Angela Merkel Warned That Germany Could Abandon the Euro
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned for the first time that her country could abandon the euro if she fails in her contested campaign to establish a new regime for the single currency, the Guardian has learned.
At an EU summit in Brussels at the end of October that was dominated by the euro crisis and wrangling over whether to bail out Ireland, Merkel became embroiled in a row with the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, according to participants at the event’s Thursday dinner.
Merkel’s central aim, which she achieved, was to win agreement on re-opening the Lisbon treaty so a permanent system of bailout funding and investor losses could be established to deal with debt crises that have laid Greece and Ireland low and are threatening Portugal and Spain. The Germans also called for bailed-out countries to lose voting rights in EU councils.
At the Brussels dinner on 28 October attended by 27 EU heads of government or state, the presidents of the European commission and council, and the head of the European Central Bank, witnesses said Papandreou accused Merkel of tabling proposals that were “undemocratic”.
“If this is the sort of club the euro is becoming, perhaps Germany should leave,” Merkel replied, according to non-German government figures at the dinner. It was the first time in the 10 months since the euro was plunged into a fight for its survival that Germany, the EU’s economic powerhouse and the lynchpin of the euro’s viability, had suggested that quitting the currency is an option, however unlikely.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert would not comment on her remarks today. But the threat, he said, was “not plausible. The chancellor sees the euro as the central European project, wants to secure and defend it and the government is not at all thinking of leaving it,” he said. “Germany is unconditionally and resolutely committed to the euro.”
Despite overwhelming opposition to her calls for depriving eurozone countries of their EU votes if they need to be bailed out, Merkel stuck to her guns on the issue at the summit, while conceding that the proposal would not feature at another summit in Brussels in two weeks’ time.
She argued that under the Lisbon treaty, which came into force a year ago, EU member states can have their voting rights suspended if deemed guilty of gross human rights violations. “If this is possible for human rights infringements, the same degree of seriousness needs to be awarded to the euro,” Merkel told the summit, according to the witnesses. She shelved the demand for suspension of voting, however, but won the argument on more limited change of the treaty to enable a “permanent crisis mechanism” to be established for the currency from mid-2013. This was rechristened the European stability Mechanism at last Sunday’s emergency meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels which decided on an €85bn (£72bn) bailout for Ireland.
Insisting on the loss of votes would have outraged most other EU governments. The Lisbon treaty would have needed renegotiation, opening a pandora’s box of possible referendums in Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Britain, and placing immense strain on the EU’s survival.
EU finance ministers are to meet again early next week ahead of the summit on 16-17 December. The mood in Brussels is febrile and there have been rumours of another extraordinary summit or session of finance ministers this weekend.
Officials said today there were “no plans” for a weekend session. But it is virtually taken for granted that Portugal will need to be bailed out and the €750bn rescue fund agreed in May may need to be increased as insurance against a Spanish emergency. Two EU ambassadors told the Guardian Portugal would need to be rescued very soon, despite repeated public statements to the contrary.
The summit in two weeks’ time, said a senior European diplomat, would be preoccupied with the treaty change needed for a permanent bailout mechanism to be established when the €750bn fund expires in mid-2013. “The real question is, is there enough in the fund? If not, how much more do we need?” the diplomat added.
“Portugal will need to be saved. The big issue is Spain,” said another senior diplomat.
Since the euro crisis erupted this year with Greece heading for sovereign debt default until it was bailed out in May, Merkel has repeatedly insisted that the primacy of politics over the financial markets has to be restored. That has yet to happen as Europe’s leaders flail around in a mood of worsening “panic and despair”, according to diplomats and officials in Brussels.
The current phase in the crisis started when Merkel and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy met in mid-October and delivered an ultimatum to the other 25 EU leaders: the treaty would be reopened and a permanent rescue system created which would entail “haircuts” or losses for creditors and investors if eurozone countries need to be bailed out.
Although this is to take place only from 2013, the markets took fright at the scale of potential bond losses, pushed Ireland’s borrowing costs ruinously high, and forced last week’s bailout of the Irish.
Diplomats, analysts, and officials generally agree that Merkel is right to focus on “moral hazard”, insisting that the markets and not only governments and taxpayers have to share the losses if a eurozone country implodes. But her timing could not have been worse, they add.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Nearly 60% of Germans Want Their Deutschmark Back Instead of Ailing Euro
Nearly 60 percent of Germans wish they had the mighty Deutschmark back in their pockets and purses instead of the euro.
The latest poll for the ARD TV broadcaster also showed that 66 percent of Germans fear that the current financial crisis will torpedo their savings.
While 57 percent want the D-mark back, only 32 percent said they found anything positive about the common currency.
The last euro survey earlier in the year — before Greece and Ireland meltdowns — showed 51 percent wanting the mark back.
And seventy five percent believe that it is the financial markets and not the politicians who will decide the eventual fate of the troubled euro.
This is the highest percentage of Germans wanting the D-mark to return since several polls in the 1990’s showed close to 70 percent of them wanted to retain the currency of the ‘economic miracle.’
The zone’s financial stability is still far from certain and many analysts believe the crisis will worsen before it gets better.
ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet is keeping the pressure on governments to fix the debt crisis as the bank buys bonds to win politicians time to cut deficits.
The bank snapped up Portuguese and Irish bonds again on Friday after Trichet assured investors that policy makers will delay the withdrawal of emergency liquidity.
The ECB’s purchases have triggered a surge in bonds across the euro region’s periphery.
‘Uncertainty is elevated,’ Trichet said after the ECB left its benchmark interest rate at 1 percent. ‘We have tensions and we have to take them into account.’
‘The refusal to be more aggressive reflects a belief at the ECB that Europe’s debt woes can only be solved by governments embracing austerity and that providing more liquidity would only delay the day of reckoning,’ said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank AG in London.
‘The ECB is effectively putting a sticking plaster over many of the problems in order to ensure that markets continue to function, but this requires governments to sit down and think much more clearly.’
Meanwhile in Germany, the driving force a decade ago for the euro, the survey is yet another blow to confidence and comes as Germany’s foreign ministry is planning a PR offensive to repair the damage to Berlin’s image.
‘Once again, Germany’s image has worsened significantly as a result of our position on combating the euro financial crisis in some EU member states,’ read an analysis, prepared recently by the ministry.
The authors warned forcefully: ‘The goal of the federal government must be to promptly and permanently dispel doubts as to its European orientation.’ Now it plans a PR blitz ‘to increase the acceptance of Germany’s future European policy decisions.’
Many Germans who embraced the EU after WW2, seeing it as a way to preserve peace and forge new business opportunities, now view it as a vast, unaccountable, bloated bureaucracy that stole their beloved D-mark and gave them the struggling euro.
The recent crises in Greece and Ireland have contributed to further disillusion among them.
The euro is now known in Germany as the ‘Teuro’ — a play on the word Teuer meaning expensive.
A longing for the return of the mark, replaced on paper in 1999 and as physical notes and coins in 2002, is prevalent in both east and west Germany.
Rumours circulating in Germany and abroad that the Bundesbank was secretly re-printing marks in case the euro collapsed have been proved false.
But the country’s affection for the old currency is as strong as ever — Germans still hoard an estimated £5.5 billion worth of marks in their homes, based on the old exchange that three marks was worth £1.
These are Bundesbank figures and there could be more of them. They are comfort blankets, reminders of a time and a place when Weimar, inflation, Hitler, wars and ruin stained the nation.
‘It shouldn’t be that surprising,’ wrote a commentator on the Deutsche Welle German TV website.
‘Germans were never that thrilled about the new money anyway. They had a deep emotional connection to their deutschmark.’ This continuing sentimental attachment to a currency that was the building block of the post-war economic miracle is an embarrassment to the political elite that foisted the euro on Germany without any referendum or consultation.
Germany spent billions in campaigning for the euro, on its introduction and on a campaign persuading the public it was a good thing.
That such a majority now favour its farewell is sending new shock waves through the Merkel-led coalition government, already trailing badly in opinion polls.
Most Germans still calculate prices in their heads in marks.
They nurture their resentment against the hated currency with venom and it is a ‘constant source of irritation,’ said a commentator on Radio Berlin this week.
The great fear for Angela Merkel now is an anti-EU party coming to the fore because she knows it will have traction and could draw away 20 percent of the vote from her conservative CDU party.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Wikileaks Challenge
Make no mistake about it, the ongoing WikiLeaks operation against the US is an act of war. It is not merely a criminal offense to publish hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents with malice aforethought. It is an act of sabotage.
Like acts of kinetic warfare on military battlefields, WikiLeaks’ information warfare against the US aims to weaken the US. By exposing US government secrets, it seeks to embarrass and discredit America in a manner that makes it well neigh impossible for the US to carry out either routine diplomacy or build battlefield coalitions to defeat its enemies…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Citibank Sues Cheater Ground Zero Mosque Developer for $100,000
The developer of the so-called Ground Zero mosque owes nearly $100,000 in overdue credit, a new suit charges.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan court, Citibank chargesSharif El-Gamal and his real estate firm, Soho Properties, have balked at repaying $99,489 borrowed from a business credit account in the past year.
El-Gamal said the default was a standard way to negotiate better credit rates and that the matter would be resolved.
“In every industry at this time, major business leaders are working with their financial institutions to restructure their debt in order to take advantage of historically low interest rates,” he said in a statement. “It is important to note that Soho Properties manages over $300 million worth of property.” El-Gamal has been hounded by other creditors. In October, Valley National Bank sued El-Gamal and Soho Properties for $95,778 plus interest after they defaulted on a loan in 2009, the suit charges. In August, a Manhattan landlord sued El-Gamal and Soho Properties for $39,000 in back rent. The suit was later withdrawn, and the matter was resolved out of court.
| — Hat tip: DonVito | [Return to headlines] |
First Landing Photos: Secret X-37B Robot Space Plane Lands in Calif.
