Even Donald Trump is Warning That an Economic Collapse is Coming
In a shocking new interview, Donald Trump has gone farther than he ever has before in discussing a potential economic collapse in America. Using phrases such as “you’re going to pay $25 for a loaf of bread pretty soon” and “we could end up being another Egypt”, Trump explained to Newsmax that he is incredibly concerned about the direction our economy is headed. Whatever you may think of Donald Trump on a personal level, it is undeniable that he has been extremely successful in business. As one of the most prominent businessmen in America, he is absolutely horrified about what is happening to this nation. In fact, he is so disturbed about the direction that this country is heading that he is seriously considering running for president in 2012. But whether he decides to run in 2012 or not, what Trump is now saying about the U.S. economy should be a huge wake up call for all of us.
Trump says that the U.S. government is broke, that all of our jobs are being shipped overseas, that other nations are heavily taking advantage of us and that the value of the U.S. dollar is being destroyed. The following interview with Trump was originally posted on Newsmax and it is really worth watching…
Now, you may or may not think much of Donald Trump as a politician, but when a businessman of his caliber starts using apocalyptic language to describe where the U.S. economy is headed perhaps we should all pay attention.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Heavy Losses for Athens Hotels
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, FEBRUARY 2 — 2011 could be a year of recovery for hotels in Athens, according to Giannis Retsos, the chair of the Association of Hoteliers of Athens and Attica. During the two-year 2009-2010 period, Retsos said, hotels in the capital recorded losses of more than 200 million euros, despite the lowering of prices.
The crisis has been particularly damaging for the capital’s best hotels, where the drop in income has exceeded 26%. In the centre of Athens, 782 rooms were “lost” because of the closure of many hotels, which in turn was down to high rent and the degradation of some parts of the centre of the city.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Inflation: Beijing Now More Expensive Than Hong Kong
China’s inflation rate and monetary policy push up prices, especially those of imported food. Now many goods are cheaper in Hong Kong, whose currency fluctuates with greater freedom, attracting families and shoppers from Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Living in Hong Kong is now cheaper than in Beijing and China’s other big cities. Inflation has push up the prices of food and other basic items to such an extent that Shenzhen residents travel to Hong Kong for their shopping. Until a few years ago, it was the other way around.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, has always been considered one of the most expensive cities in the world because of its Western lifestyle. Now the situation is reversed.
For example, bananas imported from the Philippines sell for HK$ 5.32 per 500 grams in Beijing compared to HK$ 4.18 in Hong Kong.
A Big Mac at McDonald’s in the Chinese capital costs HK$ 16.50 in the city compared to HK$ 15.10 in Hong Kong.
A box of fresh pork chops sells for over 30 yuan in the Hualian supermarket, at least 10 per cent higher than in Wellcome or ParknShop in Hong Kong.
A pack of 10 imported Gala apples costs as much as 70 to 80 yuan in Hualian, yet are no more than HK$ 20 in Hong Kong.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced earlier this year that the mainland’s consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.3 per cent last year. In December, it rose 4.6 per cent from a year earlier after hitting a 28-month high of 5.1 per cent in November. Food prices rose even more, 9.6 per cent in December and 11.7 per cent in November. In fact, many economists believe the real inflation rate could be higher than the official figure.
The mainland is also likely to report even higher CPI increases for last month and this month, pushed up by food price rises ahead of the Lunar New Year, on 3 February.
Experts note that as the government holds the yuan at a stable exchange rate with the US dollar, the value of the former is underestimated, reducing purchasing power, especially for imported goods.
Conversely, the Hong Kong dollar is free to follow the market. Hence, the yuan has appreciated against the HK dollar. Today, 100 HK dollars gets only 85 yuan compared with 110 yuan a decade ago.
At the same time, monthly per capita disposable income in Beijing was 2,422 yuan (HK$2,867) last year, around two fifths of the average monthly pay in Hong Kong. The figures in Shanghai and Guangzhou are 2,655 yuan and 2,554 yuan respectively.
Families in Guangzhou and Shenzhen now practice cross-border shopping, which has helped retail sales in Hong Kong jump 18.3 per cent last year, this according to sales data issued by the city’s Census and Statistics Department.
Traditionally, Hong Kongers were the ones travelling to the mainland on weekends to hunt for cheaper goods and bargains.
Forecasts for 2011 are gloomy though. Experts agree that inflation will increase, at least until June. Since the government said it would not appreciate the value of the yuan, this will inevitably lead to higher prices.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Revolution is Bad for Business: No Quick Fix for Arab Youth’s Economic Woes
The unrest in the Arab world is being fueled by massive economic problems, as young populations, who are facing a grim future, vent their frustration on the streets. But economists argue that the region’s opposition movements may not be acting in the best interests of the youth.
The TV images were almost exactly the same: An old man in a tailored suit appears in front of the national flag and speaks words to the camera that are supposed to write history. In Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and on Wednesday Yemen, Arab leaders are being forced to appear humble in public. The pressure of the population and the fury of the young people, who are propelled into action by unemployment and a lack of prospects, was simply too much.
In Tunisia, the ruler fled into exile. In Jordan, the government was dismissed. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak has promised to hand over power to a successor, as has the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said he will stand down in 2013.
New leaders are supposed to bring freedom and prosperity — that is what the people hope. But is there actually any prospect of an economic upswing in the region?
Experts are skeptical. “All the states in the Middle East have massive problems,” says Ragui Assaad, an economist specializing in the region who teaches at the University of Minnesota. To overcome these problems will take decades, he says. “Every country has to make very painful decisions. It is doubtful if the opposition groups, who are now pushing for power, can do that.” The intoxication of the revolution is bound to be followed by a period of sobriety.
‘You Cannot Eat Free Elections’
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, a professor of economics at Virginia Tech, predicts that the young people who are currently rebelling will inevitably be disappointed. “The protesters believe that the freedom of expression they are fighting for now will improve their chances on the job market,” he says. That, he argues, is a fallacy. “I am deeply worried that young Arabs will turn away from democracy as soon as they realize that you cannot eat free elections.”
One possible consequence could be that populists and religious fanatics get an enormous boost in support. That is particularly likely when it comes to Yemen. “For Yemen, all help is coming too late. The state is on the verge of collapse,” Assaad says. This is mostly due to the country’s desperate economic situation. Yemen is faced with twin problems, the economist explains: On the one hand it has no natural resources, and hardly any water or agricultural land. On the other hand, its population is extremely poorly educated. “Pretty hopeless,” is Assaad’s bleak conclusion.
On the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), Yemen is ranked 138 in a list of 179 states. “Yemen can hardly be saved,” says Salehi-Isfahani. “Yemen is so backward that it first needs to build roads, bridges and schools. One can only start thinking about economic reforms much later.” This backwardness makes Yemen the ideal breeding ground for extremism. “The youth there has no future anyway. They are open to nihilist ways of thinking.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: One in Eight Men Over 65 ‘Can’t Afford to Stop Work’
One in eight men over the age of 65 is still working as Britain’s pensions crisis forces them to scrap their retirement plans.
The record-breaking official figures highlight a troubling social phenomenon whereby retirement is a dream, not a reality, for hundreds of thousands of workers.
They come amid fears the nation’s army of older workers will only continue to balloon.
Of the entire population of men aged over 65, a record 11.7 per cent have a job, the highest-ever rate among this age group, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This is equal to 521,000 men in their late 60s, 70s or even 80s working at an age when they would traditionally have retired. The number is rising by about 180 each day.
The majority — nearly 60 per cent — of those men are working part-time. Just a decade ago, only one in 15 men over the age of 65 had a job.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama, Shape-Shifter
On the world stage, he is seen as a weakling and friend of Islam, His speeches ring hollow on the ears of all but his most besotted supporters.
With the advent of the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday on Sunday, it was perhaps predictable that Time Magazine would photoshop a picture of Obama and Reagan as if they were standing together. “Why Obama (Hearts) Reagan” was the cover line.
Obama would have been twenty years old when Reagan took office and, of course, he not only never met Reagan, but he was no fan of his conservative policies.
In a stinging rebuttal to the Time cover, Sean Linnane, a blogger at Stormbringer, noted that, in Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, Obama wrote “When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn’t answer them directly. Instead, I’d pronounce on the need for change. Changes in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds…”
One of those “dirty deeds” involved hastening the fall of the Soviet Union; the mother ship of all liberals and crypto-communists.
[…]
Millions of words have been written and uttered to describe who and what Obama is, but aside from being a dedicated Marxist intent on destroying the United States with intolerable debt, unrelieved unemployment, and naked support for powerful unions, Obama does not appear to have many core values other than the empowerment and enrichment of Barack Hussein Obama.
The role of Time Magazine and other mainstream media in this manipulation of the American public’s perception of Obama is obscene.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Enron CEO’s Grief as His Youngest Son is Found Dead ‘of an Overdose After Devastating Break-Up From College Girlfriend’
Jailed former Enron boss Jeffrey Skilling was said to be distraught today following the death of his youngest son.
John Taylor Skilling, 20, was found dead at his California home from a suspected accidental drug overdose after he failed to show up for a dinner with friends.
His father was told about the tragedy at the federal prison in Englewood, Colorado, where he is serving a 24-year sentence for fraud.
Shamed Skilling, now 57 and the highest-ranking executive to be punished for Enron’s collapse, is appealing his conviction and is requesting a temporary release from prison to attend his son’s funeral.
His son, who went by the initials JT, was a student at Chapman University in Orange County and was reportedly devastated over a break-up from his girlfriend.
Paramedics found bottles of prescription medication by the body in his Santa Ana apartment.
Family attorney Daniel Petrocelli said Skilling had a comedy movie queued up to play on his computer and there was no indication that he was planning to commit suicide.
He said he believes the youngest of three children may have mistakenly taken an overdose.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Freedom’ vs. ‘Freedom’
by Diana West
Americans must learn two concepts to better understand the political earthquake the United States is now pushing as President Obama gives his nod to “the Arab street,” predominantly organized, it seems, by the Muslim Brotherhood, to force out an ally, Hosni Mubarak.
Many on the right have seen in the anti-Mubarak movement vindication of George W. Bush’s Big Idea — that ballot-box democracy would transform the umma into Jeffersonian, or, at least, pro-Western and anti-jihad republics. That this hasn’t happened anywhere (and in spades) doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm. In fact, citing Bush to bolster pro-”opposition” commentary is in vogue. Writing in the Washington Post, Elliott Abrams quotes Bush, circa 2003, as saying: “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? … Are they alone never to know freedom …?” Jay Nordlinger at National Review quotes Bush, circa 2008, as saying: “The truth is that freedom is a universal right — the Almighty’s gift to every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.”
Such is “universalist” gospel. Universalists believe all peoples prefer freedom to its absence, which is probably true. But they also believe all peoples define “freedom” in the same way. Is that true?
The answer — and first concept — is no. The entry on freedom, or hurriyya, in the “Encyclopedia of Islam” describes a state of divine enthrallment that bears no resemblance to any Western understanding of freedom as predicated on the workings of the individual conscience. According to the encyclopedia, Islamic freedom is “the recognition of the essential relationship between God the master and His human slaves who are completely dependent on Him.” Ibn Arabi, a Sufi scholar of note, is cited for having defined freedom as “being perfect slavery” to Allah. To put it another way, Islamic-style “freedom” is freedom from unbelief.
Suddenly, something seems very lost in Bush-speak translation. It has been from the start, which helps explain what’s gone wrong in U.S. wars in the umma. Bringing Western-style “freedom” to the Islamic world may have resembled an idealistic extension of the civil rights crusade in the eyes of President Bush and his followers, but it was actually one big cultural misunderstanding…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Kuhner: Obama Empowers Radical Islam
President Obama likely may have lost Egypt. If he has, it will be one of the most dramatic and devastating foreign policy defeats for the United States in decades. It also will be a significant victory for the forces of radical Islam — a blow that threatens to undermine American interests across the Middle East.
The regime of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak is teetering on the brink. He is a spent force. He will be out of office by September, if not much sooner. His son Gamal, who was groomed to be his successor, has fled to London. The rampaging mobs in Cairo and Alexandria dominate the political landscape. They represent the future, Mr. Mubarak the past.
The downfall of the Mubarak regime should come as no surprise. He has led a corrupt police state for decades. Egypt’s political system is closed. Its statist economy is sterile. The security services imprison and murder dissidents. Mr. Mubarak came to resemble an ancient Egyptian pharaoh: a power-hungry dictator insulated by the luxury and wealth of his lavish court palace. As he grew fat and old, the people bristled under his harsh rule.
The authoritarian status quo was unsustainable. Yet Washington’s foreign-policy establishment — wedded to the illusion of “stability” — propped up Mr. Mubarak’s regime. America has sent Egypt more than $1.2 billion in annual military aid. Washington provided Mr. Mubarak with the weapons — and support — he needed to suppress political opposition and violate human rights. The United States became an accessory to an unpopular, brutal dictatorship. This is why the mobs on the streets of Cairo hate America. We are paying the price for our pact with the devil.
Years ago, Washington should have encouraged civil society and political reform. America could have fostered a secular democratic opposition. Instead, by blindly backing Mr. Mubarak, the United States enabled the most militant, unified and organized Islamist party to take advantage of the growing discontent: the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is the Brotherhood’s supporters who fill the ranks of the protesters. The Muslim Brotherhood very likely will join a national unity government and eventually seize control. Its goal is to erect a Sunni version of Iran’s Shiite theocracy. It champions the hatred of America, war with Israel and a global jihad against the West. It supports Hamas in the Gaza Strip and other terrorist groups. In short, the post-Mubarak regime most probably not only will be anti-Western but will have ties to al Qaeda and Iran’s mullahs.
Egypt is not some strategic backwater; it is not Yemen, Tunisia or Jordan. Rather, it is the cultural linchpin of the Arab world — the France of the region. For centuries, Egypt has been a trendsetter. In literature, art, radio, cinema, industrialization, nationalism and mass politics, it was Egyptians who showed the way for other peoples of the Middle East. If the land of the pharaohs should go Islamic, it will reverberate across the entire region. The balance of power will tip irreversibly into the hands of Muslim hard-liners.
Mr. Obama is repeating the fatal mistake of President Carter in 1979. Mr. Carter dithered about whether to back the shah in Iran. Although a ruthless despot, the shah was a pro-American strategic ally. Mr. Carter eventually withdrew U.S. support in the face of massive street protests, delivering Iran to the apocalyptic ayatollahs. Iran’s clerical rulers have proved to be much more murderous and repressive than the shah ever was. Moreover, the Iranian regime is the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world. It is a fanatical anti-American, anti-Semitic state that is on the verge of acquiring the nuclear bomb. Mr. Carter’s decision not only condemned the Iranian people to an Islamic fascist theocracy but allowed a mortal enemy of the West to seize power.
History is repeating itself. By publicly standing with the demonstrators — albeit belatedly — Mr. Obama has betrayed a key U.S. partner whose collapse likely may usher in a gang of medieval Islamist butchers. The cause of human rights and democracy will be set back even further under the Muslim Brotherhood — buried under the corpses of religious cleansing. After ignoring Egyptian secular-opposition activists for his entire presidency, Mr. Obama now decides to throw in his lot with militant Muslims. Administration officials already have reached out to top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to discuss an orderly transition to power.
Mr. Obama’s appeasement policies are naive and dangerous. Their net effect has been to embolden and strengthen radical Islam. Under his watch, Muslim extremists are on the march. Egypt is about to fall. Hezbollah controls Lebanon. Iraq is ravaged with suicide bombings, while Christian sects are being exterminated. The Taliban are surging in Afghanistan. Entire regions of Pakistan are infested with jihadists. Turkey is becoming more fundamentalist…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Agenda to Bankrupt Power Plants Triggers Blackouts
The rolling blackouts now being implemented in Texas and across the country as record cold weather grips the United States are a direct consequence of the Obama administration’s agenda to lay siege to the coal industry, launch a takeover of infrastructure under the contrived global warming scam, and help usher in the post-industrial collapse of America.
Planned power outages conducted by utility companies have caused outrage amongst officials at four major hospitals in Texas, at Parkland, Baylor, Methodist and Presbyterian Dallas.
“Because of the sensitive life-saving equipment, hospitals are considered “critical care facilities,” and supposed to be exempt from rolling blackouts,” reports CBS 11. “That’s exactly what Presbyterian Dallas was led to believe. “We were of the understanding that hospitals and other critical-care providers were not supposed to be affected by planned outages,” said hospital spokesman Stephen O’Brien.”
As well as hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, police stations, other emergency response facilities have also been hit with outages as demand soars due to freezing temperatures. Many places in Texas now rely on Mexico to supply their power.
“Mexico’s state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages,” reports AFP.
Hospitals are supposed to be exempt from the blackouts which hit yesterday, with power company Oncor attributing the outages to a “mistake,” but there were no such mistakes when it came to supplying power to Cowboys Stadium. The government has ensured that the blackouts will not affect Super Bowl venues, a decision that has left residents furious.
Street lights and traffic lights have also been hit by the outages, causing traffic build-ups and other hazards more typically associated with a decrepit underdeveloped country, and not with the supposed leading light of the prosperous first world.
The inability of power companies to meet demand is almost exclusively a consequence of the Obama administration’s publicly stated goal to bankrupt the coal industry and in turn ram through the de-industrialization of America under the guise of the phony global warming mantra.
Even as China and Mexico are allowed to build dozens of new power plants every year, the United States is barely permitted to construct a handful, as the Environmental Protection Agency takes control of refineries and power plants under the completely fraudulent pretext of preventing global warming even as the country experiences some of the coldest weather seen for decades.
Texas has been the epicenter in a battle over the Obama administration’s drive to have the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Texas is the only state that has refused to implement a permit process.
“Austin said it would not establish such a scheme for greenhouse gas emissions because the US Environmental Protection Agency had no authority to regulate them as of January 2,” reported the Financial Times.
“Twelve other states are mounting a legal challenge to the federal government’s authority but they, unlike Texas, are implementing the new measures while the dispute makes its way through the courts.”
