country — goals certainly not achieved, but which are not “supposed” to be achieved. Iraq and its people are “supposed” to be a cog in the wheel of revolution, sacrificing themselves for the Islamist global revolution. Iraq, then, does not belong to its own people but to the will of Allah, as interpreted by the radical totalitarians. And if this means Iraqis have no “right” to live peaceful lives but must suffer decades of war and destruction, so be it.
HERE ARE three underlying principles that guide the radical Islamists and their allies, but which Westerners don’t understand:
1. They have the right to attack the West, but the West has no right to defend itself.
2. They will pretend that the battle is one of the West against the Muslims, while actually the West is helping defend one group of Muslims against another.
3. Their goal is to use jihad to defeat the West while employing lies and guilt to make the West so afraid of offending Islam that it doesn’t interfere when Islamists take over the Muslim-majority world.
(By the way, note that Israel is only one issue among many, and often pretty secondary. One reason is the importance of other issues; another is the general Islamist assumption that after they take over Muslim-majority countries and end Western influence, disposing of Israel will be relatively easy and thus can wait.)
Khouli continues: “Forget about [Osama] bin Laden and al-Qaida. That’s not what I’m talking about. I am talking about the jihad of the entire nation… I’m talking about jihad which is led by the Islamic scholars, and the entire nation will be mobilized for the sake of the supreme jihad. This will lead us to a confrontation… We should follow the example of the young men of the Taliban. A group of several thousand students [Taliban] have been crushing NATO in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Where are the armies of the Muslims?”
AND HERE there are three interesting lessons: First, al-Qaida is only a portion of the problem, and the less important part at that. True, al-Qaida is the group most likely to attack America and its citizens or institutions abroad.
Yet the big strategic danger for US interests is the overthrow of entire countries, the plunging of millions of people into revolution or civil war.
Revolution, not terrorism, is the main threat, transforming countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia into new Irans. The resultant extension of Teheran’s power throughout the region is the big danger.
Second, the jihadists recognize that if they are going to mobilize the masses, they must first convince people that the West is in cowardly retreat and that victory is easy. Anything that enhances this impression therefore strengthens the revolutionaries and makes violence more — not less — likely.
Third, though, is disappointment, “Where are the armies of the Muslims?” At least up to now, the revolutionary Islamists cannot persuade Muslims to rise up, wage jihad, overthrow their rulers, wipe out Israel and attack the West.
Why? Some is evidence of natural human behavior; people prefer safety and a materially better life to sacrificing themselves. Others support their nationalist governments or have communal- ethnic loyalties (the Kurds, for example, or the different competing groups in Lebanon). And many simply don’t agree with the revolutionary Islamist interpretation of Islam.
All these people (except for the small minority of Christians among them) are Muslims. They have read the Koran, yet do not accept what the revolutionaries tell them is the “only” proper interpretation. It is as ridiculous to say all Muslims “must” be radical and jihad-minded if they properly understand their own religion as it is to say that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the radicals are only a tiny minority who misunderstand their own religion.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Suspends Three Senior Officers Over Coup Plot
The Turkish government has suspended two generals and an admiral accused of being linked to a plot against the ruling Justice and Development Party.
It is believed to be the first time in modern Turkish history that a civilian government has suspended serving military figures of such high rank.
The three men have appealed to military judges to cancel the decision.
They are among nearly 200 suspects due to go on trial next month, charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
Those involved in the so-called “sledgehammer” plot allegedly conspired to provoke a military takeover in the months following the ruling party’s (AKP) first election victory in 2002.
They are said to have been concerned by the party’s Islamist roots.
The trial is the most ambitious attempt to prosecute armed forces personnel in civilian courts in Turkey, where the strongly secular military has brought down four governments since 1960.
Headscarf row On Monday, Interior Minister Besir Atalay suspended Gendarmerie Maj Gen Halil Helvacioglu, Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported.
This was followed on Wednesday by Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul’s decision to suspend Maj Gen Gurbuz Kaya and Rear Adm Abdullah Gavremoglu.