The U.S. Air Force’s mysterious X-37B robot space plane returned to Earth today (Dec. 3) with a successful landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California before sunrise.
Air Force officials hailed the unmanned X-37B space plane’s successful landing, though its mission remains shrouded in secrecy because of its classified nature. But Vandenberg’s 30th Space Wing did not shy from snapping photos of the X-37B vehicle, known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 1. Take a look at those first photos below:…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kill the Messenger, They Say; But What About the Message?
by Diana West
I am still working out why I watch the high dudgeon sparked by Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks dump of a quarter-million State Department cables that has given rise to the most heated, bloodthirsty chorus I have ever heard in Washington, notably from conservatives, and feel strangely numb.
I observe the fits over “sovereignty” lost, and note that some of the same people find such emotion in bad taste when the prompt is our unsecured, non-sovereign border. I hear the arguments that our national security is hanging by a computer keystroke, and note the fecklessness of a U.S. government that hides from us, the people, its own confirmation that North Korea supplies Iran with Russian-made nuclear-capable missiles; China transfers weapons materiel to Iran (despite Hillary Clinton’s pathetic entreaties); Iran honeycombs Iraq; Syria supports Hezbollah; Pakistan prevents the United States from securing its nuclear materials; Saudis continue to provide mainstay support to al-Qaida (despite pie-faced denials come from Saudi-supplicating U.S. administrations). Everything good citizens need to know, in short, to see through the dumbed-down, G-rated (“G” for government), official narrative, all “engagement” and “outreach,” to throw the ineffectual bums out — all of them — and start from scratch.
But what we’re supposed to see in Assange’s Internet release of thousands of “classified,” mainly non-sensational, if often embarrassing, documents (something journalists usually call a scoop in the singular) is an act of “terrorism,” say Republican leaders, with Assange himself, as Sarah Palin would have it, playing the part of Osama bin Laden. Weirdly, I don’t recall bin Laden himself inspiring as many public calls for “execution.” Nor did the arrests of the notorious traitors CIA analyst Aldrich Ames in 1994 or FBI agent Robert Hanssen in 2001 ratchet up a fury approaching the emotional pitch over Assange that has drowned out all other news this week, including the murder of six American trainers by an Afghan “policeman.”
Why?…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Ten Questions That Remain Unanswered on Islamoterrorism
Now that we’ve had yet another potential terrorist stopped by the FBI before he could do any damage (and damage he truly wanted), the same old questions pop up that have dogged us since 9/11. This time the perpetrator was in Portland, one Mr. Mohamed Osman Mohamud (or Mr. MOM for short) who sought to kill as many in this otherwise tolerant, liberal city as possible with an intended car bomb in a Christmas holiday celebration.
His intended car bomb, and his entire plan, ended up being merely a sting operation by the FBI, and of course now Mr. MOM and his defense team are blaming the FBI for the months he planned for this murderous attempt on innocent civilian life. (Link)
So to keep this straightforward, it would be nice to know the answers to the following questions, or if they’ll ever be answered:
1) When is it safe to inquire about a topic such as this without being called names like “hatemonger”, “racist” or “xenophobe”?
2) Which would be worse with respect to criticizing the FBI—to have “entrapped” Mr. MOM as he prepared several months for this event, or to have let him plan, get materials and either come close to or actually do a terrorist act?
3) Do the FBI agents involved in this sting operation deserve medals of honor, or scorn?
4) Is there ever any time spent on reflecting that many, if not most, of the FBI agents involved in luring folks like Mr. MOM to plots such as this one are Muslim themselves?
5) Is there ever any time spent on reflecting that the overwhelming majority of those lives saved worldwide by fighting Islamoterrorism are, in fact, Muslim…and that the overwhelming majority being killed by Islamoterrorists are Muslim?
6) Are there any planned marches of thousands of American Muslims to peacefully but firmly and unquestionably protest and condemn acts of Islamoterrorism worldwide and here at home, or are such marches limited to complaints about perceived discrimination against American Muslims? Any joint American Shiite/Sunni marches to stop the madness?
7) Are there any American Muslim religious leaders who have officially declared that individuals such as Mr. MOM who carry out their missions either will (if still alive) or do (if no longer alive) burn in Hell for their actions, since the promise of a fulfilling afterlife is much of the motivation for Islamoterrorists who do these acts?
8) Any declaration by the leaders of American Muslim mosques that Sharia law, along with “honor killings” that already exist within the United States, has no business existing in this United States?
9) Will the country ever get a more open view of the measures and teachings that American Muslim mosques use to dissuade Islamoterrorists in the making (by and large, considering the majority of Muslims are as peaceful and moderate as any other Americans, they must be doing something right)?
10) Again, when is it safe to inquire about a topic such as this without being called names like “hatemonger”, “racist” or “xenophobe”?
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Threat From Al Qaeda Evolving, Including “Home Grown” Threat
The threat from al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan may have been diminished over the years, a national counterterrorism expert said on “Washington Unplugged” today, but the threat from the terrorist group has grown and evolved in other ways — including a slightly increased threat from “home grown” terrorists.
“There is a risk of Americans seeing something in the al Qaeda world view,” National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter told CBS National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. That risk has increased this year, he said, but he added, “I think it’s still too early to say that we have a trend.”
Leiter stressed that the Muslim American community is incredibly diverse and a part of every aspect of life in the United States.
“It has been only a tiny, tiny percentage of Americans — increasingly more this year, but still a tiny percentage of Muslim Americans — who have for a variety of reasons found appeal in this al Qaeda ideology,” he said.
A couple incidents this year, such as the recent arrest of a 19-year-old in Portland, Oregon, “has shown that we have challenges,” Leiter said.
“What we have to do in the counterterrorism coummunity is to try and address those root causes and at the same time disrupt those attacks,” he continued.
Leiter spoke with Zarate, in a special addition of “Flash Points,” after a conference based on the threat of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Along with the threat of home grown terrorists, AQAP is another evolving branch of al Qaeda to watch for, he said.
Although al Qaeda remains the leading concern for the United States, other international groups are also investigated.
“We continue to watch Hezbollah… clearly both a political movement within Lebanon, but also the terrorist organization that has killed more Americans than any other, other than al Qaeda,” Liether told Zarate. “In addition to Hezbollah, we look at other groups such as the JGK in Turkey.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Biofuels Give German Brewers a Hangover
As lucrative biofuel crops crowd out barley acreage in Germany, brewers say the drive for alternative energy sources will force them to raise the price of beer next year. Alexander Bakst reports.
Times are tough for the German beer industry.
For decades, average beer consumption in Germany has been in decline. At the same time, the cost of the raw ingredients rose sharply this year as domestic supplies of barley and wheat dried up — or drowned out in the case of this year’s harvest, which was marked by heavy rainfall.
There are several factors contributing to the current shortage of malting grains, but German brewers are placing much of the blame on biofuel crops. These government-subsidized acres are increasingly crowding out conventional grains such as barley, a key ingredient for making malt and, ultimately, Germany’s world-famous beer.
“With more and more farmers switching to energy crops such as corn and canola, the price hike is inescapable,” says Bernhardt Gloessner, Managing Director of the Association of Private Brewers in Bavaria.
In a market where profit margins are paper-thin, Gloessner argues that brewers have little choice but to raise their prices: “The market is shrinking, and the big national brands already sell 58 percent of their beer at discounted rates to compete with low-cost brands.”
He estimates that the average case of German beer will cost up to €0.50 more in the first half of next year. Even then, “breweries will only get to keep about 10 cents of that after taxes,” he says. “It’s barely enough to cover their costs, but it’s necessary for them to remain competitive.”
The situation isn’t easy for farmers, either. Malting barley provides relatively low returns on a high-risk crop, according to Astrid Rewerts, head of the grains division at the German Farmer’s Association DBV. “Malting barley is harvested in the summer when yields are low,” she says, “and it has to germinate properly, otherwise the brewing process won’t work.”
With an unusually dry summer topped by heavy rainfall during the August harvesting season, this year’s barley crop is a brewer’s nightmare. The rain caused the grains to over-germinate, and farmers had to sell much of it as feed for livestock at a 15 percent discount. They sold what was left of the good stuff to malt houses, brewers and bakeries at a higher price to make up for the loss.
The national average price for malt-grade barley was almost €200 per tonne in mid-November, according to the DBV, compared to roughly €140 last year. Once the barley is turned into malt, it becomes even more expensive — especially for local brewers buying in small quantities.
Martin Eschenbrenner runs the one-man brewery Eschenbräu in northern Berlin. He says he pays upwards of €500 for a tonne of processed barley malt these days. Just one and a half years ago, he was paying around €350.
But Eschenbrenner is philosophical about the higher costs. “Malt prices were very, very low for a long time, so it’s only fair that they went up this year,” he says. “Farmers don’t earn very much but they certainly work hard and carry a lot of risk, and I respect that.”
“What I find unpleasant are the subsidies,” he says. “They say a farmer would pave his field if he got money for it, and there’s probably some truth in that.”
Brussels and Berlin are pushing hard to meet their 2020 targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and biofuels are seen as one way to meet that goal. Thanks to generous subsidies from Germany and the EU, farmers can sell corn, canola and other energy crops to fuel blenders and biogas facilities for a guaranteed price under contracts lasting as long as ten years.
“In the long term the cost of malting barley will probably continue to rise,” says Frank-Jürgen Methner, professor of brewing studies at Berlin Technical University’s Institute for Biotechnology. “More and more farmers are abandoning barley, and brewers today cover about 50 percent of their demand through domestic supplies.”
The rest is imported mostly from France and Denmark, subject to market fluctuations and commodity speculation.
But Eschenbrenner’s outlays for malt are not his greatest expense. His business spends most of its money on the five employees who service the inn up front. “There’s a huge difference between a local brewery where one man brews 20 hectolitres of beer and a factory where three men churn out 2,000 hectolitres,” he explains.
