Butterfly of the Japanese Yen Crushes Turkish Lives
Söhret Karagöz’s dream of a lifetime was no different than millions of other Turkish citizens: The 36-year-old resident of the western province of Izmir simply wanted to own a house. But she witnessed her dream turn into a nightmare when the global economy took an unexpected twist and the appreciation of the Japanese Yen pushed her to the brink of bankruptcy.
In a globalized economy that feeds on rapid movements of capital around the world, a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia can indeed have disastrous consequences on the Aegean shores. Partly due to the trillions of U.S. dollars being pumped into economies by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the greenback has been plummeting against the Japanese currency, which has gained nearly 37 percent against the dollar since the start of 2008. And this is no longer a concern for Japanese exporters only.
“Monthly installments started with 800 Turkish Liras and rapidly rose to 1,375 liras,” said Karagöz, who borrowed a housing loan tied to the yen from “a nearby bank” in July 2008.
Since then, the yen has appreciated 62.3 percent against the lira, as her installments grew to unbearable proportions.
As if the yen’s rise was not enough, the company she worked for as a marketer went bankrupt as the global crisis hit home. The massive debt also resulted in the break-up of her family, with a divorce case ongoing. “Happiness is something we forgot a long time ago,” she told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. No light at the end of the tunnel in sight, Karagöz and her 18-month-old daughter moved into her 77-year-old mother’s house. The house bought on borrowed yen is currently for rent, paying for around one-third of the monthly installment.
In July 2008, when she took the loan, Karagöz owed 99,200 Turkish Liras to the bank. In 29 months, she has paid over 34,000 liras. She still owes 131,395 liras.
Bankers criticized
Karagöz is not alone. According to claims by “foreign currency victims” that are organizing online, there are over 200,000 people who took home loans tied mainly to the yen or the Swiss franc. The latter has appreciated nearly 60 percent against the lira since the start of 2008.
Data from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, or BRSA, shows that the number of people who borrowed on foreign currencies is 107,268.
“As these currencies surged, the debts of many increased by around 70 percent,” said Aygün Gürcan, one of the online organizers. He further claimed that banks “encouraged” citizens to borrow especially on the yen. “The bankers told us that the yen had not risen in the past 15 years,” he said.
Metin Sezgin told the Daily News he received a loan of 7.2 million yen in 2008, as his bank assured him the yen was “safe and stable.” At that time, his loan corresponded to 75,000 liras. “I’ve been paying my installments regularly for two years. I still have 100,000 liras in remaining debt,” Sezgin said.
Hasan Ergen borrowed 7.6 million yen, equal to 83,000 liras nearly three years ago. He was forced to borrow yen as his loan application in domestic currency was not accepted. “I started to pay 1,000 liras per month three years ago,” Ergen said. Today he pays nearly 1,700 liras each month. “I paid 50,000 liras in the past three years. I still owe 110,000 liras,” he said desperately.
“Those who take loans should bear in mind that the currencies might decrease or increase,” said Haluk Bürümcekçi, chief economist at Fortis Bank in Istanbul. “The yen’s rise was not foreseen in 2008, of course. But the risk was taken and the situation turned out to be unfortunate.”
E-mail and phone interviews conducted by the Daily News indicate that the indebted are increasingly cornered and they may have to sell their dream homes for cheap prices.
“We did not even know what the yen was,” said Sezgin Ertürk. “It was my bank that directed me to borrow in yen. My debt keeps on rising. My family is on the edge of falling apart.”
Debt restructuring
The key demand of the online campaign group is that debt be restructured in local currency. However, the situation does not look bright on that front. Melike Çako, another “yen victim,” said banks are not willing to do that. In 2008, when she took the loan, Çako was paying 1,800 liras each month. The figure today has ratcheted up to 2,462 liras.
Ozan Bisen, a marketing employee at a private firm in Istanbul, borrowed 139,500 Swiss francs in 2007, which at the time corresponded to 140,000 liras. Since then, he has paid nearly 100,000 liras back and still owes 163,000 liras. He started with monthly installments of 1,700 liras, which surged to 2,750 liras today.
In a written statement to the Daily News on Monday, Erkin Aydin, the marketing coordinator of Finansbank, said the lender, criticized by some “yen victims,” owns only 4.6 percent of the housing loans fixed to foreign currencies.
“Finansbank tries to restructure such debt upon the requests of our customers, within the frame of banking rules and regulations,” Aydin said. Attempts to contact lending officials of Fortis, another criticized bank, bore no fruit.
A peculiar feature of the yen victims is that most are from the Aegean region, including Gürcan, Ergen and Ertürk. When asked whether he wished to help the tens of thousands of borrowers, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç said Tuesday he had no information on the issue. “No one came to me with these kinds of complaints before,” Arinç told the Daily News in Ankara.
Gürcan requested the government help them restructure their debt. “Most of the banks are deaf to our calls,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: CEO Says Fiat May Raise Chysler Stake to 50 Percent
Milan, 3 Jan. (AKI/Bloomberg) — Fiat, the Italian carmaker that owns 20 percent of Chrysler, may boost the holding to more than 50 percent before a planned initial public offering by the US carmaker this year.
“I think it is possible, don’t know whether it is likely, but it is possible that we go over the 50 percent if Chrysler decides to go to the market in 2011,” Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of both automakers, told reporters at the Milan stock exchange today. “There will be an advantage if that happens.”
Fiat obtained a 20 percent stake as part of Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler’s bankruptcy reorganization in 2009. It can get 15 percent more when Chrysler makes a small engine in the US, meets sales objectives outside of North America and sells a domestically made car in the US that gets 40 mpg.
Marchionne said last month that he is considering repaying US and Canadian government loans before 2013, which could allow Fiat to exercise an option to increase its ownership by 16 percent.
The CEO spoke at the Milan exchange today as Fiat Industrial, the truck and tractor company that was spun off from Fiat, began trading. The spinoff, announced on 211 April, is the biggest reorganization in Turin, Italy-based Fiat’s 111-year history and would allow Marchionne to focus on carmaker and foster future alliances.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bankruptcy Growing at Fastest Rate Among Pensioners
Levels of bankruptcy among men and women aged over 65 are the lowest in Britain, but the rate at which numbers have increased has shocked observers, having risen six times in a decade and at a 50 per cent faster rate than other age groups.
The analysis by The Insolvency Service found that among women aged over 65, the rate of bankruptcy has grown even more sharply, more than 10 times between 2000 and 2009 and it is 43 times higher in London. The average age of someone who is bankrupt is 41, which is close to the average age of the population.
Charities described the increases as “shocking”, saying the rising cost of essential bills is hitting households hard. Una Farrell, from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, said: “Dealing with debt is particularly hard as you get older as you are likely to have limited opportunities to increase your income. The people we work with who are aged 55 and over, have on average, higher debt levels but lower incomes than all age groups. “The average debt for a CCCS client over the age of 55 is £25,826 compared to £24,274 for all age groups, while the average annual income of a CCCS client over the age of 55 is £12,920, significantly lower than £17,316 for everyone else.
“It is very difficult to be struggling financially at a time in your life when you had expected to be more settled.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Mead, Drink of Vikings, Comes Out of the Dark Ages
PITTSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Mead, that drink of viking saga and medieval verse, is making a comeback. But this ain’t your ancestors’ honey wine.
“It’s not just for the Renaissance fair anymore,” says Becky Starr, co-owner of Starrlight Mead, which recently opened in an old woven label mill in this little North Carolina town.
In fact, this most ancient of alcoholic libations hasn’t been this hot since Beowulf slew Grendel’s dam and Geoffrey Chaucer fell in with the Canterbury pilgrims at the Tabard.
In the past decade, the number of “meaderies” in the United States has tripled to around 150, says Vicky Rowe, owner of Gotmead.com, which describes itself as “the Internet’s premier resource for everything to do with mead.”…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Presidential Aide John Wheeler Found Dead in Delaware Landfill
Why was he killed? Mystery of top White House aide found murdered and dumped in landfill
A prominent Washington aide has been murdered and his body left in a garbage truck on a landfill site.
The killing of John Wheeler, 66, who served as a military adviser to three presidents, has left police mystified.
The body of the former Army officer and Vietnam veteran — who was instrumental in building the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC — was discovered on a Delaware landfill on New Year’s Eve.