Since coming to power, the AKP has been locked in a tug-of-war with Turkey’s secular institutions over issues such as the Islamic headscarf for women and constitutional reform.
The BBC’s Istanbul correspondent, Jonathan Head, says the military has been forced to accept a reduced role in political bodies such as the National Security Council and stronger parliamentary oversight of its spending.
On 29 October, military commanders and the main opposition leader failed to attend an official ceremony at the presidential palace on Republic Day, reportedly because they would have had to shake hands with President Abdullah Gul’s headscarf-wearing wife, Hayrunnisa.
The move was criticised by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife Emine also wears a headscarf.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
US Agree: Turkish Gov’t ‘Hates’ Israel
Former US Ambassador to Ankara James Jeffrey believes Turkish foreign policy has ‘Rolls Royce ambitions, but Rover resources’ and that Ankara cannot compete with global or regional powers. US documents released by WikiLeaks also show Jeffrey did not see a viable alternative on the horizon to the current Turkish government
Deteriorating ties between Tel Aviv and Ankara are “attributable exclusively” to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hatred of Israel, U.S. and Israeli diplomats agreed, according to a confidential cable by the U.S. embassy.
The cable sent last year was one of the U.S. State Department documents released late Sunday by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. In it, Israel’s ambassador to Ankara Gabby Levy blames Erdogan for the hostilities, an assessment with which the United States expresses agreement.
“Levy dismissed political calculation as a motivator for Erdogan’s hostility, arguing the prime minister’s party had not gained a single point in the polls from his bashing of Israel,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara James Jeffrey said in the cable dated Oct. 27, 2009, about his talks with the Israeli ambassador. “Instead, Levy attributed Erdogan’s harshness to deep-seated emotion.”
The U.S. diplomat quoted Levy as saying of the Turkish prime minister: “He’s a fundamentalist. He hates us religiously.”
In his own comments, Jeffrey, who left Ankara in July to become ambassador to Baghdad, then said in the cable: “Our discussions with contacts both inside and outside of the Turkish government on Turkey’s deteriorating relations with Israel tend to confirm Levy’s thesis that Erdogan simply hates Israel.”
According to the U.S. ambassador, “Levy cited a perceived anti-Israeli shift in Turkish foreign policy, including the Turkish government’s recent elevation of its relations with Syria and its quest for observer status in the Arab League.”
In another confidential cable dated Jan. 20, 2010, and titled “What lies beneath Turkey’s new foreign policy,” Jeffrey said Ankara’s foreign policy had “Rolls Royce ambitions, but Rover resources.”
“Despite their success and relative power, the Turks really can’t compete on equal terms with either the United States or regional leaders — the European Union in the Balkans, Russia in the Caucasus/Black Sea, [and] Saudis, Egyptians and even Iranians in the Middle East,” he said.
Though he said Turkish foreign policy was becoming more Islamic, Jeffrey added that this would not mean the NATO ally would abandon the West. “Does all this mean that the country is becoming more focused on the Islamist world and its Muslim tradition in its foreign policy? Absolutely,” Jeffrey wrote. “Does it mean that it is abandoning or wants to abandon its traditional Western orientation and willingness to cooperate with us? Absolutely not.”
The ambassador said the situation “called for a more issue-by-issue approach, and recognition that Turkey will often go its own way.”
‘No better government on horizon’
Though Jeffrey voiced discontent with the Turkish government and said its leaders would go sooner or later, he also lamented that there was no viable better alternative to the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government at the current point or in the foreseeable future.
“In any case, sooner or later we will no longer have to deal with the current cast of political leaders, with their special yen for destructive drama and — rhetoric,” Jeffrey wrote. “But we see no one better on the horizon, and Turkey will remain a complicated blend of world-class Western institutions, competencies and orientation, and Middle Eastern culture and religion.”
In another cable dated Jan. 26, 2010, and labeled “secret,” written as a scene-setter for U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ upcoming Turkey visit, Jeffrey predicted the Turkish-Israeli relationship would continue to suffer.