The bulk of production expenses at industrial breweries stems from malt, electricity and water. At the same time, companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer conglomerate, wield significant bargaining power because they buy in such large quantities. Regional German barley farmers play only a minor role in the supply chains of these giants.
For Germany’s smaller breweries, the farmer’s association DBV wants to return to a system of multi-year contracts that would tame the inherent risks of barley crops. But Methner thinks this is an unlikely scenario.
“I’m afraid that in an age of globalization that is not possible unless politicians get involved,” he says. “To take the speculative element out of the business, the trading partners will have to duke it out amongst themselves.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s First Gunfight Site Revealed
Archaeologists believe they have found evidence of the first use of firearms on a British battlefield after fragments of shattered guns were unearthed on a site that saw one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil. The bronze barrel fragments and a very early lead shot were discovered by a metal detectorist working closely with a team that has been trying to unlock the secrets of the 1461 battle of Towton, in Yorkshire, northern England. The battle, fought over the throne between Lancastrian King Henry VI and England’s first Yorkist king, Edward IV during the War of the Roses, has gone down in history as the bloodiest ever fought on the island.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11878241
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘FIFA is Damaging Its Flagship Product’
The decision to award Russia and Qatar the soccer World Cups for 2018 and 2022 has been greeted with consternation, and not just by the losing countries. The German press on Friday regards the choice as proof that there is something rotten at the heart of FIFA. If one were being generous, one could argue that Thursday’s decision by FIFA, football’s governing body, to award the soccer World Cup for 2018 to Russia and that for 2022 to Qatar was a bid to win over new markets and fans for the game in untapped regions. Those of a more cynical persuasion, however, might see the decision as a case of money and lobbying winning out over existing sports infrastructures and traditions. Understandably, the losers are crestfallen. In particular England, which only garnered two
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fire: EU Mobilises to Provide Help
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, DECEMBER 3 — Europe is mobilising to help Israel, which is currently dealing with fires that are devastating the northern part of the country. The European Commission has activated its civil protection mechanism to respond to requests for help from Tel Aviv. Several member-states have already offered their fire-fighting aircrafts to help with the situation, including Greece, Spain, France, Cyprus and Croatia. Four Greek aircrafts have arrived on site and others are on the way from Bulgaria. “Europe is ready to work alongside Israeli authorities to combat this catastrophe,” said the President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso. “We are moving rapidly,” added the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Kristalina Georgieva, “to help Israel face this natural disaster, whose dimensions are unprecedented in the history of the country. Israel can count on the immediate help of the EU.” “I would like to make a plea to the EU and all of the member-states,” said EU Parliament President Jeremy Buzek, “to do their best to help the Israeli authorities put out the fire, bring the situation back under control and to help those who have been evacuated.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Family of ‘Veil Martyr’ Files Case Against Dresden Judges
The family of the pregnant Egyptian woman murdered last year in a Dresden courtroom has filed a case against the two judges on the bench that day for not preventing her death, city officials said Friday.
Marwa El-Sherbini, dubbed the “veil martyr,” was stabbed to death in a courtroom in July 2009 in a racially motivated crime that outraged the Muslim world.
The 31-year-old was stabbed by Russian-born Alex Wiens at least 16 times with an 18-centimetre kitchen knife. She was three-months pregnant with her second child. Her three-year-old son, Mustafa, watched her bleed to death in the courtroom.
Sherbini’s husband, Egyptian geneticist Elwy Okaz, rushed to her aid but was also stabbed and then shot in the leg by a police officer who was unsure who was the attacker.
Wiens said he was acting out of revenge after El-Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, had pressed charges against him for calling her a “terrorist,” “Islamist” and “whore” during a dispute over a playground swing in August 2008.
He confessed to the crime during his trial, which resulted in a life sentence.
Sherbini’s family has now filed a case, called a Klageerzwingungsverfahren in German, to force the higher regional court to review their accusations against the court officials present the day of the murder, who they say did not properly insure her safety.
During Wiens’ trial, Sherbini’s husband Okaz complained of insufficient security measures in the courtroom. He also filed a criminal complaint against the court for negligent homicide.
Despite knowledge of Wiens’ “criminal intent” there had been no special security arranged, one of the family’s lawyers said at the time. But state prosecutors dropped the case, saying it lacked evidence.
Courts in Saxony have increased security measures since the murder as a result of the tragic murder.
The family’s latest case to force further review is unlikely to be addressed before the new year, court spokeswoman Karin Haller said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Group to Construct Replicas of Ancient Greek Musical Instruments
Ancient Greek music is one of the lesser known chapters in the wide field of study of Hellenic civilisation.
Although much has been said and written about its major role in everyday life, there is still very much to be investigated in this area of the arts in Ancient Greece.
The absence of written remains of Ancient Greek music has, for centuries, created the impression that music was not a very advanced chapter of the arts in Ancient Greece, musician Panagiotis Stefos told ANA-MPA.
However, our knowledge on the role and position of music in Ancient Greece has been enriched by systematic research and from literary sources, which contain a plethora of direct and indirect references, Stefos added.
Stefos has set up a group, called Lyravlos, that has undertaken the task of reconstructing the Ancient Greek musical instruments. The purpose of this endeavor is to construct precise, working replicas of the instruments that will give true renditions of the ‘sheet music’ from the long past that have been discovered.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Two Pakistani Suspects Arrested in Cyprus
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, DECEMBER 3 — Two Pakistani citizens, around 30 years old, have been arrested in Cyprus. They are suspected of having links with Islamic fundamentalist groups.
The news was reported today by Cypriot television stations which quote police sources saying that the arrest were made on the basis of information supplied by unspecified foreign secret services. The two suspects arrived on the island legally, but their residence permit expired three months ago. They were arrested on Wednesday morning after their house in the capital Nicosia was searched. Laptops and documents have been confiscated in the search. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Denies Profiting From Energy Deals With Russia
Rome, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Italy’s embattled prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday denied personally profiting from energy deals with Russia.
“I can give my absolute personal guarantee that personal interest was never involved in my friendships with prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev,” Berlusconi said at the Black Sea resort of Sochion where he attended a summit with the Russian leaders.
A diplomatic cable posted on the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website revealed that the US thought that bi-lateral business deals between Italy and Russia were enriching the billionaire poilitician.
“The Georgian ambassador in Rome has told us” that his government “believes Putin has promised Berlusconi a percentage of profits from any pipelines developed by Gazprom in coordination with Eni,” US Ambassador Ronald P. Spogli said in a cable sent on 26 January 2009, according to the leaked document.
Rome-based Eni and Moscow-based Gazprom are together developing the 900-kilometre South Stream pipeline which will transport Russian gas to western Europe, whose cost is Gazprom has estimated at15.5 billion euros.
US ambassador to Italy David Thorne on Thursday published an editorial Italy’s biggest daily Corriere della Sera in which he said “diplomats’ internal reports do not represent a government’s official foreign policy.”
The three-time Italian prime minister’s days in office may be numbered. Berlusconi’s safe majority in the lower house of parliament was put at risk following a recent split with a close ally in the ruling coalition. He is due to face confidence votes in both houses of parliament on 14 Dec.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Lockerbie Bomber ‘Neglect’ Compensation Claim Dismissed
The Scottish government has dismissed claims that the family of the Lockerbie bomber is to sue, alleging he was neglected in jail.
Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi said relatives of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would seek compensation after he died.
The claim is reported to have been made via video link to staff and students at the London School of Economics.
The Scottish government said Megrahi received the highest standard of care while serving his sentence.
He was freed from Greenock prison on compassionate grounds in August last year after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
The Libyan was given a life sentence after his conviction for the murder of 270 people in the 1988 atrocity.
According to reports, Colonel Gadaffi claimed: “His health was not looked after in prison.
“He didn’t have any periodic examination — I wish him a long life.
Legal experts said any civil case would need to prove that, had diagnosis of Megrahi’s condition taken place earlier, it might have been cured or its effects mitigated.
Megrahi’s Scottish lawyer Tony Kelly said he would not comment on Colonel Gadaffi’s statement.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “The Scottish government do not doubt the conviction of al-Megrahi.
“He was given the same high standard of NHS care as any other prisoner.”
The statement was echoed by a Scottish Prison Service spokesman, who said: “He received the high standard of NHS care that anybody else would get in the prison system.”
Above average
Reacting to the compensation claims, Rev John Mosey, the father of a victim of the bombing, told Radio 5 Live he could not imagine the Scottish authorities “being deliberately neglectful.”
He added: “On a physical level it would seem he was very well catered for. Possibly above the average.
“I do know that he was in a special cell that was orientated to Mecca. It was a sort of a suite that he had. He had Sky television.”
“On the medical side, I really have no idea at all.”
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Stonehenge Builders Said to Use Giant Wicker Baskets to Roll Massive Stones
Rolling a 4-ton stone some 200 miles from a Welsh quarry to the site that the world now knows as Stonehenge would have been a daunting enough challenge for even the hardiest of Neolithic-era laborers. There have been any number of explanations offered — the most recent coming last week when a University of Exeter archeology student suggested that wooden ball bearings balls placed in grooved wooden tracks would have facilitated the movement of the massive stone slabs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Islamist Hate Books Inquiry Call
Counter-terror thinktanks call for inquiry into public library stocks after a Channel 4 News investigation finds hundreds of books written by radical Islamist preachers, writes Johnny McDevitt.
Among the authors was the first person to be banned from entering the country by the Coalition Government earlier this year.
Works by Zakir Naik as well as other banned Islamist leaders, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Al-Faisal and Bilal Philips, are available to borrow across London’s libraries.
Indian televangelist Naik was barred from entering the country in June, after Home Secretary Theresa May uncovered comments attributed to him, which she said represented “unacceptable behaviour”.