But detectives say they have no motive for the crime, which has shocked the political community and devastated Mr Wheeler’s family and friends.
He was chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and spearheaded the creation of the controversial black granite memorial on the National Mall that is etched with over 58,000 names of troops killed in the war.
‘He was a great patriot,’ said Jan Scruggs, the wall’s founder. ‘I know how passionate he was about honouring all who serve their nation, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice.’
Mr Scruggs said he was shocked and baffled by the murder of the married defence contractor, who served as an advisor under presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Federalization of Local Law Enforcement
Though a rapid transition to a federalized police force is unlikely here in America, an incremental shift to greater federal control is already occurring
The United States has more than 18,000 police departments — far more than any other nation. Each of the 50 states has its own Peace Officer Standards and Training board and officer / deputy certification criteria for more than 700,000 officers nationwide. Over the next several decades it’s likely that a more federalized policing model will replace this decentralized approach.
Critics have argued for years that decentralized police administration fosters inherently poor-quality policing, tolerates racial bias, and makes it especially difficult to monitor and verify training and certification requirements across states. For many critics, federal intervention remains the remedy of choice. The current administration in Washington appears to agree.
All Law Enforcement
He then made a comment that drew less attention. He said that we — where the meaning of ‘we’ is federal officials — should work with “local law enforcement to improve policing techniques to eliminate bias.”
Remarks from Attorney General Eric Holder regarding Arizona’s new immigration control law reflect the Administration’s belief that local law enforcement officers routinely violate federal civil rights standards with little regard for ethics or the Constitution.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Catholic School Board Found Guilty of Religious Discrimination Against UFO Cult
TORONTO, Ontario, December 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a Catholic school board to compensate three members of a prominent UFO cult after finding the board guilty of religious discrimination.
Daniel, Michel, and Sylvie Chabot, members of the Raelian cult, were hired in November 2006 by the Conseil Scolaire Catholique Franco-Nord to offer ‘emotional pedagogy’ training sessions for teachers. They delivered such sessions through what they call the Academy of Pleasurology and Emotional Intelligence (APEI).
The Catholic board chose to end the contract in January 2007 after discovering their membership in the cult, which claims that humans were planted on Earth by benevolent extraterrestrials.
On December 15th, Tribunal vice president Michelle Flaherty ruled that the board had discriminated against the three siblings on the basis of their beliefs. The parties had agreed to mediation, but asked the Tribunal to determine if the human rights code was violated. The decision does not reveal how much the board must pay in penalty.
The Raelian sect was founded by former French sports journalist Claude Vorilhon, now known as ‘Rael’, in 1973 after he claimed that he had an encounter with aliens. The cult is known for its strong support of human cloning, which is based on their belief that cloning will usher in a paradise where people live forever.
Daniel Chabot, who calls himself a bishop, said they have filed dozens of human rights complaints, but this is the first to side with them. “It took us 17 years of relentless battles and one case before a Human Rights Tribunal in Ontario to finally have our voices heard,” he stated in a press release. “This sentence was ironically delivered on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2010 and was, needless to say, a sweet victory.”
Ronald Demers, the school board’s chairman, told the Catholic Register that they will not appeal. LifeSiteNews.com did not hear back from the board by press time.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
After 65 Years in the Shadows, The Indian Heroine of Churchill’s Elite SOE Spy Network is to be Recognised With a Statue in London
She was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France, where her bravery has long been recognised, and for three months she single-handedly ran a cell of spies across Paris until she was betrayed and captured.
For ten months she was tortured by the Gestapo desperate for any information about SOE operations, but she stood firm and was eventually executed at Dachau concentration camp on September 13, 1944, aged just 30.
Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949 and the French Croix de Guerre, but her courage has since been allowed to fade into history in Britain… until now.
And, mainly due to the efforts of her biographer Shrabani Basu, her bravery is finally to be permanently recognised in England with a bronze bust in central London, close to the Bloomsbury house where she lived as a child.
A campaign to raise £100,000 for what will be the first memorial in Britain to either a Muslim or an Asian woman has won the backing of 34 MPs and prominent British Asians.
Khan was born on New Year’s Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. She was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the renowned 18th century Muslim ‘Tiger of Mysore’ who refused to submit to British rule and died in battle.
Her father was an Indian Muslim preacher who moved his family first to London and then to Paris, where Khan was educated and later worked writing childrens’ stories.
Despite carrying a passport of an imperial subject, Khan had no loyalty to Britain. But she and her brother Vilayat despised the greater evil of Nazi Germany and fled to England after the fall of France.
In November 1940 she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and two years later her quiet dedication and training in radio transmitting atracted the attention of the SOE.
Despite doubts about her suitability, she was flown to France in June 1943 to become the radio operator for the ‘Prosper’ resistance network in Paris, using the codename ‘Madeleine’ and with the famous instruction to ‘set Europe ablaze’.
Many members of the network were arrested shortly afterwards but she chose to remain in France and, frequently changing her appearance and alias, she spent the summer moving from place to place, trying to relay messages back to London.
She was eventually betrayed by a Frenchwoman, supposedly the jealous girlfriend of a comrade, and arrested by the Gestapo who discovered that she had unwisely kept copies of all her secret signals. The Germans were able to use her radio to trick London into sending new agents — straight into the hands of the waiting Gestapo.
In November 1943, she was sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany where she was kept in chains and in solitary confinement. Despite repeated torture, she refused to reveal any information and in September 1944, Khan and three other female SOE agents were transferred to Dachau where they were shot.
Shrabani Basu, who has spent eight years researching official archives and family records, told the Independent newspaper: ‘I feel it is very important that what she did should not be allowed to fade from memory, particularly living in the times that we do.
‘Here was a young Muslim woman who gave her life for this country and for the fight against those who wanted to destroy the Jewish race. She was an icon for the bond that exists between Britain and India but also between people who fought for what they believed to be right.’
His efforts to rekindle interest in her story includes the making of a £10 million biopic by a British production company.
Around £25,000 of the cost required for the bust has been raised, and permission has been granted to site the sculpture on land owned by the University of London in Gordon Square. The cause has won the support of human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti and film director Gurinder Chadha.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Coptic Bishop in Rome, No to Muslim Presence on Sunday
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 3 — “I shall never accept that representatives” of Rome’s Muslim community should join us for Sunday’s demonstration called to commemorate the victims of the massacre in Alexandria. The Bishop of the Coptic Church in Rome, Msg. Barnaba el Soryany has told ANSAmed.
The Bishop was nonetheless heartened by the many other religious communities and institutions joining in the demonstration. In reference to his wish to exclude both Muslim religious and political representatives, Msg. Soryany added he was “unafraid to say so”.
According to the head of the Coptic Church in Rome, the notion that the Alexandria attackers came from outside the country is being “exploited” by investigators in Egypt.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Future of Religion in Europe: Voice of Russia
In late December last year, the Moscow Theological Society released a book title The Future of Religion in Europe.
Today the clergy largely tends to believe that the Europeans have so much departed from their religious and spiritual roots that Christianity will soon be taken in the EU countries as an anachronism. But the scholars are certain that the process that’s been under way in Europe’s spiritual life in the last decade is quite logical, says the Chairman of the Moscow Theological Society Ivar Maksutov in an interview with the Voice of Russia, and elaborates.
“The trends under way in Europe, Ivar Maksutov says, amount to an attempt to ideologically integrate Europe, or present Europe as a single indivisible area with common cultural traditions that has existed for centuries. But, of course, at a closer look one can see quite a number of various cultures that have certain problems in interacting with one another. But the last 10 to 15 years have seen a process of coercive integration, including in the spiritual and religious field.”
So far the attempts to work the poly-denomination mosaic into a single universal religion have failed to erode the canonical borders and the loss of traditional spirituality and religious ethics. Women priests, bio-ethical experiments, homosexual marriages, more frequent divorces, permitted abortions and euthanasia are but a minor part of the problems that the Europeans have come to face in recent years. The Europeans are likely to eventually find ways to resist the loss of traditionalism in favour of uniformity, Ivar Maksutov says.
Yet another painfully topical problem in Europe is the threat of Islamization of the European Union. According to statistics, the number of the followers of Prophet Muhammad’s doctrine grows in Europe by one million every year. By preliminary estimates some 40 million Muslims will have resided in Europe by 2025. Several European nations have already been compelled to recognize Islam as an official religion. Mosques in some European countries have outnumbered Christian churches. This has given rise to Islamophobia in Europe, both among the clerics and politicians. Europe has appeared unprepared for Islamization.