“While the Foreign Ministry and the Turkish General Staff agree with us that a strong Turkey-Israel relationship is essential for regional stability, Prime Minister Erdogan has sought to shore up his domestic right flank through continued populist rhetoric against Israel and its December 2008 Gaza operation,” he said. “Erdogan is likely to continue anti-Israel remarks and the issues will continue to cast a shadow on the Turkish-Israeli bilateral relationship.”
In the “secret” minutes of Gates’ talks with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül and then-Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, Jeffrey said in a Feb. 16, 2010, cable that one key subject of the discussions was the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. In the meeting, he said, the U.S. side explained that the sale of U.S.-made and armed MQ-9 Reaper drones, which Turkey had been seeking to buy, would not be possible in the near term, primarily due to congressional hurdles.
“The SecDef [defense secretary] reaffirmed to Basbug that the U.S. is committed to the sale of Reapers to Turkey, but offered the caveat that the sale would first have to be approved by Congress,” Jeffrey said.
Missile defense system
On missile defense, Gates insisted on a plan to deploy a special X-band radar in Turkish territory. Gates “emphasized that without a radar based in Turkey, significant areas in the eastern part of the country would not be covered by the system,” Jeffrey wrote, adding that the U.S. secretary of defense “reiterated that Turkey was the optimal site” for the radar.
At the meeting, Gates also strongly lobbied for two U.S. defense companies, Sikorsky Aircraft and Raytheon-Lockheed Martin, that are seeking multibillion-dollar Turkish contracts on utility helicopters and air-defense systems.
The Turkish tender for utility helicopters has been open for two years and the short list includes Sikorsky and Italy’s AgustaWestland.
“Gönül believes Sikorsky has a good chance to win,” Jeffrey wrote in the cable.
On the air-defense issue, Gates said, “nothing can compete with the [Raytheon-Lockheed Martin] PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Cables Claim Turkish PM Erdogan Has Eight Swiss Bank Accounts
If Turkish-U.S. relations manage to remain unscathed by American officials’ descriptions of senior figures in Ankara as “dangerous,” the damage might still be done by their claims about the Turkish prime minister’s personal assets.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s financial assets and the way he made “his fortune” were the subjects of two of the cables sent by the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, documents leaked as part of a release late Sunday by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
“We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks; his explanations that his wealth comes from the wedding presents guests gave his son and that a Turkish businessman is paying the educational expenses of all four Erdogan children in the U.S. purely altruistically are lame,” Eric Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, wrote in a cable sent to Washington on Dec. 30, 2004.
Edelman, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, argued that the widespread corruption would be an important factor that could degrade Erdogan’s ability to run the country.
In a separate cable sent in July 2004, Edelman claimed that “an anonymous source told [him] that Erdogan and [the source] benefited directly from the award of the Tüpras privatization to a consortium including a Russian partner.”
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation, or Tüpras, is the state petroleum refinery. A Russian-Turkish consortium paid nearly $1.3 billion for the privatization of the country’s largest-capacity refinery in 2004.
“[The] AKP rode to power on the common citizens’ revulsion against corruption. Charges that Erdogan amassed his fortune through kickbacks as mayor of Istanbul have never been proven, but we now hear more and more from insiders that close advisors such as private secretary Hikmet Bulduk, Mücahit Arslan and Cüneyd Zapsu are engaging in wholesale influence peddling,” Edelman said in the cable.
Another claim by the ambassador put prominent AKP officials in the spotlight; Edelman listed former ministers Abdülkadir Aksu, Kürsat Tüzmen and Istanbul provincial chairman Mehmet Müezzinoglu as the most corrupt politicians in Turkey.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Skeptical About Turkey’s Reliability as a Partner
The U.S. has many doubts about its long-term ally Turkey’s dependability as a partner, according to diplomatic cables that were leaked by WikiLeaks on Sunday evening. Confidential cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara describe Islamist tendencies in the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Germany’s Der Spiegel, which received some of the leaked documents, said.