Egyptian Qaradawi was excluded in 2008, when the Home Office said it would not tolerate the presence of those who seek to justify acts of terrorist violence.
During his previous visit in 2004, Qaradawi defended suicide attacks on Israelis as “martyrdom in the name of God”, during a BBC interview.
Al-Faisal was jailed in 2003 after cassette tapes of his sermons, which solicited the murder of Jews, Christians and Americans were found. He was deported from Britain in 2007.
Others authors included Muhammad bin Jamil Zino, in whose book, Islamic Guidelines — which we borrowed from Bethnal Green library in Tower Hamlets in east London — tells readers that “The Last Hour will not appear unless the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”
The Channel 4 News investigation found hundreds of books, DVDs and ‘talking book’ cassettes by these authors in libraries around several London boroughs.
The borrowed books were taken out with a normal library card, with many coming from Whitechapel library, also in Tower Hamlets.
Until January, the library used to stock taped sermons by Anwar al-Awlaki, the so-called ‘Osama bin-Laden of the Internet.’
Roshonara Choudary, the 21-year-old woman who in March stabbed MP for East Ham, Stephen Timms, told a court earlier this month that she had been inspired by his Awlaki’s lectures on YouTube.
‘Very disturbing’
Presented with our investigation, James Brandon, head of research for counter-extremism thinktank, the Quilliam Foundation, called for an urgent review of what material is stocked in public libraries.
“It is very disturbing that books written by people who have been banned from this country are still available in public libraries,” he told Channel 4 News.
“Libraries stock a wide range of materials, but in the cases of some of the radical authors, they go very far over the line.
“In the cases of people like al-Faisal and Zino, there is absolutely no reason for them to be there.
“The Government needs to launch an enquiry into which books are retained, how they got there in the first place — because it is not clear how books are chosen — and how to put positive books in their place.”
Last month, Mrs May announced a review of the counter-extremism strategy Prevent, which the Conservatives in opposition accused of wasting money.
It will be undertaken by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
Mrs May said that the role of prisons, universities, schools and mosques will be considered in combating extremism, but made no mention of libraries.
At the time, she said: “Stopping radicalisation depends on an integrated society. We can all play a part in defeating extremism by defending British values and speaking out against the false ideologies of the extremists.”
Quilliam’s Mr Brandon added: “The review of Prevent will mean that the Department for Culture, Media and Sports will have more power over combating extremism, and they really need to get clued up on hate literature because these books are potentially very dangerous.”
His concerns were echoed by the Centre for Social Cohesion, whose 2007 report ‘Hate On The State,’ uncovered scores of books, including some by deported hate cleric Abu Hamza, on library shelves in London, Birmingham and Blackburn.
Following the report, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the Government would consult with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) after extremist literature was found on lending lists.
Guidelines
What followed was the publication of a set of guidelines designed to help local authorities — who independently choose what to stock in their libraries — take a view on controversial material.
A spokeswoman for the Centre for Social Cohesion said: “It is amazing that some libraries continue to stock books by pro-jihadist clerics.
“Something is very wrong with current legislation if these books are still available to borrow after it’s been proved they can inspire hatred.
“If the guidelines in place are not being followed, they are not worth the paper they are printed on.
“If that is the case, one suggestion is if a one-off, systematic stock check is ordered in problem councils, to level the playing field.
She added: “They are narrowing the Prevent agenda at the moment, but they need to consider looking at the libraries, because years after the guidelines were published, public libraries may be unwittingly encouraging Islamist extremism.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Phil Woolas Loses Legal Challenge Over Ejection From Commons
The former Labour immigration minister had been barred from standing for public office for three years, after two High Court judges made the historic decision to overturn the result of May’s ballot.
He had been accused of trying to get the “white folk angry” in Oldham East and Saddleworth by falsely claiming that the Liberal Democrat candidate, Elwyn Watkins, was in league with Muslim extremists.
Mr Woolas was suspended by Labour and told he could not stand again for the party, but his supporters believed the election court’s decision would “chill” political freedom and raised tens of thousands of pounds to challenge it.
His initial bid for a judicial review was rejected by the High Court but the Court of Appeal has been considering his second application since November 17th.
In a judgment published at midday on Friday, the three judges rejected his bid.
In a summary of their decision, the judges rejected Mr Woolas’s argument that he had only made legitimate criticisms of his rival’s political position.
They said that two claims in election pamphlets had “gone beyond” solely about the Lib Dem candidate’s political position.
Instead, they had been about his personal character and falsely claimed “that he was a man who condoned extreme violence” and “he refused to condemn threats of violence”.
It means a by-election can now be held in his former constituency, which Mr Woolas will be barred from contesting but which will see the Coalition parties battling each other.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Wikileaks: ‘No Wild Parties’ Says Berlusconi
‘Revelations’ from ‘low-level functionaries’, premier says
(ANSA) — Tripoli, November 29 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Monday denied giving or attending “wild parties” as claimed in secret US diplomatic cables published by the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.
“I don’t frequent these so-called ‘wild parties’ and I don’t even know what they are,” the premier said, branding the content of the Wikileaks dossiers “revelations from third- or fourth-level functionaries”.
“Once a month I give dinners in my homes where everything happens in a correct, dignified and elegant way,” he said. The centre-right premier also said the documents had been published in “left-wing” papers, referring to the Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Speigel and the New York Times.
Berlusconi said the claims made in the cables, which also raised questions about his physical fitness and close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, “hurt the image of our country”.
The premier has been hit by allegations by a prostitute who attended his parties who said under-age girls were present and sex was involved.
He has vigorously denied this and on Monday suggested the call girl, and others who have made similar claims, had been paid to do so.
Berlusconi was speaking in Libya on the sidelines of a European Union-Africa summit.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Wikileaks: Reports Partying Hit Berlusconi’s Health Denied
Blood-test results of fit young man, says doctor
(ANSA) — Rome, December 2 — Reports that Silvio Berlusconi’s alleged partying has damaged his health were rebutted by the Italian premier’s personal doctor Thursday while the Senator named as the source in secret US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks denied ever saying anything of the sort.
Giampiero Cantoni, a Senator for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, was quoted by the whistle-blowing website as saying Berlusconi’s “frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest”.
He was also quoted as telling an American embassy official in Rome that the PdL’s top brass were worried because the results of Berlusconi’s medical tests were “a complete mess” in leaks published by British daily the Guardian.
“These comments contrast totally with reality,” said doctor Alberto Zangrillo.
“The premier is lucky enough to have a blood-test profile comparable to that of an absolutely healthy young adult”.
Cantoni said the comments attributed to him were plain false.
“I never said statements about the premier’s health like those reported in the secret files revealed by WikiLeaks, not to officials nor to any former US ambassadors,” he told ANSA.
“It’s not a habit of mine to report gossip that appears in the media and is evidently used to feed geopolitical analysis of intelligence that has no strategic content or valid documentation”. Zangrillo added that the episodes cited by the Guardian of Berlusconi fainting on three occasions in recent years were down to a minor heart arrhythmia problem that has been successfully treated. On Tuesday Berlusconi downplayed references to alleged “wild parties” at his residences in the US diplomatic dispatches, saying: “I wish! I’m too old for certain things”.
The premier has been hit by allegations by a prostitute who attended one of his get-togethers that under-age girls were present and sex was involved.
He has vigorously denied this and suggested the call girl, and others who have made similar claims, had been paid to do so.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Survey: Consensus on ‘Great Albania’ Growing
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 19 — There is growing consensus in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia on the ‘Great Albania’ project, according to a Gallup Balkan Monitor survey.
The opinion poll has revealed that 81% of Albanians in Kosovo support the plan (up 25% on 2008), as do 63% of the population of Albania and 53% of Macedonian citizens (9% more than in 2008). The ‘Great Albania’ project was centre stage at the conference held recently in Tirana, with the participation of Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia and southern Serbia. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Christian Teens Arrested and Charged in Church Incident
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — In what is viewed as a precedent by right groups, Egyptian state security forces opened fire on November 24 on Christian Copts, killing four, wounding 78, detaining hundreds and charging 170 with grievous charges — “enough to keep them behind bars for 10-15 years,” says Coptic political analyst Magdy Khalil.
Working at the construction site of their new church in Talbiya, Omraniya, an area south of Cairo densely populated by poor Christians, the congregation was surprised at dawn by nearly 5000 security forces, opening fire on them with live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas. They responded by hurling stones or throwing back at them their tear gas bombs (video). To protest against this attack, nearly 3000 area Copts went to the Governorate building, where they were met again with a hail of live ammunition and tear gas; many were wounded and arrested. Coptic youth hurled stones, broke glass and two kiosks (AINA 11-30-2010).
The true number of those arrested is unknown as not all are yet charged. It was reported that police are still arresting Coptic men from the area, making families stay indoors. 170 men have been charged to-date.
Rights lawyers learned lately of 22 Coptic minors were arrested by security from the church site. Some, as young as 16, were hiding inside the church building but “hunger brought them out after 2-3 days, when forces caught them, saying they would send them to their families, but instead arrested them,” reported Mariam Ragy. They were sent to Al-Marg Juvenile Detention Center, northern-east of Cairo.
Lawyer Adel Mikhail, who represented two of them on December 1, said: “They are just overwhelmed and terrorized kids, mostly 16-year-olds, who had nothing to do with the protests. They were at church doing odd jobs like moving sand.” Police interrogated them on the day of the incidents without the presence of lawyers, who were prevented by security. They were all charged with attempted and premeditated murder, destruction of state property with intention of terrorism, theft of Interior Ministry’s property, intentionally disrupting public transport, and rioting.
Mikhail decried that two of his adult clients who were injured were were sent to detention before they were healed. One underwent an operation to remove bullets from his abdomen and the other had both legs broken after falling off the scaffolding at church due to tear gas fired in his direction. “I will present a complaint to Attorney General to bring them back to hospital.”