“The Europe that’s going through integration processes and trying to form a common economic and political area needs a single monolithic ideology, Ivar Maksutov says. Europe cannot allow the presence of radical dissent. It needs a strong foundation to allow certain pluralism. Given the situation, Islam cannot form part of this kind of integration. Islam cannot be integrated into European space in the form that it is currently present in there. It has never formed part of European culture.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Italian PM Reiterates Defense of Religious Freedom
(AGI) Rome — Prime Minister Berlusconi has issued a statement reiterating the need to oppose all unacceptable expressions of religious intolerance. “A peaceful assembly of Christians has been the target of an attack perpetrated by terrorists who hate humankind and ignore the elementary right to religious freedom.
The image of Christ covered in innocent blood on the walls of the Coptic Church in Alexandria in Egypt cannot leave indifferent those who govern. Everyone must play a role in opposing these unacceptable expressions of intolerance.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: State Funeral for Slain Soldier Held in Rome
Hundreds gather to pay respects
(ANSA) — Rome, January 3 — Hundreds of mourners gathered in Rome on Monday to pay tribute to an Italian soldier killed in Afghanistan last week. A state funeral was held for corporal Major Matteo Miotto, who was shot dead by a sniper in the western Afghan district of Gulistan on Friday morning. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa as well as senior military officials and members of the armed forces attended the funeral for the 24-year-old soldier in the Saint Mary of the Angels basilica in central Rome.
At the end of an emotional ceremony, six members of Miotto’s Alpine regiment based in Belluno carried the casket, which was wrapped in the Italian flag. A crowd of people waited outside the packed basilica to pay their respects to Miotto, greeting the coffin with a long round of applause. Following a last salute outside the basilica, the coffin left Rome for Miotto’s hometown of Thiene near Vicenza in the northern Veneto region. Thiene’s mayor Maria Rita Busetti announced a day of mourning. The soldier’s body will lie in state in a night-long vigil before it is buried on Tuesday.
“I would like to stress the great dignity shown by Matteo Miotto’s family and the affection that, today, the entire city of Rome expressed towards him”, said Defence Minister La Russa. The minister told journalists that he also planned to travel to Thiene, though he won’t be attending the private commemoration in the soldier’s hometown.
Berlusconi briefly spoke to the victim’s parents during the religious function.
During the funeral sermon, military archbishop Mgr Vincenzo Pelvi recalled a letter Miotto had written in November to Thiene’s mayor about his experience in Afghanistan, where the soldier had arrived last July. The message, said Mgr Pelvi, “unexpectedly became a testament, capable of condensing the great human beauty he left to all of us”. From Miotto came a request “not to give in to discouragement and resignation”, concluded Mgr Pelvi.
Italian president Giorgio Napolitano could not attend the funeral in Rome as he was ill with the flu.
Miotto is Italy’s 13th casualty this year and the 35th since the Italian mission to Afghanistan began in 2004. US Commander David Petraeus recently praised the “notable success” Italian forces have had since taking over the area in the Gulistan Valley from the US earlier this year. Miotto was shot in the area called Box Tripoli. Miotto’s death was the first since four Italian soldiers were killed in October in an attack that sparked renewed calls from some left-wing politicians for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Berlusconi’s right-wing government coalition rejected those calls and said Italy would stay the course alongside its NATO allies.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Seen as Threat by 4 in 10 French, Germans
Four in 10 French and German people see Muslims living in their country as a “threat,” according to a poll published Tuesday by French newspaper Le Monde.
Forty-two percent of French people and 40 percent of Germans questioned by pollster IFOP said they considered the presence of a Muslim community in their country “a threat” to their national identity, Le Monde said. The findings of the study “go beyond linking immigration with security or immigration with unemployment, to linking Islam with a threat to identity,” said Jerome Fourquet of IFOP, quoted by Le Monde. Of the sample of people questioned for the survey in early December, 68 percent in France and 75 percent in Germany said they considered Muslims “not well integrated in society.”
Out of these, 61 percent of French and 67 percent of Germans blamed this perceived failure on “refusal” by Muslims to integrate. Eighteen percent of those who said Muslims were not integrated in France and 15 percent in Germany blamed it on “racism and lack of openness by certain French and German people.”
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, estimated at about six million, originating largely from its former colonies in North Africa. It has passed a law banning the wearing of the face-covering Muslim veil in public…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Bigoted’ BBC Caned by Muslim Teachers
MUSLIM teachers have blasted the BBC as “bigoted and Islamophobic” after a documentary about Muslim schools.
The Panorama investigation by veteran journalist John Ware claimed children were exposed to extremist preachers and fundamentalist Islamic groups.
He also revealed that a network of 40 part-time Saudi schools were offering to teach the Saudi national curriculum, and standard textbooks showed children the correct way to cut off thieves’ hands and feet.
But tutors at the London School of Islamics (LSI) branded Ware an “Islam basher”.
Spokesman Iftikhar Ahmad added: “The Panorama show was a confused and sensationalist bit of film-making.
“Yet the Islamist schools in the documentary were all rated as good or excellent, and this was confirmed by their own presenter.”
Last night the BBC said it “stood by the documentary 100%”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: As We Count the Cost of the Freeze, Government Prepares for Global Warming
The authorities continue to prepare for ‘rising temperatures’ despite a succession of unprecedentedly cold winters, says Christopher Booker
As we emerge, temporarily perhaps, from weeks of the coldest weather since records began — with snow disasters right round the northern hemisphere, from the US and Europe to China and Mongolia — more examples come to light of how the cost of extreme cold is far greater than that of warming. We already have a £9.6 billion backlog to cover repairs to roads damaged in previous winters, and the price of repairing the potholes and crumbling asphalt caused by this winter’s even more intense cold threatens to raise that by billions more (even though Government cuts will trim that budget by 15 per cent).
[…]
Meanwhile, two days before Christmas, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a 130-page document warning how Britain’s infrastructure will “struggle to cope with climate change” between 2030 and 2100, as our road, rail and water networks are threatened by “floods, rising temperatures and higher sea levels”.
This is what those who rule over us are concerned about? Truly, they are off their trolleys.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BT Broadband ‘Could Create Two-Tier Internet’
BT is starting to sell a new broadband service that allows video content to be viewed in a better quality than other material, it has been reported.
Critics of the service, which gives broadband providers the opportunity to charge content owners for high quality distribution of their videos to consumers, say it will create a two-tier internet, the Financial Times said.
Video is being downloaded in huge numbers daily on Google’s YouTube and the BBC’s iPlayer. BT’s new service would ensure that videos can be streamed to mobile devices without interruption, even at peak times.
BT is allowing its retail unit, and other telecoms companies, the chance to use the network by selling a wholesale service called Content Connect which supplies BT’s television companies with the BBC iPlayer, the FT disclosed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Badly-Built Wall That Crushed Toddler, 2, To Death Hadn’t Been Checked by Council for Ten Years
A toddler was crushed to death during a storm by an ‘extremely badly’ built wall which hadn’t been checked by a council for ten years, a court heard yesterday.
Banker’s son Saurav Ghai , two, was killed when the unstable boundary wall collapsed as he walked home from playgroup with his nanny in January 2007.
Passers-by, including an off-duty fireman, desperately fought to save the boy after he was pulled from the rubble — but Saurav died from multiple injuries an hour later.
His parents, £200,000-a-year City worker Vinay and investment analyst Desiree, both 40, sat in court yesterday to hear the catalogue of errors which killed their son just yards from their £1million home in Belsize Park, North London.
The London borough of Camden has already pleaded guilty to failing to maintain the 8ft 6in wall following a two-and-a-half year investigation brought by the Health and Safety Executive.
The local authority is now being sentenced to determine the full extent of culpability for Saurav’s tragic death.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Despite Terror Attacks, 100,000 Britons Convert to Islam in Past Decade — With White Women Most Keen to Embrace Muslim Faithby Jack Doyle, Home Affairs Correspondent
About 5,200 people in UK adopted faith last year alone
The number of Muslim converts in Britain has topped 100,000 for the first time — fuelled by a surge in young white women adopting the Islamic faith.
Just ten years ago the total number of converts across the country stood at just over half that level.