Local environmental officials in Texas were again involved in a fight with the EPA after the, “Texas Commission on Environmental Quality last week approved an air permit for the $3.2 billion Las Brisas Energy Center despite a formal EPA request that the commission delay issuing the permit until EPA’s concerns about the plant’s emissions impacts are fully addressed.”
| [Return to headlines] |
West to Interfaith Critics: ‘I Am Neither Anti-Muslim Nor Anti-Islam’ [Video]
Four leaders of Jewish, Christian and interfaith groups signed a letter Wednesday expressing “deep concern” to U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, about his recent criticism of Muslim U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and West’s “tendency to offer intemperate comments about Islam.”
In an interview on The Shalom Show, West (around the 1:50 mark on the video above) referred to Ellison as “someone that really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”
The letter writers also note that West has called Islam “a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion.”
West sent a letter back to the interfaith leaders Wednesday saying he’s “neither anti-Muslim nor anti-Islam…It is the extremist, radical element that has hijacked Islam that presents a dangerous threat to both our country and our allies throughout the world.”
West said his remarks about Ellison were “not about his Islamic faith, but about his continued support of CAIR.”
CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Federal prosecutors in 2007 identified the group as one of 246 unindicted co-conspirators in a case involving an Islamic charity whose founders were later convicted of funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas.
CAIR has disputed the designation. A judge ruled in 2009 that the government should not have publicized the list of 246 alleged co-conspirators, but declined to remove CAIR from court documents. The judge said the government had produced “ample evidence” of an association between CAIR and Hamas, but also noted the government’s evidence was never subjected to the scrutiny of a public trial…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Cables: FBI Investigation Into Suspected 9/11 Gang to be Reviewed
The counter-terrorism division of the FBI has asked its staff to look again at the evidence they gathered on the activities of four Middle-Eastern men who allegedly helped with surveillance of targets. The men were the subject of a security alert last year when US officials learnt that they planned to return to America. Secret documents obtained by the Telegraph showed that three Qatari men, who had visited two of the targets of the attacks, had tickets for a flight to Washington on Sept 10, 2001 and were seen with pilots’ uniforms at a hotel in Los Angeles.
A fourth man, from the United Arab Emirates, was suspected of “providing support” to the eventual hijackers by helping with surveillance and entry to the US.
The disclosure of the FBI’s concerns about the men has led to fresh questions in the US about the thoroughness of the original investigation, which failed to pin down any evidence of a support network for the 19 hijackers who crashed four passenger jets with the loss of almost 3,000 lives.
According to a report on the US network NBC News, the counter-terrorism division of the FBI has now asked investigators responsible for the 9/11 inquiry to review the matter, though the review could be “hampered” by the fact that most of the agents involved in the initial probe had now left the bureau.
The existence of the previously unknown gang was revealed in a cable from the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, that was sent to the US State Department, the Homeland Security department, the CIA and FBI in February last year.
The cable, obtained by the WikiLeaks website, said three Qatari men, Meshal Alhajri, Fahad Abdulla and Ali Alfehaid, had become suspects when staff at a hotel near Los Angeles airport reported having seen pilots’ uniforms, mobile phones, laptops and lists of flight times and aircrew names in their room when they stayed there in the days before the 9/11 attacks.
The FBI discovered the men had been booked onto a flight to Washington on Sept 10, 2001, but failed to board. The same Boeing 757 aircraft crashed into the Pentagon the next day after it was hijacked on its return journey to Los Angeles.
The Qatari men instead caught a British Airways flight from Los Angeles to London on Sept 10, and from there flew back to Qatar on Sept 13. The cable said the men’s hotel room had been booked and flights paid for by a “convicted terrorist”.
While they were in California they spent several days with a fourth man, Mohamed Ali Mohamed Al Mansoori, who was suspected of “providing support” to the hijackers.
Eleanor Hill, the former staff director for the congressional joint inquiry that investigated the 9/11 attacks in 2002, said the cable raised fresh questions about the thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation.
She told NBC: “This adds to the concerns that we had eight years ago. One of the issues we had was did all the (hijackers) just show up here or was there in fact a support network that was helping them (prepare for the attacks)?”
The US Embassy cable included a request for Mr Al Mansoori to be placed on a terrorism “watchlist”, and US law enforcement officers told NBC that the cable was generated by “fresh intelligence” that the men were planning to return to America.
Although the Qataris later abandoned their plans, the new information prompted the embassy staff to request that Mr Al Mansoori should be watchlisted because “he may pose a threat to aviation in the US and abroad”.
The cable does not name the “convicted terrorist” who is said to have paid for the air fares and booked the men’s hotel room, but the NBC report points out that Mr Alhajri’s brother, Fahad, was named as the man who paid for Meshal Alhajri’s tickets and those of “two friends” when he was convicted of visa fraud in 2003.
Fahad Alhajri was initially treated as a terrorism suspect when he was found to have had photographs of Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center in his apartment, as well as a diary with only one entry, on Sept 11.
In May 2003 Fahad Alhajri was convicted of visa fraud and left the US. He has never been charged with terrorism-related offences. NBC reported that Mr Al Mansoori remained in the US and was questioned by the FBI, before being deported several years after the attacks. “I don’t think people were in love with him,” said one unnamed official. The three Qataris, however, have never been questioned by the FBI, the official added…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Britain Has Become a ‘Safe Haven’ For Foreign Terrorists, Lord Carlile Warns
Lord Carlile said there was now a “relatively low legal threshold” required for an individual to avoid deportation in domestic courts. An attempt by the government to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in order to deport more foreign terrorism suspects has also failed.
“The effect is to make the UK a safe haven for some individuals whose determination is to damage the UK and its citizens, hardly a satisfactory situation, save for the purist,” Lord Carlile said. The ECHR rejected an argument that the ill-treatment a person could face in their home country should be balanced against the threat they pose to Britain’s national security if they remain. A second argument that an individual who poses a risk to national security should be required to prove that ill-treatment in their home country was “more likely than not” was also rejected. That has left Britain reliant on a series of “deportation with assurances” (DWA) to countries such as Algeria, Jordan, Ethiopia, Libya and Lebanon.
But the negotiation of DWA’s is a “time-consuming process, requiring assurances that are public, credible and reliable,” Lord Carlile said. The Libyan assurance was rejected by the Court of Appeal and the Jordanian agreement is subject to an appeal to the ECHR by the radical preacher Abu Qatada.
Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he supported the government’s proposal to pursue deportation agreements with more countries and added: “I support very strongly efforts to pursue verifiable assurances for named individuals in relation to countries with which there is no generic agreement.” Amnesty International said it “considers that no system of post-return monitoring of individuals will make assurances an acceptable alternative to rigorous respect for the absolute ban on returning people to countries where they may face torture or other ill-treatment.” Lord Carlile’s comments came in his annual report on the control order regime of house arrest for terrorism suspects, which is now to be replaced with “terrorism prevention and investigation measures” (Tpims). Lord Carlile said the replacement “shares several characteristics” with control orders and there was an “acceptable balance of risk against other considerations.”
But he said there had been a “poorly informed debate” on the subject with both the Tories and Lib Dems criticising control orders in opposition before retaining many of the measures in government. Lord Carlile said: “It is uncontradicted that the manifestos of the political parties then in opposition were written without detailed knowledge of the evidence base for control orders generally and in relation to individuals. In my view this is regrettable and should be remedied in the present system and any legislative replacement.” He recommended that one or two senior spokesman for the opposition should be DV vetted (developed vetted) in order to give “informed advice to their shadow colleagues on the merits of the legislation.” In a swipe at civil liberties campaigners, Lord Carlile said it was “unrealistic in the extreme and unhelpfully misleading” to suggest that the admission of intercept evidence would increase successful prosecutions of those now under control orders…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
British Police Afraid of Local Kids, Soon to Come to the USA?
PCism has gotten so bad in Europe that these countries have abdicated large swaths of their nations to the lawless element
A British police chief has prohibited his own officers from patrolling a local park after dark because he and his fellows are afraid of the punks and trouble makers that infest the place at night. Thanks to a self-destructive and blind obeisance to PCism Britain has truly become an asylum run by the inmates. But this disease of PCism is one that left-wingers in America dearly want to emulate. Will the USA soon find police afraid of their own shadows, too?
Police Inspector Andy Sullivan told a meeting of the Wisbech, Cambridgeshire Town Council that he was not going to allow his officers to enter the park after 8PM because it is too dark. “The place has no lighting and it is still, in effect, a building site. I am not going to put my staff — police officers or PCSOs — into an area where they can’t see what is going on,” he said.
It seems pretty plain, however, that this is just an excuse. According to the Daily Mail the park has been a “magnet for young thugs and have reported dozens of incidents of anti-social behavior. They have also found evidence of alcohol and drug use.”
It seems pretty clear that the police don’t want to be put in a position of having to arrest the kids. It is easier to avoid the whole thing than to be faced with dealing with so many underaged troublemakers.
This isn’t an isolated situation, either. Recently police in West Midlands told several Christian preachers that they’d face arrest if they went into the Muslim controlled area of Birmingham. The police told the preachers that they could not assure their safety if they went into the Muslim areas and so, for their own safety, the police said they’d arrest the Christians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark Cartoon Trial: Kurt Westergaard’s Attacker Convicted
A Somali who broke into the home of a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad has been convicted of attempted murder and terrorism.
Mohamed Geele, 29, may face a 12-year sentence in prison for his attack on Kurt Westergaard, 75, who avoided injury by sheltering in a panic room.
But he was acquitted of a separate charge of attempting to murder a policeman trying to arrest him.
Geele, who was wounded by police after the attack, denied the charges.
He told the court in Aarhus he was only trying to frighten the cartoonist.
A judge is expected to pass sentence on Friday.
Mr Westergaard’s cartoon of a turban bomb was one of 12 published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 that prompted protests among Muslims around the world.
He first went into hiding but then decided to live openly in a heavily fortified house in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city.
Axe and knife
A shattered window could be seen at Mr Westergaard’s home in Aarhus after the attackJudge Ingrid Thorsboe told the court that Geele’s actions “must be considered as an attempt to instil a heightened level of fear in the population and to destabilise the structures of society”.
The maximum penalty Geele faced was a life sentence but prosecutors have asked for 12 years, followed by deportation to Somalia.
His defence lawyer, Niels Strauss, asked for, at most, a suspended six-year sentence and for his client not to be deported.
During the trial, the court heard that Geele broke into Mr Westergaard’s house in Aarhus on New Year’s Day 2010, smashing the door down.
Mr Westergaard was at home with his five-year-old grand-daughter Stephanie at the time.
Geele, who was armed with an axe and a knife, screamed “You must die!” and “You are going to Hell!”, the cartoonist told the court.
He locked himself in his panic room — a reinforced bathroom — leaving Stephanie alone in the living-room because his attacker was “after me, not the people around me”.
The little girl, who was unhurt in the attack, testified that she had thought Geele was a thief and had asked him to go away.
Geele tried to get into the bathroom, hacking at the door with his axe, but fled when he heard police sirens.
Still armed, he was shot and wounded by police arriving at the scene, who then arrested him.
Well-planned attack
In its verdict, the court noted that the attack had been well planned.
Geele had searched for the cartoonist’s address on the internet and, on New Year’s Eve, bought the axe and sharpened the knife, which he already possessed.
While acquitted of the charge of attempting to murder a policeman, brought because he threw his axe at one of the officers who arrived to arrest him, Geele was found guilty of aggravated assault on the officer.
The convicted man arrived in Denmark in 1995 as a refugee from the country’s civil war, and was granted indefinite leave to remain, according to the an article in the New York Times..
Living in the city of Aalborg, he was involved in a youth club, where he became a role model for others, former club worker Nuuradiin Hussein said.
“He was one of my favourite boys at the club,” said Mr Hussein, now a social worker.
“Most of the boys his age wanted to talk about girls and football, but he wanted to talk about the future and about getting an education.”
At some point, however, Geele developed links to Somalia’s Islamist movement Al-Shabab, according to Danish intelligence.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Minister: Anti-Semitism Unrelated to Islam, Refuses Research
Home Affairs Minister Piet Hein Donner has irritated a large portion of the Lower House by stating that anti-Semitism stems primarily from secularisation.
The Lower House was debating on hatred of Jews. Party for Freedom (PVV) MP Van Klaveren said the growth of Islam is the most important cause of increased anti-Semitism. “The Koran teaches that Jews are damned and calls them swine and apes.”
Donner did not accept this analysis. Although the Middle East conflict may prompt some Moroccan Dutch to swear at and insult Jews, it is not the case that a certain ethnic group is solely responsible for the increase in anti-Semitism, he said.
The deeper reason for anti-Semitism, according to the Christian democratic (CDA) minister, is the secularisation of society. “More generally, it concerns a worrying trend against religion.”
As a result of the secularisation, the minister argued that there is less tolerance of religion. He did not however comment on suggestions that violence against Jews mainly comes from Muslims and not from non-religious ‘white’ Dutch.
Donner faced blasts not only from the PVV. According to leftwing Green (GroenLinks) MP Dibi, secularisation has reduced dogmatic thinking and thereby led to more tolerance. Labour (PvdA), centre-left D66 and the small Christian parties were also critical.
CDA MP Sterk, a fellow-party member of the minister, also failed to share his analysis completely. Donner’s reasoning does not explain why violence against gays is also increasing, she commented.
The minister irritated the House even more by rejecting a scientific study of the causes of anti-Semitism. Combating anti-Semitism is more sensible than research into it, he said.
The House was more comfortable with Security and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten. He promised that there will be higher sentences for anti-Semitism before the summer. He called on the Jewish community always to make a police report. He also said registration of anti-Semitic manifestations must be improved…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Fatwa Factories
Britain will have more Muslims than Kuwait in 2030, while France will have more than Jordan; and Germany will have more than Oman and the United Arab Emirates combined, according to a new study titled “The Future of the Global Muslim Population.” The sobering projections (which are highly conservative estimates) about the exponential increase of Europe’s Muslim population over the next 20 years will fuel the growing controversy over Muslim mass immigration to Europe, and also add pressure on European policymakers to find ways to ensure that Muslim immigrants are better integrated into European society.
Efforts to improve the integration of Muslim immigrants in Europe will, however, be fiercely resisted by influential figures from within Europe’s Muslim community itself, many of whom, instead, are actively working to build parallel societies that keep Muslim immigrants isolated in exclusivist communities, and thus socially separated from their European host countries. Critics say these Muslim mini-societies are undermining not only European social cohesion but also European democracy.
Advocates of Muslim separatism say the Islamic worldview cannot be harmonized with Europe’s secular worldview, and therefore call on Muslims living in European countries to segregate themselves and adhere only to Islamic Sharia law. European Islamic leaders, many of whom are openly hostile to Western values and laws, are also establishing Muslim lobbies to pressure European governments into synchronizing secular Western laws with Muslim religious beliefs. These initiatives are usually couched as the peaceful advocacy of minority rights, but the end result is that European societies have to adapt to Islam rather than the other way around.
European fatwa councils are at the forefront of Muslim efforts to build parallel legal systems based on Sharia law. A fatwa is a legal opinion or ruling issued by an Islamic scholar on an issue where Islamic jurisprudence is unclear. In Europe, for example, fatwas routinely are issued to instruct Muslim immigrants that Sharia law is to be respected as superior to civil law and to democracy.
The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) is the most influential fatwa council in Europe. Based in Ireland, the ECFR is chaired by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a demagogic Egyptian Islamic scholar, and an intellectual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Qaradawi, who is also a spiritual advisor for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, has defended suicide attacks against Jews as “martyrdom in the name of Allah,” and has been banned from entering Great Britain and the United States.
The ECFR is an integral part of the Brussels-based Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), an umbrella group that unites more than 30 Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Europe, and acts as the main vehicle for propagating Muslim Brotherhood ideology in Europe.
The ECFR’s objective is to “present to the Muslim minorities in the West particularly” its interpretation of “the manifestation of Allah’s infinite mercy, knowledge and wisdom.” More specifically, an ECFR fatwa says: “Sharia cannot be amended to conform to changing human values and standards; rather, it is the absolute norm to which all human values and conduct must conform; it is the frame to which they must be referred; it is the scale on which they must be weighed.”
The ECFR (the English-language mission statement has been removed from ECFR’s website) says it wants to achieve its aims by: a) bringing together Islamic scholars who live in Europe; b) attempting to unify the views within Islamic jurisprudence with regard to the minority status of Muslims in Europe; c) issuing collective fatwas that meet the needs of Muslims in Europe, and that solve their problems and regulate their interaction with the European communities, all according Sharia; and d) conducting research on how issues arising in Europe can be resolved with strict respect for Sharia.
The fatwas issued by the ECFR reflect the Muslim Brotherhood’s fierce opposition to the separation of church/mosque and state. For example, a fatwa issued by al-Qaradawi on the question of “How Does Islam View Secularism” states: “Since Islam is a comprehensive system of Ibadah [worship] and Sharia [“the path”:legislation], the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Sharia, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions… The call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Sharia is a downright apostasy.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
France: Alliot-Marie’s Alleged Jet Holiday With Ben Ali Clan
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, FEBRUARY 2 — Further embarrassing revelations have emerged for French Foreign Minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, who is already in the spotlight over her controversial statements about Tunisia: she has now been accused of having benefitted from the ‘generosity’ of a businessman with close links to the regime of former Tunisian President Ben Ali. According to a report in the satirical magazine, Le Canard Enchaine’, which is usually well informed about what goes on behind the scenes in French politics, the Foreign Minister had the use of Aziz Miled’s private jet between Christmas and New Year in order to flit between Tunis and Tabarka, spending her holidays with her family in a hotel belonging to the same Tunisian businessman. ‘Mam’, as she is nicknamed in France, was apparently accompanied by several family members and by her companion, Patrick Ollier. The Canard defines Miled as a member of Ben Ali’s “clan”.
The Minister has reacted with an immediate denial of the story, pointing an accusing finger at the “lies” of the Canard Enchaine’. Ms Alliot-Marie, who succeeded Bernard Kouchner at the Quai d’Orsay, also stressed that she has no intention of stepping down in the face of simple “falsehoods”.