Dr. ElBaradei, former IAEA Director General, called the incident a “Stain on the conscience of Egypt.” The government claimed the Coptic Church attempted to present a “fait accompli” by building a church when they had a permit for a community center, and called the protesters “thugs” who wanted to take the law in their own hands.
The Governor of Giza went on national TV to justify his actions, saying the Copts hid by some sort of material a “dome” which indicates that the building would become a church for religious services and not a community services center as claimed. But prior to the demonstrations the Governor had sent to the Church congregation his secretary, who congratulated them on the Governor changing the permit to allow the building to be a church (video).
The Church Diocese in Giza issued a statement refuting the Governor’s allegations, saying “The Governor of Giza gave instructions to modify the services building to a church building, but a decision by the Chief of the District to halt construction and remove the irregularities angered the people, who congregated next to the building, fearing that the district authorities would cause damage to it, triggered the events and the clashes.”
Father Mina Zarif of Mar Mina Church, criticized the media for portraying the Coptic youths as if they were registered criminals, making Molotov cocktails. “I doubt if any of those peaceful people know what a Molotov cocktail looks like,” he said, “let alone make one.” He added that what happened is a crime but the real perpetrators were not the protesting Copts. “Although wrong, they released their anger by breaking glass and hurling stones at the Governorate building.”
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: More Women With High-Ranking Security Roles
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 30 — Moroccan women have recently taken over many of the jobs, which until a short while ago were reserved for men only, and especially in the local officials of the Ministry of the Interior. Many women, with the rank of commander, supervise and control, according to the Anamaghreb website, public order and security in many cities. This initiative that has been strongly backed by the government, has been hailed by much of Moroccan society, because it is considered to be a true implementation of the principle of gender equality, underlined the website. Some of Moroccan society, reports the website, has a different view of the situation, and believe that commanders (most of whom are very young) in reality are dealing with significant difficulties in carrying out a task that is often very difficult for men. Khadija Al Filaly, one of the new commanders, was hired a few months ago in the city of Taunat. After studying law, continued Anamaghreb, she enrolled in the Royal Institute for Territorial Administration, the only institute specialised in training security officials and, until a short while ago, reserved for men only. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Go Ahead From Ministry for First Casino
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 30 — The Israeli government is assessing the possibility of authorising the construction of the country’s first casino. The news was announced by the Tourism Minister, Stas Misezhnikov, who said that the construction of a conference centre in the south of Israel is also being assessed, to incentivise the development of geographical areas considered to be the weakest, from an economic and social point of view.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
1 of 5 Children Exposed to Sexual Violence, Turkish Minister
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 29 — In today’s world, one of every five children was exposed to sexual violence, Turkish State Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf said on Monday as Anatolia news agency reports. “We should work together to end this humanity shame,” added Kavaf who participated in a campaign of the Council of Europe in Rome to end sexual violence against children. According to researches conducted in Europe and worldwide, one of every five people was subjected to sexual violence before reaching the age of 18, said Kavaf, adding that as members of Council of Europe, which had the highest values and norms in human rights area, “they should act together to end this shame of humanity.” “It is important to break the silence in fight against sexual violence, she said. Breaking the silence is one of the most effective and important weapons in this fight, said Kavaf, adding that in many cases, the sexual violence was kept hidden and not reported. Kavaf said that Turkey, as the term president of Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, extended support to the campaign of the Council. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Extremists See ‘Islamic Caliphate’ For 2022 World Cup
Extremists welcomed FIFA’s decision Thursday to have Qatar host the 2022 World Cup, predicting Al-Qaeda will establish an “Islamic State” in the Gulf region in the coming years, monitors said.
“You fools, know that Al-Qaeda is on the threshold of establishing the shariah (Islamic law) of Allah the Almighty,” a user who went by the name Hafeed al-Hussein posted on the Shumukh al-Islam online forum, according to the US-based SITE Intelligence Group.
“And who knows, Allah may empower al-Qaeda so that it takes control of matters after a year or two, or five years at most.
“In 2022, there is no country with the name Qatar, and there is no province called Kuwait and there is no Saudi (Arabia). Instead, there is an emirate called the Islamic State,” the post added.
After an agonizing final day of presentations and furious lobbying in Zurich, FIFA head Sepp Blatter earlier announced Qatar as tournament hosts in 2022 — over the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia — while Russia beat off competition from England, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium to host the 2018 World Cup.
Another user predicted Qatar’s demise would come within seven years.
“By 2022, Qatar will not exist with permission from Allah. Instead, there will be the Islamic State of Qatar under the Islamic Caliphate established by Sheikh Osama bin Laden in 2017,” Juleibib al-Irhabi wrote.
One of his colleagues, Abu Yassin, predicted that insurgents in the Russian Caucasus — where attacks on officials have become daily occurrences as Russian authorities battle the fighters — would help spell Qatar’s downfall.
“In 2018, Russia will organize (the games) and the brothers in the emirate of the Caucasus, with permission from Allah, will make a case to cancel Qatar’s” games, he wrote.
A forum user who went by the name Huna al-Qaeda predicted 2022 “will be the first World Cup for the mujahideen, with permission from Allah.”
“We will win the cup and medals, and we will seize some heads of the cross and apostates. Maybe there will be captives,” the post added.
Another who called himself Abu Khubeib al-Khorasani said 2022 will be the “most exciting” World Cup final, predicting that Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo would be kidnapped and Al-Qaeda would win the tournament.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Minister Calls for Hanging of Terror Suspects
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani paraded in front of reporters on Thursday 39 suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda-linked terror group responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in the country.
Mr. Bolani said the men, who were handcuffed and dressed in orange jumpsuits, should be hanged.
He also said most of the suspects were released from American-run prisons in Iraq as part of a national amnesty program before rejoining the terror organization.
There was no comment by the U.S. military.
At Thursday’s news conference, Mr. Bolani said he was confident the men would be found guilty, citing their alleged confessions, documents and video found at their homes that he said showed their earlier attacks and plans to carry out new ones.
Mr. Bolani, who is lobbying to keep his job as Iraq’s leaders vie for top ministry posts in the new government, said sentencing the men to death quickly would ensure they aren’t released by security forces.
His comments appear to belie millions of dollars the U.S. has spent trying to implore the rule of law on Iraq, in part by making sure detainees get a fair trial.
Abdul-Rahman Najim al-Mashhadani, head of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization that has been helping overhaul Iraq’s judicial system, said at least some of the suspects would be found not guilty. “Verdicts should be issued by courts, not by ministers who should be confined to the powers given to them only, especially if they are in the outgoing government,” Mr. Mashhadani said.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Israel’s Friendship With Turkey is Over — Gül
Turkey is transforming. Ankara is developing economic and diplomatic relations with its neighbours, prompting many in the global community to talk of “axis shift”. Turkish President Abdullah Gül has given a candid interview to euronews mapping out where his country might be heading next.
Euronews: Turkey is developing and extending its relations in the region and this has led a flurry of debate in the West. Where is the country heading? Is Turkey turning away from the West? Is it shifting on its axis?
Gül: There has been a lot of talk about this recently and I am following it all closely. My view is, as I’ve always said, that much of it is wrong. Some of these comments have been made intentionally and others out of ignorance. Turkey’s aim is very clear. We working towards the most advanced democratic and economic standards we can, and to improve standards. We have had to change the Constitution but we have also benefited from geopolitical opportunities; we have historical advantages as well. We are looking at a multi-directional policy.
Euronews: You said some comments were made intentionally. What do you mean by that?
Gül: Before, Turkey’s foreign policy was on the wrong foot. Imagine a country that always has problems with its neighbors. Its trade and economic relations with them are barely operational. This should not be the case. Turkey was like a dead-end street; now it is more of a crossroads. Look at the level of trade between France and Germany, Canada and the US, or any other countries who share a border. They are all doing well but Turkey’s trade with its neighbors was very poor. We were on the wrong axis. Turkey is settling on the right axis now.
Euronews: During the most recent NATO summit, thanks to your insistence, no specific country was mentioned as a target for the new missile shield system. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “call a spade a spade,” clearly referring to Iran. What do you think about that?…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Compliance With EU’s Acquis Too Expensive
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, NOVEMBER 30 — Compliance with environmental acquis of the EU was likely to bring extra costs for Turkey, Turkey’s top business organization TUSIAD said, urging Turkish government to demand funding from the EU during accession negotiations. In a statement released Tuesday, as Anatolia news agency reports, Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association — TUSIAD, which is set to represent the Turkish business world in the UN Climate Change meeting in Cancun, Mexico — drew attention to the financial burden, compliance with EU Enviromental Acquis would bring on Turkish industry and private sector. TUSIAD said compliance with the said Acquis would bring 45 billion euro extra cost for the Government and 15 billion euro for Turkish industrialists and private sector. TUSIAD urged the government to consult the private sector during negotiations on the environment chapter and allow it and all other stakeholders to partake in the harmonization process. “In their position papers, all candidate countries (EU) highlight the required investments and their need for EU funding. Turkey will face serious extra costs and the need to make investments. When Turkey’s GDP per capita is considered, Turkey needs additional funding to make such investments,” TUSIAD’s Chairperson Umit Boyner was quoted as saying in the statement. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Could a Caliphate Make a Comeback?
The foreign policy of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has been described by some as “neo-Ottoman.” And now, after a recent shakeup in the state body responsible for overseeing Islam nationally, some experts are wondering whether the AKP is mulling plans to resurrect the Ottoman-era institution of the Caliphate.
Speculation mounted following the mid-November resignation of the long-time chief of The Religious Affairs Directorate, or Diyanet, which is responsible for administering religious life in Turkey. In his acceptance speech, the new head of the directorate, Mehmet Gormez, promised to “act on the principle of service to all the world’s Muslims, all the oppressed nations of the globe, all Muslim minorities.”