The first detailed study of converts in Britain emerged in a report for Faith Matters, a multi-faith organisation.
It has led to claims the country is undergoing a process of ‘Islamification’.
The report defended converts, saying they largely saw their religion as compatible with living in Britain.
It said: ‘Converts do not represent a devious fifth column determined to undermine the Western way of life — this is a group of normal people united in their adherence to a religion which they, for the most part, see as perfectly compatible with Western life.
‘Converts are generally at ease living in the UK and do not feel that British people are essentially hostile to Islam.’
The report estimated around 5,200 people adopted Islam over the last twelve months, including 1,400 in London alone.
A survey of converts revealed nearly two thirds were women, more than 70 per cent were white and the average age at conversion was just 27.
In 2001 there were an estimated 60,000 Muslim converts in Britain. Since then the country has seen the spread of violent Islamist extremism and a number of terror plots against the country, including the July 7 bombings.
Among those converts who have turned to terror include Nicky Reilly who tried to blow up a restaurant in Bristol with a nail bomb, shoe bomber Richard Reid and July 7 bomber Germaine Lindsay.
The report said the number of converts sucked into extremism represented a ‘very small minority’, among an otherwise law abiding majority.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Owner Faces £1,000 Fine Over ‘Lost Cat’ Poster
Desperate to find his missing cat Wookie, Mike Harding put up posters throughout the neighbourhood offering a reward for its safe return.
And it was not long before he received a phone call.
Not from someone who had found the pet, however, but from the council saying he was breaking the law.
An official letter the following day accused him of causing ‘urban decay’ with his ‘fly-posting’ and ordered him to remove the signs immediately or face a £1,000 fine.
He rushed around the streets in sub-zero temperatures to tear down the posters and finally finished at 3am on Christmas Eve — six hours before the deadline he had been given.
Mr Harding, 44, a driving instructor from Bedford, said the woman caller told him he should not have put up posters.
‘I said I was really sorry. I didn’t know I was breaking any laws and I would take them down. She asked me for my address and it was all very affable — I thought they were sending me some guidance in the post.
‘But when I got home from work on December 23 at 8.30pm I found the letter warning I would be prosecuted if the posters weren’t removed by 9am on December 24 at the latest. I had to walk around town in the snow and ice when it was minus nine degrees.
‘I’m a law-abiding citizen yet I’m being threatened with a £1,000 fine for looking for my cat. You would think the council would have some compassion.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Voting System is Biased Towards Labour Because of Uneven Size of Constituencies, Warns Report
The British electoral system is biased in favour of Labour due to the uneven size of MPs constituencies, a report warned today.
Because the average Labour seat is much smaller than the typical Tory one it means Labour support yields more MPs than Conservative support does.
This means Labour can win an election with just 3 per cent more votes than the Conservatives, while an outright Tory victory requires an 11 per cent higher share of the vote than Labour.
The study warns that Labour could win the 2015 General Election — despite winning fewer votes than the Tories.
The vast disparity in seat size explains why the Tory-LibDem coalition is pushing ahead with plans to make UK constituencies equal in size — proposals which Labour oppose.
The report also says last year’s general election result was determined by less than 2 per cent of voters and denounced first-past-the-post voting as a ‘broken system’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Cleric Blames Israeli and US Intelligence for Church Bombing
Cairo, 3 Jan. (AKI) — US and Israeli intelligence were behind the deadly bombing of a church in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria early on Saturday, an Egyptian cleric kidnapped by CIA and Italian secret service agents in the northern Italian city of Milan in 2003, told Adnkronos International (AKI).
“Israel’s Mossad and the CIA are behind the attack in Alexandria,” Osama Hasan Mustafa Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, told AKI.
No one has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing which killed 21 people and injured dozens outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, but suspicion is likely to fall on Al-Qaeda linked or inspired Islamist radicals, according to analysts.
“After the (31 October) attack against the church in Baghdad, it is Egypt’s turn,” Nasr said, referring to the terrorist assault on a Catholic church in which 58 people including two priests died and a further 80 were injured.
The Egyptian government earlier boosted security outside churches after the Islamic State of Iraq issued a threat in late October against Copts, who form 10 percent of Egypt’s population.
US and Israeli secret services have spent millions of dollars sowing deep divisions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt to destabilise the country, according to Nasr.
“That is why I and others think that the US and Israel are behind the attack in Alexandria,” he said, adding that he condemned the attack.
“No Muslim can condone such an act,” he stated. “It has nothing to do with the Egyptian people and Muslims.”
Egyptian authorities are reported to have stepped up security around all minority Christian churches since Saturday’s attack, but hundreds of Copts have demonstrated in Alexandria — Egypt’s second city — and clashed with police for the past two days to protest the bombing.
In a landmark ruling in 2009, an Italian court jailed 23 CIA agents in absentia and two Italian agents over Nasr’s abduction in broad daylight from a Milan street in February 2003.
Nasr alleges he was flown to Egypt and tortured in prison there. He was released in 2007 and now lives in Alessandria. He is suspected of recruiting Muslim fighters to train in Afghanistan and said he will set up an Islamist party with any legal damages he is awarded.
Nasr and his wife are seeking 15 million euros in compensation for his ordeal.
He could still face arrest if he returns to Italy.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Alexandria: Tensions Between Copts and Government
Demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria to demand greater protection, and an end to discrimination. The authors of the massacre could be Egyptian fundamentalists. The Vatican rejects accusations of “interference” by the imam of Al-Azhar against the words of the Pope at the Angelus, January 2.
Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The suicide attack on the Coptic Church of Saints (Al Kiddissine) in Alexandria was carried out by local elements of the Islamic Jihad, according to specialist anti terrorism sources. President Hosni Mubarak immediately after the attack had asked Copts and Muslims to show unity in the face of “an foreign attack.” The New Year’s Eve suicide bombers who carried out the bombing on the church of Alexandria had, at first, tried to get inside the place of Christian worship to cause the greatest number of victims among the faithful.
An Egyptian police source cited by the Arabic daily ‘Al-Quds al-Arabi’, according to some witnesses said the bomber had tried to enter the church. However he changed his mind on seeing officers on guard outside the main door. Instead the terrorist waited for the faithful to emerge from the Church after mass. Investigators are analyzing an unidentified corpse found at the site of the attack in an attempt to identify the bomber. Meanwhile, a dozen people have been detained and questioned, seven are still in police custody.
The anger of the Copts after the attack, which caused 22 dead and dozens wounded, shows no sign of abating. Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police in Alexandria and Cairo, demanding more protection. The Copts accuse the authorities of discriminating against them, of preventing the construction of churches and of paying little attention to violence perpetrated by Islamic radicals. Yesterday Copts attacked the car of the Minister of Interior and the imam of Al-Azhar Islamic University on a visit of condolence to the patriarch Shenouda III.
Just prior to the visit to Shenouda III, the imam of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed Al Tayeb, criticized the Pope’s Angelus address yesterday and his January 1 address. Defining them as “unacceptable interference in the affairs of Egypt” he accused the Pope of having “a biased view on Muslims and Christians who are at risk of being killed around the world.” The newspapers interpreted the Pope’s words as an invitation to Western governments to defend the Christians in the countries they inhabit. Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi replied: “The Pope spoke of course of sympathy for the Coptic community that has been so hard hit, but then expressed concern for the impact of violence on the entire population, both Christian and Muslim. So it is difficult to see how the Pope’s words, so eager to inspire non-violence in all, can be considered interference.” “I think there has been a misunderstandings in communication, but I do not think that there is any need to insist on the imam’s declaration”, concluded Father Lombardi. (see: Pope: The attacks in Egypt and Iraq are an offense against God and humanity).
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Edict Posted to Jihadist Websites ‘Legitimises’ Church Attack’
Rome, 3 Jan. (AKI) — A religious edict signed by a Mauritanian cleric linked to Al-Qaeda’ s late leader in Iraq and posted to jihadist websites appears to legitimise the deadly New Year’s Eve attack on a church in northern Egypt. The edict, signed last month by Abu al-Mandhar al-Shanqiti, urges Muslims to avenge the alleged imprisonment in a convent of two Egyptian women after they converted to Islam.
Al-Shanqiti is close to the Jordanian sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the mentor of Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid there in 2006.