The Turkish leadership is depicted as divided, and PM Erdogan’s advisers, as well as Foreign Minister Ahmeet Davutoglu, are portrayed as having little understanding of politics beyond Ankara, the magazine said.
Turkey and the U.S. shared a cordial relationship since 1947, when U.S. guaranteed the security of Turkey and Greece from Soviet forces. Turkey remained a close ally of the U.S. through the Cold War and through the late 1990s and post-World Trade attacks in the U.S.
Cordial relationship with the U.S. was believed to be crucial to Turkey’s security.
However, the relationship has been strained since the Iraq war, as Turkey grows warier about the creation of an independent Kurdish state.
Turkey has also remained against U.S. sanctions against Iran, with whom Ankara has long maintained economic and ties. PM Erdogan visited Teheran in May 2010 to make an agreement to outsource Iranian uranium enrichment to Turkey.
According to the leaked cables, Foreign Minister Davutoglu told U.S. envoy Phil Gordan that Iran cannot be bullied into compliance with western demands, the Guardian reported.
The document stated: “The Iranians have said they are willing to meet with Solana, but have told the Turks that they have serious problems with Cooper and the British.”
The documents also state that the Iranians have “more trust” in the U.S. and would prefer to get fuel from the U.S. rather than the Russians.
Regarding discussions of IAEA proposal to send Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Turkey, U.S. assistant secretary of state Phil Gordon pressed Davutoglu on Ankara’s assessment on consequences if Iran gets a nuclear weapon.
Davutoglu gave a spirited reply, that ‘of course’ Turkey was aware of this risk. “This is precisely why Turkey is working so hard with the Iranians,” The Guardian said.
Documents revealed that the U.S. is worried about Davutoglu’s alleged neo-Ottoman visions, according to Spiegel. U.S. diplomats quote one high-ranking government adviser as saying that Davutoglu would use his Islamist influence on Erdogan, describing him as “exceptionally dangerous,” the magazine said.
The U.S. continues to worry the pervading influence of Islam and Islamist tendencies in the region. Diplomats noted that many members of the AK Party (AKP) were members of a Muslim fraternity and the PM had appointed Islamist bankers to influential positions.
The diplomats reported that Erdogan gets his information almost exclusively form newspapers with close links to Islamists, the magazine reported.
The Islamist-based AKP came into power in 2002, causing concern among various secularist opposition parties about the resurgence of a traditional society deeply rooted in Islam.
The secularist opposition has challenged the constitutional right of the AK to be the party of the government since the 2002 elections, BBC said.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Western Economic Aid to Muslim Nations Who Hate Non-Muslims.
Lee Jay Walker, The Modern Tokyo Times
The Islamic onslaught in Pakistan continues to grow despite this nation being deemed an ally and receiving Western economic aid throughout this land. The recent floods saw mainly Western nations donating quickly but just like Afghanistan and Iraq it is clear that Muslims still hate religious minorities.
Political leaders in non-Muslim nations keep on telling us how peaceful the religion of Islam is and President Obama says very little about Islamic persecution of minorities. Instead, President Obama and other political leaders, and many parts of the mass media, desire to not only gloss over reality but they are prepared to lie openly and use quotes that suit their agenda.
In Afghanistan thousands of American troops and other allied forces have been killed for trying to develop and stabilize a nation which is divided by ethnicity, sectarianism, and clan based politics. However, if one Afghan national desires to openly convert to Christianity or Buddhism or any other non-Muslim faith then they face the death penalty.
Therefore, military troops from America and the United Kingdom, and other allied nations, are dying not for democracy but for maintaining Islamic Sharia law and preserving a nation state which hates Christianity, denies the equality of women, despises all other non-Muslim faiths, and wants to stop all alternative thought patterns that will challenge an Islamic state based on Islamic Sharia law.
In Iraq the Christian community is under siege and this nation which once was based on secular law is now under Islamic Sharia law. The Christians of Iraq and other minorities like the Mandaeans, Shabaks, and Yazidis, have been abandoned and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee. Non-Muslims that remain in Iraq feel betrayed and marginalized.