The Secretary of France’s Socialist Party, Martine Aubry, has also commented on the affair. If the Canard’s information proves correct, she said, the matter would be “grave”. Meanwhile, the Socialist party-whip at the National Assembly, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has said Ms Alliot-Marie has lost any credibility and can “no longer hold her post in the Government”. Over recent days, Ms Alliot-Marie came under fire in France after having offered the Tunisian authorities the “know-how” which France’s police forces have acquired in managing unpleasantness on the streets — disturbances which instead led to the downfall of Ben Ali.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Scandal Belly Dancer Ruby to Marry
Moroccan teen denies having sex with premier
(see related stories) (ANSA) — Rome, February 2 — The Moroccan belly dancer Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi allegedly paid to have sex with when she was 17 has said she will marry her disco-manager boyfriend in three weeks.
“I’m getting married in city hall in three weeks and then in church in June,” Karima El Mahroug, better known by her nickname Ruby Rubacuori ‘heart-stealer’, told daily newspaper La Repubblica.
Italy has been in a state of shock since prosecutors said last month that they were investigating allegations Ruby had been among a number of prostitutes to take part in alleged sex parties at one of the premier’s homes.
Berlusconi and Ruby, who is now 18 and whose real name is Karima El Mahroug, both deny ever having sex.
Prosecutors said telephone wiretaps, some of which have been leaked to the press causing embarrassment to the government, suggest this is not true and they are set to ask for the case to be sent to trial early next week.
The 74-year-old premier alleges the probe is an attempt by biased leftist magistrates to oust him from power.
Ruby has said money she received from Berlusconi was a gift.
She has also denied asking him for five million euros to keep the alleged relations secret, after being quoted as saying she had requested this amount in the transcript of a wiretapped call leaked to the media.
Berlusconi is also under investigation for allegedly abusing his power by pressuring police in Milan to release Ruby after an unrelated accusation of theft, telling the officers she was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Ruby said she had told Berlusconi she was Mubarak’s granddaughter. Paying for sex is not a criminal offence in Italy, but using a prostitute under 18 is and it carries a jail term of up to three years.
Abuse of power carries a maximum jail term of 12 years.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘He Said You Go to the Police. You’re Presentable and You Don’t Have a Record’
Minetti describes how PM stepped in for Ruby
MILAN — Just before midnight on 27 May 2010, as the 17-year-old Moroccan Arcore party guest was at Milan police headquarters to be identified on suspicion of theft, “Berlusconi said to me: ‘You go to the police because you’re respectable, you haven’t got a criminal record and you look presentable’“. No mention of Mubarak. Nicole Minetti’s questioning not only contains no reference to the prime minister’s claim that he got involved because he was told — wrongly — that Ruby was related to the Egyptian president; it seems logically at odds with the version on which the Chamber of Deputies will vote tomorrow.
Prostitute tells politician: “I’ll let the Holy Spirit know”
From the outset, it sounds more like the plot of a farce than a matter involving reasons of state. Ms Minetti was having dinner with her boyfriend when she received a phone call from someone she said “she only knows by sight”, the Brazilian Michelle, described in the inquiry as a prostitute. “She may well have called me because she was aware that I had met Ruby at the prime minister’s home”. Michelle told Ms Minetti she had already tried to alert the prime minister that Ruby was being held by police after her flatmate had reported a theft, but she did so in code: “Michelle said she had phoned the prime minister herself, although she used some term like ‘Holy Spirit’ to avoid using his name and surname”.
Phone records show that Michelle called Ms Minetti at 10.19 pm and 11.27 pm, and that Ms Minetti tried to call Mr Berlusconi at Arcore and Rome for confirmation. She managed to speak to him at 11.43 pm, when the prime minister called her from Paris. Mr Berlusconi confirmed he had spoken to Michelle and knew that Ruby was “at police headquarters because she didn’t have any documents”. There was no reference to her being a relation of President Mubarak. “Berlusconi asked me to go to the police. I wasn’t too keen, partly because I didn’t know Ruby very well. Actually, now I think about it, Berlusconi said to me: ‘You go because you haven’t got a criminal record and you look presentable’. I can’t remember if he also said I was a regional councillor and therefore more trustworthy”.
“I had intimate relations with the prime minister”
Ms Minetti again said that she believed Ruby was 24 and not 17. She knew little about her — for example, she said she was the daughter of an Egyptian opera singer, again with no reference to President Mubarak — and said on oath she had seen her “two or three times at Arcore dinners” and spoken to her “a few times” on the phone. This is not precisely accurate. From 23 February to 25 June, there are 112 phone contacts and the simultaneous presence of Ms Minetti and Ruby at Arcore has been demonstrated for 14 February, 20-21 February, 27-28 February, 8-9- March, 4-5-6 April, 24-25-26 April and 1-2 May. Ms Minetti admitted she “slept over at Arcore (I can’t rule out that Ruby was there too on one occasion), since I had an intimate relationship with the prime minister”. She said she knew of other women who stayed over at Arcore but she did not know why.
PM involved because “she was a girl with issues”
Ms Minetti added that on the evening of 27 May, Mr Berlusconi made more than one phone call to her after calling police headquarters in person, and through his head bodyguard: “The prime minister phoned and asked: ‘How’s it going?’, wanting to be kept up to date on developments. I think there might have been two reasons for his involvement. First, he was worried about sending me to police headquarters at that time of night” and second “Ruby was a girl with issues”, as well as being “very outgoing and talkative”. Ms Minetti brought a new perspective — because it involves the police — to the procedure used for the under-age girl at police headquarters. She maintained that “officer Iafrate told me in no uncertain terms” that the only way for the minor to avoid spending the night at the station was for me to obtain temporary custody, since the initial idea of sending her back to Michelle’s home had been rejected by the duty juvenile magistrate. Having agreed to do so, Ms Minetti then asked the officer if she should take Ruby home with her and, claimed Ms Minetti, “Ms Iafrate said the girl could go back to Michelle’s home, and in fact they asked her for a copy of her documents”. Ms Minetti relayed the news of Ruby’s release: “I phoned Berlusconi and it wasn’t the last time I called him”. Records reveal that the final calls were at 1.55 am and 2.11 am.
“Did he suggest you should commit a crime?” “No comment”
Ms Minetti exercised her right to remain silent when public prosecutors asked her “why the prime minister suggested she should commit a crime” by making a false report of the theft of her car. The question was prompted by phone taps from 5 August in which Barbara Faggioli (one of the Arcore girls) told Ms Minetti, who was holidaying in the Seychelles, that Mr Berlusconi had received a tip-off from a journalist. The message was that Carlos Ramirez de la Rosa, the boyfriend of one of the most frequent guests at the parties, Marysthell Garcia Polanco, had been arrested, while driving the car that Ms Minetti had imprudently lent to Ms Polanco two days earlier, on suspicion of trafficking 12 kilos of cocaine, some of which was hidden in a garage at Ms Polanco’s rented home. Ms Minetti was not involved in the drug case, for which Ms Polanco’s boyfriend received eight years. She did, however, reply when prosecutors asked her how, since Mr Berlusconi was aware of Ramirez’s arrest on drug charges during the summer, “not just you but the prime minister himself could still invite [to the party at Arcore on 17 October] a person — Ms Polanco — who had been involved in drug trafficking”. Ms Minetti said only that she continued to see her because Ms Polanco gave her her word that she knew nothing of her boyfriend’s real occupation.
Not blackmail. “Just anger”. The money. “A loan from him”
Ms Minetti said nothing about the rent paid on behalf of the various girls with money from Mr Berlusconi’s personal accountant, Giuseppe Spinelli. Neither would she confirm or deny the description of “bunga-bunga” furnished to magistrates by her former schoolmate T.M., who was “disgusted” by events at Arcore on the evening of 19 September. She made a point of playing down her “outburst of anger” in the text message exchange with Ms Polanco on 8 January, in which she wrote “he’s a sh… I’m too good, any other woman would have already blackmailed him after all I’ve been through”, and the phone call in which she complained she was tired of “covering his arse”. She did say she had turned to Mr Berlusconi when “recently I needed financial help” even though “my salary is good, I get €10,000 a month” as a Lombardy regional councillor. “Berlusconi lent me money by making transfers to my bank account”, she said, at a time when she had run out of money because she had lent €35,000 to her sister.
Luigi Ferrarella, Giuseppe Guastella
02 febbraio 2011(c) all rights reserved — unauthorized reproduction forbidden
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Political Ally Nabbed Surfing Escort Site in Parliament
Rome, 3 Feb. (AKI) — Photos of a member of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling party surfing a soft porn website during an important vote in parliament have been published by women’s weekly Oggi.
Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia, a former mayor of Bari, in southern Italy and a member of the conservative People of Freedom Party has played down the embarrassing snaps, claiming he found himself on the website by mistake.
Two of the scantily clad women posing in their underwear on the website were identified as Romanians calling themselves Dollyy and Daisy. They offer sexual services in hotels of clients’ homes and charge from 400 euros per hour to up to 2,500 euros for a weekend.
“First off, it’s untrue that a vote was taking place at the time the pictures were taken, there was actually a pause in the voting,” he told Adnkronos.
Di Cagno Abbrescia was referring to the 26 January confidence vote on culture minister Sandro Bondi aimed at removing him from office over the recent collapses at the 2,000-year-old ancient Roman city of Pompeii.
“I’ve paid the price of not knowing how to use an iPad,” said Di Cagno Abbrescia.
“ I was just looking at the news agencies and daily newspaper websites when the escort site popped up unexpectedly, and I ended up lingering on it for a moment.”
Three-times married Di Cagno Abbrescia, 67, claimed he had never used the services of escort girls.
The incident is likely to cause further embarrassment to the People of Freedom party, whose leader, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has been hit by no less than seven sex scandals.
The most recent one centres on allegations he used an underage Moroccan prostitute. Berlusconi has also said he has never paid sex.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: ‘PvdA Should Leave Socialist International’
THE HAGUE, 03/02/11 — Prominent Labour (PvdA) politician Frans Timmermans has put the PvdA’s membership of the Socialist International up for discussion.
Socialist International is the worldwide organisation to which 162 social democratic parties from over 100 countries are affiliated. The PvdA (and its predecessor, the SDAP) has been a member since its foundation in 1907.
Timmermans said on TV programme Pauw&Witteman that one could question what the PvdA is still doing in an organisation of which many a dictator is a member. He meant here that the parties of the deposed presidents of both Egypt and Tunisia belong to the organisation, as does that of Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe.
Timmermans stressed that he was speaking in his personal capacity and was not propagating any party line. The former Foreign Affairs State Secretary, currently a MP, would however welcome a debate on the subject within the PvdA.
In 2008, Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven (PvdA) was re-elected as Vice-Chairman of the top management of the Socialist International. The PvdA is also a member of its Ethics Committee, which handles the membership applications of political parties.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Paying Top Dollar to Honor Pope John Paul II
With 2.5 million expected for the beloved Pope’s beatification, hotel prices start to soar and the Vatican warns against price gouging the pilgrims.
As Rome braces for a massive influx of pilgrims for the May 1 beatification of the late Pope John Paul II, hotels in the Eternal City are whetting their collective lips. Add to the once-in-a-lifetime spiritual celebration, an annual May Day popular music festival and the arrival of warm Rome weather, and prices of some downtown hotels have suddenly tripled. Even rooms on the outskirts of the city are selling out.
Some 2.5 million pilgrims are expected to flock to Rome for the ceremony marking the beatification of John Paul, six years after his death brought millions to the Italian capital. Finding a room near the Vatican is already virtually impossible, but now hotel prices have increased by between 200 and 300 % for the end of April, beginning of May.
A two-star hotel near the Termini railway station, for example, normally charges 100 euros a night, and goes down to 48 euros in the low tourist season. But it is charging 330 euros for the night between April 30 and May 1. A double room in a four-star hotel in the downtown Piazza della Repubblica normally goes for 273 euros a night, but for that night the fare goes up to 492 euros. Giuseppe Roscioli, head of the Rome chapter of the Federalberghi hotel association, shrugged off any controversy.
“There’s no price gorging,” says Roscioli. “The increase is just a question of the law of supply and demand: as demand grows, so do prices, even if the price can never be over the maximum fare that is advertised — that would be illegal.”
Roscioli said that the choice of May 1, when Rome hosts the annual daylong concert that attracts tens of thousands of youths, to beatify John Paul was “senseless” from the hoteliers’ point of view. “It’s like trying to find a room in Monte Carlo during the Formula One race,” he said. Talks over how to cope with the situation are planned with city hall officials.
The 200 religious institutes of the greater Rome province, including 160 in the city itself, have made some 15,000 beds available, including 10,000 in the city. But they sold out within 24 hours of the beatification announcement, with a long waiting list now built up. “Bookings have all been confirmed within a week’s time,” said Andrea Misuri of the religious institutes. Misuri said the greater region of Lazio, which includes Rome, has been mobilized, from the Castelli foothills south of the capital to the San Felice Circeo area on the southern coast.
Pilgrims are expected from across the globe: Poland, John Paul’s home country, France, Germany, Spain and South America. Typically a bed in such institutes is about 30 to 50 % less than an average hotel room, “In this case there have been increases, “ Misuri concedes, “but moderate ones.”
If you are thinking bed and breakfast, think again. An operator of a B&B near St. Peter’s Square said rooms in that period go by the week , and for a price — 1,800 euros — usually charged for an entire month. “All our rooms are booked, and we had to turn away many requests,” said the operator.
The regional government of Lazio is readying two university campuses to accommodate the youths who want to take part in the event. But many pilgrims are expected to get to Rome by bus in the morning and leave the same night. Many have asked the religious institutes to be able to park their buses near the institutes and be allowed to use their facilities.
Worry over the price hikes has been voiced by the Vatican. “It will be a huge celebration of faith, and it’s not right to exploit the world’s devotion and genuine love for (John Paul),” said a source at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Fury After Two Muslim Councillors Refuse to Take Part in Standing Ovation for Marine Who Won George Cross
Two Muslim councillors were under fire today after they refused to take part in a standing ovation to honour a Marine who won the George Cross.
Salma Yaqoob and Mohammed Ishtiaq remained seated during a ceremony for Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher.
The 26-year-old was awarded the George Cross after he flung himself onto a Taliban hand grenade to save his comrades during an ambush in Helmand Province in 2008.
He was serving with 40 Commando when his patrol came under fire but he miraculously survived because his backpack took the force of the blast.
L/Cpl Croucher became the most highly-decorated serving Marine when he received the George Cross for ‘outstanding bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy’.
More than 100 councillors at Birmingham City Council attended a meeting on Tuesday night to honour L/Cpl Croucher, who was there as guest of honour.
But when the councillors stood to give him a standing ovation Cllrs Yaqoob and Ishtiaq, who are both members of the Respect party, refused to get to their feet.
Fellow councillors today reacted with fury at the snub and branded the pair ‘shameful’.
Conservative Cllr John Lines said: ‘They should be ashamed of themselves.
‘This was not the time or place to stage an anti-war protest — this man risked his life for his comrades.
‘I was happy to give this hero a standing ovation and I have invited him to be guest of honour when we open new houses for ex-military personnel later this year.’
Conservative Cllr Peter Douglas Osborn added: ‘As far as I am concerned it is no longer the Respect Party, but the disrespect party.’
L/Cpl Croucher, from Solihull, West Midlands., who now runs a security firm, was at the meeting to highlight his work with the Royal British Legion.
He said: ‘Obviously not everyone is behind the work we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and they have their point of view.
‘On the other hand, it was nice to be shown respect for the job we do by the overwhelming majority of councillors.’
Yaqoob and Ishtiaq yesterday remained defiant about their decision to snub L/Cpl Croucher, branding the gesture ‘false patriotism’.
Cllr Yaqoob, Respect Party leader and head of Birmingham’s Stop the War Coalition, said: ‘It was more about the politicians feeling good about themselves for sending our young men to fight for reasons that have proved to be false.
‘I have every sympathy for our soldiers on a human level, they are only doing their jobs.
‘But this ovation was just a big public show, it was false patriotism.
‘Wrapping coffins in the flag and awarding medals does not make it right.’
Cllr Ishtiaq added: ‘At the end of the day, if these so-called politicians want to give a standing ovation, why don’t they go and fight themselves?
‘What we did was out of principle.’
The mother of L/Cpl Croucher expressed shock that two Muslim councillors snubbed her son.
Margaret Croucher said: ‘It is a surprising thing to have happened. I don’t think Matt expected to be caught in the middle of a row.
‘I am disappointed but like Matt said after it happened, everyone is entitled to their opinion whatever it may be.’
Cllr Salma Yaqoob, 38, a married mother-of-three, was elected to Birmingham City Council in 2006 and represents the Sparkbrook ward.
She received nearly 50 per cent of the vote which is one of the highest majorities of any councillor.
Cllr Mohammed Ishtiaq, 35, is a married father-of-one, was elected to the council in 2007 and also represents the Sparkbrook ward.
Today he defended the decision to snub L/Cpl Croucher’s standing ovation.
He said: ‘We had no idea that there would be a standing ovation. It was announced at the start of the meeting.
‘We were caught unawares but we decided we did not wish to take part.
‘We acknowledged Matt Croucher by nodding and smiling in his direction which I think he appreciated.
‘We were protesting against the other politicians not against Matt.
‘He is a hero for what he did but he, like many other young men and women, are in a war which is based on a pack of lies.’
A Birmingham City Council spokesman said the councillors had not breached any rules and would not comment on political matters.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Farmer Facing Jail After Bid to Scare Off Teenagers…
With blood pouring down her face, the desperate woman screamed as she banged on the car window begging the teenagers inside to save her from a mad axeman who was chasing her down a moonlit farm track.
‘Let me in, let me in,’ she screamed.
Then, out of the moonlight — with echoes of the horror film The Shining — a man appeared and tapped the 4ft axe on the car window and tried to get in.
Terrified, the teenagers drove off.
Which was exactly what the ‘mad axeman’ and his ‘victim’ wanted. For he was John Powell, a 28-year-old farmer, and the woman smeared in tomato ketchup was his fiancee, Lucy Walton.
Both were desperate to scare off some teenagers who regularly parked there and who they believed were a nuisance.
So they hatched the ‘mad axeman’ plan which has come to light with Powell appearing in court on a charge of possessing an axe in a public place and using behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He now faces the prospect of being jailed.