“How should Sharia (Islamic) law view Coptic priests and Christians who proselytise in our country and kidnap our women?” said al-Shanquiti’s message, cited by jihadist website Al-Tawed.
“You should attack those who attack you, with a force that is equal to or greater than theirs.”
“The Koran endorses the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’, a tooth for a tooth.”
He claimed jihadist leaders had decided to avenge the alleged kidnapping of the Muslim women, named in unconfirmed reports as Wafa Costantine and Camelia Shehata.
“These Christians who don’t hand over Muslims and who have kidnapped those two women have violated the accord under which they are afforded protection. We have no obligations towards them,” said al-Shanquit.
He recalled that the Al-Qaeda linked group which claimed the deadly attack on 31 October against a Christian church had in its message called for the release “of prisoners held by the Christian church.”
The attack on the Baghdad church killed 58 people including two priests and injured 80 others and drew international condemnation.
Al-Shanqiti is a member of Al-Tawed’s sharia committee and his ‘fatwa’ was was an apparent response to a question from a user of the website nicknamed ‘Abu Isa the Egyptian’.
In a phone call on Monday, Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed condolences to Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak over the suicide bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria on 31 December. At least 21 people died and dozens were injured in the attack, which has sparked violent protests in the country by Copic Christians.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday deplored the attack in an address as “vile gesture” and US president Barack Obama called it a “heinous act”.
Italy’s Il Foglio newspaper reported on Monday that Orthodox Coptic Christians plan to hold a demonstration in the Italian capital, Rome, on Sunday to protest the attack against the church in Alexandria and to demand that the Egyptian government do more to protect Copts.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Protesters in Egypt Clash With Police
Thousands of angry rioters broke through police lines, pelting officers with rocks and bottles and beating them with makeshift wooden crosses in a third day of unrest set off by a bomb blast outside a church after a New Year’s Mass, which killed 21 and wounded about 100.
The fighting broke out late Monday in the densely packed neighborhood of Shoubra, home to many of Cairo’s Christians, when a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters suddenly swelled into the thousands and surged through the winding streets. Eventually, the throng — chanting “Where were you when they attacked Alex?” and “Oh Mubarak, you villain, Coptic blood is not cheap,” referring to President Hosni Mubarak — began battling with the police, who dropped their batons and shields to throw rocks and bottles back at the protesters.
It was the second time in two nights that the police in Cairo, outnumbered and overwhelmed by protesters, broke ranks and attacked the crowd. Even before the outbreak on Monday night, at least 39 riot police officers, including four high-ranking officers, had been injured trying to contain the protests.
Egyptian authorities seemed uncertain at every level of how to contain the civil unrest unleashed by the bombing, outside Saints Church in Alexandria. They focused on the forensics, identifying 18 of the victims — 10 women and 8 men — and were examining a decapitated head thought to be that of a suicide bomber. The authorities also said they had detained suspects they believed could lead them to those responsible for the bombing.
By nightfall, church officials announced that every church in the country — including Saints Church — would go ahead and hold a Coptic Christmas Mass on Thursday night, but that holiday celebrations would be canceled, according to an official Egyptian news service.
Outside of Shoubra, the nation remained tense, with fears that the conflict could lead to wider civil unrest between Muslims and Christians. Rumors spread throughout Cairo that Christians pelted Muslim religious leaders with rocks when they went to offer condolences to church officials. With tempers heating up, police forces tightened security around the country.
But many Egyptians said that the state’s oppressive security apparatus was itself the cause of much of the trouble. “The government is the reason this happened,” said a demonstrator, Mamdouh Mikheil. “They are the terrorists who attack us every day.”
At one point earlier in the day, as a small group of protesters marched through the center of Cairo, a high-ranking state security officer walked over to a row of demonstrators standing vigil and slowly, methodically blew out the white candles they were holding to remember those who died.
It was a small yet telling moment for a Christian community that feels increasingly victimized and marginalized, first by a series of deadly attacks and then by a government that resists acknowledging that the nation is torn by growing conflict between its Muslim majority and its Christian minority, according to political experts here.
“Do not say that the criminal terrorists are not Egyptian,” wrote Samir Farid, in the independent daily newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, echoing a theme emphasized across nearly every daily newspaper on Monday. “They are Egyptian Muslims who are putting the nation on one hand and Islam on the other, and favoring the hand of Islam over the nation.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Left’s Loser Message
The Israeli Left was once an optimistic place. But that is no longer the case. It once promised peace and happiness. But that is no longer the case.
Today the Left is marked by equal doses of doom and gloom, irrationality and delusion. It operates in a closed universe in which reality has no place and opposing views are systematically ignored.
The Left’s defeatism was brought home to me last Thursday during the Ariel University Center of Samaria’s conference on Law and Mass Media. There I participated in a panel entitled, “Is the idea of a ‘two state solution’ feasible or doomed to failure?”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Wants Jews to Pay Terror-Supporting State
President’s plans for Israel to surrender strategic territory revealed
The Obama administration has drawn up a plan for Israel to give much of the strategic Golan Heights to Syria, informed Middle East security officials told WND. And what land Israel continues to use, it must rent, according to the plan.
Last week, WND first reported that Dennis Ross, an envoy for the White House in the Middle East, visited both Israel and Syria in recent weeks to discuss specifics of a deal in which Syria eventually would take most of the Golan.
The specifics of the plan, however, were not disclosed.
Days after the WND article appeared, similar reports surfaced in the Israeli and Arab media. Those reports also did not cite specifics of the plan.
Now WND has learned that Ross proposed that Israel give to Syria large swaths of the Golan Heights. Areas of the territory that house Israeli industrial zones will not need to be evacuated, but Israel is expected to lease the land from Syria, according to the informed Middle East security officials.
The U.S. plan has Syria declared the owner of most of the Golan while Israelis leasing land from Syria would be expected to pay direct taxes to Syria, the security officials said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinian Economy Improving, Moderate Optimism for 2011
A survey by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion shows that most respondents are in favour of a Palestinian currency and a civil airport in the West Bank. Some 44.1 per cent receives help from family abroad, whilst 66.7 per cent has a Facebook account.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews) — The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion conducted a poll among residents of the Occupied Territories this month. One result is the perceived improvement of the economic situation in 2010, which has given Palestinians a greater sense of optimism for 2011.
The survey found that most Palestinians 74.5 per cent appreciate that financial assistance provided by the EU and the US substantially contributed to the welfare of the Palestinian people. In addition, 44.1 per cent of Palestinians said they received funds from family members working abroad, the center’s director, Dr Nabil Kukali said.
At this point in time, a majority of Palestinians is in favour of a Palestinian currency, this despite the fact that they believe that the Palestinian Monetary Authority PMA is incapable of issuing such a currency and that the present Palestinian economy would be unable to protect the stability of its rate of exchange.
The survey found that the al-Quds newspaper is the primary printed media source for the Palestinians in the Territories from which they learn about the global issues and their impact on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Dr Kukali noted that a high rate of the Palestinian public is connected to Internet, as the service is now available at competitive prices in most Palestinian regions. Furthermore, he noted that a high percentage of the Palestinians have already a Facebook account due to the increasing significance of this high-tech communication system in social relations, particularly with relatives and friends abroad.
The survey was conducted among a random sample (1018) of respondents representing the various demographic groups of adult Palestinians, 18 years and above, living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip
Here are some results:
§ 33.2 per cent of Palestinians expect their financial situation in 2011 to be better than in 2010.
§ 86.5 per cent of Palestinians are homeowners, 13.5 per cent are tenants.
§ 52.2 per cent have no idea about projects in their residential areas, funded by donor countries, designed to improve the infrastructure.
§ 74.5 per cent appreciate that financial assistance provided by the EU and the US.
§ 61.1 per cent read primarily al-Quds newspaper to be well informed about global issues.
§ 97.5 per cent are in favour of establishing a civil airport in the West Bank
Responding to the question:” Do you have a Facebook account or not?”
§ 66.7 per cent answered, “Yes, I have”.
Responding to the question: “How do you describe yourself from the religious aspect?”
§ 1.9 per cent answered “secular”, 53.7 per cent “religious”, 41.2 per cent “traditionalist” and 3.2 per cent “activist”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Women Fighters Willing to Die for Gaza [Video]
With faces covered and guns loaded, Palestinian militants are training among the sand dunes of Gaza.
Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” — God is great — are followed by intense target practice. These militants are preparing to fight their sworn enemy, the state of Israel. But there is a difference — they are women. Training alongside men, they say they are ready to go into battle and are calling on more Palestinian women to join what they call the resistance against Israel.
CNN was given rare access to some of these women inside Gaza. The militant group insisted the location was kept secret, so we were blindfolded in the back of a car and driven to a house. Five women are sitting in the back garden, all from the Salah ad-Din Brigades — one of several militant groups in Gaza — all veiled and armed. Only their eyes are uncovered.
Sitting beside a table of guns, rocket-propelled grenades and land mines, the scene is carefully choreographed for our camera and the message is clear.
One woman tells me: “I am trained and ready to be a suicide bomber against Israeli soldiers.”
She rejects any doubt whether Islam allows women to fight. “On the path of the Prophet they used to fight and struggle, so there is no trouble with that. They used to transport the wounded, but now we have ambulances for that.”
More Middle East news and video in our blog
Another woman has gold rings adorning one hand and a hand grenade in the other.
All of them assume there will be another war with Israel soon — a prospect considered possible on both sides of this conflict as cross-border violence has increased in recent weeks. In Gaza, they are considered by many to be freedom fighters. In Israel and in many Western countries, they are reviled as terrorists…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists ‘Build Their Scapegoat’ For Church Bombing
The New Year’s Eve suicide bombing at an Egyptian Coptic church that killed 21 people is stoking fears of a new onslaught against Christians by radical Islamists. In response, some radical Islamists are turning to their great bogeyman to deflect attention — the Zionists.
“Mossad behind Egypt church blast,” Iran’s official television outlet, Press TV, said in a headline Sunday. All the evidence points to a Zionist plot, the article said. First, “it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act.” In addition, Press TV reported that “the fresh plot by terrorists to target churches is an organized Zionist scenario aimed at creating a rift between Muslims and Christians.” Christians are expressing fear the attack marks a widening of attacks by radical Islamists, which have increased dramatically in Iraq. Dozens of people were killed after terrorists took more than 120 Christians hostage in a Baghdad Catholic church in late October.
Egyptian authorities are investigating a radical Salafi Sunni group in Alexandria, London’s Telegraph reports. The story notes that al-Qaida in Iraq issued a statement two weeks ago encouraging attacks on Copts. The targeted church appeared on a list of 50 Coptic churches in Egypt and Europe published a month ago by Shumukh al-Islam, a group tied to al-Qaida. Al-Qaida threats against Christians have spread as far as Canada.
Rather than address the threat directly and offer assistance to stem it, Islamists are building their scapegoat. The rhetoric can’t be dismissed as solely the rantings of crazy Iranian mullahs. A Muslim Brotherhood official, an Egyptian lawyers group and Lebanon’s grand mufti have all said the same thing, though they offer varying motives.
“The Mossad carried out the operation in a natural reaction to the latest uncovering of an Israeli espionage network,” the lawyers group said during a rally for the attack’s victims sponsored by the Egyptian Bar Association.
A member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council in Egypt condemned the attack, calling it an evil action. Moneim Aboul al Fattouh Abdel said it could not have been done by Egyptians, though he allowed the perpetrator might be the Mossad or someone else of trying to sabotage Egypt.
“This assault…is not an individual internal Egyptian act, but a criminal act with Zionist…finger prints that want to sow hatred among Muslims and Coptic Christians,” said Lebanon’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani.
The Brotherhood’s English-language website summarized an interview spokesman Mohamed Morsy gave Al-Jazeera. In it, he cast the attacks as an attempt to undermine Egyptian unity, questioning whether Israel wants to undermine that. “In whose benefit and major interest is it to destabilize Egypt’s stability and safety?” he asked.
The Press TV report painted an idyllic image of life for Christians in Egypt, but a doctor treating the wounded from last weekend’s suicide bombing disagreed. Many Copts, frustrated by a lack of government action to protect them, are thinking of leaving the country, Dalia Nabil told the BBC.
“A lot of us think that this is a plan to make Christians go away from Egypt. The planner is al-Qaida,” Nabil said…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Gunmen Open Fire in Mosque of Afghan Capital, Killing Four
Gunmen opened fire in a mosque northwest of the Afghan capital, killing four civilians, while a fifth was killed in a bombing outside a butcher’s shop in the western part of the country, officials said Monday.
The shop in Herat supplies meat to the Afghan army, and officials think the bomb targeted security forces, said Noor Khan Nekzad, the spokesman for Herat province’s police chief. At least four other civilians were wounded in the explosion, Nekzad said.
A day earlier, gunmen entered a mosque in Baghlan province’s Markazi district, killing four civilians and wounding two, the provincial governor’s office said Monday. Officials said they did not know why the mosque was targeted. Past mosque attacks have targeted government officials.
The attacks were a sobering reminder that the war against the Taleban, approaching the start of its 10 year, is far from won. Insurgents have expanded their operations beyond their traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to areas that were previously relatively calm, even as Nato forces and their Afghan counterparts carry out daily operations against the Taleban. The international coalition confirmed Monday that it had detained an insurgent linked with the Haqqani network, a feared al-Qaeda-linked militant group that operates out of neighboring Pakistan. Nato said the insurgent, who it claimed was involved in bombings against Afghan and coalition forces in the eastern Khost province, was detained on Saturday.
Coalition and Afghan forces also captured three Taleban leaders in operations around the country, Nato said…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Governor of Punjab Assasinated by Own Bodyguard
Probably for his stance against the Pakistani blasphemy laws
[Video at link]
This is a highly telling incident. This appears to be confirmation that the US and UK strategy to invent a new Islam and force it on everyone is absurd and unworkable. You can never find a way to keep safe anyone who is not with the Islamic orthodoxy as we see here. A ‘moderate’ is killed by his own guard. How do you defend against that?
More proof he was killed for his stance on the blasphemy laws: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7z8ttrc2AA&feature=player_embedded
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab Governor Taseer ‘Assassinated by Own Security Staff’
Islamabad, 4 Jan. (AKI) — By Syed Saleem Shahzad — Pakistan’s Punjab provincial governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead by a member of his own security staff on Tuesday at a market in an upscale neighbourhood in Islamabad, according to police.
The attacker, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, used an automatic weapon to shoot Taseer at close range as the 46-year-old member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party was getting into his car after a visit to the Kohsar Market.
Qadri surrendered to police and confessed to the killing, saying he carried out the assassination because Taseer hadd sought clemency for a Christian Pakistani woman who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy in Punjab.
Asiya Bibi was jailed after an argument with some local Muslim women in a district near the provincial capital, Lahore. The women refused to drink water that Bibi had fetched because she was a Christian.
During a meeting with Tasser, Bibi entrusted her fight for pardon to the governor, who said he would convey the appeal to Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.
Bibi, an agricultural worker and mother of five, is the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy, according to human rights groups.
Taseer had said that Bibi was a poor woman who does not possess enough resources to defend herself. He expressed certainty that Zardari would grant her a pardon.
The slain governor was a leading moderate voice in the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party. The PPP-led government is teetering on the verge of collapse after losing its parliamentary majority when its junior coalition partner switched to the opposition on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab Governor Salman Tasser Killed by His Guard
ISLAMABAD: The governor of Pakistan’s powerful Punjab province was shot dead Tuesday by one of his guards in the Pakistani capital, apparently because he had spoken out against the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, officials said.
The killing of Salman Taseer was the most high-profile assassination of a political figure in Pakistan since the slaying of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, and it rattled a country already dealing with crises ranging from a potential collapse of the government to Islamist militancy.
The suspected killer was taken into custody, and there were conflicting reports as to whether he was wounded.
Taseer was a member of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and a close associate of President Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower. The governor was vocal on a range of subjects, and frequently used Twitter to get across his views.
In recent days, as the People’s Party has faced the loss of its coalition partners, the 56-year-old Taseer has insisted that the government will survive. But it was his stance against the blasphemy laws that apparently led to his killing.
Interior minister Rahman Malik told reporters that the suspect in the case had surrendered to police and told them he killed Taseer because “the governor described the blasphemy laws as a black law.”
“He was the most courageous voice after Benazir Bhutto on the rights of women and religious minorities,” said a crying Farahnaz Ispahani, an aide to Zardari and friend of Taseer. “God, we will miss him.”