The more economic aid that Afghanistan and Pakistan get then the more Islamized these nations become. I am not just talking about radical Islamic organizations because it also applies to the institutions of these nations and the Muslim public on a whole which still hates religious pluralism and religious equality.
It is just like Saudi Arabia which is a haven and funder of many Islamic organizations which are spreading hatred. This nation once was a backward Muslim society where modernization had been crushed by Islamic dogma and Mecca was a dustbowl. However, the British and then America, and a host of other modern nations, helped this nation to develop.
Yet the thanks that mainly Christian and secular based nations got was more hatred towards all non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia and this culminated with the majority of people being Saudi nationals who did September 11th. Also, you have mass Saudi funding which is spreading Islamic hatred far and wide and only last week in the United Kingdom it was stated that Saudi funding organizations are teaching hatred in British Muslim schools.
At the same time another majority Muslim nation called Egypt gets enormous amounts of American economic aid but does this help the Coptic Christians? The answer is no because Coptic Christians are treated negatively in Egypt at best and they suffer discrimination within the judicial process. At worse, Coptic Christian women are raped and forced to convert to Islam and you have killings of Coptic Christians by Muslims who think that it is their define right to kill in the name of Allah.
Turning back to Pakistan then this hatred can be seen by recent events and this applies to a Christian male called Zohab who was forced to convert to Islam after falling in love with a Muslim girl called Anum. He converted to Islam because of Muslim attacks against local Christians in Balida Town, Karachi.
Like usual the institutions of Pakistan failed the local Christian community just like it fails Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadiyya Muslims, and others on a daily basis. Local Muslims had threatened to burn the local Christian church to the ground.
At the same time in Pakistan a Christian female faces the death penalty and Islamic organizations are baying for her blood and like usual many Muslim clerics are joining the bandwagon. Killing or persecuting in the name of Allah is a daily pastime in many Muslim nations and Asia Bibi, a Christian mother, now awaits her fate after being sentenced to death on accusations of blasphemy for saying something about Mohammed.
Asia Bibi is now in Seikhurura jail but why isn’t Islam being “put in jail” and for that matter why aren’t nations like Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and a host of other Islamic based nations being “put in jail?”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi-Pakistani Relations Strained After Wikileaks Documents Released
Thanks to the Wikileaks’ document dump, Pakistan’s ties with Saudi Arabia appeared to be under fresh strain.
CBS reported:
Pakistan’s ties with Saudi Arabia appeared to be under fresh strain on Monday in the wake of revelations from classified documents released by WikiLeaks, which quoted Saudi Arabian King Abdullah calling Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari “the greatest obstacle” to the country’s progress.
“When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body,” Abdullah said of Zardari in one of the documents.
While Pakistani officials publicly condemned the claim as an attempt to undermine the traditionally close ties between the two countries, western and Arab diplomats warned that the revelations may have finally exposed genuine underlying tensions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
North and South Korea Move Close to War Footing
North and South Korea have moved closer to a war footing around the Yellow Sea island targeted in last week’s artillery strike as tensions in the region continue to rise.
Pyongyang on Sunday moved SA2 surface-to-air missiles nearer to its Yellow Sea coast, according to South Korean military officials quoted by the Yonhap news agency. The officials said they also detected signs that North Korea was preparing multiple-launch rocket systems in the same area.
North Korea issued fresh warnings of military action, threatening to “deal a merciless military counterattack” at any “intrusion” into its territorial waters. The rhetoric came as four days of US- South Korean naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, involving the aircraft carrier George Washington, got under way — a deployment which the Pyongyang regime says has brought the region to the “brink of war.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ibrahims’ Sister Escapes Sydney Shooting
Police are worried about possible revenge attacks after the sister and young nephews of Sydney’s prominent Ibrahim brothers narrowly escaped injury in a brazen drive-by shooting.