South Lakeland Magistrates’ Court heard that Powell and his fiancee had had problems with teenagers parking on their land and came up with the plan on the spur of the moment to scare them from a lay-by on Cleabarrows Lane, Windermere.
One of the teenagers, Simon Jackson, 19, told magistrates the incident had left him and his friends petrified.
[…]
She said they had wanted to scare the men who she believed regularly parked in the lay-by next to their farmland.
‘We’ve had problems with youths on the lane. We’d seen that car in the past and called police but thought this time we’d scare them ourselves,’ she said.
‘There’s litter and my horse had recently been injured because of people driving across the fields.’
‘I waved to them and I was laughing, I don’t understand how they didn’t realise it was a joke.’
[…]
‘My fiancee’s family have been blighted by people parking up in that lay-by for the past 20 years,’ he said.
‘We spend hours every week clearing up litter and there’s been tyre marks all over our fields.
‘We’ve phoned police countless times to get them to help us but we’ve had no support.‘
The couple have now had to cancel their wedding in Jamaica and planned move to Australia as the court case prevents him travelling.
‘This whole incident has ruined my life and I could be facing prison.
‘I deeply regret everything but our family are the real victims in all of this and I can’t believe something this stupid has come to court,’ he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: From Cairo We Go Live to London Where Things Are Even Worse…
Hello, good evening and Alluhu Akbar. Welcome to Cairo Tonight, Egypt’s top-rated news programme. I’m Ali Palli. Let’s go straight to our chief foreign affairs correspondent Sali Baba, who is monitoring the developing crisis in London. Good evening, Sali.
Good evening, Ali. I’m standing outside the headquarters of the hated Conservative Party, which has come under attack from a violent mob of students protesting at spending cuts. Police stood back as demonstrators invaded the building, smashed windows and hurled missiles.
Were there any casualties?
Miraculously few, Ali, considering one protester threw a fire extinguisher off the roof, narrowly missing a line of police officers. This was the worst unrest in London since the riots against the tyrant Thatcher more than 20 years ago.
Has the trouble spread?
Yes, it has, Ali. In perhaps the most serious escalation, demonstrators broke away from police cordons and ran amok in London’s main tourist and shopping district. There was a major security scare when an official limousine carrying the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, and his consort, Princess Camilla, came under sustained attack.
Are we likely to see more people taking to the streets?
This kind of lawless behaviour is becoming commonplace. Tour the centre of any British city at night and you will see hordes of young people climbing over parked cars, fighting and vomiting in the gutters.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Human Rights Makes UK a ‘Safe Haven’ For Suspected Terrorists, Warns Government’s Anti-Terror Law Watchdog
Human rights rulings make the UK a ‘safe haven’ for suspected foreign terrorists, the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws warned today.
Lord Carlile said the dismissal of the Government’s argument that the risk of ill treatment on deportation for foreign nationals had to be balanced against the threat they posed when they are allowed to stay in Britain caused problems.
‘The effect is to make the UK a safe haven for some individuals whose determination is to damage the UK and its citizens — hardly a satisfactory situation save for the purist,’ he said.
In his annual review of counter-terror legislation published today, Lord Carlile backed the Government’s attempts to deport suspected foreign terrorists with assurances over their treatment once returned home.
But he warned that it was a ‘time-consuming process, requiring assurances that are public, credible and reliable’.
Even once agreed, ‘there is no guarantee that the courts will accept them, given the relatively low legal threshold required for an individual to avoid deportation’, he said.
The Government has argued that, where a person seeks to resist removal on the grounds of the risk of ill-treatment in their home country, this may be balanced against the threat they pose to national security if they remain.
It also argued that, if the person poses a risk to national security, this should affect the standard to which he must establish the risk of ill-treatment.
But both arguments were rejected by the European Court of Human Rights, Lord Carlile said.
‘This leaves the UK reliant on DWA (deportation with assurances) arrangements.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Luton Gears Up for Far-Right Weekend March
Police from all over the country will be drafted into the multicultural town of Luton on Saturday amid fears of clashes between a far-right group and anti-fascist supporters.
Bedfordshire Police is mounting one of its biggest ever operations in a bid to prevent violence when the English Defence League (EDL), which protests against “radical Islam,” stages a march through the town, home to a large Muslim community.
Previous EDL demonstrations have led to violence and Saturday’s demonstration will see it bringing in supporters from across Britain while members of anti-jihad groups from Holland, Norway, France and Sweden are also due to attend.
Some 2,000 officers will be on duty and transport police will be out in force on rail routes into the town, about 35 miles north of London.
“Luton will look very different to normal,” said Chief Superintendent Mike Colbourne, Luton’s police commander, who said the operation would cost the force some 800,000 pounds.
“But the officers, their dogs and horses are all there with the same purpose — to look after the town.”
“BURN IN HELL”
Luton has particular resonance for the EDL. The organisation was formed after a group of radical Muslims shouted slogans at British soldiers, calling for them to “burn in Hell,” during a homecoming parade in the town in 2009.
The Islamist suicide bombers responsible for the deadly 2005 attacks on London met at the town’s rail station beforehand, and locals have been involved in a number of counter-terrorism investigations. Taymour Abdulwahab, who carried out a suicide attack in Stockholm in December, had studied at the local university.
“We’re fed up, we are the people living in these towns and cities,” said the EDL’s founder and leader 26-year-old Steven Lennon, who goes by the name of “Tommy Robinson” after a infamous football hooligan.
“We are the people crossing paths with terrorists, we are the people who have to live next door to them, our kids have to go to school with them,” he told Reuters.
“We … are trying to get the politicians to listen to us, because at the minute they are just bowing to Islam and appeasing Islam, everywhere, all over, they are too scared to even talk about Islam.”
In the town’s high street, where “Luton in Harmony” banners fly, locals are worried.
A counter-demonstration by the Unite Against Fascism group, which is also bringing in supporters, will be staged on Saturday at the opposite end of the street and police fear there may also be unofficial protests by local Muslims.
MUSLIMS WORRIED “BIG TIME”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Veiled Debate Arrives in Germany: State Prohibits Burqas at Work for Public Employees
Germany has generally steered clear of the issue of what Muslim women can wear in public. But that might now change. The announcement by a city employee in Frankfurt that she will begin wearing more than her usual headscarf to work has sparked widespread criticism, including barbs from inside the Muslim community.
A woman sits at a desk. He face is covered and one can only faintly make out her eyes. A large veil enshrouds her entire body. Residents looking for help approach the unrecognizable woman to ask her questions.
A theoretical situation like this might sound strange, but it’s precisely the one that public administrators in Frankfurt are currently having to deal with. A 39-year-old German woman of Moroccan descent has announced she will be completely veiled when she returns from maternity leave to reassume her position in the offices of the city’s administration. At this point, nobody knows if it will be a blue full-body veil, known as a burqa, or a black niqub, the face veil that only leaves slits for the eyes.
The move also caught her co-workers at the office, where she has worked for years, completely by surprise. Though she wore a headscarf, she was a model of integration and reliability. According to newspaper reports published earlier this week, at some point, she married a very devout Muslim man. Now she is reportedly demanding a severance package from her employer because it refuses to allow employees to come to work with completely enshrouded bodies.
As the personnel department official responsible for such matters puts it: “Our employees show their faces.” He added that the woman would be allowed to wear a headscarf, but that she couldn’t show up in a burqa. The state government of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, has announced a decree forbidding civil servants and other state employees from wearing full-body coverings during working hours. The measure is backed by all of the state’s political parties, too. Even the Green Party, who are part of the government coalition in Frankfurt, have announced that, if necessary, the matter will be taken before the country’s highest court, the Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court.
The debate over forbidding full-body concealment has erupted at full strength in Europe. France and Belgium have passed bans on wearing burqas in public, and in the past German politicians have called for similar legislation. Critics of the proposal label it “a merely symbolic debate,” claiming that the number of women wearing burqas in Germany is negligible.
Either way, the fact is that a case like the one currently unfolding in Frankfurt has never come to the public’s attention. And the question now is: How should Germany deal with burqas in the workplace?
‘Just Seeing a Burqa Scares Me’
Representatives of Muslim groups have publicly criticized the move by the Muslim woman in Frankfurt. Nurhan Soykan, the secretary general of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, says: “We are bothered by the woman’s behavior and do not accept it.” She adds that, although her organization supports people’s right to choose, it still views her move as counterproductive and as one that “breeds considerable distrust of young Muslim women who are courageous enough to wear headscarves when starting new jobs.” Still, she doesn’t believe there has to be an official ban. “This is about a single case in Frankfurt,” she says, “and, in this case, a solution can be found without a ban.”
Soykan’s views are echoed by Ali Kizilkaya, the head of the (German) Islam Council, who says: “With her demands, this woman is hurting all Muslims.” He adds that the majority of Muslims do not share her belief that Islam requires women to be fully covered. “I can sympathize with the view that people in public offices need to see their co-workers’ faces,” Kizilkaya says.
“We can’t allow a woman to work in a city office who has no personality because she is completely veiled,” says Serkan Tören, a Turkish-born member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP). He argues that doing so would be a violation of social order and of the state’s obligation to remain neutral when it comes to religious issues. As far as Tören is concerned, the case in Frankfurt proves that a general ban on covering your entire body in public is necessary so that the private sector also has a clear way of handling the issue. “Then we will have a clear policy,” he says, adding his belief that the burqa and niqab represent an affront to human dignity and the equitable treatment of men and women.
Feridun Zaimoglu, a popular Turkish-German author who formerly held a position on a national panel on Islam convened by Germany’s Interior Ministry called the Islam Conference, has a similar stance. “To put it briefly,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE, “wearing a burqa in Germany just doesn’t work. This kind of opaque cloth tent is an extreme form of masking one’s identity. Just seeing a burqa scares me.” He says Muslims should eschew veiling their entire bodies because “it’s well known that it’s viewed as a provocation in Germany.” Still, Zaimoglu cautions against making women the target of any criticism in this debate or “calling them foolish.” You have to go after the men behind them, he says, the ones who are pressuring them to wear it…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Cables: MI6 Warns of New Suicide Bomb Wave
British-born radicals who undergo terrorist training and become “suicide operatives” will leave the authorities “hard pressed” to prevent an attack, according to a top counterterrorism official at the Secret Intelligence Service.
The problem of home-grown terrorists is officially expected to blight Britain for years to come and “will not go away anytime soon”. The warning was sounded in a private briefing from a senior MI6 official to visiting American Congressmen amid growing US fears over the radicalisation of young British Muslims.
The leaked documents also highlight American government concerns that the British intelligence services are struggling to combat Muslim extremists because of budget cuts and a wave of lawsuits from terror suspects. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, announced further cuts to the counter-terrorism budget earlier this week. Details of the warnings are contained in diplomatic dispatches from the cache of tens of thousands of US embassy cables leaked to the Wikileaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph.
They are published today after the government’s independent reviewer of anti-terror laws warned that human rights rulings had made the UK a “safe haven” for suspected foreign terrorists. The WikiLeaks files suggest Britain faces threats from both foreign and domestic extremists. They detail mounting American concern over the inability of British security forces to apprehend terrorists intent on launching attacks on the West.
In April 2008, a delegation of US Congressmen flew to London for a secret briefing with MI6 on security threats to the West. During the meeting, a senior MI6 officer, whose identity cannot be revealed, disclosed that monitoring of the terror threat to the UK was in many areas “wholly or largely dependent” on help from the CIA and other American sources.
He told the Congressional delegation that the UK faced simultaneous threats both from terrorists abroad and “internal home-grown” jihadists, such as those involved in the July 2005 London bombings. This, the officer said, made the UK’s situation “uniquely challenging”, according to the US Embassy’s secret record of the meeting. “Moreover, the internal threat is growing more dangerous because some extremists are conducting non-lethal training without ever leaving the country,” the document said.
“Should these extremists then decide to become suicide operatives, HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] intelligence resources, eavesdropping and surveillance would be hard pressed to find them on any ‘radar screen’. [The officer] described this as a ‘generational’ problem that will not go away anytime soon.”
The embassy cable is one of thousands detailing the close co-operation between the US and Britain in the global fight against al Qaeda-inspired terrorism.
Other documents disclose that Washington became so worried that the State Department authorised funding to pay for a range of “reverse radicalism” schemes intended to tackle the jihadist threat emanating from Britain.
At the same time, the Americans were becoming increasingly frustrated with London’s failure to appreciate the growing threat from lawless Somalia, where growing numbers of British Muslims are said to travel for terrorist training.
By autumn 2009, British officials were briefing their American counterparts that the capacity of al Qaeda to orchestrate new attacks had suffered from international action against terrorist leaders. But the threat from “home-grown jihadists” was increasing, according to representatives from the Home Office, Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, who met a senior US State Department official in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in October 2009.
A record of the meeting, written by US diplomats in Nairobi, said Britain saw “a growing likelihood of domestic threats emerging within the UK and US, to include home grown jihadists and radicalized British Somalis and Somali-Americans, particularly those who have traveled to Somalia or Pakistan for indoctrination and training”. At the same time, British counter terrorism efforts faced “new challenges” from “a wave of litigation related to actions taken after 9/11”, including CIA “renditions”, and compensation claims from Guantanamo Bay detainees.
“Legal actions by suspects in terrorist cases are having a severe effect on what counter-terrorism tools are available to the UK authorities,” the cable stated.
Yesterday, Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, said there was now a “relatively low legal threshold” for a suspect to avoid deportation in domestic courts…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Cables: The British Counter-Terror Programme That ‘Fails to Stop Extremists’
Contest, the counter-terrorism strategy developed by the government in early 2003, is aimed at reducing the terrorist threat in the UK by seeking to bring encourage extremists back into the mainstream. However, it has been accused of alienating and stigmatising Muslims and wasting taxpayers’ money funding groups that failed to deliver on the Government’s aims.
There has also been criticism that the Government was too late to intervene in the growing problem — despite being warned throughout the 1990s that the issue was reaching crisis point. The most sensitive part of the counter-terrorism strategy relates to Prevent — which aims to address radicalisation. In the past, the Home Office spent tens of millions of pounds funding youth groups and other projects to stop Muslims being radicalised. However, a new strategy unveiled in 2009 led to a renewed emphasis on the importance of intelligence from within the Muslim community. It also set out a tougher stance on non-violent conservative Muslim groups that teach that Islam is incompatible with Western democracy. It began to directly target imams.
The Coalition is reviewing the strategy — after the Conservatives were highly critical of its results in opposition. Today’s disclosures will add to pressure on the Government to become more effective at addressing radicalisation as the Americans felt the need to introduce their own programmes.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Cables: Planned US Missile Shield Blind to Nuclear Weapons
A 2007 briefing by General Patrick O’Reilly, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, disclosed that the radar system would be unable to detect long-range missiles in the launch phase because it could only see in a straight line, not over the horizon.
By the time the radar “saw” the missile, it would be too late to launch an interceptor in time to stop it striking its target. The Czech radar system was the lynch-pin of George Bush’s “son of star wars” missile defence plans, ostensibly intended to intercept missiles launched from North Korea and Iran.
Russia reacted furiously to the proposed system, which it claimed could threaten its own defences and be used to spy on its interests. A leaked cable obtained by WikiLeaks detailing US talks with Moscow describes a briefing by General O’Reilly on the capabilities of the Czech radar.
It states: “He noted that it was an X-Band radar which could only see in a straight line, not over the horizon; its range was approximately 2000 kilometres, its beam size was point 155 degrees; and it could not search and locate by itself.
“The key was that the Czech radar could not bend radio waves; its minimum elevation was two degrees… Below two degrees, ground clutter would interfere.
“Thus, depending on the location of the launch, the first 245, 450 or 850 kilometres of flight could not be seen. Therefore, the radar was incapable of seeing a missile in the boost phase. By the time the radar saw the missile, it would be too late to launch an interceptor. “Even with upgrades to the radar, Gen O’Reilly continued, an X-band radar in the Czech Republic would never give the US the capability to intercept Russia’s ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles).”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Spain: Police Cooperation Agreement Signed
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, FEBRUARY 1 — Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic and his Spanish counterpart Perez Rubalcaba signed in Madrid an agreement on police cooperation in combating crime, reports radio b92.
The Serbian Interior Ministry said that Dacic stated “the fight against organized crime is one of the most important fields of cooperation between two countries”.
“Drug trafficking is realized over Western European countries, including Spain, and that was the reason for a number of joint actions of the Serbian and Spanish police in the past period,” Dacic said. He announced signing of an agreement on emergency situations, adding that Serbia will find this type of cooperation very useful given that Spain has one of the best-developed emergency coordination centers. Dacic also announced an agreement on assistance in training of Serb policemen for the UN and EU peacekeeping missions. The ministers stated that the political relations between Serbia and Spain are on the rise, but added that there is still much space for promotion of economic cooperation, the statement reads.(
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
American Thinker: Islam on Its Own Terms
Philosopher and historian of science Thomas Kuhn is among the more notable proponents of the view that “facts” are always laden with theoretical presuppositions. This may be an exaggeration, but there is nothing like commentary on Middle Eastern affairs to show that it is not devoid of truth.
Almost everyone on the left, and some on the right, insist that Islamic hostilities toward America stem from America’s support of the state of Israel. That is, ultimately, it is the existence of Israel that accounts for why Muslims throughout the Middle East (and elsewhere) hate us. For the leftist, however, Israel is just the latest chapter in a long history of “oppression” that Muslims — “people of color” — have experienced for over a millennium.
The conventional wisdom among establishment Republicans is that Islamic aggression toward America is due solely to “the radical Islamists’“ contempt for “our freedoms,” a disdain born of an ignorance to which “the democratization” of the Islamic world would be an antidote. Within recent days, much of the Republican commentary on Egypt has reflected this bias.
These competing positions on the question of the West’s relationship to Islam are as long on ideology as they are short on reality, for they each fail to take seriously the elephant in the room: Islam.
It isn’t that they are wrong, necessarily. There can be no question that legions of Muslims resent the existence of Israel — and the support that the latter receives from the United States. It is also doubtless correct that similar numbers of Muslims despise the cultural and political arrangements of America and the West. But because neither view recognizes the other, what truth each possesses is obscured.