Pakistan’s blasphemy law has come under greater scrutiny in recent days after a Christian woman was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Under pressure from Islamist parties, the People’s Party said recently it would not pursue changes to the law, which has long vexed human rights activists.
Police official Mohammad Iftikhar said Taseer was gunned down after he reached Khosar Market, a shopping center in Islamabad popular with Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis. Five other people were wounded as other security personnel responded to the attack.
Another police official, Hasan Iqbal, said a pair of witnesses told the police that as the governor was leaving his vehicle, a man from his security squad fired two shots at him. Taseer then fell, while other police officials fired on the attacker.
Taseer was believed to be meeting someone for a meal, Malik said. Other members of his security detail were being questioned, Malik said.
The security for Taseer was provided by the Punjab government. “We will see whether it was an individual act or someone had asked him” to do it, Malik said of the attacker.
Bullet casings and blood covered much of the scene at the market, and police quickly cordoned off the area.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab Governor Assassinated, He Had Called for Asia Bibi’s Pardon
Salman Taseer was killed by a member of his security detail. Interior minister says that the murderer acted because the governor had described the blasphemy law as a “black law”.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was assassinated today by a member of his security detail at a popular market in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. His assassin, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, said he killed him because the governor had described the blasphemy law as a “black law”.
Unlike other Pakistani leaders, Taseer had openly opposed the blasphemy law. He had recently called on President Zardari to grant a pardon to Asia Bibi, a Christian woman from Punjab sentenced to death after she was accused of blasphemy.
“He has confessed his crime and surrendered his gun to police after the attack,” Interior Minister Rahman Malik said about the assassin, explaining that he is a police officer from Rawalpindi and had been recently added to the governor’s staff. This was the third time he worked in the security detail.
President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and other political leaders condemned the murder. Various human rights groups expressed their gratitude to Taseer for his efforts towards the abolition of the blasphemy law and for his defence of Asia Bibi’s life.
In the meantime, police is on high alert fearing more attacks against government officials and political leaders.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Governor Assassinated Over Blasphemy Laws Campaign
One of Pakistan’s most outspoken politicians was shot dead in Islamabad on Tuesday by one of his own guards in a killing that police are linking to his controversial campaign to reform the country’s blasphemy laws.
Witnesses said Salman Taseer, 56, the governor of Punjab province, was killed by a gunman in a police uniform at a small market close to his home in the capital.
His death is the most high-profile political assassination since the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, in December 2007.
Last night the government appealed for calm as members of Taseer’s Pakistan People’s Party staged demonstrations in the Punjab city of Multan.
The country’s government is already on the brink of collapse, following the defection of a key coalition ally, and further unrest would deepen the sense of political crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Punjab Governor Salman Taseer Assassinated in Islamabad
The influential governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Salman Taseer, has died after being shot by one of his bodyguards in the capital, Islamabad.
Mr Taseer, a senior member of the Pakistan People’s Party, was shot when getting into his car at a market.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the guard had told police that he killed Mr Taseer because of the governor’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
Many were angered by his defence of a Christian woman sentenced to death.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared three days of national mourning and ordered flags lowered to half-mast. He also ordered an immediate inquiry into Mr Taseer’s killing and appealed for calm.
Dozens of PPP supporters have taken to streets in Punjab’s capital, Lahore, burning tyres and blocking traffic, the AFP news agency reports.
It is the most high profile assassination in Pakistan since the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the PPP’s leader, in 2007…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Troubled Pakistan Faces Ruling Coalition Collapse
ISLAMABAD — The collapse of Pakistan’s ruling coalition after a key party’s defection complicates efforts to tackle problems facing this nuclear-armed nation already grappling with widespread poverty and insurgent attacks.
The renewed political turmoil bodes ill for military action against Muslim extremists that the U.S. believes is key to success in neighboring Afghanistan, analysts said. Pakistan’s powerful army could use the lack of political consensus to avoid operations that clash with its perceived strategic interests.
The crisis also all but guarantees that lawmakers will not make progress anytime soon on fixing Pakistan’s deep-seated problems in areas like education, health care and infrastructure that have contributed to economic decline and rising militancy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China Claims New Nuclear Technology
China state media claims scientists have mastered a key technique to reprocess spent uranium
China’s ambitions to lead the world in nuclear power were boosted today by reports that its scientists had mastered a key technique in the reprocessing of spent uranium.
State media claimed the technology overcame a supply bottleneck and ensured China would have sufficient nuclear fuel for at least 3,000 years.
The breakthrough would be a boon to the domestic industry, which is in the early stages of what looks likely to be the most spectacular burst of reactor-building in world history.
Due to surging demand for energy and growing concerns about pollution, China’s nuclear-power generating capacity is projected to increase up to tenfold in the next 10 years. By 2030 China could be on course to overtake the US as the world’s leading atomic energy producer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Considers Taking Brazil to Hague Criminal Court
Frattini vows to keep fighting for Battisti’s extradition
(ANSA) — Rome, January 3 — Italy is considering taking Brazil to the International Criminal Court in The Hague over its failure to extradite leftist ex-terrorist Cesare Battisti.
The Brazilian government said it would refuse to hand over the convicted murderer on Friday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s last day as the South American country’s president, sparking an angry response and a crisis in diplomatic relations, with Italy’s ambassador called back to Rome for consultations.
“We are considering taking the case to the International Tribunal at The Hague,” Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.
“We will not fail to make every possible effort (to get Battisti). “This extradition refusal sets a very dangerous precedent that could influence the fate of many wanted criminals. The signal that the Battisti case could be repeated must not be sent. “It is unacceptable that the Mitterrand doctrine has now been followed by the Lula doctrine,” he added referring to the now-defunct French policy, established by former president François Mitterrand, of granting asylum to Italian far-left terrorists.
Frattini had already said Italy would appeal against the decision to Brazil’s supreme court, which ruled in favour of extradition in 2009.
But Italy’s hopes of a U-turn from the administration of new Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff suffered a setback on Sunday when her justice minister, Jose’ Cardozo, said Lula’s decision to deny Battisti’s extradition had been “correct”. Battisti, a 56-year-old who was part of a leftist militant group in the 1970s, when Italy endured its ‘Years of Lead’ of political violence, has been convicted of four murders in his homeland.
Frattini said it was laughable that he had successfully petitioned for political asylum in Brazil on the grounds that his life would be in danger if he were forced to return to Italy.
“You have got to be kidding,” the foreign minister said.
“With all due respect, Italy is not the country of the desaparecidos, it is not in our prisons where people are tortured, murdered or made to vanish”.
Other Italian ministers have said Lula’s decision will not be without diplomatic consequences.
Frattini suggested this could start with the putting on hold of an Italian-Brazilian partnership treaty that is due to be ratified by the Italian parliament this month.
“Our two counties have deep-seated common interests, but it is difficult to foresee such a treaty being approved in the current climate,” he said. “It will not be voted down, but it could be postponed because there are principles that apply to everyone and the fight against terrorism cannot tolerate black holes like the one created by Lula”.
Battisti was arrested in Brazil in April 2007, some five years after he had fled to that country to avoid extradition to Italy from France following the end of the Mitterrand doctrine.
He had lived in France for 15 years and become a successful writer of crime novels.
In January 2009 the Brazilian justice ministry granted Battisti political asylum on the grounds that he would face “political persecution” in Italy.
The ruling outraged the Italian government who demanded that it be taken to the Brazilian supreme court, which in November 2009 reversed the earlier decision and turned down Battisti’s request for asylum.
However, the court added that the Brazilian constitution gave the president personal powers to deny the extradition if he chose to.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
80 Africans Drown Off Yemeni Coast
(ANSAmed) — ADEN (YEMEN), JANUARY 3 — Around eighty African migrants, most of them Ethiopians, have drowned or are still reported missing off the southern coast of Yemen after the two boats they were crowded onto capsized.
