Greece: European Confidence Rises, Stock Market Up
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, FEBRUARY 4 — Today the Athens Stock Exchange opened on a positive note, in the footsteps of the positive climate in Europe. The General Index is up 0.86 after the first deals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jamie Glazov: Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood Romance
In the summer of 2009, when the world witnessed brave Iranians taking to the streets in an effort to overthrow the Islamofascist regime that was terrorizing them, the president of the United States merely shrugged his shoulders and shuffled his feet. Encouraging words somehow failed him. But today, as the world watches the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 occur right before its eyes, Obama suddenly sees it fit to stretch out a hand of solidarity to the Muslim Brotherhood — giving the Islamist group a green light to share power in a post-Mubarak Egyptian government. In other words, instead of taking a concrete stand against a jihadist entity, a U.S. president has given it his own personal blessing and stamp of approval. It’s the Jimmy Carter-1979 shah betrayal all over again — and with horrific deadly consequences once again on the horizon.
None of this, of course, should come as any surprise; rather, it should be completely expected. Barack Obama is, after all, a man of the left, and the left is always charmed by adversarial terrorist forces that seek to do harm to free democratic societies. Thus, helping to pave the road for the Muslim Brotherhood to take power in Egypt is only to be expected from America’s radical in chief. The Muslim Brotherhood is, after all, an influential Islamist organization and the ideological forebear of Hamas and al-Qaida. Its top objectives are to implement Shariah law and to annihilate Israel. Once it comes to power in Egypt, it will bring Khomeini-style killing fields to purify all non-Muslim infections.
The historical record is simply there for anyone who has an honest interest in the psychological makeup of the left. Leftists have prostrated themselves before despots throughout history — during the whole Cold War and now vis-à-vis jihadists in the terror war.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Stanley Kurtz on Obama’s Socialism
Very informative interview with Stanley Kurtz, author of “Radical-in-Chief:Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism”.
Kurtz’s meticulously documented book proves far beyond any reasonable doubt that Barack Obama is and has always been a covert socialist.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Concerned About Swedish Wolves and French Hamsters
France stands to lose a case at the European of Justice over its neglect of the ‘Great Hamster of Alsace’, a species facing extinction, while Sweden is about to be taken to court by the Euopean Commission for allowing wolf hunting, in breach of EU law.
France’s agro-environmental measures to protect the endangered hamsters “are incomplete at this stage,” according to a legal opinion of the European Court of Justice published on Thursday (20 January) and seen by AFP.
If the judges in Luxembourg follow the non-binding opinion, Paris stands to be slapped with a multi-million-euro fine for not protecting the endangered species.
Commission figures show that numbers of the ‘Cricetus cricetus’ hamster have fallen from 1,167 in 2001 to 161 in 2007, mainly due to a change in crops — with French farmers preferring the more lucrative maize to the forage crops the animal is feeding on.
Paris has in fact given subsidies to farmers to grow forage crops or wheat, but the commission said it the measure was insufficient.
In a similar case, announced on Monday, the EU executive said it may take Sweden to court for giving licences to kill wolves, in breach of the bloc’s wildlife protection laws.
“I regret that Sweden has begun the licensed hunting of wolves,” environment commissioner Janez Potocnik said in a statement.
The Swedish environmental protection agency said that between 15 January and 15 February, licensed hunters would be permitted to shoot 20 wolves, with thousands of hunters already having killed 16 of them.
Stockholm maintains that this measure is “in line with EU rules,” despite criticism last year when it re-introduced wolf hunting after a 46-year-long break. A 2009 decision by the Swedish parliament limits the wolf population to 210 animals, spread across in 20 packs, with 20 new pups per year, for a period of five years by issuing hunting permits in regions where wolves have recently reproduced.
The Swedish Hunters Association says this measure is saving the wolves from inbreeding and rejected EU’s concerns.
“Basically what we’re trying to do is that we try to save the wolf with hunting,” Daniel Lidne, a spokesman for the group was quoted as saying by ABC News. He also said the EU does not seem to know how well the monitoring of the wolves and the hunt is working in Sweden.
But to animal rights activists, who also tried to disrupt the hunt by going into the forest with firecrackers to frighten the wolves away, the EU statement is a welcome development.
“The noose is tightening around Sweden,” said Mikael Karlsson, head of Sweden’s Association for the Protection of Nature.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Record Cognac Production and Sales
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 25 — The figures regarding cognac, both its production and turnover, are all positive. This was announced by the ‘Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac’, which underlines that worldwide five bottles of cognac are sold per second. In 2010 cognac consumption set an all-time record with a turnover of 1.860 billion euros, after a slight decrease in 2009 due to the economic crisis.
On a global scale, the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) office in Paris reports, more than 12.8 million cases of cognac were exported in 2010, the equivalent of 153.1 million bottles (+17.9%). A total of 555,000 hectolitres were produced that year. The best cognacs — Vsop and Xo — held the largest market share (54.5%). Its largest consumers are the Asians (33% in volume), followed by South America (32%) and Europe (30%).
Looking at foreign trade, 97% of the cognac that is produced in France is exported and the sector’s trade balance shows a surplus of 1.83 billion euros, the equivalent of the sale of 35 A320 Airbus airplanes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Siberian Tiger Seized From Slain Mobster’s Estate
Owner shot dead in mafia war last month
(ANSA) — Rome, February 1 — A rare Siberian tiger has been seized by police from the estate of a southern Italian mobster slain in a mafia war last month.
The tiger had lived for 16 years in a cage on the estate near the town of Monteroni di Lecce in Puglia belonging to Lucio Vetrugno, a 55-year-old who was shot dead there on December 22. Vetrugno, nicknamed ‘Lucio of the Tiger’ by fellow criminals, was a convicted member of a powerful clan of Puglia’s Sacra Corona Unita, Italy’s fourth major mafia syndicate after Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra.