It doesn’t require much familiarity with the Islamic tradition, and the Quran in particular, to discover that Islam is an intrinsically militant religion. It demands even less familiarity with the contemporary experience of Muslims throughout the world to realize that true Islam calls on its adherents to conquer, or destroy, all non-Muslims.
I will not embark upon the enterprise — well-accomplished by now, thanks to such brave souls as Robert Spencer, Brigitte Gabriel, and others — of quoting the many passages from the Quran that substantiate this point. But however unpleasant a thought this may be, it is a reality.
Anyone seriously concerned with coming to terms with “the nature of our enemy” must give up all of this silly talk of “Islamofascists,” “Islamonazis,” “Islamists,” “radical Muslims,” and “Islamic extremists.” The “enemy” — and anyone who looks upon me as an “infidel” to be converted or killed I do indeed consider my enemy — is the orthodox Muslim. America and the West are in conflict with “Quranic literalists” — or “Islamic fundamentalists,” if you will — and no one else…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Netanyahu to Knesset, Risk of Iranian Drift
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, FEBRUARY 2 — The risk that the revolution taking place in Egypt may undergo an Iranian-type drift has been stressed today in a speech by Israeli Premier, Benyamin Netanyahu, to the country’s Parliament, the Knesset.
Alluding to expressions of support for the demonstrators in Egypt arriving from Teheran, Netanyahu stated: they may be speaking of the “dawning of a new day, but what they are really announcing is the fall of darkness. Iran’s leaders, Netanyahu argued, do not want to see any kind of liberalisation in Egypt, just as they don’t want it in their own country … as they demonstrated one and a half years ago,” in their repression of the street demonstrations in Teheran.
Israel, the Premier continued, hopes that Egypt is able to progress to being a truly democratic regime, but at the same time it has to take alternative scenarios into account, among which is that where the forces of radical Islam gain the upper hand.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Army Request Unheeded by Protesters
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, FEBRUARY 2 — The crowd is not listening to the request made by the army to return home and resume everyday life. Thousands of protesters are in Tahrir Square in the centre of Cairo, and there is a constant flow of people arriving to unite on this fifth day of “occupying” the square. The protesters are organising improvised marches in the vicinity of the central area of the square, preparing huge banners to hang in the afternoon with paint and brushes. Many opposition newspapers with pictures of yesterday’s large demonstration are circulating. A group of about 20 ulemas are holding a rally in the central part of the square, while on the other side demonstrators continue to chant the most common slogan heard in this popular protest: “get out, get out”. The atmosphere in the square is calm, although there is some news about the formation of pro-Mubarak demonstrations in Cairo, as well as Ismailia and Suez.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Hezbollah Inmates Escape to Lebanon, TV
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, FEBRUARY 3 — A group of Hezbollah members arrested a year and a half ago in Egypt for spying against Egypt and for raising funds for the resistance have reportedly managed to escape from jail and get to Lebanon, according to reports on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Al Jazeera reported that the individuals were 22 Hezbollah militants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Ashton (EU): Authorities Must Protect Protesters
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 3 — The Egyptian authorities must “immediately” initiate the transition process towards a truly democratic reform, which paves the way for free elections and must “immediately” do everything necessary to protect protesters and guarantee their right to protest, said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “I have repeatedly expressed to the Egyptian authorities,” explained Ashton in a statement, “my great concern about the reports of violent attacks carried out by armed individuals against peaceful demonstrators.” Now these same authorities must intervene “immediately” to guarantee the rights of the demonstrators.
For Ashton, “it is evident that enforcing the law and protecting citizens is the responsibility of the army and law enforcement officials and that “the government is responsible for the wellbeing and safety of the people”. Those who are guilty of the loss of human lives and injuring the demonstrators “must be held accountable,” continued Ashton, who also called the intimidation and aggression perpetrated against several journalists “unacceptable”. “I am calling on the Egyptian authorities,” concluded Ashton, “to immediately undertake an important and real transition towards truly democratic reforms that pave the way for free and fair elections.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: The American Debate Has Gone Stark, Raving Crazy
By Barry Rubin
As I pointed out recently the mass media in America generally presents only one side of the debate nowadays. Then, it publishes nonsense which survives because it is protected from the withering critique it deserves. And even people who should know better are just losing it.
Consider one example (Roger Cohen has gone beyond ridicule so let’s focus on someone who should know better). I regret criticizing Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution as he is one of the smarter, saner people.
Yet the kinds of things he is quoted as saying in the New York Times remind me of why the “neo-conservatives” have been so dangerous because of their naivete about the Middle East. They are fitting counterparts of the apologists for radicals who have demonized them. Both groups are trying to impose their fantasy model on the real Middle East. Of course, if Kagan didn’t say things like this he wouldn’t be quoted at all in the New York Times.
Kagan explains to us:
“We were overly spooked by the victory of Hamas….The great fear that people have with Islamist parties is that, if they take part in an election, that will be the last election. But we overlearned that lesson and we need to get beyond that panicky response. There’s no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society.
“What are we going to do- support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don’t want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East?
“Obviously, Islam needs to make its peace with modernity and democracy. But the only way this is going to happen is when people speaking for Islam take part in the system. It’s incumbent on Islamists who are elected democratically to behave democratically.”
Presumably, you will never read how absurd this statement is anywhere in the mass media so thanks for dropping by and here’s my analysis:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: at Least 8 Killed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square
CAIRO, Feb. 3 (UPI) — Casualties mounted in Cairo Thursday following violent clashes between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Tahrir Square, an Egyptian minister said.
Egyptian Health Minister Ahmad Samih Farid told state television eight people were killed and 900 injured in fighting that erupted Wednesday and spilled into the early hours of Thursday, al-Masry al-Youm reported.
“Most of the casualties were the result of stone throwing and attacks with metal rods and sticks,” GulfNews.com quoted Farid as saying on state television. “At dawn today there were gunshots.”
Tanks surrounded Tahrir Square where anti-government protesters gathered and supporters of President Hosni Mubarak, 82, who has ruled Egypt for three decades, were said to be heading once again to the area.
CNN said the army deployed soldiers to act as a buffer between the two groups Thursday.
Demonstrations also were reported in Alexandria, Suez and Ismailia governate.
Massive demonstrations were being organized for Friday, al-Masry al-Youm reported.
In the past 24 hours pro-regime supporters riding camels and horses, and armed with metal rods, sticks and stones charged into anti-government demonstrators in the square. Gunshots were fired as violence erupted and stones hurled between the sides. Firebombs and rocks were hurled from the rooftops, al-Masry al-Youm said…
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Egypt Protests: Barack Obama May Rue the Day He Decided to Abandon Mubarak
Political revolts have an uncanny knack of catching even the best-prepared administrations off guard, as Barack Obama is discovering in the wake of the sudden eruption of unrest in Egypt. The US employs a small army of officials and experts whose sole purpose is to predict and plan for such eventualities. And while they often succeed in preventing conflict — the recent establishment of Kosovo’s independence is a case in point — there have been some notable failures. Few policy-makers in Washington — or London, for that matter — foresaw either the Shah’s overthrow in Iran or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, while all the Western powers were completely wrong-footed by the speed with which the Iron Curtain collapsed a decade later. In Egypt over the past week, the White House has been desperately playing catch up with a pro-democracy movement whose rapid development seems to have taken it by surprise.
This is the first major international crisis to test Obama’s leadership on the world stage. It must be particularly irksome for a president who, in June 2009, chose the gilded splendour of Cairo University as the venue for his ground-breaking appeal to the Muslim world to end the “cycle of suspicion and discord” with the US. In that speech, Obama called for a “new beginning” to the relationship between Washington and the Arab world. At the time, it was generally understood that his main priority was to kick-start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. There was certainly no suggestion that he sought radical changes to the region’s status quo. On the contrary, in his brief reference to the issue of democracy, he said: “America does not presume to know what is best for everyone. No system can or should be imposed on one nation by any other.”
Well, tell that to Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian president, who just under two years ago was happy to host an American president set on improving his standing in the Middle East, now finds himself subjected to demands from the White House that he step down immediately to make way for a more democratic system of government…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Washington’s Strong Words Underline US Impotence
The chaos on the streets of Cairo has raised the stakes even higher for President Barack Obama — underlining Washington’s powerlessness to shape events, and raising the spectre of the US having to deal with a close ally whose regime it has disowned, but which uses violence to survive, temporarily at least.
As clashes between anti- and pro-Mubarak supporters intensified yesterday, with the outcome utterly unclear, the White House “deplored and condemned” the violence, and expressed its outrage at the attacks on peaceful demonstrators and the media. It was “imperative” the violence stopped, Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama’s spokesman, said, urging restraint on all sides.
In reality, those words merely underline the helplessness of the administration, at this point reduced to watching TV like everyone else, and keeping its fingers crossed about how events unfold — in Egypt most immediately but also in other friendly countries in the region, most notably Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
That was another sign that Mr Obama’s room for manoeuvre has been further reduced, now he has thrown the weight of the US publicly behind the demonstrators demanding change, and signalling that President Mubarak’s concession that he would step down at September’s election did not go far enough.
“An orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now,” the US President said, hours after the Egyptian leader had spoken on Tuesday. The operative word was “now”, officials here added, making even clearer where Mr Obama stood.
Now however Mr Mubarak appears to have called that bluff. In a final gambit to retain power, he seems to have called out his supporters on the streets in a plainly orchestrated attempt to dislodge the tens of thousands of protesters who for a week have been demonstrating peacefully for an end to his regime — presenting it as a spontaneous response by ordinary citizens who have had enough of the disorder.
“If the government instigated the violence, that must stop,” Robert Gibbs, the White House, spokesman said.
The move may be wholly cynical. But the net result has been to leave the US scrambling to find a coherent response to events that change day by day, even hour to hour. Its basic problem though has been the same even before the crisis erupted: how to preserve a key national security alliance in the Middle East, yet get on the right side of history.
Mr Obama’s statement came after a 30-minute phone conversation with Mr Mubarak — and it contained his most unequivocal backing yet for the pro-democracy demonstrators. Their “passion and dignity” was “an inspiration to people around the world”, the President declared. “We hear your voices.”
Some experts urge Washington to respond to Mr Mubarak’s apparent defiance by cutting off the annual $1.5bn of aid and military support it provides Egypt, its strongest leverage against the regime. Yesterday Mr Gibbs would only say the matter was under constant review…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Beware the Islamists
The White House is calling for an “immediate” transition to democratic representation in Egypt. “Ordinary transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now,” US President Barack Obama told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by phone Tuesday. And as if the president’s message was not clear enough, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs added, “Now means yesterday.”
Not only must transition to democracy be quick, but it must include “a whole host of non-secular actors,” added Gibbs.
And though the White House spokesman did not specify, the US administration apparently does not “rule out engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood as part of an orderly process,” according to sources quoted by The New York Times.
There are a number of profound flaws to this “hurry up and democratize” approach, perhaps the most obvious being historical precedent. If Hamas’s victory in 2006’s Palestinian elections did not illustrate the danger of a reckless rush toward hoped-for democratic representation without first carefully and systematically building the necessary democratic institutions — a free press; a legislature with a healthy opposition standing a real chance of coming to power; an honest judicial system not dictated by religious or ideological prejudices; and strict, effective and fair law enforcement — there is the much fresher example of Hizbullah in Lebanon.
In Iraq, with all the aid and military support provided by a US-led coalition, the road to democratization faces sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenges with sectarian turmoil threatening to throw the country into anarchy.
Even Turkey, with its 80-year-old history of civic society with a strong focus on secular values safeguarded by its military, constitution and long history of democratic practices, seems headed in a decidedly Islamist direction under the Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
Radical Islam is the zeitgeist of the region. Egypt is no exception.
In the past few decades Egypt has become increasingly more prone to extremism. Mubarak, aware of the strength of the Islamists, has given them more freedom to aggressively pursue their radical agenda, while maintaining ultimate political authority and a monopoly over the security forces in the hope of directing the process of reforms and protecting the ruling secular elite.
Islamists have gradually assumed control over Egypt’s major professional unions, including the lawyers’ syndicate, once the country’s most liberal and secular professional association. Shari’a law is increasingly being applied in the courts to prosecute secular intellectuals, writers, professors, artists and journalists for purely religious “crimes” such as blasphemy and apostasy. The Muslim Brotherhood has also taken over the Teachers’ Training College, producing educators who disseminate radical Islamic ideas in the classrooms. This process has taken its toll. Just last month Islamists attacked a church in Alexandria, massacring 23 Coptic Christians.
Riding on popular support, the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in making inroads despite being deprived of political power. In 2005’s Egyptian parliamentary elections, an “independent” party affiliated with the Brotherhood — officially banned from political activity — obtained almost 20 percent of the vote, five times higher than in 2000’s elections, and would have garnered more if not for blatant government interference. More aggressive ballot-rigging in the November and December 2010 elections — ranging from removing the names of opposition candidates to blocking their representatives from monitoring polls, from shutting polling stations in the face of would-be- voters to simple stuffing of ballot boxes — kept a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party down to just one seat in the 454-member parliament, though it also stoked anger on the street…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: The Arab Street Revolt and the Brotherhood: This Time It’s Different
While the situation in Tunisia and Egypt is still in a state of flux, it is the departure of Hosni Mubarak after nearly thirty years in power that has caused a political earthquake throughout the region and world. It is Egypt that is at the heart of the Arab world, and with the exception of Jordan, the only Arab country to have made peace with Israel. It might not be an overstatement to say that as Egypt goes, so goes the Arab world. While it is probably too early to prognosticate about Egypt’s future, it appears that at the end of the day, Egypt will either be ruled by the military, or an Islamist government—be it de facto or de jure. At this point, it appears that the Islamists—while not yet at the forefront of this “street revolution”—have the most to benefit. This is bad news for America, the West, and of course, Israel. Indeed, Israel may come out the biggest loser.
[…]
The Brotherhood—heavily influenced by Nazi ideology —as well as having excellent relations with Iran has learned from its violent past (including the assassination of al-Banna and the hanging of Qutb) that the key to victory lies through “peaceful” methods. If Egypt continues to spin out of control, Egyptians may very well look to them for guidance and leadership. A recent Pew poll showed that Egyptians want “more Islam” in their lives. This is in stark contrast to political pundits and “experts” who have practically discounted the Brotherhood as obsolete.
Indeed, a “useful idiot” as Mohammed el-Baradei , an anti-American, anti-Israeli apologist for Iran’s nuclear weapons program may be the key to the Ikhwan’s dreams of ruling Egypt. Already, they have endorsed him. Iran’s Khomeini used a similar tactic with his first prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan , a respected liberal academic, and then after consolidating power, pushed him aside. With an Ikhwan controlled government, the peace treaty with Israel will no longer exist, perhaps leading to another all-out Arab-Israeli war with Iran in the forefront. The global implications of this nightmare scenario are only beginning to dawn. To put it mildly, America, Israel, and the West are caught between an Arabic version of Scylla and Charybdis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Elbaradei’s Unsavory Associates
Self appointed spokesman for the Egyptian “revolution” Mohamed ElBaradei is not a man to inspire confidence in pro-Western circles.
As head of the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency (1997-2009) ElBaradei cultivated a circle of advisers, a “kitchen cabinet” — that included an accused Russian spy, Canadian national and IAEA Verification and Security head Tariq Rauf.
However it is ElBaradei’s service on the Board of the International Crisis Group that should really set alarm bells ringing.
With a staff of 130, based in 46 countries and an annual budget of $15.5 million, the I.C.G. is an influential but little publicized organization.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Mubarak Wants to Go: Egypt Dictator’s Outburst as Fears Grow for Tourists
The president of Egypt last night declared that he is ‘fed up and wants to go’ as bloody clashes continued in Cairo.
But Hosni Mubarak said he would not resign immediately — because he feared there would be ‘chaos’.
His remarks came as pro-government mobs targeted Western journalists and human rights activists near Tahrir Square, the centre of the protests.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Get Ready for the Muslim Brotherhood
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Why are the secular democratic forces in Egypt so much weaker than the Muslim Brotherhood?
One reason is that they are an amalgam of very diverse elements: There are tribal leaders, free-market liberals, socialists, hard-core Marxists and human rights activists. In other words, they lack common ideological glue comparable to the one that the Brotherhood has. And there is a deep-seated fear that opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is to install Shariah once they come to power, will be seen by the masses as a rejection of Islam.
What the secular groups fail to do is to come up with a message of opposition that says “yes” to Islam, but “no” to Shariah — in other words, a campaign that emphasizes a separation of religion from politics. For Egypt and other Arab nations to escape the tragedy of either tyranny or Shariah, there has to be a third way that separates religion from politics while establishing a representative government, the rule of law, and conditions friendly to trade, investment and employment.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
International Labor Backs Egyptian Revolution
The American AFL-CIO , the International Confederation of Trade Unions and the communist controlled World Federation of Trade Unions are all throwing their wight behind the unfolding Egyptian revolution.
[…]
While many commentators are understandably focusing on the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian turmoil, there is no doubt that the international left is a playing a leading and perhaps decisive role in this disaster in the making.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Massacres of Jews by Muslims Before 1948
“Jews lived happily together with Muslims and in harmony before Israel was established.”
How many times have you heard this said?
We are indebted to Torbjorn Karfunkel, who has blown the myth of peaceful coexistence sky-high with his pre-1948 ‘massacre map’ of Jews by Muslims (click on the map to enlarge). The map should not be considered exhaustive, but it does go back to the 7th century, when Mohammed’s followers massacred Jewish tribes in Arabia. It reminds us that Jews were murdered in Spain in 1066, in spite of the ‘Andalusian Golden Age’. The cluster of explosive dots over Morocco recalls that relationships between Jews and Muslims during the 19th century were not always plain sailing.
To this ‘massacre map’ one might add the blood libels which spread like wildfire across the Ottoman empire, often resulting not in massacres, but in individuals arrested, tortured and unfairly accused.