Turkey is no stranger to using Islam as an instrument of foreign policy. After the September 11 terrorism tragedy, Ankara went along with US-led efforts to brand it as a counterbalance to al Qaeda. September 11 also helped accelerate efforts by Turkey’s most powerful Muslim group, the Fethullah Gulen Movement, to re-brand itself as a leader of interfaith dialogue and tolerance.
What made Mehmet Gormez’s words unusual is that Diyanet — beyond its long-standing supervision of an estimated 4 million Turks living in Europe — had tended to steer well clear of any pretension to lead all the Muslim faithful.
When the founder of the Turkish Republic Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1923, he did so in part to end what, in a 1927 speech, he described as “the delusion of imagining ourselves the masters of the world.”
The Diyanet was a key tool in molding a new version of Islam in Turkey, one that Ataturk felt should be rational, staunchly national, and infused with disdain for what Turkish modernizers saw as “primitive” Arab Islam.
Turkish conservatives never forgave Ataturk for his efforts to distance Turkey from the rest of the Islamic world, replacing the Arabic alphabet with the Latin, and insisting that religious services be held in Turkish, rather than the language of the Koran.
Those nostalgic for the Ottoman era, an age when the sultans of Topkapi Palace ruled the heartlands of the Muslim world for roughly five centuries, have long nourished the hope that Turkey might once again assert itself as the leader of the faithful. Unsurprisingly, Gormez’s statement set a few conservative hearts fluttering.
“Islam is rising to its feet,” author Mehmet Ali Bulut wrote in an article posted on the website of the conservative television channel Kanal 7. The early 20th century Islamist thinker “Bediuzzaman [Said-i Nursi] said that ‘the day will come when this nation will be praised above other Muslim nations’ … Mr. Gormez’s speech showed how near that bright future is.”
A columnist for the pro-AKP daily Yeni Safak, Akif Emre agreed that the tone of Gormez’s speech was “reminiscent of a post-modern Caliphate mission.”
But Emre was much less convinced than Bulut — who contended that Ataturk never officially abolished the Caliphate — that Turkey was on the verge of turning back the clock. “Both in its structure and its function, Diyanet is an obstacle to the creation of a religious understanding independent of the state, never mind taking the place of the Caliphate,” he said.
His view of the Diyanet as an affront to freedom of religion is common among Turkish Islamists and western liberals.
Following Mehmet Gormez’s appointment, however, some Islamists appear willing to revise their view of Diyanet for the better. “His appointment is a symbolic expression of the fact that the old, rigid bureaucratic mentality of ‘religious affairs’ no longer has a place” in a country finally trying to resolve decades-long problems, said Ali Bulac, a prominent Islamist intellectual.
Most Islamists didn’t think much of Ali Bardakoglu, the previous Diyanet head. A moderate who worked hard to promote women’s rights, Bardakoglu raised government hackles by refusing to pronounce publicly on the headscarf issue. He also allegedly opposed plans to permit Kurdish sermons in Kurdish mosques.
Diyanet-watchers say Gormez, an ethnic Kurd, is equally moderate, and a staunch supporter of efforts to build bridges with Kurds and non-Sunni Muslims in Turkey. His open-mindedness is likely to make him an ideal partner of the government, said Istar Gozaydin, a secular-minded law and politics professor at Istanbul Technical University who has written a book about Diyanet. “The government has begun using religion more and more in foreign affairs as a sort of soft power, and it seems logical that it should want to use Diyanet as part of that,” Gozaydin added.
A Kurdish Islamist intellectual, Serdar Yilmaz is dismissive of the notion that Turkey could assume an intellectual leadership position of the Muslim world. “Diyanet is never going to be Al-Azhar,” he says, referring to the prominent Islamic university in Cairo. “But the further you are from the parochial, nationalist Islam [that] the state serves up in this country the better. Mehmet Gormez’s distance from Turkey’s official ideology is likely to endear him more in the Middle East.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Wikileaks Cables: Yemen Offered US ‘Open Door’ To Attack Al-Qaida on Its Soil
The president of Yemen secretly offered US forces unrestricted access to his territory to conduct unilateral strikes against al-Qaida terrorist targets, the leaked US embassy cables reveal.
In a move that risked outraging local and Arab opinion, Ali Abdullah Saleh told Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, John Brennan, in September 2009: “I have given you an open door on terrorism. so I am not responsible,” according to a secret dispatch back to Washington
In reality, despite the offer of an “open door”, Yemen has restricted access for US forces in order to avoid playing into the hands of Saleh’s domestic critics.
The cables expose for the first time the true scale of America’s covert military involvement in the Arab world’s poorest nation amid deep concern in Washington that it has become the haven for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap).
The group has carried out a series of attacks on western targets, including the failed airline cargo bomb plot in October and the attempt to bring down a US passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day last year.
While Saleh’s government publicly insists its own forces are responsible for counter-terrorism operations, the cables detail how the president struck a secret deal to allow the US to carry out cruise missile attacks on Aqap targets. The first strike in December last year, which killed dozens of civilians along with wanted jihadis, was presented by Saleh as Yemen’s own work, supported by US intelligence.
But a cable dated 21 December from the ambassador Stephen Seche recorded that “Yemen insisted it must ‘maintain the status quo’ regarding the official denial of US involvement. Saleh wanted operations to continue ‘non-stop until we eradicate this disease.’“ A second attack took place on 24 December.
A few days later, in a meeting with General David Petraeus, then head of US central command, Saleh admitted lying to his population about the strikes.
“We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh told Petraeus on 2 January. That prompted the deputy prime minister, Rashad al-Alimi, who was also at the meeting, to joke he had just “lied” by telling parliament the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa (the al-Qaida strongholds) were American-made but deployed by Yemen.
Petraeus had flown to Sana’a to tell Saleh that Barack Obama would allow US ground forces “armed with direct-feed intelligence” from satellites or surveillance aircraft to be deployed in Yemen on counter-terrorist operations. But in contrast to his suggestion of an “ open door”, Saleh rejected the offer, expressing concerns about US casualties.
Instead it was agreed to have “US fixed-wing bombers circle out of sight outside Yemeni territory ready to engage Aqap targets should actionable intelligence become available”. US personnel would have to stay in the Yemeni command centre.
Saleh said “mistakes had been made” in the earlier strikes, lamented the use of US cruise missiles that were “not very accurate” and welcomed the use of aircraft-deployed, precision-guided bombs instead.
Petraeus told Saleh he had requested $150m (£95m) in security assistance for Yemen for 2010, a substantial increase over the 2009 amount of $67m. Later in 2010, discussions were reported on raising US security assistance to Yemen to more than $1bn.
The US air strikes were praised by Saudi Arabia, the cables show. The deputy interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, told General James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser: “The Saudis have been monitoring conversations of al-Qaida operatives in Yemen very closely and whereas before the attack they were hearing relaxed 20-minute phone conversations over cellphones, after the attack the phones went virtually silent. This suggests that at least for now these operatives are more focused on their own security rather than on planning operations.”
Bin Nayef’s support for operations against Aqap is perhaps unsurprising. He survived an assassination attempt in Jeddah in September 2009 when a Saudi Aqap operative named Abdullah al-Asiri feigned repentance for his jihadi views in a meeting with the prince then blew himself up with a bomb concealed in his anus.
The secret dispatches also detail how Yemen repeatedly failed to implement anti-terror training for airport officials, allowed cargo to pass through x-ray machines unchecked and refused to co-operate over American suspicions about the movement of students through Islamic institutions.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Macho Friends: Washington Concerned About Berlusconi-Putin Axis
What is behind the friendship between Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin? The close relationship between the two leaders is a source of unease for the US State Department. The leaked cables contain allegations of personal business interests that both politicians deny.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dispatches Lay Bare Rocky US Relationship With Karzai
The US dispatches unveiled by WikiLeaks show just how deep the mistrust is between the US and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Saudi Arabia’s mediator role between NATO and the Taliban, it also becomes clear, faces several hurdles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Group Calls on Indonesia to Overturn Shariah Laws
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Human Rights Watch urged Indonesia on Wednesday to overturn Shariah laws in the conservative province of Aceh, saying the application of the legal code of Islam has resulted in widespread rights abuses.
The New York-based group said in a report that laws policing morality had resulted in violence and sexual abuse by the province’s Shariah police, known as the Wilayatul Hisbah, and by vigilante members of the public.
The laws run against “Indonesia’s own national laws and the constitution” and place Indonesia “in violation of its international human rights obligations, in particular the right to free expression, religious freedom, free association and privacy,” said Elaine Pearson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia.
In particular, the group took issue with laws banning “khalwat,” or association between single or unrelated members of the opposite sex, as well as strict Islamic dress codes.
Enforcement of the khalwat law frequently results in detention of up to 24 hours in which men and women found together are often forced to marry and women are compelled to undergo invasive virginity tests, the report said. More than 800 people, including children, were detained last year under the khalwat law, which also carries punishments of caning and fines.
In one case this year, two members of the Wilayatul Hisbah were convicted in the rape of a 19-year-old woman who was arrested while riding on a motorbike with her boyfriend on a secluded road.
The group also said that more than 2,600 people were stopped last year under a law prohibiting un-Islamic dress. Although the wording of the law applies to both men and women, in practice it overwhelmingly singles out women, as well as the poor, the report said.
Shariah law in Aceh has also caused a rise in brutal vigilante justice by the public, with authorities routinely turning a blind eye to mob violence, it said.
Human Rights Watch called on the governor of Aceh, Irwandi Yusuf, to press the legislature to repeal the laws and urged the central government to file an appeal in Indonesia’s Supreme Court on the grounds that they violate the country’s nonsectarian constitution. Mr. Yusuf and his deputy, Muhammad Nazar, could not be reached for comment.