The tiger, who eats around 30 kilos of meat a day, is currently in the care of forest guards and will soon be transferred to a shelter for big felines near Bologna. It is the latest in a string of examples of Italian mafiosi showing a liking for dangerous exotic animals.
In December police bust a Camorra drugs ring that used a large white python to protect their cocaine stash, months after a similar case of a snake being used to guard narcotics.
In September 2009 police caught a Naples crime boss with a large crocodile he was said to have frightened extortion victims with if they showed any reluctance to pay up.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiscal Federalism Blocked in Big Setback for Govt
League had suggested plan crucial to avoid early elections
(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — Silvio Berlusconi’s fragile centre-right government suffered a big setback Thursday when its ‘fiscal federalism’ plan cherished by key ally the Northern League was blocked by a parliamentary commission.
The Northern League had suggested it may force early elections if the proposal was not pushed through, but votes in favour and against were tied 15-15 in a joint House-Senate commission, meaning it had been rejected.
The League, whose heartland is the richer north of Italy, has fought for years to change the country’s political geography so that more tax money remains where it is generated.
They said it will also empower the poorer south to take charge of its own development, as more spending powers would be given to local authorities too.
Critics say the project will widen the gap between the affluent northern regions and the south, or Mezzogiorno, while some local authorities have expressed doubts about the technicalities of how the plan will function. The government immediately went into a huddle after the vote, amid opposition calls for Berlusconi to resign.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Female Kidney Donor Fired for ‘Taking Too Much Time Off Work’
Venice, 24 Jan. (AKI) — A nursing home in the northern city of Venice sacked a 50-year-old woman carer for “taking too much time off” after she had donated one of her kidneys to save her sick brother, local newspaper Il Gazzettino reported on Monday.
The woman, Francesca Scarpa received a phone-call from her employer telling her that her contract would not be renewed because she had been off work for five weeks after the operation to remove her kidney.
“They didn’t renew my contract and just phoned to say they no longer needed me as I’d taken too much time off, although I’d worked there for over a year,” Scarpa said.
“If my younger colleagues were to get pregnant, the same thing would happen to them,” she added.
Scarpa worked at the nursing home on short-term three-months contracts issued by an unnamed employment agency.
Her most recent contract expired on 31 December. Although doctors had told Scarpa not to return to work for approximately eight weeks, on 3 January she told her employers she was prepared to return sooner but could not lift heavy objects.
She had one of her kidneys removed on 26 November as her brother was in urgent need of the transplant.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Wilders: Same Case, Different Judges
After a break of more than three months, Geert Wilders is scheduled to appear in court again on Monday. The charges are the same: inciting hatred and discrimination and insulting groups of people. But the judges are new.
Populist anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders successfully objected to the trial proceedings last year. The judges had made mistakes, he claimed, and had not given him an honest chance to conduct his defence. The review committee agreed with him.
So the trial has had to be restarted. All the witnesses may have to appear in court again. And the Public Prosecutor’s Office is represented by the same prosecutors. The same team who called for Mr Wilders to be acquitted when the trial started to go awry the first time…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pope’s Organ Donor Card ‘Invalid’
Pope Benedict has a soft spot in his heart for organ donations, but his body parts can’t be donated to save lives after he dies, the Vatican says.
A doctor in Germany had been using the fact that the pope possessed an organ donors’ card from a medical association to advocate the practice. The Vatican asked him to stop, but he did not.
To settle the matter, the pope’s secretary, Monsignor George Gaenswein, sent a letter to the doctor and the missive was reported in the German programme of Vatican Radio.
“It’s true that the pope owns an organ donor card . . . but contrary to public opinion, the card issued back in the 1970s became de facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger’s election to the papacy,” Vatican Radio quoted from the letter.
In 1999, six years before he was elected to the papacy, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger disclosed that he always carried an organ donor’s card with him and encouraged the practice as “an act of love”.
Vatican officials say that after a pope dies, his body belongs to the entire church and must be buried intact.
Furthermore, if papal organs were donated, they would become relics in other bodies if he were eventually made a saint.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
The European Human Rights Judges Wrecking British Law
For the third time in a week, Strasbourg’s unelected European Court of Human Rights is under the spotlight.
First, Tory MPs made it clear they have no intention of bowing to the court’s demand to grant the vote to tens of thousands of prisoners.
Next Lord Carlile, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws, said its rulings against deportation had turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for those who wish the country harm.
Now Damian Green, the immigration minister, has said its rulings have turned human rights into a ‘boo phrase’.
He said the court’s judgments — and our own judiciary’s liberal interpretation of them — meant the public immediately expected bad news when the phrase ‘human rights’ was uttered.
‘Clearly, something is wrong if you get to that stage’, Mr Green said.
His remarks will fuel the anger of MPs towards the European court.
In 2005, 17 judges ruled in favour of John Hirst, who argued prisoners should be able to vote. He had been in jail for killing his 69-year-old landlady with an axe, after which he calmly made a cup of coffee.
Under pressure from the court, the British government announced last year that it would comply with the ruling. Hirst celebrated by drinking champagne and smoking cannabis — and put a video of it all on YouTube.
The court believes it can overrule the UK Parliament and Supreme Court.
But the astonishing truth is that its 47 ‘representatives’ need never even have served as judges in their homeland.
[…]
The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said many of the judges cannot speak English or French — the languages of the court — and do not understand how they reached their own judgments.
The judges — one for every nation in the Council of Europe — have blocked the deportation from Britain of countless foreign criminals and awarded thousands in compensation to alleged Islamic terrorists.