About 20 bullets were sprayed into a home and three cars in Santa Rosa Avenue at Ryde, in the city’s northwest, about 11.30pm (AEDT) on Sunday.
Asleep inside the home was Armani Stelio, 35, and her sons, 11, and 15. Her brothers are Sydney nightclub baron John Ibrahim and former Nomads bikie boss Hassan “Sam” Ibrahim.
The family’s lawyer Brett Galloway said Ms Stelio had not lived at the home long and speculated the shooting could have been wrongly targeted.
“There’s another person living nearby with the name Ibrahim. It wouldn’t be the first time a shooting has been wrongly targeted,” he told AAP.
Mr Galloway said he was unaware of any motive for the shooting.
Police did not confirm the identity of the victims but admitted they only narrowly escaped injury and were “very shaken”.
Nobody else lives at the home and the trio are now reportedly in hiding.
Detectives are concerned about potential reprisals and warned those involved not to take matters into their own hands.
“It’s one of the things we have to consider,” acting superintendent John Duncan said when asked if there could be a counter attack.
“I would definitely recommend people leave it to the police to investigate.”
Acting Supt Duncan declined to speculate about a motive or the type of weapon or weapons used, but he did say it was “a targeted attack”.
Police had not been called to the property in the past, he added.
About a dozen bullet holes were visible on the first floor balcony and a window of the two-storey home on Monday.
Three cars parked nearby, not thought to belong to Ms Stelio, were hit by bullets and removed for forensic examination.
A silver hatchback was seen leaving the scene after the shooting and police have appealed for help tracing it.
Horrified neighbours described the gunshots.
“We’re horrified by what has happened,” a pensioner, who lives five doors away but did not want to be named, told AAP.
“The shots woke me up — I was frightened initially but then assumed it was fireworks as it all went very quiet afterwards.
“It’s a very quiet, family-friendly street. You certainly don’t expect anything like that to happen.”
John Ibrahim’s older brother Sam was shown in television footage on Monday speaking to police at the home after the shooting.
The former bikie boss was then seen driving a woman away from the scene.
He’s recently been ordered to stand trial on a charge of kidnapping a 15-year-old boy who he suspected of breaking into his wife’s house.
His younger brother, Kings Cross identity Fadi Ibrahim, was the victim of a shooting in June 2009.
He survived the attack, with five bullets fired at him while he sat in a Lamborghini outside his Sydney home.
Another Ibrahim family lawyer, Stephen Alexander, declined to comment to AAP other than to say: “We’re still working through things at this stage.”
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
S. Africa Mines Plagued by Mismanagement, Neglect
ORKNEY, South Africa (AP) — Mawethu Mguli and hundreds of other workers at the gold mine in Orkney have gone months without pay at a time when gold is going for around $1,400 an ounce.
After the mine’s previous owners went bankrupt, the workers expected that a new partnership _ headed by relatives of Nelson Mandela and President Jacob Zuma _ would get operations back on track when it took over last year.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way,” Mguli said softly as he sat in his dimly lit room in the mine dormitory. The mine northwest of Johannesburg remains idle and the workers are getting by on food handouts and odd jobs.
South Africa sees getting its vast mineral wealth out of the ground as vital to creating desperately needed jobs, fueling growth and redressing the economic ravages of apartheid. But a toxic combination of a crumbling infrastructure, mismanagement and the specter of nationalization is frustrating the drive to improve and expand the country’s mines. Some are asking whether political connections mean more than competence in an industry that is a pillar of South Africa’s economy.
South Africa is the world’s richest mining country in terms of its reserves, according to a Citibank estimate that valued its mineral resources at $2.5 trillion. It is a major producer of diamonds and gold, and has major reserves of less sexy but still lucrative minerals like platinum.
Mining has accounted for an average of 7.7 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product over the last decade, according to the Chamber of Mines, an industry trade group.
Half the country’s merchandise exports were mining products in 2009, when the industry employed half a million people. Another half million worked in fields dependent on the mines in this country with a population of 50 million where at least a quarter of the work force is unemployed.