According to a communiqué issued by the Yemeni Interior Ministry, at least 43 have died while around 40 are unaccounted for after the accident, which was caused by high winds. A wave apparently capsized the two craft and washed them up on the coast.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Has Doubts on Greek Wall at Turkish Border
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JANUARY 3 — Brussels has expressed reserves on the Greek project to close part of the Greek-Turkish border to slow illegal immigration. “Walls or fences are short-term measures that are not meant to deal with the question of illegal immigration in a structural way”, said the spokesman of EU Security commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, explaining that “the management of the borders is a question between States”, but underlining that “in certain cases the national borders are also the borders of the European Union”. And “a good management of the borders and of migration”, the spokesman added, “needs dialogue between the countries of origin and the countries of transit”. Greek Immigration Minister Christos Papoutsis announced the day before yesterday that he wants to close the borders. “The Greek community”, he said, “has exceeded its capacity to accept illegal immigrants. Greece can take no more. We are planning the construction of a barrier on land to block illegal immigration”. The Greek-Turkish border has a length of 150km and has become the main point of entrance for illegal immigrants into the European Union, with almost half of the recorded illegal entries.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece to Put Up Anti-Migrant Wall on Turkish Border
Greece has decided to build a barrier along its border with Turkey in a bid to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the European Union, a move that was cautiously received by Ankara on Sunday.
“The Greek public has gone beyond its limits in terms of its capacity to welcome illegal migrants. Greece cannot take it any more,” Greece’s immigration minister, Christos Papoutsis, told the Greek news agency Ana on Saturday, without providing any details. “We plan to build a barrier on the land border to block unauthorized immigration.”
It was the first time Papoutsis had raised the idea of building a barrier along the country’s 150-kilometer land border with Turkey, which has become the main route for illegal migrants to enter the European Union, accounting for almost half of detected illegal entries, Agence France-Presse reported.
“It’s a sovereign right of every country to take measures to protect its borders,” a senior Foreign Ministry official who was previously unaware of the decision told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Sunday.
“They do not have to inform us. It’s a measure to protect their border,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry official dismissed allegations that Turkey had failed to stop illegal human trafficking to Greece. “We are actively fighting against such attempts. Each year thousands of people are caught in Turkey’s territories before passing the border to Greece. This is an international issue and needs international action,” the official said.
Referring to the measures taken by the United States to fight illegal immigrants from crossing the Mexican border, the Turkish official said: “I have not heard that that constituted a lasting remedy for stopping the illegal immigrants. We first have to see the details of the Greek plan to be able to further comment on it. But we have to underline that Turkey will actively continue its efforts to stop illegal human trafficking.”
From January to the beginning of November last year, 32,500 illegal migrants were intercepted in a single 12.5-kilometer stretch of the Turkish-Greek border along the Evros river.
Greece currently accounts for 90 percent of the EU’s detected illegal border crossings, figures from the European border agency Frontex show. EU sea patrols in the Aegean between Greece and Turkey have stemmed much of the flow of migrants to Greek islands near the Turkish coast; the vast majority of migrants now use the northern land border, with most crossing along a 12-kilometer stretch near Orestiada.
More than 200 Frontex guards were deployed in the area in November, which the agency said led to a 44 percent drop in the number of illegal entries. The guards carry out day and night patrols, and interview and identify illegal immigrants in order to send them back to their home countries, Frontex spokesman Michal Parzyszek said last month. Greece became the first European Union country to ask for help from the EU’s Rapid Border Intervention Teams after hundreds of migrants from North Africa and war zones such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan began flooding through the porous Greek-Turkish border in recent months.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has repeatedly urged Greece to ensure its efforts to fight illegal immigration do not harm legitimate asylum seekers, including Afghans, Iraqis and Somalis, who are often among migrants crossing at its border.
With Greece already facing a major financial crisis, the country’s opposition, especially the left coalition SYRIZA, questioned the need for such an expensive move. The opposition said the Greek government has failed in addressing the immigration issue and accused Prime Minister George Papandreou of following EU directives without taking into account the real needs of Greek society.
The opposition argued that the ruling PASOK party has no respect for “the value of human life when it comes to an immigrant’s life or workers’ lives.”
Greek media reported that nongovernmental organizations plan to hold a rally this week against the decision and to show their support for immigrants.
Despite increased cooperation against human smuggling, Turkey and Greece have failed to sign a Readmission Agreement, prompting criticism from Brussels and Athens over Turkish sincerity in cooperating with Greece. Many immigrants who cross the border into Greece aim to reach a Western European country as their final destination. As the number of asylum seekers coming to Europe from Asian and Middle Eastern countries through Anatolia increases each year, the disagreement between Turkey and the EU deepens accordingly.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Follows U.S. Example by Building Giant Border Wall to Keep Out Illegal Immigrants
The Greek government has unveiled plans to construct a wall along its 128-mile land border with Turkey in order to tackle the influx of illegal immigrants.
Interior minister Christian Papoutsis said the wall was a necessary measure after more than 100,000 people illegally entered the Mediterranean nation last year.
But the plans — which have compared with the 650-mile barrier along sections of the border between the U.S. and Mexico — have been criticised by the European Commission as a ‘short-term measure’ that does not deal with the root of the problem.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Sees Steep Rise in Asylum Seekers
Figures from Sweden’s Migration Board (Migrationsverket) reveal a sharp increase in the number of people who sought asylum in Sweden during 2010.
Sweden enlists cartoon bear to help asylum seeking children (29 Nov 10)
During the last year, 31,901 people applied for asylum in Sweden compared to 24,232 cases the year before.
Most asylum seekers were from Serbia, followed by Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo.
The number of unaccompanied refugee children who came to Sweden also increased. Last year the figure was 2,394, compared with 2,250 in 2009. The children come mainly from Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.
The Migration Board managed to deal with almost all the applications, despite the increase of almost 4,000 cases, granting asylum in roughly one in three cases.
Processing times have also improved. Last year 74 percent of cases were decided within six months compared with 52 percent in 2009.
The marked increase in applications from Serbia, with 6,343 Serbs seeking asylum, is attributed to change in visa requirements for Serbs following a decision by the European Union at the end of last year.
There was also an increase in refugees from Afghanistan. Afghan asylum seekers numbered 2,393, an increase of roughly 700.
Numbers of Somalis and Iraqis, who have previously constituted the largest group of asylum seekers, decreased according to figures from the Migration Board.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
U.S.-Mexico Border Vanishes Under Obama Agency Program
‘Trusted traveler’ plan eliminates U.S. boundary with Canada, too
U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada simply have been erased under a program run by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol that issues The Trusted Traveler of North America cards.
Instead of a representation of the United States, the cards issued by the agency under Barack Obama’s leadership carry a logo that depicts North America as a continent, without borders to identify the United States.
[…]
The CBP website defines the cards as NEXUS cards that are “WHTI-compliant [Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative] for land and sea travel, as well as air travel from airports using the NEXUS program” designed to “provide expedited travel via land, air or sea to approved members between the U.S. and Canada border.”
On the website for the Canada Border Services Agency, an adaption of the generic Trusted Traveler card can be found:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Religion Continues to Divide People
Since religion has failed to unite mankind evidently there are many religious problems. To say that religion is the principal cause of all conflicts implies that there would be few wars if religion did not exist. Is that argument feasible? Could we eliminate war by merely eliminating religion? However you answer, one fact is undeniable: Religion has not united mankind. Consider one of the reasons why this is true.
The human family is divided by religion, with several major religious powers locked in perpetual rivalry. Is there any reason to believe that Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims will ever exist together peacefully?
Another sad reality is the fragmentation that exists within each of those principal religious blocks. For instance, according to one estimate, Christendom is broken up into more than 30,000 denominations. Islam is also divided by conflicting beliefs. According to a Middle East news agency, a Muslim scholar, Mohsen Hojjat, recently acknowledged that “disunity among Muslims is the root cause of problems in the Islamic world.” Other influential religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism. are likewise fractured into many conflicting sects.
Religion seems to influence nearly every aspect of secular life.
The news magazine The Economist observes that “religious people are getting more vocal in all sorts of fields, including business. Religion is also cropping up in economics.” This results in dividing people rather than uniting them.
But a more damaging influence has to do with the longstanding history of religion meddling in politics.
In a recent report, a group of historians noted that “religion is more likely to be a cause of war when religion and the state authorities become closely allied or intertwined.” And therein lies another undeniable reality: Religion has been, and so is to this day, tightly interlocked with political and military entities.
In many lands, predominant religions have become symbols of patriotic and racial identities. As a result, the lines between nationalist hatred, racial prejudice, ethnic rivalry, and religious enmity are virtually indistinguishable. This explosive cocktail has the necessary ingredients to tear our world apart…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
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