The court gave £4,700 to Soviet spy George Blake for ‘distress and frustration’ after the Government banned him from publishing a book about how he betrayed Britain.
And £7,000 was handed to Stuart Blackstock, who shot PC Philip Olds in the 1980s, after his release from jail was delayed.
Opponents say it is a nonsense to believe a single body is capable of passing judgment over a continent with such diverse moral and social structures as Europe.
The British judiciary is in no doubt that the European court is seeking to impose a federal law upon the UK.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK Police Crime Map Website: Who’s the Victim Here?
Earlier this week the Home Office unveiled its crime-mapping website, which was developed by Leicester-based ad agency Rock Kitchen Harris for £300,000.
Immediately following the site’s launch, Police.uk suffered a serious bout of stage nerves as it wobbled under the demand from UK residents seizing the chance to find out what crime was being committed in their neighbourhoods.
[…]
Then step forward one man who grabbed the data and created his very own police crime-spewing stats website in eight hours flat. Software architect Rob West’s Crimesearch.co.uk portal might lack the kind of prettiness, bandwidth or scale that Police.uk supposedly boasts, but it does demonstrate what one bored coder can do in response to a fantastical cash splurge by a government apparently obsessed with keeping costs down.
“At my reckoning and at Home Office rates [£300,000] they should have paid me £37,000 per hour!”, West told us.
He echoed what other developers have been asking about Police.uk since its data release, endorsed by the Information Commissioner’s Office, on Tuesday: why did it have to cost so much?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘We Need to be a Lot Less Tolerant Towards Islamic Extremists’: Cameron Calls for Immigrants to Respect British Core Values
David Cameron today pledged to make Britain ‘a lot less’ tolerant towards Islamic extremists who whip up hatred against the West.
In a major speech on terrorism, the Prime Minister argued that Britain has been too ‘passive’ towards organisations and preachers who poison the minds of young Muslims.
Mr Cameron said Britain needs to be less tolerant and more judgemental when faced with ideologies that threaten the country’s basic values.
Signalling a major departure from Labour’s softly-softly approach, he suggested that to ‘belong’ in Britain, individuals must sign up to core values such as freedom of speech, the rule of law and democracy.
In a barely-concealed attack on the opposition, he will say: ‘It’s time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Arrest Over Attack on RAF Veteran in Fallowfield
A man has been arrested over an attack on an ex-serviceman in Manchester.
Anthony O’Brien, 69, was wearing his Royal Air Force jacket and a poppy when two men shouted abuse at him in Fallowfield last November.
When he replied, one of the men punched him in the head, he was then headbutted and left with two black eyes and a swollen nose.
A 24-year-old was arrested on suspicion of assault and released on bail until Thursday pending further inquiries…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: David Cameron Stands by His Attack on Islamism
An angry row broke out after Sadiq Khan, Labour’s shadow justice secretary, accused the Prime Minister of “writing propaganda” for the nationalist English Defence League by calling on Britons to be more robust in rejecting Islamist extremism.
Ministers demanded that Mr Khan apologise for “smearing” the Prime Minister by linking him with the EDL, whose members demonstrated on the streets of Luton on Saturday, chanting “Muslim bombers off our streets” and holding banners aloft, some of which read “No more mosques”. Baroness Warsi, the Conservative party Chairman, said: “For Sadiq Khan to smear the Prime Minister as a Right-wing extremist is outrageous and irresponsible.
“Mr Khan is Labour’s shadow justice secretary and ran Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign. He must apologise, and Mr Miliband needs urgently to disown his colleague’s baseless accusation.” The Prime Minister was also criticised by Muslim groups for pronouncing that multiculturalism had failed in Britain because it had led to segregation.
In a major speech tackling the threat posed by Islamic extremists, the Prime Minister warned that “hands-off tolerance” of unacceptable practices by minority communities had only served to encourage extremism.
He called for a “muscular” defence of British values. Speaking to a conference in Munich, Mr Cameron said that the threat of terrorism must be confronted not only though intelligence and surveillance, but by taking on the ideology of Islamist extremism at home.
“Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism,” the Prime Minister said. While a “passively tolerant” society allows its citizens to do what they like, so long as they do not break the law, a genuinely liberal country “believes in certain values and actively promotes them”, Mr Cameron said.
“Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights, regardless of race, sex or sexuality. It says to its citizens: This is what defines us as a society. To belong here is to believe these things…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: EDL Return to Luton
Abdul Salaam is not exactly the kind of person the English Defence League expected to recruit. But there he was, a Muslim willing to stand in the middle of a crowd chanting “Muslim Bombers off our Streets”.
We found Glaswegian Abdul in Luton’s St George’s Square — and he explained why he, a follower of Islam, was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with an organisation accused of Islamophobia.
“The EDL are supporting England, supporting Britain, and I’m British, so why can’t I support my country?” he said.
“Have you seen me getting any racist abuse? They applauded me. Why are other Muslims not here? This demonstration is nothing to do with colour or religion. These are people who have watched their country being bombed and they are angry. These are patriotic Englishmen, red-blooded Englishmen.”
Mr Salaam said he wasn’t particularly assiduous about praying five times a day — and that he probably didn’t get to a mosque as much as he should. But he insisted he was a true Muslim who thought deeply about his faith — and it was his duty to speak out alongside the EDL.
“I’m here to support Britain and to defend Islam as well,” he said. “There are people who, under the name of Islam, blew up trains. They’re not Muslims, they’re hypocrites. When people have dragged Islam through the mud, it’s my duty to speak out as a Muslim.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Full Text: David Cameron’s Munich Speech on Segregation, Radicalisation and Islamic Extremism
Today, I want to focus my remarks on terrorism.
But first, let me address one point.