Yet, during a global boom in commodities prices from 2001 to 2008, other countries with major mining operations outperformed South Africa, according to the chamber, whose members include such industry giants as Anglo American and DeBeers. The world’s top 20 mining countries saw mining GDP grow at an average of 5 percent a year during the period, while South Africa’s mining sector GDP dropped by 1 percent a year.
“How come, sitting on the largest mineral resource base in the world, we are not doing better?” said Sipho Nkosi, a former chamber president who now also heads the Exxaro coal mining company.
The answers are not hard to find…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘It’s Like Ancient Egypt’: Inside the Mexican Drugs Tunnel With Its Own Railway and Underground Warehouses With 20 Tons of Marijuana
A sophisticated cross-border tunnel — equipped with a rail system, ventilation and fluorescent lighting — has been shut down by U.S. and Mexican officials.
It is the second such tunnel discovered in San Diego this month, authorities said today.
The tunnel is 2,200 feet long and runs from the kitchen of a home in Tijuana, Mexico, to two warehouses in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial district.
Mike Unzueta, head of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego, said the cinderblock-lined entry to the tunnel dropped 80 to 90 feet to a wood-lined floor.
From the U.S. side, there was a stairway leading to a room about 50 feet underground that was full of marijuana.
Mr Unzueta said: ‘It’s a lot like how the ancient Egyptians buried the kings and queens.’
Authorities seized more than 20 tons of marijuana, and Mr Unzueta said the tunnel — and another found in early November — are the work of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, headed by the country’s most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.
Mr Unzueta said: ‘We think ultimately they are controlled by the same overall cartel but that the tunnels were being managed and run independently by different cells operating within the same organisation.’
The newly discovered passage is one of the most advanced to date, with sophisticated construction and a rail system for drugs to be carried on a small cart.
Three men were arrested in the United States, and the Mexican military raided a ranch in Mexico and made five arrests in connection with the tunnel, authorities said.
U.S. authorities have discovered more than 125 clandestine tunnels along the Mexican border since the early 1990s, though many were crude and incomplete.
U.S. authorities do not know how long the latest tunnel was operating. Mr Unzueta said investigators began to look into several warehouses in June on a tip that emerged from a large bust of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
U.S. authorities followed a trailer from one of the warehouses to a Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, where they seized 27,600 pounds of marijuana.
The driver, whose name was not released, was arrested, along with two others who went to a residence in suburban El Cajon that had $13,500 cash inside.
Mr Unzueta said: ‘That [trailer] was literally filled top to bottom, front to back. There wasn’t any room for anything else in that tractor-trailer but air.’
Three tons of marijuana were found in a ‘subterranean room’ and elsewhere in the tunnel on the U.S. side, authorities said.
Mexican officials seized four tons of pot at a ranch in northern Mexico, bringing the total haul to more than 20 tons.
The discovery of the cross-border tunnel earlier this month marked one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, with agents confiscating 20 tons of marijuana they said was smuggled through the underground passage.
One of the warehouses involved in the tunnel discovered this week is only a half-block away. Several sophisticated tunnels have ended in San Diego warehouses.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Israel to Crack Down on Illegal Migrant Workers
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Israel approved a plan on Sunday to hold and deport thousands of illegal migrant workers whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “threat to the character of the country.”
In remarks to the cabinet, Netanyahu said thousands of migrants who have entered Israel mainly through Egypt in past years would be housed at a special holding facility, due to built in Israel’s southern Negev desert.
“We must stop the mass entry of illegal migrant workers because of the very serious threat to the character and future to the state of Israel,” he said, adding Israelis who gave them work would face severe fines to make their employment unviable.
Established as a Jewish state in 1948, Israel welcomes Jewish newcomers, most of whom receive automatic citizenship, but policies toward non-Jewish migrants are more restrictive.
The cabinet approved the plan under which the state would control the migrants’ movement until they are deported.
Netanyahu said however that migrants fleeing persecution would be allowed to stay.