As the great Tunisian-Jewish writer Albert Memmi has written: “coexistence with the Arabs was not just uncomfortable, it was marked by threats periodically carried out.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Attack Two Christian Families in Egypt, 11 Killed
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — News of a massacre of two Christian Coptic families by Islamists just emerged from Upper Egypt with the return of the Internet connections after a week of Internet blackout by the Egyptian regime. The massacre took place on Sunday, January 30 at 3 PM in the village of Sharona near Maghagha, Minya province. Two Islamists groups, aided by the Muslim neighbors, descended on the roof of houses owned by Copts, killing eleven Copts, including children, and seriously injuring four others.
Anba Agathon, Bishop of Maghagha, told Coptic activist Dr. Mona Roman in a televised interview on Al-Karma TV that the killers are their neighbors, who seized the opportunity of the mayhem prevailing in Egypt and the absence of police protection to slaughter the Copts. He said that he visited today the four injured Copts, who escaped death despite being shot, at Maghagha General Hospital and they told him that they recognized the main attackers as they come from the same village of Sharona. They gave the Bishop details of what happened.
“The two families were staying in their homes with their doors locked when suddenly the Islamists descended on them,” said Bishop Agathon, “killing eleven and leaving for dead four others family members. In addition, they looted everything that was in the two Coptic houses, including money, furniture and electrical equipment. They also looted livestock and grain.”
According to the Bishop the first group was led by Islamist Ibrahim Hamdy Ibrahim, who was joined by a gang of masked assailants. They accessed the roof of the house of Copt Joseph Waheeb Massoud through the roof of his Muslim neighbor Mahgoub el Khawaled. The armed men killed Joseph, his wife Samah, his 15-year old daughter Christine and 8-year-old son Fady Youssef
Another Islamsist group led by Yasser Essam Khaled and several masked men simultaneously accessed the house of Copt Saleeb Ayad Mayez through the roof of his Muslim neighbor Mohamad Hussein el Khawaed. The Islamist shot dead Saleeb, his wife Zakia, his 4-year-old son Joseph, 3-year-old daughter Justina, his 23-year-old sister Amgad, mother Zakia and Ms. Saniora Fahim.
The police in Minya were called and they transferred the bodies in ambulances to Maghagha Hospital.
The Bishop denied any vendetta between the Copts and the Muslims. He called on the police to arrest the Islamist perpetrators immediately, as everyone knows they are the neighbors of the victims. He said “The massacre has nothing to do with the mayhem in Egypt, but the murderers took advantage of the lack of police protection and thought they could commit their crime and no one would notice.”
Coptic activist Dr. Hanna Hanna views the Mubarak era with its policy of impunity to be the cause of why Copts are targeted. “Why have those Islamists chosen those two Coptic families and not Muslim ones to slaughter and rob? I believe it is because they know that with Copts they can literally get away with murder.”
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Should Just Shut up on Egypt
When it comes to crises like the one in Egypt, the trouble with the White House is structural. It has a briefing room. (So does State.) When you have such a room, the pressure is to have a briefing. That means saying something — almost anything in the present case — when prudence, history and the gods of mythology cry out for silence. The Obama administration ought to just shut up.
The latest from the White House, as reported in The Post, is a reassessment of its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that. The U.S. ought to talk to almost anyone about anything. This is called smart diplomacy.
But now is not the time to make nice to the Brotherhood, not just because it might take any overture as a sign of weakness, but because it is sure to laugh. After generations of supporting Hosni Mubarak, not even the dimmest of Islamic radicals is going to think America suddenly has had a change of heart. At the very least, the U.S. ought to be consistent. Our enemies would respect us for it and our friends, should there any left, would appreciate it. To paraphrase the old Hillary Clinton, if we cannot stand by our man — and we may not be able or want to — then we at least ought to shut up.
At the moment, whatever talking that needs to be done ought to be limited to the enunciation of broad American principles — democracy, freedom of speech, minority rights and others. We are who we are and we ought to be proud of it. On a more detailed level, the American military ought to talk to the Egyptian military. Theirs is an old and durable relationship. If a latter-day Tiananmen Square is going to be avoided, then it is the American military that can be influential. Soldiers understand one another.
At times, though, though, the Obama administration seems in such a rush to validate that meaningless cliché about “getting ahead of history,” that it seems to have learned nothing from it. It somehow thinks that by telling Mubarak it is time to go that the Egyptian masses, who had lived under the gun for over 30 years, will suddenly forgive and forget that America has been Mubarak’s partner, that it has supported him in his unpopular and loathsome peace with Israel, that it has given him guns and bullets, that it has welcomed him to the White House and that it has sent radical Islamists to his country so that they could be tortured, a regional specialty. What is Obama thinking?
The fact is that history cannot be undone or instantly changed. The fact further is that the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to swoon for the U.S. of A. because Obama has nudged Mubarak to leave. The Brotherhood is a vast organization of pious men who are ideological committed to an Islamic state. They loath America and what it stands for. They do not want low-cut jeans and two-piece bathing suits and hip hop music and movies about teenage sex. They want none of that, all of which we have in abundance…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The End of Western Credibility: Will Democracy Become Islam’s Best Friend?
Millions of people in the Middle East want freedom, just as Eastern Europeans once did. Twenty years ago, the West was a role model, but it betrays its own values. In doing so, it is also strengthening its enemy: militant Islamism.
“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because, in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”
George Bush the Younger said that. And one can see: The West wasn’t lacking nice words or intelligent insights. What was missing, though, were the right policies — and, much worse, a belief in our own values. There aren’t many places in the world where Western moral double standards are as glaring as in the Middle East. In the ears of the 1.5 million Palestinians enclosed in the Gaza Strip, Western words like freedom and democracy must sound about as credible as Brezhnev’s praise of freedom and socialism to the ears of an occupied Poland.
Indeed, the West’s closest allies are the jailors of the Palestinian people. No other countries have received as much foreign aid from the United States as Israel and Egypt. Most of the money benefits the military — but the US defense industry profits handsomely as well. The Egyptian air force F16 fighter jets now thundering over the heads of protesters on Cairo’s Tahrir Square originate from the USA, as do the M60 tanks used by the Israelis to patrol Gaza. Whether it is helping to maintain Israel’s security, providing free passage through the Suez Canal or ensuring the containment of radical Islam, the Mubarak regime has certainly provided the West with valuable services over the years. And those are, of course, all legitimate interests. The problem is that the West and Israel have used illegitimate means to pursue them. Support for a regime that will soon have ruled for 30 years under emergency laws, defrauding one election after another without even blinking, one that relied on a police force notorious for torture and persecution, was illegitimate.
As Bush correctly stated, “(I)n the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim Brotherhood of the Traveling Code Pink Pants
Code Pink, notorious anti-war movement prone to juvenile acts of vandalism, is at it again. Only this time, they’re in Egypt.
Here at NRB, it’s part of the mission to demonstrate the connections between the Left and the Islamofascists they so clearly admire. Normally, it takes a little more effort than today’s glaring example. If you’ve never heard of Code Pink, let me enlighten you. Operating under an “anti-war womyn’s movement,” Code Pink has taken every opportunity available to betray their country, put our soldiers in danger, support terrorists and make asses out of themselves.
The Code Pink founding member who calls herself “Medea” Benjamin (I imagine her given name “Susan” was too white or oppressive or something,) wrote on Michael Moore’s website yesterday about her trip to Egypt to show solidarity with the Egyptian people and demand Mubarak step down.
One way Obama can send a stronger message to Mubarak is to announce that the United States will cut off all aid to this regime. For 30 years the U.S. government has been supporting this autocratic, repressive state. Cutting aid now will send a clear signal that the U.S. government is finally distancing itself from this regime.
Tomorrow, a group of us will go to the U.S. Embassy with this message. We will sit outside the Embassy, despite the risks of being attacked by government thugs, and call on our government to immediately stop all aid to Mubarak’s regime. Please join us by taking the same action back home.
Now is the time that the Egyptian people need our solidarity. Don’t let there be one more “Made in the USA” teargas canister hurled at these people. Don’t let there be one more U.S. bullet or U.S. weapon aimed at them.
By all accounts Mubarak is a dictator, but in order to receive the Progressive Seal of Approval you must wear hipster tee-shirts featuring famous murderers and march in favor of brutal dictators (like Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez, Chairman Mao and Vladimir Lenin.) Imagine my confusion! If I’ve learned anything about the Left it’s to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone they hate. But it became clearer as I started to research Code Pink why they would give up this particular dictator in favor of the “revolution.” What do commie-pinko anti-war groups love more than despotic dictators?
Islamofascist dictators who force their women to wear the burqa and hate Israel, that’s who! (And it doesn’t hurt that Mubarak had a friendship with the Evil Empire, America.)
Enter The Muslim Brotherhood. What do a group of “womyn’s rights” activists have in common with Islamofascists, you may ask? That’s a good question considering they should have opposing views on female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the stoning of women, the inability of women to work and any other Islamic oppression of women that most “womyn’s” groups say they’re against. But if you package it up in a “religion” somehow the “feminists” can stomach little girls being held down by their mothers and sliced with a razor blade. It’s all in the name of solidarity (against Israel and America.)
There was a time in this country where people like Benjamin would have been tried in a public square and…well if I finish that sentence the civility police will descend, but you tell me what you think a country should do to a person or group who advocates the murder of American soldiers…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The World From Berlin: ‘A New Phase of Dangerous Instability’
As mass protests continue to grow in Cairo, Western and Israeli leaders are beginning to mull what may be inevitable: the new world order in a post-Mubarak Egypt. On Germany’s editorial pages on Tuesday, commentators offer conflicting views over the threat of radical Islam in the country.
Hundreds of thousands of people packed the streets of the Egyptian capital city again on Tuesday in what is believed to be the largest protest yet on Cairo’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square. And once again, demonstrators demanded that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s ruler for three decades, step down.
“Mubarak may have thick skin, but we have sharper nails,” the crowd shouted. Chants of “Leave! Leave! Leave!” could also be heard. “We can sense the smell of freedom, and no more compromises are possible with Mubarak,” protester Mustafa Amer, 35, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
It’s a call that was repeated by opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, who is positioning himself as a possible transition leader if Mubarak steps down. Arab news station Al Arabiya is reporting on comments from ElBaradei that Mubarak must step down and leave the country in order to prevent bloodshed.
Protesters felt bolstered by a statement by the Egyptian military on Monday that it would not fire on demonstrators at Tuesday’s marches. The military also said protesters had “legitimate grievances.”
The ouster in January of the leader of Tunisia through a popular revolt inspired similar protests against Mubarak in Egypt last week. The country has been stable under the autocrat, but his government is accused of mass human rights violations — including what Human Rights Watch calls “endemic torture” in the country — and corruption. The main goal of the protesters, however, is believed to be better social conditions in a country where nearly half of the people live under the poverty line of $2 per day. Under Mubarak, the gap between rich and poor continued to grow. Last week, resentments erupted into violent protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities.
UN Estimate: 300 Dead
The United Nations is estimating that 300 people have so far lost their lives in the Egyptian unrest and that 3,000 have been injured, according to UN High Representative for Human Rights Navi Pillay. “The authorities have a clear responsibility to protect civilians, including their right to life, and to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression,” Pillay said. “People must not be arbitrarily detained, simply for protesting or for expressing their political opinions — however unwelcome those opinions may be to those in power.”
But Tuesday’s protests also attracted hundreds of Mubarak supporters. At noon, around 200 loyalists could be seen on Tahrir Square, according to a SPIEGEL reporter. “Mubarak is better than you think,” they called out. “We don’t want a theocracy,” they added, in reference to fears over the possible growing influence of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which is currently banned as a political party in Egypt. Those concerns are shared by many Israeli and Western leaders.
A possible shift towards radical Islam also served as a subject of meetings between German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Jerusalem and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and Tuesday. For Israel, the stakes are high. For three decades it has had an important ally in Netanyahu and if Islamist groups rise, they would likely take a far more critical view of their neighbor.
“In a state of chaos, an organized Islamic group can take over a country,” Netanyahu said on Monday in his strongest words yet on the situation in Egypt. “It happened in Iran. A takeover of oppressive regimes of extreme Islam … poses a terrible danger to peace and stability.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia Uprising: ‘Ethical Europe’ Has No Clothes
The moral standing of the European Union in its Mediterranean neighborhood is taking a serious blow. Events in Tunisia — and now Egypt — have caught its leadership by surprise. The overthrow by a popular uprising of a corrupt and authoritarian leader supported for years by European leaders showed that “ethical Europe” has no clothes. The moment is opportune for a liberated Tunisia to reset its relationship with the EU.
To those who believe in freedom and democracy, the revolution unfolding in Tunisia has been heart-warming news. How it was received in Brussels is anybody’s guess. Suddenly, the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime, the “example for the region,” the “important and reliable partner of Europe” — to quote Stefan Fule, the Czech commissioner for enlargement and neighborhood policy — was being challenged. “Jasmine” revolutionaries were pouring onto Tunisian — but also European streets — to demand freedom and democracy.
The shambles of conditionality
The bloc must face up to the fact that until the revolution, its policies in Tunisia had hardly been the “force for good” bureaucrats like to trumpet about. Rather, as human rights activists have often stated, they had helped maintain the status quo. Brussels’ decision last year to pursue “advanced status” talks even emboldened the regime to suppress dissent further. Direct contacts between local NGOs and European institutions were criminalized. European leaders’ “business as usual” attitude with the man most Tunisians called a “dictator” made a mockery of EU human rights rhetoric and conditionality.
Development aid and trade agreements are theoretically conditional to the fulfillment of “political and economic conditions.” So-called “conditionality clauses” are included in all agreements with third parties. But why bother? Studies have shown that conditionality is irrelevant in both countries that with existing strong democratic constituencies and in autocratically-ruled states. Be it in Tunisia or in Egypt — or for that matter in Europe — most politicians have only paid lip-service to it. For oppressed peoples of the continent, it has been a bad joke.
Illiberal EU and France
If the response of the “Lisbon-ized” EU was meek — a knee-jerk reaction of aid for elections — the initial silence of Paris was deafening. For days after the popular uprising, the French executive remained embarrassingly mute. In the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie was asked to account for the incoherence of the government’s foreign policy in Africa. How could the country ask for the respect of democracy in Ivory Coast while simultaneously supporting the dictatorship of President Ben Ali. Indeed that is the question, and also the answer why the EU could never really have any coherence of its own.
When it comes to EU-Africa relations, the common foreign policy is more often than not “steered” behind Brussels’ “closed doors” by former colonial powers. Powerful administrations with privileged contacts with local politicians ensure the continuation of their prevalent role in policy-making. With enlargement to 27 states, decision-making has become overly complicated and its tell-tale of the lowest common denominator seems to have sunk lower. On sensitive topics, tension quickly flares. In the case of Tunisia, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealed the deep division between member states. While Germany and the United Kingdom favored a tougher approach, other key states (France) were reluctant to criticize the regime. But in the end, no pressure was applied…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US to Jewish Leaders: We Won’t Recognize Muslim Brotherhod
The White House is seeking to reassure Jewish leaders concerned about the turmoil in Egypt, telling them in a conference call late Wednesday that US policy is not to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Many in the pro-Israel community have been concerned that the waning position of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his regime will empower the Muslim Brotherhood and are fearful that the US could contribute to its rise by viewing the Islamic group as a legitimate Egyptian political player.
On Monday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that “it is clear that increasing democratic representation has to include a whole host of important non-secular actors,” and since then US officials have given varying signs on their openness to seeing the Muslim Brotherhood take part in a coalition government.
At the same time, the US has increased its calls for Mubarak to oversee a transition immediately, and for the installment of a widely representative democratic governance system.
On a call to Jewish organizational officials, senior Middle East National Security Council adviser Dan Shapiro said US policy is not to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has ties to Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, according to participants in the off-therecord call.
But Shapiro also indicated that the US would not dictate the composition of the next Egyptian government.
Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel and now the vice president of the Brookings Institution, pointed out that America’s options for dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood are limited given its strong role in the Egyptian political scene, and that its participation in a new government in some capacity might be inevitable.
“It’s a very risky proposition, but that’s the world that we now live in, in which the Muslim Brotherhood is a powerful [institution], and it will be extremely difficult to exclude it from the political process,” he said.
Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, who joined Indyk in a discussion on the Egyptian turmoil Thursday, said that while the Muslim Brotherhood would pose challenges to the US given its stance on the peace process, counter-terrorism, minority rights and other issues, right now the group is planning to have a low political profile.
“Up until now the Brotherhood has played a very limited role. They have not been very visible in the protests, but that’s by design,” he said. “The Brotherhood is well aware that if they have a prominent role, this will stoke the fears of the international community and particularly the US, so the Brotherhood is sensitive about that.”
The group does plan to become more active but is emphasizing that it doesn’t plan to take a leadership role and will instead support a coalition led by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN International Atomic Energy Agency head, according to Hamid.
Some members of the Brotherhood have been so concerned about a backlash that they have made a statement to “allay some fears,” saying they would abide by the peace treaty with Israel, Hamid added. He noted, however, that many question the sincerity of such statements.
“I think we have to recognize that they aren’t extremists like in Iran or elsewhere. In terms of what their objectives are here, they aren’t going to try to win an election even if they could,” he said, suggesting that the group instead would focus on rebuilding the organization after years of repression. “They are aware this would either provoke the regime or provoke the international community.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
PNA: HRW Calls to Stop Violence Against Demonstrators
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, FEBRUARY 3 — Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the Palestinian National Authority to order to police to stop perpetrating violence against groups of Palestinian demonstrators who are peacefully supporting the demonstrations currently taking place in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. In a statement, the human rights organisation mentioned several cases of violent acts carried out by police. The most recent took place last night in Ramallah where a demonstration of solidarity with the Egyptian people protesting in Cairo was brutally dispersed by Palestinian police. “The Palestinian National Authority must immediately clarify that as part of the process of building a (Palestinian) state, training law enforcement official does not include resorting to violence against peaceful demonstrators,” said HRW Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Sarah Leah Whitson. “The Palestinian National Authority,” she added, “must punish the police officers that are responsible, otherwise the US and EU should make other use of their taxpayers’ money”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Candidly Speaking: Where Are the Voices of Moderate Islam?
When declaring war against radical Islam in response to the 9/11 bombings, president George W. Bush made the statement that “Islam is a religion of peace.”