Some have suggested that by holding a Strategic Defence and Security Review, Britain is somehow retreating from an activist role in the world.
This is the complete reversal of the truth.
Yes, we are dealing with the deficit, but we are also making sure our defences are strong.
Britain will continue to meet the NATO two per cent target for defence spending.
We still have the fourth largest military budget in the world.
And at the same time, we are putting that money to better use, focusing on conflict prevention and building a much more flexible army.
That’s not retreat, it’s hard headed. Every decision we take has three aims firmly in mind.
First, to support our continuing NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Second, to reinforce our actual military capability.
As Chancellor Merkel’s government is showing here in Germany what matters is not bureaucracy — which frankly Europe needs a lot less of — but the political will to build the military capability we need, as nations and allies, to deliver in the field.
And third, to make sure Britain is protected from the new and various threats it faces.
That’s why we’re investing in a national cyber-security programme and sharpening our readiness to act on counter-proliferation.
The biggest threat to our security comes from terrorist attacks — some of which are sadly carried out by our own citizens…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hate on the Streets: Massive Police Operation as Far-Right Group Descends on Town in Protest Against ‘Extreme Islam’
[Comments: Note the biased tone in the article.]
Thousands of English Defence League (EDL) supporters descended on the town that spawned the far-right movement for an inflammatory protest today.
The far-right street protest movement opposes what it sees as the spread of Sharia law and militant Islam in England. The group gathered in Luton, where counter-demonstrations were organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and sections of the town’s Muslim community.
A massive police operation was launched with more than a thousand officers on the streets at a cost of more than £800,000.
By early evening, police said that 19 people had needed medical treatment throughout the day, sixteen of whom were members of the public or protesters — all with minor injuries. Three of the 19 were police officers — again all classed as minor injuries — and none were thought to be as a result of assaults. Eight people had been arrested, mostly for possession of offensive weapons and assault.
The demonstration was taking place just hours after Prime Minster David Cameron delivered a speech in Munich in which he declared that multiculturalism had failed in the UK and he called for a ‘muscular liberalism’ that challenges Islamist extremism more forcefully.
Around 150 members of UAF formed a blockade at the exit of Luton train station in a bid to stop EDL supporters entering their designated area ahead of the demonstration.
They linked arms and chanted ‘close the station’ and ‘Nazi scum off our streets’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Embassy Protesters Demand Sharia Law Amid Continuing Chaos in Egypt
Hundreds protest outside Egyptian embassy in central London
UK government complains to Egypt over text messages seen to instigate violence
Britons fleeing violence tell of machete-wielding vigilantes and escaped prisoners roaming ‘war zone’
Protesters waving placards calling for Islamic law to be imposed in Egypt have demonstrated outside the country’s embassy in London.
For several days, a peaceful protest has seen hundreds of ex-patriots and supporters of regime change mass outside the embassy in the centre of the capital.
Today, brandishing signs such as ‘democracy will bring oppression’ and ‘Islam is the solution for Egypt’, women in burkas were joined by men in traditional dress for a rally calling for sharia law to be imposed.
Behind barricades, holding flags aloft, they faced a line of uniformed police in the quiet streets of central London, far from the chaos of Tahrir — Liberation — Square in Cairo.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘There are approximately 300 people there, all cooperative and good-natured.’
What to wear to a riot: A saucepan lid, a hoodie, goggles and a rose for peace, advises pamphlet for Egyptian protesters
The demonstrations — in varying numbers — have been going on for several days, as crisis has engulfed Egypt and claimed the scalp of President Hosni Mubarak.
The previously peaceful protests in Cairo turned violent once the long-time head of state announced his intention to stand down at the next election, with his supporters clashing with those who want the 82-year-old to step aside immediately.
Many waved banners declaring ‘Now!’ — a reference to their demand for President Mubarak to go immediately, and not linger for months as he insists he must to ensure a peaceful transition.
Families with children joined the trek to Tahrir Square, despite fears about stone-wielding Mubarak supporters determined to respond to the continuing popular uprising against him.
The 82-year-old president himself has insisted he will serve out the remaining seven months of his term to ensure a stable process.
‘You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now,’ Mubarak said he told President Barack Obama. He warned in an interview with ABC News that chaos would ensue.
The upsurge in violence led Europe’s leaders to deliver a warning to the Egyptian authorities today to answer their people with ‘political reform, not repression’.
The statement agreed at a Brussels EU summit stopped short of calling on President Hosni Mubarak to step aside.
Instead it challenged the regime to honour the terms of a £150 million-a-year EU ‘Association Agreement’, under which Egypt is committed to push through political and economic reforms in return for trade concessions and financial aid.
The EU statement came as Barack Obama’s administration said it was in talks with Egyptian officials about the possibility of Mubarak resigning straight away, and the formation of an interim government before free and fair elections later this year.
The text urged the Egyptian authorities ‘to meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people with political reform, not repression’.
It said: ‘All parties should show restraint and avoid further violence and begin an orderly transition to a broad-based government.
‘The European Council underlined that this transition process must start now.’
The UK government has complained to Egypt after Vodafone Group Plc was ordered to send text messages seen to instigate violence as demonstrators demanded the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt contacted the Egyptian ambassador in London to discuss the order to Vodafone after the company reached out to the government, the Foreign Office said last night.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday issued a statement calling the ‘abuse’ of Internet and mobile-phone networks ‘unacceptable and disturbing’.
Britons fleeing the violence on a Foreign Office-chartered flight told of the chaos in the country.
Shukria Ahmed-Nur, 16, told how marauding thugs terrorised the streets near where she lived.
She said: ‘There were men with samurai swords, machetes and other weapons.
‘They were outside our apartments, walking up and down the stairs, which was really scary.
‘We were just hoping we would get out alive.’