Shariah laws began to be applied in Aceh, a staunchly Islamic province, in 2001 as part of government attempts to end three decades of conflict between Jakarta and the separatist Free Aceh Movement. It is the only region of Indonesia to officially embrace Shariah, although some districts have implemented Islamic-inspired ordinances.
A stricter Shariah code that includes death by stoning for adulterers was passed by legislators last year but the governor has refused to sign it.
Syafruddin, a deputy chief of Aceh’s Wilayatul Hisbah, dismissed the Human Rights Watch report’s allegations of widespread abuse as inaccurate.
“In the law we need to talk about evidence. Who did it? What’s their name? When did the cases happen?” he said. “They don’t have anything concrete.”
Allegations that officers discriminated against women when enforcing Islamic dress codes were also wrong, he argued.
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Hardline Pakistan Cleric Offers Reward to Kill Christian Woman
A hardline, pro-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric Friday offered a reward for anyone who kills a Christian woman sentenced to death by a court on charges of insulting Islam.
The sentence against Asia Bibi has renewed debate about Pakistan’s blasphemy law which critics say is used to persecute religious minorities, fan religious extremism and settle personal scores. Non-Muslim minorities account roughly 4 percent of Pakistan’s about 170 million population.
Maulana Yousef Qureshi, the imam of a major mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, offered a $5,800 (3,700 pounds) reward and warned the government against any move to abolish or change the blasphemy law.
“We will strongly resist any attempt to repeal laws which provide protection to the sanctity of Holy Prophet Mohammad,” Qureshi told a rally of hardline Islamists.
“Anyone who kills Asia will be given 500,000 rupees in reward from Masjid Mohabat Khan,” he said referring to his mosque.
While Qureshi is not believed to have a wide following, comments by clerics can provoke a violent response and complicate government efforts to combat religious extremism and militancy.
Qureshi, cleric who has been leading congregation at the 17th century Mohabat Khan mosque for decades, later told Reuters he was determined to see her killed.
“We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask mujahideen and Taliban to kill her.”
Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of four, is the first woman to be sentenced to death under the blasphemy law.
Blasphemy convictions are common in mainly Muslim Pakistan. Although the death sentence has never been carried out as most convictions are thrown out on appeal, angry mobs and fanatics have killed many people accused of blasphemy in the past.
In 2006, Qureshi and his followers announced rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that had enraged Muslims worldwide.
After her conviction, Bibi appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari to pardon her, saying she had been wrongly accused by neighbours due to a personal dispute.
Last week, a government minister said an initial inquiry into the case showed she had not committed blasphemy. The Lahore High Court last month prevented Zardari from granting a pardon and ruled that the High Court should be allowed to decide her appeal.
“No president, no parliament and no government has any right to interfere in the commandants of Islam. Islamic punishment will be implemented at all costs,” said Qureshi.
(Additional reporting and writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Michael Georgy and Miral Fahmy)
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Yogyakarta, Foiled Attack on Catholic Shrine
The target of the bomb attack were hundreds of pilgrims expected for the monthly Mass at the shrine of the Virgin Mary. Perpetrators behind the planned attack still unknown, but police reveal that they are experts. The shrine, founded in 1936, is an important pilgrimage site for Catholics of Prambanan.
Yogyakarta (AsiaNews) — In the courtyard of the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Sendand Sriningsih (District of Prambanan, Yogyakarta) a disabled child discovered four bottles filled with gasoline, cables and detonators, last December 1. According to local Catholics and Mr. Ignatius Lastoyo Warne, site manager of the sanctuary, the bomb had a specific purpose: to kill hundreds of pilgrims from neighboring parishes who attended the monthly Mass in the shrine town, on December 2. Search operations are still ongoing.
The discovery of these four homemade bombs occurred when a local Catholic, owner of a stall near the shrine, found his son playing with the suspect material: fluid-filled bottles, cables and detonators. The bombs failed to explode only because of human imprudence. The village chief, after seeing the bomb, called the police and military personnel, who immediately rushed to the scene.
Mgr. Johannes Pujasumarta Pr, Archbishop of Semarang, has asked the site manager to implement tighter security measures to avoid any provocative behavior by foreign “infiltrators”. He said: “This is a serious challenge; we must fight any behavior that can destroy religious harmony.”
Brigadier General Ondang Sutarsa, Yogyakarta police chief, confirmed that the materials found near the shrine of the Virgin Mary were used to create a bomb. During a press conference, the general explained: “This is a bomb is small, but highly flammable, since the cable was attached to bottles full of petrol.” Gunpowder and matches were also found on the site.
Any Pudjiastuti, a police spokesman, said: “We do not yet have concrete evidence on who is responsible. But it is very clear that these are experienced people, since the materials were well assembled. “
The shrine of the Virgin Mary was founded in 1936, when Fr Harjosuwondo, a Jesuit from the parish of Wedi, Mr. Wongsosentono, local village chief, and Bei Sutopanitro, catechist, decided to create a place of pilgrimage for Catholics in Prambanan.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Meanwhile, Back in Kyrgyzstan …
By Diana West
Punchline first, because it’s good to laugh, even mirthlessly.
Set-up: Hillary Clinton was in Kyrgyzstan (oh, to be in Bishnek now that December is here) yesterday for five (5) hours to pay protection money, I mean, sign a deal to give Kyrgyzzies “a share of lucrative fuel contracts for a critical transit hub here for troops headed to Afghanistan,” as the Washington Post reports.
While here, Clinton lauded Kyrgyzstan for taking the initial steps toward democracy, saying the people were “pioneers” among the former Soviet republics in the region. “Parliamentary democracy can help ease tensions between different regions and different groups of people,” she said at the town hall meeting. “ ‘Compromise’ is not a dirty word in a democracy,” she said.
Clinton and Otunbayeva, the first female president in the region, appeared to form a bond, with Clinton extending her visit at the presidential building for a cup of tea.
Gag: Roza Otunbayeva came to power this year as the result of a COUP, which was swiftly supported (enabled?) by Russia’s Putin.
Coup is democracy, baksheesh is displomacy — what other Newspeak do we have today?
From the Post story:…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Official Wants Authors of False Blasphemy Accusations Put to Death
Lahore, 3 Dec. (AKI/Dawn) — The government of the Pakistani Punjabi region favours capital punishment for blasphemy convicts but wants a check on bogus allegations by awarding the same sentence to the accuser proven false after a thorough investigation.
Provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters at a meeting of the Punjab Assembly’s Press Gallery Committee in the Lahore Punjab capital on Thursday that false accusers deserved the same sentence that was given to the convicts because playing with the lives of the innocent could and should not be allowed.
He said governor Salmaan Taseer made an abortive attempt to start a new controversy in the province by visiting Aasia, a blasphemy convict, in a Sheikhupura prison and speaking against the law.
But the plan failed like the plot to murder the Lahore High Court chief justice, he said, adding the governor was now facing the wrath of religious leaders for his ‘irresponsible’ comments on the blasphemy law.
The law minister played down WikiLeaks disclosures and described them as “just observations of US diplomats and high-level officials that may and may not be correct”.
Opposing levy of reformed general sales tax at a time when people are already facing multiple hardships, he denied PPP claim that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif gave his consent for the new tax at a recent meeting of the Council of Common Interests.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Reward Offered in Blasphemy Case
A hardline Pakistani Islamic cleric has offered a reward to anyone who kills a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam.
Maulana Yousef Qureshi told a rally in the north-western town of Peshawar that his mosque would give 6,000 US dollars (£3,800) to the person who kills Asia Bibi.
Bibi, who is in jail, was sentenced on November 8 to hang for insulting the Prophet Mohammed. She and her family say the charge is baseless.
Her case has attracted international attention and a personal appeal from Pope Benedict XVI for her freedom, while government officials have talked about the possibility of a presidential pardon.
But Islamist groups have protested against any move to show leniency towards her.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Islamists Fight Efforts to Save ‘Blasphemer’
Hundreds of Islamists took to the streets of Pakistan’s main cities yesterday in support of blasphemy laws used to convict a Christian woman who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam.
At rallies in Karachi, Lahore and other cities, the crowds of protesters warned against attempts to repeal the laws and denounced two leading politicians who have been threatened for speaking out against the treatment of Aasia Bibi, an illiterate 45-year-old farmhand. Human rights groups say that the blasphemy laws are an abusive instrument invoked to punish Pakistan’s most vulnerable. They have overwhelmingly been used to settle political vendettas or afford protection to Islamist extremists when they have targeted religious minorities.
Opposition to the death penalty has been led by Salmaan Taseer, the outspoken governor of Punjab, who has visited the condemned woman in prison, and Sherry Rehman, a liberal parliamentarian, who had submitted a bill to parliament to amend the law. At a conference of major religious groups this week, Ms Rehman was threatened that if she did not withdraw the bill “she would be besieged by the people of Pakistan”.
Last week, the Almi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, another fundamentalist group, declared Mr Taseer an “apostate” for calling for Aasia Bibi’s release and “implementing the Western conspiracy against the blasphemy laws”. For fundamentalists, the charge of apostasy is punishable by death.
Ms Rehman, a former information minister, says that she remains resolute in her stand and won’t be cowed by the threats. “I really can’t be coerced into silencing myself like this,” she told The Independent. “It’s my freedom as a legislator to do as I do. If they want to talk, there’s no issue. But to use coercion is unacceptable.”