“We do not intend to stop refugees fleeing for their lives, we allow them in and will continue to do so,” he said.
Israeli officials have insisted on setting up the camp despite sensitivities over comparisons with Nazi concentration camps where Jews were held and killed.
“We must find a humane solution to look after the workers who will be lose their jobs and we must therefore provide shelter, food and health services until they are deported,” Netanyahu added.
Last week Israel began work to construct a barrier to seal off part of the border with Egypt’s Sinai desert from where many of the migrants enter the Jewish state.
The project that includes both a physical barrier and electronic surveillance to secure 140 km (88 miles) of the 250 km border should take over a year to complete at a cost of 1.35 billion shekels (about $370 million), the Defense Ministry said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘No Italian: No Permit’ Italy Tells Migrants
Language test obligatory for non-EU workers from next week
(ANSA) — Rome, November 29 — Migrant workers wanting to live in Italy will have to prove they can understand Italian before being able to apply for a residence permit as of next week.
On Thursday December 9 a government decree approved in June will come into force making it obligatory for non-European Union migrants to take a test of their language skills before starting the permit procedure.
Applicants must get 80% of their answers right in a test of their comprehension of short texts and expressions. Migrants will be called to sit the test — performed on a computer or, on request, in writing — within 60 days of making a request via the interior ministry’s site at www.testitaliano.interno.it.
Applicants who fail the test can re-sit it and some categories are exempt.
These include people with recognized certificates of their Italian language skills, university researchers and people who have come to work in Italy in high-ranking management positions.
The new test comes into force as Italy prepares to introduce a new points-based residence-permit system next year in a bid to help the integration of young non-European Union citizens wanting to live here.
The new procedure, which resembles the points systems for long-term residence of Canada and the United States, will come into force in January for applicants aged 16 to 25.
With this system a migrant’s first permit can only be issued after the signing of a commitment to a charter of values of good citizenship and integration.
This permit is valid for two years and starts with 16 points.
To make it permanent the migrant must try to take their score up to 30 before it elapses.
They can achieve this by doing a number of things, including attending vocational training courses, signing contracts to rent or buy accommodation, doing voluntary work and registering with the national health service.
Migrants lose points though if, for example, they skip one or both of the free civic formation courses they are requested to attend within a month of getting the first permit.
Points are also deducted if permit-holders are found guilty of crimes or tax offences.
If a holder loses all their points, the authorities will be able to expel them from the country.
People who fail to lift their score up to 30 points within the two years, meanwhile, can seek to have their permit extended to give them more time to cross the threshold.
“It’s a pro-integration policy that has no rivals in Europe,” Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said earlier this year.
“We have produced a system of rules that enables those who want to come to Italy and respect the law to follow an excellent path of integration”.
Victims of violence and people with handicaps that limit their ability to learn the language and Italy’s culture are exempt from the points-system requirements.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Atheist Writer Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Ennio Montesi says can’t stand crucifixes any more
(ANSA) — Ancona, November 25 — An Italian atheist writer who claims he can no longer tolerate the abundance of crucifixes in Italy has asked for asylum in Sweden.
Ennio Montesi, from Jesi near Ancona in the Marche region, has written to Swedish Premier Fredrik Reinfeldt complaining that the Italian state is forcing him to live with “a religious and political symbol of death”.
Montesi has been ‘debaptised’ and recently earned headlines with a vocal campaign against the cross in a hospital ward he claimed “increased his suffering” during a recent hospital stay.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Florida School Bans Christmas… And Christmas Colors
A school in Florida has not only banned Christmas — but everything associated with the Christian holiday.
Teachers at Heathrow Elementary School have been ordered to banish images of Santa Claus from classrooms — along with traditional Christmas colors like red and green.
“You can’t use red and green,” one outraged parent told WESH. “It’s ridiculous.”
The parent, who serves as a volunteer room mother, said she was recently given a list of guidelines that listed the holiday restrictions.
She said the basic theme of the letter was, “We don’t want to offend anyone who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus or the Christian beliefs.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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