Mother-of-two Jala Ibrahim, 33, from Fulham, west London, said: ‘The country is in a really bad state at the moment. It’s a bit like a war zone but the people are fighting for their rights.’
Stephanie Harkin, 25, a teacher from Luton, Bedfordshire, said: ‘Our main problem was prisoners escaping from a nearby prison. We had a lot of men outside our house and so we had to create a makeshift neighbourhood watch.
‘We had to sleep with knives by us as well. Across the road on the next compound there were reports that seven people had been killed and that neighbours had been attacked by thieves.’
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based media watchdog, said it had recorded 24 detentions of journalists, 21 assaults and five cases in which equipment was detained over a 24-hour period.
European leaders have urged Egyptian authorities to protect reporters covering the country’s crisis.
The call came as a Swedish TV journalist was reported to be in a serious condition after being stabbed.
| — Hat tip: Shirl in Oz | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Hunt Man Who Fled Country After Sex Attack
Police are hunting a 68-year-old man who was arrested over a sexual assault in a Manchester park and then fled the country while on bail.
Saleem Jaura, of Trafford, was arrested over an attack on a 37-year-old woman in Victoria Park on 12 March 2008.
He was given bail as the Crown Prosecution Service looked at the case. They authorised police to charge Mr Jaura but he had travelled to Pakistan.
Police now believe he has returned to the UK and are keen to trace him.
They have asked anyone who has seen him or believe they may know him to contact police or Crimestoppers…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rabbi Nachum Shifren — The Vision of Sir Winston Churchill — Then and Now
Speech to be given before the thousands of supporters of the English Defense League in Luton, England
For millions of Americans such as myself, there remains a special grandeur in the British people, long after the “Great War” has ended, long after the average schoolboy or girl has stopped recalling that there was once a real threat to the entire island.
What we remember most from those long-forgotten trials of fire, is the tremendous spirit of defiance, an unyielding attitude of tenacity in the face of an overwhelming evil. There are no fitting words to use in recounting the admiration that has been shown for that great statesman and hero to all that understand and cherish what we have in our Western civilization, the great Sir Winston Churchill.
As one re-reads those now-famous utterances that gave hope to a lost world, devastated entirely by the Nazi juggernaut that stood poised to conquer it, there arises at once an immediate recognition and correlation of a modern symbolism of those dark years of despair and loss of freedom.
From “Their Finest Hour Speech” by Sir Winston Churchill:
“I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions … The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. (He) knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
[…]
My dear British friends, the battle for your land, the struggle over your souls has begun! Let no one deny the tenacity and mercilessness of our enemy, both here and abroad. There is not one person here today that doubts that the essence of Islam is about war and submission. It is long past the hour where men of good faith came to reason and dialog, where the dimmering light of reason was snuffed out by the dreadful call of …ALLAH AKHBAR!
And so, as you go on your daily routines, you are struck by the sheer audacity of this “enemy from within”, as he dictates to you what you can do and what you can’t:
[Comments: see URL for rest of speech.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tory MP Claims He Was Mocked for Disability in House of Commons
Paul Maynard said that Labour MPs had made faces at him, stretching their cheeks, apparently impersonating him as he spoke in the Commons chamber.
The behaviour has been condemned by fellow MPs. In an interview with The Times, Mr Maynard, whose constituency is Blackpool North & Cleveleys, said that MPs on the opposite bench were “trying to put me off my stride” and could have been put down to “normal parliamentary tactics”.
He added: “Only they known for certain whether they were taking the mick out of my disability. But it felt like it.”
A spokesman for John Bercow, the Speaker, who oversees parliamentary debates, said he was unable to comment on an individual case. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Labour party said that the incident could have been a “misunderstanding” that took place during the heated atmosphere of a parliamentary debate.
The Labour party stressed that it does not tolerate discrimination and was a consistent campaigner for equality.
However, a female Labour MP, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Times that she had seen the alleged abuse take place. She said that both sides of the Chamber were guilty of “deeply retrograde and unacceptable behaviour” amongst some MPs and said that younger female MPs were also subjected to “constant sneers”. Fiona O’Donnell, a Labour MP whose daughter has cerebral palsy, saw the behaviour aimed at Mr Maynard but said that the perpetrators had not realised that he was disabled.
She claimed that they stopped the abuse once they realised the situation.
“Not that I in any way condone the behaviour. What people should do is hesitate before they jump,” she added.
Mr Maynard criticised the “schoolboy antics” of the chamber and said that the adversarial style of the encouraged “childish behaviour”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: ‘Scorpion’ Arrested on Suspicion of Killing Six Muslims
Belgrade, 1 Feb. (AKI) — French police have arrested Milorad Momic, a former member of a paramilitary unit “Scorpions” on suspicion of taking part in the killing of six Muslim civilians in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995, Serbian media reported on Tuesday.
Momic, 47, was arrested Tuesday morning on a Serbian warrant in southeast France, near Grenoble, where he lived under the false name of Guy Monier, Tanjug news agency said. He offered no resistance during arrest, the agency said.
Momic and a group of “Scorpions” were shown in a video aired in Serbia gunning down six Muslims, including three minors, in the village of Trnovo in July 1995.
A Serbian court sentenced four “Scorpions” members in 2007 for the Trnovo crime to a total of fifty years in jail. Momic is awaiting extradition to Serbia, Tanjug said.
Sores of Bosnian Serb officers, including general Ratko Mladic and wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, have been indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide and war crimes, including a massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
More than sixty individuals, mostly Serbs, have been already sentenced to over 1,000 years in jail for war crimes. Karadzic is currently standing trial in the Hague, while Mladic is still at large.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Terrorism, 3 Al Qaida Members Killed
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, FEBRUARY 3 — Three members of the armed groups affiliated with Al Qaida for the Islamic Maghreb were killed in Algeria near Bouira in Kabylie (80km east of Algiers).