The Aasia Bibi case has led to fierce divisions in the media, clergy and government. Although a number of religious scholars have spoken out against the blasphemy laws, Babar Awan, the Law Minister of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, has said he will not allow it to be amended or repealed.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Passenger Train Hurtles Past Record Into the Future
Riding the rails with U.S. Amtrack may feel even slower after a Chinese train’s latest record-breaking run. The unmodified passenger train reached a blistering 302 mph (486 kph) during a test run between Beijing and Shanghai — supposedly the fastest speed ever recorded for a regular commercial train. Specially modified trains in France and Japan have run faster, but this represents just the latest step in China’s grand rail-building plans. The new passenger train is slated to cut travel time in half between Beijing and Shanghai to just five hours, according to the AP. Operations are scheduled to begin in 2012. China can also boast of having the world’s longest high-speed rail network, as well as a Maglev bullet train that is the fastest in operation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Special Report: Will the White British Population be in a Minority in 2066?
When future historians consider the most significant legacy of 13 years of New Labour rule, what will they decide upon?
Chapter upon chapter will focus on the spending binge and subsequent debt crisis. Likewise, much will be written on the weakening of this country’s moral authority in the world, caused by the last government’s shameful complicity in torture, and military misadventure in Iraq.
But, in an article for this month’s left-of-centre Prospect magazine, the Oxford University academic Professor David Coleman indicates the longest-lasting impact on society may well be something else: the demographic upheaval brought about by the policy of mass immigration.
To quote Prof Coleman, an expert in population change, ‘the inflows of the last decade’ — which took place with no debate, or public mandate — ‘have been more sudden and on a bigger scale than ever before’.
And if they continue on a similar scale, he says ‘they will transform the demography of this country’ to the extent that, in the lifetime of a young person alive today, the ‘white British population’ will become a minority group.
It is a startling, controversial assertion — but so are the figures on which Prof Coleman bases his claim.
At this point it should be stressed that the professor, a government adviser who is one of Britain’s foremost experts on demographics, is hugely respected for his academic rigour and for the avoidance of emotion and prejudice in his work.
As recently as 1998, he points out, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projected that the UK population would peak at about 65 million in 2051, and then slowly decline.
Yet the latest projection — revised by the ONS in 2008 to take into account the unprecedented levels of net migration under Labour— expected Britain’s population to rise to 77 million by 2051, and to 85 million by 2083.
To put this in simple terms, it is the equivalent to adding the population of the Netherlands to the UK by 2050.
Moreover, if Britain continues along current trends, with net immigration staying at its long-term level of around 180,000 a year, the make-up of the country will change dramatically.
The white British-born population — defined by Prof Coleman as white English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish-born citizens — would decline from 80 per cent of the total now to 59 per cent in 2051.
Further into the future, and also taking into account factors such as changing birth and death rates, the ‘white British population’ would become the minority after about 2066.
Many observers will question the definition of ‘white British’ or consider it anachronistic or irrelevant. If you are British, it really does not matter what colour or race you are Britain will become — as Prospect magazine’s headline puts it — a ‘majority minority’ country.
‘Majority minority’ is a phrase designed to encapsulate the fact that groups traditionally viewed as being in the minority will, when combined, become the majority.
This is something that has already happened in two London boroughs (Tower Hamlets and Newham), with six more local council areas projected to join them by 2031, according to the Greater London Authority.
Many observers will question the definition of ‘white British’, or consider it anachronistic or irrelevant. If you are British, it really does not matter what colour or race you are.
However, it is the official classification used by academics to gauge the pace of change, and the impact which immigration is having on society.
And, as a YouGov opinion poll revealed this week, it is also something that appears deeply to concern the British public.
Asked what their opinion would be, should Prof Coleman’s projection about the make-up of Britain post-2066 prove accurate, 73 per cent of the public said they would feel ‘unhappy’.
Some 85 per cent of Tory voters hold this view. Interestingly, so do 67 per cent of Labour supporters and 55 per cent of Lib Dems — the two parties widely considered to promote open-door immigration policies.
Only a fifth of the public said they would be neithe r happy nor unhappy. Two per cent, or one in every 50 people, said they would be ‘happy’.
The primary reason there is such widespread concern about immigration is the belief that Britain simply does not have the infrastructure or public services to cope with such a rapidly growing population.
More than two million new homes will have to be built over the next 25 years for immigrants — a figure that may not be possible to achieve.
The alternative will be more cramped living standards, or increased prices because supply cannot meet demand. Water supply in the South-East, in particular, would come under enormous strain.
In schools, the MigrationWatch think-tank, with which Prof Coleman does research, estimates that more than a million additional places will be needed over the next decade, at a cost of £100 billion — an extraordinary sum, at a time of government spending restraint.
The worry is that if adequate schooling cannot be provided for the children of immigrants, they will be unable to learn English and prosper in the same way that past generations of new arrivals have done or fully integrate into society.
Which leads to the main issue raised by Prof Coleman’s article: how to manage the ‘enormous change to national identity — cultural, political, economic and religious’ which would be brought about by ‘white Britons’ becoming a minority group.
The fear is that the scale of the population increase will not provide sufficient time for proper integration between different cultures and religions. Of course, had the last government chosen to pursue a policy of integration, there may be far fewer grounds for concern.
The new Coalition Government faces the huge challenge of trying to promote integration, particularly among Muslim communities who, under Labour were only ever spoken to in the context of counter terrorism But instead, it wedded itself to the failed doctrine of multiculturalism which almost encourages immigrant communities to live in social and cultural isolation with little attempt to integrate them into the host community.
It was this that led to the social tensions that erupted into riots in the early years of this decade in northern towns such as Bradford and Oldham.
Significantly, an official inquiry by the former local government chief Ted Cantle blamed this state-approved policy of allowing communities to lead ‘parallel lives’ for the social unrest.
When Labour finally realised there was an urgent need to foster a sense of ‘Britishness’ among newcomers, their Âproposals to achieve this were utterly inadequate.
For example, there was the belated introduction of the so-called Life In The UK test for foreign nationals seeking a British passport. Yet this eschewed questi ons on British history in favour of risible sections on how to claim welfare benefits.
Then there was the idea of a ‘Britishness Day’ to be the focal point of a campaign for ‘stronger shared standards’ — a ‘celebration of what we like and love about living in this country’ — with street parties, carnivals and sporting events. But the idea fell flat and was abandoned by ministers.
Now the new Coalition Government faces the huge challenge of trying to promote integration, particularly among Muslim communities who, under Labour, were only ever spoken to in the context of counter- terrorism policy.
For example, after the July 7 London bombings, parents were asked to spy on their sons and daughters for sig ns of extremism or radicalisation.
It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no more daunting or important task for the future happiness and wellbeing of this country than developing a sense of shared British identity.
The urgency for this is underlined by this week’s YouGov poll, which graphically reveals that the overwhelming majority of the public appears not to support the rapid demographic change that is under way.
According to Prof Coleman: ‘In Brita in, judging by the opposition to high immigration reported in opinion polls over recent years, it seems likely that such developments [the “majority minority” scenario] would be unwelcome.’
Conservative ministers have made a strong start, despite having to fight a constant turf was with their Lib Dem partners who — seemingly misjudging the mood of their own supporters — continue to want open-door policies However he notes: ‘Some argue that a changed population would be for the better, and in any case inevitable in a globalised world.
So long as there was an adequate degree of integration, a more diverse population would be more creative, innovative, stimulating, open-minded and tolerant.’
This, says the professor, is a view ‘that has become orthodox among the educated elite, though not with the UK population as a whole’.
Prof Coleman’s comments chime with the anger of a large rump of the public at never having been consulted by politicians over a policy that allowed three million migrants to enter the UK between 1997 and 2010.
New Labour’s 1997 manifesto, offering not a clue to the future, said disingenuously that ‘every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no except as when Rochdale grandmother Gillian Duffy raised concern with Gordon Brown over immigration and she was branded a ‘bigot’.
Certainly, Tories have long believed that Labour encouraged mass immigration in the belief that as newcomers to a nation tend to be more Left-wing, Labour’s electoral chances would be enhanced.
Meanwhile, in the absence of proper debate or consultation with the British people, odious far-Right groups were able to cynically capitalise on the sense of alienation felt by working-class voters in particular.
If Prof Coleman’s views have one dominant theme, it is that the same mistakes must not be repeated. (And it is encouraging to note that his thought-provoking article should be published by a Left-leaning magazine, suggesting that — finally — we may be moving to a time when adult discussion of immigration policy is considered possible.)
The Oxford academic rightly stresses that his population projections are just predictions.
If the Coalition shows the political will to reduce net migration — the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and those leaving — to the ‘tens of thousands’, his scenario of Britain post-2066 will not happen. The growth in population would be significantly reduced.
Conservative ministers have made a strong start, despite having to fight a constant turf war with their Lib Dem partners who — seemingly misjudging the mood of their own supporters — continue to want open-door policies.
Yet their task keeps getting harder and harder, with the ONS this week revealing that net migration, in the last year of Labour rule, was 215,000 — around 35,000 a year more than the assumptions used by Prof Coleman.
Meanwhile, Labour does not yet appear to have found the resolve to change course. Ed Miliband, the new party leader, admits ‘losing touch’ with the voters over immigration.
But, in almost the same breath, he allows his MPs to attack the Coalition’s plans to impose a cap on economic migration, with the aim of reducing work visas by a fifth.
Referring to his scenario for 2066 onwards, Prof Coleman writes: ‘If the changes projected here came to pass, they would be perhaps the biggest unintended consequence of government action — or inaction — in our history.
‘It would be curious if embarrassment or demographic ignorance permitted an old society to marginalise itself in its own homeland without discussing it.
‘In a democracy it is surely appropriate, at the very least, for these considerations, for good or ill, to be at the forefront of debate on migration — not the short-term interests of employers and others grown dependent on migration in our distorted economy.’
Whatever the view a person holds on immigration, nobody should disagree with his desire to see the subject fully — and maturely — debated.
When properly controlled, there is much to celebrate and promote about immigr ation. It brings expertise and industry to the economy, and enriches everything from cuisine to our music, culture and theatre.
But the way the last government circumvented the electorate over immigration policy, while silencing any dissenting voices with cries of racism, was an insult to democracy.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
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