His laudable intention was to distinguish between radical Islamic fundamentalists, law-abiding American Muslims and “moderate” Islamic states. But the reality is that the impact of radical Islam extends far beyond the identifiable jihadists.
The mantra is chanted mindlessly by the chattering classes and well-intentioned government officials, who delude themselves into believing that such an adamant denial of reality can somehow ease social tensions.
But regrettably, imbedding such a falsehood into public discourse relating to Islamic terror precludes any rational consideration of the root problem. It also empowers radical Islamists and enables them to more effectively intimidate moderate Muslims aspiring to achieve accommodation with the West.
It is misleading to describe any religion — Judaism, Christianity or Islam — as a force for peace. But to apply such a blithely generalized descriptive term to Islam as practiced in the 21st century is really like saying that pigs can fly.
History provides ample evidence of Christianity’s harsh treatment of ‘heretics,’ and its violence toward all other religions (for example, during the Crusades). By accusing Jews of the crime of deicide, Christianity also laid the foundations for the world’s oldest hatred, anti-Semitism. However, in the 21st century, the dominant interpretations and objectives of both mainstream Judaism and Christianity are unquestionably peaceful. Most Christians genuinely seek accommodation with other religions, and attempt to make amends for the anti-Semitism of their forbears.
Largely, this does not apply to Islam. Like all sacred books, the Koran is also open to many interpretations. But it is simply delusional to generalize that Islam as practiced today is a religion of peace, when it manifestly spawns terrorism and when so many of its practitioners reject the legitimacy of other religions.
From its inception, adhering to the precept in the Koran to “kill [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out,” Islam has often conquered and subjugated non-Muslims. Many of its proponents are engaged in a continuous, global war with all nonbelievers (infidels), displaying particular contempt for Jews, who are referred to as “the descendants of apes and pigs.”
ANY APOSTASY, under in Islam’s Shari’a law, is a capital offense. Under Islamic jurisdiction, all non-Muslim religions are persecuted and frequently subjugated to extreme violence. This was borne out by recent massacres of Christians in Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sudan…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: King Abdallah Due to Meet Islamic Action Front
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, FEBRUARY 3 — King Abdallah II of Jordan will hold a meeting today with the leaders of the main opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), according to an IAF official who asked to remain anonymous. On last Monday, another party representative said that the king expected to meet with IAF leaders regarding the contacts initiated with Abdallah II in order to listen to the Jordanians about the popular discontent that has been ongoing for over a month. Newly appointed Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit met last night with IAF leaders who called the meetings “positive”, but also said that they will continue to protest. One of the primary requests by the Islamist party is to change the electoral law, as they believe that their uninominal system is a disadvantage to them, which brought them to boycott the election in November.
Yesterday Bakhit began meetings to form the new government.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lexington: Was George Bush Right?
BY THE scratchy standards of American politics, Democrats and Republicans left their differences at the water’s edge as Barack Obama picked his careful way through his Egypt conundrum this week. The administration had handled the situation “pretty well”, said John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. Anyway, why pick new fights when there is such fun to be had raking over old ones?
From the moment it became clear that something big was under way in Egypt, it was inevitable that America would relitigate the case of George Bush and Iraq. As Egyptians thronged the streets, Mr Bush’s defenders flocked into print to argue that the Arabs’ newly evident hunger for democracy vindicated the former president’s “freedom agenda” in the Middle East. Did not Mr Bush topple Saddam Hussein, a far more monstrous dictator than Hosni Mubarak? Did he not try his best to push America’s authoritarian allies to move towards democracy?
Mr Bush was indeed a far more active champion of democracy than Mr Obama has been. In 2005 his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, gave a startling speech in Cairo in which she said that having spent 60 years pursuing stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East, and achieving neither, America was henceforth supporting the democratic aspirations of all people. True to its word, the Bush administration nagged, scolded, bribed and bullied its allies towards greater democracy. The Americans leant on Egypt to hold more open elections in 2005, and in 2006 they talked an astonished Israel into letting Hamas contest Palestinian elections in the occupied territories. Even the Saudis were prevailed on to hold some (men only) local elections. All this was based on a particular theory, the post-9/11 neoconservative conclusion that the root cause of terrorism was the absence of Arab democracy. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” said Mr Bush.
Why revisit this history now? Because with people-power bursting out all over the Arab world, the experts who scoffed at Mr Bush for thinking that Arabs wanted and were ready for democracy on the Western model are suddenly looking less clever-and Mr Bush’s simple and rather wonderful notion that Arabs want, deserve and are capable of democracy is looking rather wise. In pursuit of this simple idea he was willing, up to a point, to discombobulate long-standing American allies whose autocratic behaviour at home America had long forgiven or overlooked in the interests of realpolitik.
Compare that, say Mr Bush’s defenders, to what came next. Barack Obama entered office eager to “engage” America’s enemies and repair relations with Islam. So keen was he on engagement that he gave only tepid support to 2009’s “green revolution” in Iran, which the regime went on to crush. As for mending relations with Islam, Mr Obama decided that this required some diffidence. So his own big speech in Cairo stressed that America “does not presume to know what is best for everyone.”
That lack of presumption, the neocons now say, was a grave mistake. It gave the dictators a free pass and put America on the wrong side of the barricades in Tahrir Square. Elliott Abrams, who was a senior adviser to Mr Bush, argues that Mr Obama’s misguided fixation on peacemaking in Palestine made him forget about the millions suffering under the boot of the Arab dictators.
So Mr Bush is vindicated? Not so fast. Yes, those who mocked his belief in the Arab appetite for democracy were wrong; he is to be admired for championing reform and nudging autocrats towards pluralism. But keep things in proportion. The big thing Mr Bush did in the Arab world was not to argue for an election here or a loosening of controls there. It was to send an army to conquer Iraq. Nothing that has happened in Tunisia or Egypt makes the consequences of that decision any less calamitous.
The war poisoned the Arabs’ reaction to everything America later said or did. Iraq is now a fragile democracy, but precious few Arabs (and rather few Europeans) believe that Mr Bush invaded Iraq for democracy’s sake. Many think the non-existent weapons of mass destruction were a pretext, too. In Cairo in 2009 Lexington met a pro-reform academic, Nader Fergany, still seething six years on. “The Americans are the Mongols of the 21st century,” he said, “and now Barack Obama is trying to put the icing on this dirty cake.” Whatever they think of the freedom message, most Arabs utterly reject the messenger…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Bull in the Mideast China Shop
Il Giornale, 1 February 2011
US president Obama should stop making a mess in the Middle East and changing his position twice in two days around the most serious situation facing world peace—the future of Egypt. He should stop using Absolute Good as his point of reference, instead of the good of his country and of the rest of the world which, behind the US, believes in freedom, free market, monogamy and rights of women. What does he think he’s playing with? What kind of information has Mrs. Clinton when she tells us, “It doesn’t matter who’s in power [however, who knows, maybe Mubarak will pull through, she seems to be hinting—ed.], the point is how we respond to the legitimate needs and complaints of the Egyptian people”. Fine, but does Obama—who in offering this line after a number of hours of uncertainty, dumped his long-time ally, his point-of-reference in the Arab world —know that among the “complaints”, the toughest ones (commonly seen in the streets) are not only against Mubarak, but against the US and Israel, and the Western world in general? Does he know that this great revolution in the streets, that according to our cultural parameters has something to do above all with social issues, must instead be evaluated in terms of a completely different Islamic and Arab culture? Or must we continue to pretend that the crowd in the squares is only talking about bread and job?
Calling us back to reality is the Salaphite jihadist website Minbar Al Tawhid where prominent cleric Abu Mundhit Al Shinqiti recommends to participate in the demonstrations, explaining: “We are on the brink of an historic phase for the Islamic nation, the fall of the Egyptian regime will be similar to the earthquake of September 11th.”
9/11, President! Obama should listen to Al Shinqiti’s clear hint. Does he know that now the various forces in play are jockeying in the negotiations for a government in which the Muslim Brotherhood should have a prominent role? That we have already experienced with Hezbollah in Lebanon the “democratic” phase that he reccomends now in Egypt? Does he know that the slogans on the street have an increasingly anti-American and anti-Israeli stamp, up to and including the classic hate of the ideological movements of our day, that continue to grow and be supported by states such as Iran and Syria? The Egyptians in the streets say and write on walls: “The US supports the regime, not the people”; for Mubarak, they wrote on Cairo’s largest bridge: “Traitor, go to Israel”; and “This is the end of all Jews”. Al Jazeera presents to its audiences “experts” such as the former member of the Israeli Parliament, Palestinian Azmi Bishara who fled after having been accused of spying for Hezbollah during the war in 2006. He explains that it is the Zionist Lobby in the US holding up Mubarak.
Can’t Obama see what his nice guy approach has caused in the Middle East? While pretending to support the Lebanese government, he has allowed Hezbollah to make of it an Iranian-Syrian colony; he has buttressed the power of Assad, a dictator who now explains that Syria is stable because it has avoided any kind of peace agreement with Israel. Obama allowed Turkey to choose the Islamist side. He has left Israel to the wolves, banally dealing with a handful of apartments in East Jerusalem, without ever noticing that the Maghreb, Egypt and Jordan were about to flare.
If only the democratic revolutions had taken place because Obama, like George Bush, chose the road of the dissidents… Quite the contrary. When hundreds of thousands dissidents were there in the streets of Teheran, Obama deserted them. What dissidents is Obama helping through his position against the Egyptian leadership? Certainly not Saad Eddin Ibrahim or Ayman Nur, committed democrats who often found themselves in the Egyptian jails. Obama has never seriously attempted to help them against Mubarak’s abuse of power. Now, it is useless calling on democracy without having prepared the groundwork. Transitions don’t make discounts. Elections, as happened with Hamas, often become a double-edged weapon against the people themselves. What a great result for Obama now to play around with human rights while 59% of the people coming to power prefer Islamization and only 29% modernization; 82% support stoning adulterers to death and 84% want death penalty for those who change religion. Has Obama read the famous “Pew poll”? The American president should read it and stop kowtowing before the Saudi king as he did in Riyadh, before Islam, as he did at Al Azhar University in Cairo, before the status quo in Iran, or Egyptian demonstrators, without a thought about the future.
If the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel falls apart, as virtually all Israeli experts fear, if the only pillar of stability in the Middle East against the extreme power of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslin Brotherhood collapses, and as Afghanistan trembles, what will Mr. Obama do against Muslim extremists? His job is just to give us some guarantees that the outcome of this revolution will not be a replay of Iran.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turks Rise Up Against Dictators! Well, Some Dictators…
It’s wonderful news! Islamist Turks have finally discovered the vices of the autocratic/kleptocratic regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. But why do they hate Mr. Ben Ali, whose name they had not heard of until a fortnight ago, or Mr. Mubarak, whose undemocratic credentials are well older than a week?
In the Maghreb case, the Islamist Turks have just learned that the distant country with “a flag similar to our” was not run by just a dictator, but by a secular dictator. They also learned that that shameless dictator had sent into exile a man whose name they cannot remember — but anyway — that good Muslim now talks about taking the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, as a role model for democracy. Mr. Ben Ali could not have been allowed to oppress the Tunisians. In the future, Rashed Ghannoushi can because he will be “our” dictator.
And in the case of “Pharaoh” as the Turkish protestors refer to Mr. Mubarak, Islamist Turks are angry not because he has undemocratically ruled Egypt for 30 years, but because the largest Muslim nation in the region has been at peace with Israel, not at war.
It was not a coincidence that at the weekend’s anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Istanbul and Ankara, protestors carried Mr. Mubarak picture with the Star of David superimposed over it. The usual gathering of “Islamic” NGOs (this time joined by a leftist one, too) protested him for “not having flown Egyptian fighter jets to defend Gaza.” Ahmet Faruk Ünsal, secretary-general of Mazlum-Der, an “Islamic” human rights organization (how bizarre of a mission, “Islamic” human rights…) voiced a rich menu of pleasantries about Egypt’s possibly departing leader because “he guarded Israel by shutting the gates of Gaza.”
But some of the protest language was encouraging. Demonstrators in front of the Egyptian Consulate in Istanbul shouted that “they were standing for resistance against dictatorship.”
Abdurrahman Dilipak, a prominent Islamic intellectual and writer, generously talked about “our Muslim brothers who live under oppression…” The rare non-Israeli-related language at the protests gave us hope for democracy — the one that does not come with a faith-based adjective.
Now we can cultivate further hope that the Turkish Islamists may in the future rise up against all oppressive regimes — the regimes that oppress their fellow Muslims to begin with.
How about starting with our next-door neighbors, Syria and Iran? For sure, Turkish democrats should be protesting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which he inherited by blood rather than winning at the ballot box. How about showing some solidarity when President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s guards systematically kill dissidents including, most recently, Zahra Bahrami, who was arrested after taking part in anti-government protests and was hanged for “drug possession and smuggling.” Beware, Iranian diplomatic missions, next time Mazlum-Der and Mr. Dilipak may show up in front of your buildings to protest your government’s anti-democratic behavior!
What about protesting in front of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Ankara? Do our Saudi brothers not deserve democracy and free elections? Are we not going to “stand for our oppressed brothers”? Are we not going to “stand for resistance against dictatorships”?
The awakening Turkish soul is bad news for Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, too. Sooner or later, Islamist Turks should start protesting Mr. al-Bashir, wanted by an international court for genocide and crimes against humanity. Surely the Turks will stand for their Muslim Sudanese brothers mass-murdered by Mr. al-Bashir’s vigilantes.
In the meantime, the Democratic Turkish Resistance Solidarity Movement should turn its angry looks on the kings, emirs, sheiks and sultans of the Middle East… only to help liberate their fellow Muslims from dictatorships of all possible tags. Bad news for the kings, emirs, sheiks and sultans…
I am not the one to teach the Islamists Islam. All the same, the Tunisia/Egypt protestors should better refresh their knowledge with one verse: “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be [against] rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts [of your hearts], lest you swerve, and if you distort [justice] or decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that you do.” (Quran, 4:135)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: President Saleh: Opposition Should Abandon Day of Rage
(ANSAmed) — SANAA, FEBRUARY 2 — The President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has used his speech to Parliament to urge opposition groups not to go ahead with tomorrow’s “day of rage” protests, and to “freeze all scheduled protests, demonstrations and sit-ins”.
During the speech, Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years, announced that he would freeze a constitutional change that would have allowed him to extend his Presidential mandate, which expires in 2013, and also ruled out handing over the reins of power to his son. “No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock,” Saleh told deputies, who were called to an extraordinary meeting. “The interests of the country come before our personal interests,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: Pro-Gov’t Groups Also Protesting in Sanaa’s Tahrir
(ANSAmed) — SANAA, FEBRUARY 3 — On the “Day of Rage” called for today by Yemeni opposition groups in Sanaa, hundreds of pro-government protestors have begun demonstrating in the streets. Demonstrators gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in the capital — a square bearing the same name as the one in Cairo which is currently a battlefield between anti- and pro-Mubarak supporters. The protest called the opposition groups is instead being held near the Sanaa University after the government party’s decision to garrison Tahrir Square, which was initially chosen as the gathering place: at least 20,000 are taking part in the march against Saleh’s regime.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bhutan: Buddhist Monk, First Casualty in Anti-Smoke Law, Could Get Five Years in Prison
Police found 72 undeclared packets of chewing tobacco in his possession. The anti-smoking law is designed to limit tobacco consumption and smuggling. It gives police the power to enter people’s homes at will. Smoking and using tobacco products is contrary to Mahayana Buddhism, the kingdom’s official religion.
Timphu (AsiaNews/Agencies) — A Buddhist monk could get five years in prison for consuming and smuggling contraband tobacco. Police caught him with 72 packets of chewing tobacco, which he had not declared at customs, and promptly arrested him on smuggling charges. In the small Himalayan kingdom, Mahayana Buddhism is the state religion, and smoking is deemed bad for one’s karma.
The 24-year-old monk is the first casualty of the country’s new stringent anti-smoking law, which allows police to enter people’s homes with trained dogs to find tobacco products.
The government aims at making Bhutan the first smoke-free nation in the world. Anyone caught in possession of tobacco products is liable of up to five years in prison.
Although smoking in private is not against the law, smokers are restricted to 150 grams of legally imported tobacco products. They must however provide a customs receipt when challenged by police.
The new law replaces one adopted in 2005. The latter banned the sale of tobacco on Bhutanese territory but was thwarted by a thriving smuggling business with neighbouring India.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Zardari Urges Prime Minister’s Son to Resign From Punjab Committee
Lahore, 2 Feb. (AKI/Dawn) — Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has asked Abdul Qadir Gilani, son of the prime minister, to resign from the chairmanship of a Public Accounts Committee of the Punjab Assembly.
Sources said that during a meeting with Abdul Qadir Gilani on Wednesday Zardari told him that he wanted to replace him with someone who could “embarrass” the provincial government on different issues in much the same was as the chief of the National Assembly’s accounts committee, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, did the PPP-led federal government. Dawn
“Yes I was asked by the party co-chairman to resign and I will follow his instructions,” Gilani said.
He said during his tenure he discharged his responsibilities with dedication. “I even refused to avail the perks and privileges of the office,” he said.
There are two public accounts committees in the assembly. One is headed by Gilani and the other by Opposition Leader Chaudhry Zaheeruddin.
Both the committees have not been giving a tough time to the PML-N-led provincial government.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Group Urges Release of Boy Held Under ‘Intolerant’ Blasphemy Law
Karachi, 3 Feb. (AKI) — Pakistani must immediately free a 17-year-old boy charged with blasphemy for allegedly disparaging the Prophet Mohammed during a written exam, a leading international human rights group has said.
Muhammad Samiullah was arrested on 28 Jan. and charged under Pakistan’s blasphemy law on suspicion of making slanderous remarks in April 2010, New York-based Human Rights Watch has said in a statement.
The organisation, citing press reports, said police had jailed the student in Karachi, the commercial capital, at the weekend after an education official raised a complaint over remarks he had written.
“Pakistan has set the standard for intolerance when it comes to misusing blasphemy laws, but sending a schoolboy to jail for something he scribbled on an exam paper is truly appalling,” said Bede Sheppard, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s bad enough that a school official flagged it, but for police and judicial authorities to go ahead and lock up a teenager under these circumstances is mind boggling.”