Security forces, reports APS, killed three terrorists near Semmach. During the operation three ak47s were found.
In recent days, another two combatants were killed by the army near Chelf in the western part of the country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Detentions, And Aide’s Role, Anger Egyptians
CAIRO — Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt has won the blessing of both the Mubarak and Obama administrations as the leader of a political transition toward democracy in Egypt. But human rights advocates say that so far Mr. Suleiman, who also is in charge of Egyptian intelligence, has shown no sign of discontinuing the practice of extra-legal detention of political opponents — a hallmark of President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule that is a central grievance of the protesters in the streets.
“We have been seriously concerned about the arrests and harassment of human rights workers and youth activists who are around the demonstrations,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Cairo. “These are exactly the same practices that inspired the Jan. 25 demonstrations in the first place, not a departure.”
The continuing pattern is one reason many of the opposition leaders and protesters in the streets say they are determined not to back down until Mr. Mubarak leaves office: if he stays, they say, they risk imprisonment, torture and death…
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Egypt’s Christians Say They Are Being Excluded From Opposition Negotiations
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — The uprising of the Egyptian Youth, both Copts and Muslims, has been dubbed as the “Facebook Uprising” mainly because it was started by modern and educated youth who depended on the social network “Facebook” and “Twitter” to organize themselves. Until now it appears that they are nondenominational, do not belong to any political party and without a leader, demanding the “ousting of the present corrupt regime and the octogenarian President Mubarak, to make way for a democratic and secular Egypt, with social justice and equality for all Egyptians. The uprising which is now called “January 25th Youth Movement” has gained support from Egyptians of all walks of life.
Several Coptic organizations have been taking part in the demonstrations, believing that change in Egypt is coming and they have to be there. They perceive their participation will put weight and balance the scales for a secular state.
Activist Rami Kamel, one of those responsible for the Coptic Youth Movement, said thousands of its members participated in all protests and in all areas, including the “Day of Departure” demonstrations on February 4, which called for the immediate ousting of Mubarak, and confirmed their intention to do so, until all demands of protesters are met. He added they joined the demonstrations the first day. “We have to get rid of the President, and his regime, which was the cause of the decline of Egypt economically, socially, and caused all the sectarian problems suffered by the Copts.”
After President Mubarak bowed to international pressure and the ongoing daily protests asking for his departure, he declared that he would not seek reelection but would finish his current term. Mubarak appointed a vice-president and brought in a new government which called on all parties to join in a dialogue for the future. All parties have been invited to take part in this dialogue except for the Copts.
This has angered Copts world-wide, especially since they believe their January demonstrations all over Egypt after the bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve (AINA 1-2-2011) was the spark that ignited the present uprising “by breaking down the barrier of fear..” This view is also held by the Coptic Church, whose Bishop Anba Suriel of Melbourne told “The Australian” on February 5 that “he believes the nascent revolution began with the New Year massacre of 23 Copts.”
For his part, Coptic Dr. Naguib Gabriel, head of the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights Organization, addressed Major Omar Suleiman, Vice-President of the Republic, urging him to include the Copts in the dialogue with the national authorities, initiated by the Vice President on Wednesday, on grounds that the Copts are part of the national community, and must participate in decision-making, particularly in the constitutional committee.
Gabriel stressed in his message to the Vice-President, which was aired on some TV channels this morning, that it is not possible under any circumstances to exclude Copts from the national dialog. He pointed out that many Coptic youth were killed and wounded since the beginning of the January 25th Youth Movement, demanding with their compatriots constitutional, legislative and social reforms. He wondered how could the Muslim Brotherhood can be invited for dialogue and not the Copts, who comprise 15-20% of Egypt’s population.
It was reported today that Islamist groups have asked Major Omar Suleiman to be included in the dialogue.
Rami Kamel told the Egyptian daily el Masry elYom the Coptic Youth Movement has legitimate demands consistent with those of the rest of the demonstrators, pointing out the regime has ruled out Coptic activists from the dialogue with the political authorities, which confirms the marginalization of the Copts.
Coptic Pope Shenouda III said on Egyptian state TV two years ago that the number of Copts in Egypt exceed 12 million. “This is based on baptisms and marriages in addition to lists of families in the church registers all over Egypt,” said Father Antonius Isaac of St. Mary’s Church in the Mohandeseen area of Cairo. “This number does not include Copts in small villages and hamlets who have no church and have never seen a priest, due to the government policies of limiting church building.”
The main Coptic demands are a new secular and democratic constitution without the second Article of the present Egyptian Constitution, which states that Islamic Sharia is the source of legislation, and which makes them second class citizens.
“We are at least 15-20% of the Egyptian population and we demand proportionate representation and definitely no restrictions on church building,” said activist Joseph Armanious. “We also demand what all other Egyptian protesters are asking for, but these demands come on top.”
The Coptic Church had called on its followers not to join in the protests, angering many Copts who decided not to follow the soft attitude of their church towards the regime, saying that it only has to limit itself to spiritual matters. Faced with the pressure of the defiant Coptic youth, the church was later forced to relax its stance and allowed Copts to join but only in “peaceful protests, in a civilized manner and within the law.”
Pope Shenouda gave his support for Mubarak at the beginning of the protests, which led many activists to accuse the church of believing Mubarak, “who managed to present himself to the Coptic Church and the Coptic people as the ultimate guardian of Copts in Egypt, despite this regime being responsible, first and foremost, of all sectarian terrorist incidents that took place against the Copts,” says Coptic activist Fawzy Hermina. He added: “The scandal and the straw that broke the camel’s back was what the British Embassy in Egypt said, that the Ministry of Interior is the organ which is responsible for planning and carrying out the bombing of the “Two Saints” Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve, which killed thirty and wounded ninety Copts.”
Many Copts share this view, including Coptic political analyst and activist Magdy Khalil, who said “Mubarak has been involved one way or another in the Alexandria church bombing.”
Reuters/Arabic carried out an interview with Coptic demonstrators in Tahrir Square, published on February 4. It reported that most of them said that they want to see Mubarak toppled and his regime gone “now more than ever.” One Coptic dentist explained that the New Year’s Eve Alexandria church bombing brought to an end the lie that the regime was protecting the Copts, and that was why the Copts went out demonstrating against Mubarak at the time, while another Copt who came from Nag Hammadi, where six Copts were shot by a Muslim on Christmas Eve 2010 (AINA 1-7-2010) said “We came here to show that every Egyptian should be here and want to be here, no difference between Christians and Muslims.”
Speaking about the fear of the Copts at the present moment, Coptic activist Wagih Yacoub said “Things are moving so fast and nobody knows what to expect next, everything is up in the air, however, Copts are desperate that an Islamic outcome should be avoided. We all say yes to change, but no to an Islamic state.”
Asked in a television interview with CNN on January 31, Coptic business Tycoon Naguib Saweiress, who has been appearing recently as a Coptic leader, praised the “Facebook Uprising” as he also called it, but cautioned that “one has to watch the Muslim Brotherhood of not hijacking this uprising.” This view is shared by all Copts and Muslims who do not agree with Egypt becoming an “Islamic Caliphate.”
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: American Pastor Carries on as Conditions in Cairo Disintegrate
When the Rev. Benjamin Robinson noticed that the ever-present police officers had disappeared from the street corner outside his apartment in a Cairo, Egypt, suburb one night last month, he got nervous. He’d followed news of the growing protests six miles north in the city, but the absence of a police presence in the suburbs concerned the Presbyterian minister.
“This is bad,” Robinson thought. “Something’s about to happen.”
A week earlier, inspired by the ouster of Tunisia’s president, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets to demand the exit of their own leader, President Hosni Mubarak. Since then, violence has escalated across the country as Mubarak’s government has attempted to quash the protests.
[…]
“There are communities of refugees that are barely hanging on,” he said. “The banks have closed. There are no ATMs working. They have no access to their money to pay rent, and they have no way to eat.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Egyptian Military Chief Says Foreign Islamic Militants Are Adding to Unrest
Gen Salah Halabi said that “intruders” and “external elements” entered through tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza strip, and could be working with the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group under a strategy drawn up before the protests against President Hosni Mubarak began in Egypt. “I strongly believe that the destruction, fires, freeing of prisoners and terrifying of the Egyptian people and foreign press are acts shaped and tailored by external elements,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “Investigations will show this fact in the near future.” He also insisted that the military would remain out of politics and respect the results of future elections.
Gen Halabi, the chief of staff from 1991 to 1995 who ran the Arab Armament Organisation, a major military procurement business, after his retirement from the military, made the comments during an interview from his home in Cairo. His views provide a powerful insight into the thinking of senior ranks within the one Egyptian institution that commands the respect of both protesters and ruling party alike. Here is the interview in full question and answer form. Sunday Telegraph: As the world watches events in Egypt, how do the armed forces view their role?
Gen Halabi: “According to the constitution, one of the duties of the armed forces is to protect constitutional legitimacy. In our case, their role is to protect the regime and the elected president from any attempt to overturn him. The current revolution — People’s revolution — does not represent a lethal threat for the regime or the legitimacy. “On the other hand, some intruders infiltrated the situation to threaten Egyptian national security with acts of destruction and brutality. The Armed forces had to secure the streets, economy, regime and the people (anti and pro-Mubarak activists) while avoiding use of violence. This is a very sensitive role. In general terms, the armed forces should not interfere in any internal conflict nor take any side.” Sunday Telegraph: How do you feel when you see the violence and the fighting and could you ever have imagined witnessing this on the streets there?
Gen Halabi: “The violence we see is a natural result of the clash of two opposite groups of activists embracing opposite ideas and beliefs. I never thought I could see these acts in Egypt nor believe they come from Egyptians.”
Sunday Telegraph: There has also been US pressure for President Mubarak to stand down before the elections in September. Where do you think the current Egyptian senior officers stand on this issue? Gen Halabi: “Any foreign pressure would not be accepted by most Egyptians. As for the senior officers, they have their own opinion, but the declared opinion is that they are professional fighters who do not get involved in politics and support constitutional legitimacy.” Sunday Telegraph: What would the military’s position be on elections if it seemed that the Muslim Brotherhood or a coalition of Islamic parties might emerge victorious?…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Brotherhood: Mubarak Must Go [Video]
The finance minister in the new Egyptian government formed by President Hosni Mubarak has said the vice-president, Omar Suleiman, is due to hold talks with some opposition leaders.
The biggest opposition group in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, has said it would be willing to take part in discussions with the government only if Mr Mubarak resigns immediately, a point emphasised to Newshour by one of the movement’s leaders, Mohammed Bishr…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pulling Back the Egyptian Veil
Soros and Iran, want ElBaradei to take power without winning an election
The Obama administration is demanding an immediate “transition” in Egypt. By transition they mean that Muslim Brotherhood hand puppet Mohammed ElBaradei should take power immediately without the benefit of winning an election first.
Mubarak has agreed not to run for reelection. ElBaradei said that he won’t run for office, but then said that he might run “if the Egyptian people want me.” (As if the Egyptian people have anything to do with it.) But the foreign backers of the protests, Soros and Iran, want ElBaradei to take power without winning an election.