Critics of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, say they are abused to persecute religious minorities or settle grudges since convictions can be delivered with little evidence.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in support of the laws in Karachi and other Pakistani cities after a police bodyguard killed Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, for criticising the legislation on 4 January.
Pakistan has yet to out any executions under the law and guilty verdicts are sometimes overturned on appeal, but hundreds of people remain in jail on blasphemy charges. Suspects have in some cases been lynched.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Blasphemy Law: Rehman Withdraws Proposed Changes, As Teacher Denounces 17-Year-Old Boy
With her life threatened by Muslim fundamentalists, the PPP Member of the National Assembly accepts to toe the party line and accept the government’s view. Prime Minister Gilani confirms that changes will not be introduced. A student is arrested in Karachi for blasphemy after he is accused of insulting the name of Muhammad in an exam. Human Rights Watch calls the decision “truly appalling”.
Lahore (AsiaNews) — Sherry Rehman, a member of the National Assembly for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has agreed to follow the party line and withdraw her bill to amend the controversial blasphemy law. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani made the announcement at a meeting with a group lawmakers in Islamabad. He said he had spoken to Rehman and that she had agreed to withdraw her proposed bill to amend the ‘black law’. In the meantime, a 17-year-old student was jailed on blasphemy charges after an invigilator reported on him for insulting the name of the Prophet Muhammad in an exam paper.
Ms Rehman, who has been threatened by Muslim fundamentalists for proposing changes to the controversial law, has decided to accept her party’s line after Prime Minister Gilani said the government had closed the door to any changes to the law.
Last year, she had proposed eliminating the death penalty from Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which covers blasphemy, enraging fundamentalists who then issued a fatwa against her.
Sherry Rehman had explained that changes were designed to “prevent abuses” in the application of the law. In a public statement, she had talked about “simple” changes to guarantee that people were “given a chance to prove their innocence” and to ensure that no one could “makes false charges in the name of the Holy Prophet”.
Meanwhile, the infamous ‘black law’ continues to be abused. Pakistani police arrested a 17-year-old student in Karachi last Friday. He is accused of blaspheming against Islam in a paper he wrote during a high school final exam. Muhammad Samiullah, who has been in jail since his arrest, was denounced by one of the invigilators in charge of supervising the exam.
Human rights groups and civil society associations responded immediately calling for the repeal of the blasphemy law. Human Rights Watch (HRW) appealed to the Pakistani government to let the boy go.
“Pakistan has set the standard for intolerance when it comes to misusing blasphemy laws, but sending a schoolboy to jail for something he scribbled on an exam paper is truly appalling,” said Bede Sheppard, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Mgr Lawrence Saldhana, archbishop of Lahore and president of the Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, spoke out against the growing Islamisation of the country and the ever-tighter bond between state and religion. He said he was saddened by the attacks against the Pope and the burning of the pictures of Benedict XVI and Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti. Dissociating himself from any violent action, he extended his “solidarity and gratitude” to the Catholic minister, but did not mention the blasphemy law or any changes to it. (JK)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan’s Deadly Blasphemy-Seeking Vigilantes
The murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by his own guard has prompted an ever growing witch-hunt, driven by religious groups but controlled by no one. The threat of this uncontested vigilantism posing as Islamic empowerment should be taken as seriously as the Taliban.
There was a moment last weekend that juxtaposed beautifully with the latest crisis faced by Pakistan. As hundreds of thousands — Islamists and Marxists, centrists and otherwise apolitical working men and women — marched for democratic regime change in Egypt, 40,000 mostly men marched in Pakistan’s heartland city of Lahore to protest against changes to the country’s controversial blasphemy law regime. Protesters in Lahore threatened to cause greater anarchy if the blasphemy laws were changed — threats reminiscent of the Pakistan Taliban.
It is important to note that, as an instrument for protecting the honour of Islam, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been an abject failure. As rights groups point out, the laws are vaguely defined and do not require accusers to prove criminal intent. Police rarely investigate before arresting alleged blasphemers. Taseer’s murderer may say he killed him for committing blasphemy, but there is no evidence he ever did anything of the sort. Taseer’s only crime was to highlight the severe failings of the blasphemy laws, a point lost on many who endorsed his murder.
“If a campaign were to be carried out on all the electronic media explaining exactly what the blasphemy laws are, the fact that vigilantes have murdered other people due to political, economic or other rivalries and motives, people would not favour it,” says veteran journalist and human rights campaigner Beena Sarwar.
Since the current laws made defiling the Qur’an and defaming the prophet crimes punishable respectively by life imprisonment and death in 1986, anywhere between 300 and 3,000 people have been accused of blasphemy. Of these, roughly 50% belong to religious minorities, a group that constitutes only 3% of Pakistan’s 180 million population.
But the blasphemy laws do not just target religious minorities and the poor. The slain Taseer, a wealthy businessman and key ally of President Asif Zardari is testament to that. But even Muslims are not safe from the witch-hunt. During a visit to a village in the Punjab late last year, I was told that local Sufi Muslims had charged “a young Wahhabi” with blasphemy for arguing that Prophet Muhammad was a human being and that prayers should not be directed to him or venerated saints but only Allah.
Last Saturday a magistrate remanded a 17-year-old boy on charges of blasphemy after he allegedly wrote insulting comments about the Prophet during an exam more than eight months ago. Most disturbing, the charges were brought by the intermediate board of education in Karachi. The board noted that the boy confessed to the “unpardonable sin” and blamed it on frustration over inability to answer an exam question and the influence of a discussion about Islam he had with some cousins from Norway.
In a society where the law and order system is already fragile and amenable to vigilantism, the blasphemy law has opened up a Pandora’s box of opportunities for people to take the law into their own hands, or force fearful police and courts to provide a rubber stamp to their vendettas. None of Pakistan’s major politicians or its powerful army chief, not traditionally averse to making public statements on matters of national interest, has condemned Taseer’s murder or the misuse of the blasphemy laws.
Political parties were glaringly absent from public prayers organised for the slain Taseer over the weekend. In response to a request to attend one of them, Senator Abdul Rahim Khan Mandokhel from Balochistan said, “he [Taseer] met his fate. This is our religion. You have to accept it or leave Pakistan.” In an open letter, a broad coalition of citizens called the Citizens for Democracy condemned the remarks and urged the president of the senate to take disciplinary measures against Mandokhel if he did not offer a public apology. Others have called on the courts and police to charge people who have publicly called for victims of the blasphemy laws or advocates for their reform to be murdered…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Tajikistan: Dushanbe Cedes Farmland to China
About 1 per cent of the country’s land is set aside for the peaceful invasion of Chinese farmers. The government claims labour shortages in rural areas are to blame because so many Tajiks go abroad to work. It also says Chinese farmers will bring new farming technique that will benefit everyone. However, dissatisfaction is growing in a population that already has to endure food shortages.
Dushanbe (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Some 1,100 square kilometres of Tajik land (about 1 per cent of the county’s total land area) have been ceded to China for agricultural purposes. Hundreds of Chinese farmers from Xinjiang are coming to grow rice and cotton in Kumsangir and Bokhtar districts of southern Khatlon Province, but are meeting hostility from the local population.
People are complaining that the land should go to poor Tajik farmers rather than foreigners. They note that 93 per cent of the country is mountainous, and not all of the remaining seven per cent is arable.
The vast majority of rice and cotton Tajik farmers grow is exported for hard currency to pay the huge national debt. Food and staples are already scarce in Tajikistan, and now outsiders will be allowed to benefit from the bounty of the land.
The government has defended its decision, saying the mountainous and unpopulated land along Tajikistan’s eastern border contains little of value, with no farmland, minerals, or other resources.
However, the authorities have not been very forthcoming about the deal, which surprised the population when it was announced. In fact, it is not at all clear what Beijing will give in exchange for the land.
With thousands of Tajiks working abroad, especially Russia, for months on end or on a permanent basis, there are labour shortages in rural areas.
Tilomurod Daniyarov, an official with the Agricultural Ministry’s international affairs department, told Radio Free Europe that the Chinese have promised to introduce drip-irrigation methods and other contemporary farming techniques to the regions and share their expertise and technology with neighbouring Tajik communities.
Some experts warn though that Beijing might try a peaceful “occupation”. Tajik sociologist Rustam Haidarov warns for example that, “It is China’s strategy to resettle its people in different countries.” First, “They occupy slowly, cautiously. They realise their own goals in Tajikistan and affect our economic policy. In time this will lead to an influence in politics.”
China has invested some US$ 4 billion in Tajikistan in recent years, and is participating in a number of joint projects. But for the most part, it sends its own workforce to implement such projects, meaning unemployed Tajik workers get no relief.
According to the Tajikistan’s labour migration service, there were some 30,000 Chinese migrant workers in Tajikistan in 2007, mostly employed in road construction, electrical substations and mining sites. By 2010, they numbered some 82,000.
Many newcomers are merchants who become permanent residents. They sell discounted wares from China whose price their Tajik counterparts cannot match. Once driven out of business, indigenous merchants have little choice but to join the ranks of migrant workers in Russia.
Even Kazakhstan’s president proposed a similar deal to China at the end of 2009, but it proved so unpopular that the idea was quickly dropped.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks Cables: British Muslims Travelling to Somalia for ‘Jihadi Tourism’
The United Nations special envoy to Somalia was so worried about rebels linked to al-Qaeda that he urged the United States to launch targeted strikes against extremists in the region.
But to the frustration of the Americans, Britain was slow to grasp the scale of the threat from Somalia, despite warnings that the largely lawless country was an “incubator” for terrorism. MI5 now believes jihadists from the al-Shabaab movement in Somalia represent a significant threat to Britain. Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, publicly warned of the threat last year. Al-Shabaab controls large parts of the lawless south and has been linked to al-Qaeda. Pakistan was previously regarded as the training ground of choice for British terrorists.
In January last year, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN Special Representative for Somalia, told US diplomats that the country was becoming “a terrorist incubator”. “We are facing a very serious threat by people with money and organisation,” he said, adding that a “high number” of foreign fighters had joined the armed opposition, including American and British citizens.
“Stating that the threat is critical, Ould-Abdallah urged targeted operations on terrorists in Somalia,” the documents say. In a dispatch from the US embassy in Nairobi a month earlier, the Americans detailed British fears over the threat posed by Somalia. Britain saw “a growing likelihood” of attacks from radicalised British Somalis who had travelled to Somalia or Pakistan for “indoctrination and training” and returned to commit acts of terrorism, the cable said. Large numbers of British passport holders lived in the region while many young British Somalis were sent there for “straightening out” by their families.
“There is also believed to be a certain amount of so-called ‘jihadi tourism’ to southern Somalia by UK citizens of Somali ethnicity,” the file said.
During 2008, US officials were becoming increasingly concerned at the failure of their British counterparts to grasp the scale of the problem. On Dec 4, Robert Tuttle, the US ambassador in London, told the State Department that the Foreign Office opposed sending peacekeeping troops to Somalia on the grounds that “there is not enough peace to keep” in the country…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Analysis: German Political Radar Turns Toward Immigrant Debate
Take a declining population, stir in fears of economic collapse, add a bestselling book on the perils of Muslim immigration and you have the ideal mix for a political scrap about the integration of minorities in Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition this year faces seven state elections, one of which for the first time pits established parties against a group founded by Germans of Turkish origin whose stated mission is to improve integration.
Though polls give the Bremen Integration Party (BIP) little hope of entering parliament when the northern city state holds a vote in May, the BIP’s emergence has crystallized an awkward dilemma of growing importance for German policymakers:
Do lawmakers need to increase pressure on immigrants to adapt to German ways, or does the country need to make itself more attractive to outsiders to keep the labor market afloat?
A row over Muslims stirred up last year by ex-central banker Thilo Sarrazin means politicians can no longer duck the issue, said Gerd Langguth, a political scientist at Bonn University.
“Integration will be a hidden agenda in the elections,” he said. “I don’t think politicians will go on the offensive because it’s too dangerous due to Germany’s past. But the Sarrazin debate is forcing parties to address the issue.”
Sarrazin topped bestseller lists last year with “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany does away with itself), a book that argued German culture was at risk from Muslims, who he said had been a drain on state coffers since arriving after the war.
Germany’s political establishment initially closed ranks to condemn Sarrazin’s theories, but over ensuing months, the tone of the integration debate shifted rightwards as polls showed the former Berlin state finance minister enjoyed widespread support…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
British People Most Anxious About Immigration: Survey
Britons are the most anxious about immigrants, an international survey of eight European and North American countries has suggested.
The Transatlantic Trends poll of about 1,000 people in each country found 23% of British people thought immigration was the country’s biggest problem.
This compared to about 10% in the EU and the US.
The findings came even though five of the nations had a greater proportion of foreign people in their populations.
The survey, commissioned by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) in the US, involved the United States, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
According to the research 59% of Britons believed there were “too many” immigrants, easily the highest proportion in the survey.
In Germany and the Netherlands, both countries with a higher level of foreign-born residents, the figure was 27%.
British respondents were the most likely to say immigrants were a burden — about a quarter of UK respondents did not think even legal migrants should be allowed to access the NHS or state schools.
In other European countries the figure ranged between 1% and 5%.
The British were also the most likely to say that immigrants took jobs from native-born workers.
However, nearly three quarters thought the government should allow more foreign doctors and nurses into the UK and just over half wanted more foreign care workers for the elderly.
Seven out of 10 people in the UK said their government was doing a poor job in managing immigration — this was behind only the US (73%).
GMF president Craig Kennedy said the survey was a “wake-up” call for governments.
“The survey shows that North Americans and Europeans have strong opinions about immigration policy, what works, and what doesn’t,” he said.
“But the survey also shows that the more one is exposed to immigrants, the more one feels positively toward them.”
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Council of Europe Criticises Dutch Family Reunification Policy
The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights has singled out the Netherlands in a critique of tighter rules on family reunification in a number of European countries.
The commissioner says people who want to bring partners or children to many parts of Europe face ‘unreasonable requirements’.
These become insurmountable obstacles which prevent migrants from being with loved ones, Thomas Hammarberg is quoted as saying.
‘The new Dutch government has — in agreement with the PVV — decided to introduce much stricter requirements for family migration ‘focusing on restricting and reducing the number’, Hammarberg said.
‘It has also made clear its intention to work in the same spirit for a review of the EU directive on the right to family reunification.
Under Dutch rules, men or women wishing to bring in a foreign partner must earn at least 120% of the official minimum wage. Their partner must pass a language and integration test in their country of origin and be at least 21 years old. The new government wants to increase that to 24.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: One in Three Doctors in Britain Are Now Trained in a Foreign Country
More than one in three doctors practising in Britain were not trained in the UK, according to the General Medical Council.
The latest figures found that 73,542 doctors, or 37 per cent, were trained in 147 different countries including Mongolia, Sudan and Haiti.
The List of Registered Medical Practitioners includes both GPs and specialists.
It comes as doctors leaders expressed concerns about foreign doctors who are allowed to work in the UK without checks because European laws forbid employers to test their skills if they were trained in the EU.
This applies to 22,000 foreign-born medics, according to the GMC.
Last year, the Nigerian-born German doctor Daniel Ubani was banned from working in the UK in 2010, after he gave a lethal overdose to a 70-year-old patient on his first shift working for a private out-of-hours firm.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Let Us Not Pray: MP Says Image of Commons Would be Improved Without Daily Worship
Customary prayers at the Commons should be scrapped as Britain is not ‘an overwhelmingly Christian country anymore,‘ a Tory MP has declared.
Jo Johnson, MP for Orpington, and brother of London Mayor Boris, claimed ending the daily practice of saying prayers in the House of Commons chamber would improve the image of MPs among the public and save time.
Mr Johnson said ‘institutionalised worship’ was not ‘a good use of everyone’s time’.
He was referring to the practice of saying prayers in the Commons before the day’s business begins.
The ‘rather controversial’ change would have minutes off the business of the day. he told MPs.
Mr Johnson said: ‘I don’t think institutionalised worship in the main chamber is a good use of everyone’s time.’
Prayers are usually led by the Speaker’s Chaplain and take about three or four minutes. The public and the press are not allowed in the galleries until prayers are over.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Chiefs Fly Gay Pride Flag… But Are Forbidden to Put Up the Union Jack
Police chiefs have come under fire today for flying the rainbow flag for lesbians, gays and bisexuals outside its police stations — when they are forbidden to display the Union Jack.
The multi-coloured ‘Freedom’ flag adopted by the gay pride movement in the 1970’s is now flying at Suffolk Police’s Ipswich HQ and its stations at Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft.
The flags — which include the force’s badge — are to mark lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history month.
But there was fierce criticism of the move after it was revealed that stations were not allowed, under force policy, to fly the Union Jack or the Cross of St George.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda Has Ability to ‘Scatter Handfuls of Radioactive Dust’
London, 2 Feb. (AKI) — Al-Qaeda would probably not have too much trouble acquiring uranium that can be used in a so-called dirty bomb, according to Bob Ayers, a London based security expert who worked as an intelligence agent for the United States government for almost 40 years.
“They probably could deal through a middleman that would link them up,” Ayers told Adnkronos International in an interview. “As we know, there are many countries with nuclear power plants that use uranium.
The high-quality weapons grade material is difficult to buy, but the “low -quality stuff you can wrap around a conventional bomb is not stuff that is hard to buy,” he said. The explosion would spread the uranium “like scattering handfuls of radioactive dust.”
Newly released security briefings obtained by Wikileaks have suggested that Al-Qaeda was plotting a programme of “dirty radioactive IEDs”, makeshift nuclear roadside bombs that could be used against British troops in Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday.
According to the cables, security leaders at a 2009 NATO conference informed member countries that Al-Qaeda operatives were devising a scheme to plant “dirty radioactive IEDS” that could target alliance forces in Afghanistan.
Ayers said that all it takes is money in order to purchase uranium. Even without money, a group can use threats to force someone with access to uranium to hand over the material.
Once they have the uranium, it is difficult to get it through security screening in most western countries, according to Ayers.
“They can pack it in a big lead box but that is heavy and would arouse suspicion. They can certainly do it, but I suggest it is more of an aspiration than an ability.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
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