They know he can’t win an actual election and that the Muslim Brotherhood running directly would upset the West too much. This way ElBaradei gets to play the stalking horse for the Brotherhood. So the calls are not for “open and fair elections”, but for an immediate transition. For Mubarak to leave right now.
The fundamental difference between the protests in Iran and those in Egypt, is that Iranians were protesting a stolen election, and in Egypt the protesters want to steal an election before it actually takes place.
[…]
That’s tens of thousands in a country of eighty million. A whole 0.01% percent of the country has shown up. Which means that Mubarak must go! Right now! No elections needed.
Now the Tea Party has put a lot more people than that into the streets to rally against Obama. Nationalist rallies in Israel have hit the hundreds of thousands, in a country with only a few million of people. But the media has never called them “huge” or treated them as an absolute mandate for change.
Every idiotic article billing this as a democratic transition is a pathetic joke. This is not a democratic transition. This is a manufactured revolution. Food riots co-opted by a student protest movement funded and organized by Soros’ people and then co-opted again by the Islamists.
[…]
Let’s sum up. Mubarak must leave before there are “huge” crowds of tens of thousands protesters. And if he won’t leave, we’ll use the army to pressure him to leave. And his replacement will be a coalition between Iran and Sweden’s favorite Egyptian ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood.
This may be the best plan that the foreign affairs people have ever come up with. Almost as good as the plan to push out the Shah and replace him with a democratic government of protesters in alliance with the Ayatollah Khomeini.
How did that one go? Let’s take an ugly walk down the black brick road to Tehran, 1979.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Revolution in Egypt and the Hidden Hand
The rise of terrorism, together with the rise of massive street demonstrations, was integral to the Soviet Bloc pattern of accelerating the “national liberation” struggles of the Third World. According to Finnish historian and researcher Antero Leitzinger, by 1968 Moscow had designated Egypt as its principal base for subverting the entire Arab world. Despite the fact that President Anwar Sadat broke with the Soviet Union and wiped out many KGB agents in Egypt, Sadat was nonetheless assassinated and a new subversive movement was developed. The KGB turned to political Islam “as the most promising basis for winning Arab hearts” in Egypt. Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolution served as a guidepost. “Among the closest associates of Khomeini there were many Communists who had conveniently grown beards,” noted Leitzinger. “Mustafa Ali Chamran had studied in California and Egypt before he founded a Red Shi’ite secret society. His pupils included later foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi, oil minister Mohammed Gharazi, and a Lebanese fellow student [at] Berkeley University, Hussein Shaikh al-Islam, who led the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim Brotherhood Hates Us
Forget the Saudi djellaba or the Taliban beards: the new face of the Muslim Brotherhood is modern, elegant and more difficult to decipher. “Many Brothers are clean-shaven, wear suits and ties and are physically indistinguishable from other Egyptians of the same class”, wrote Reuters correspondent Jonathan Wright. The new Supreme Leader of the Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, wears expensive pinstripes, talks quietly and is one of the most respected veterinarians in Egypt.
The Brotherhood now preaches “hurriyah”, freedom, and “dimuqratiyah”, democracy, but in August, Mr. Badie proclaimed that “if the Muslim Brotherhood had remained in the field, the Zionist Entity would not have stood nor would its flag have been raised”.
The Brotherhood declared war on the Jews, Europe and the West. But the Western media disguised the real intentions of the new Brotherhood leadership.
Immediately after his election one year ago, Badie proclaimed: “We will continue on the path of Sayyid Qutb”.
Very few “experts” understood the deep meaning of his statement. The stories about the suffering of Qutb in Egyptian prisons are a kind of original mythology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb was held for hours in a cell with dogs snarling while being beaten during long rounds of questioning. Badie was his cellmate.
Qutb managed to get his manifesto, “Milestones”, smuggled out of the jail. It is often defined as the “Mein Kampf of Islamism”. This text circulated clandestinely for years and it was later banned.
Qutb’s disgust for the degenerate West does not stop with its women or jazz music, which he claimed was “created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires”. He described the West as a “rubbish heap” and claimed that because of its “enmity toward Islam” it planned to “demolish the structure of Muslim society”.
Qutb also managed to publish the essay “Our Struggle with the Jews” (reprinted as a book by the Saudi government in 1970). In the essay, Qutb vilified the Jews as “slayers of the prophets”, and as essentially perfidious, double-dealing and evil.
Qutb was hanged on August 29 1966, after the dawn prayer. It was a strategic martyrdom, which has planted deep roots in the Islamist soul. Qutb had written that the only way to get rid of corruption of the Egyptian colonialist regime was the imposition of a “just dictatorship” and the war against modernity, secularism, rationality, democracy, individualism, sexual promiscuity, materialism and Zionism (which had contaminated Islam).
To Qutb and Badie, the U.S. and Israel are the biggest evils that exist. “The jihad against the infidels is a commandment of Allah”, said Badie in August. Badie has also called for raising “a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life”.
“You love life and we love death” are the words attributed to an Al-Qaeda organisation after the Madrid train bombing, while Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, called on the Lord to kill the Jews, “down to the very last one”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Commander Said Back in Gaza After Egypt Jailbreak
A senior Hamas commander returned to the Gaza Strip on Saturday after breaking out of a Cairo jail during the political upheaval in Egypt, sources in the Palestinian Islamist movement said.
They said Ayman Nofal had been arrested in the Egyptian Sinai in early 2008 for allegedly planning to carry out a terror attack in Egypt. According to Egyptian media, he had been armed and was suspected of hunting members of the rival Palestinian faction Fatah who had fled from neighboring Gaza.
Five other Palestinian militants who had been held at Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo made their way back to Gaza this week, using smuggling tunnels to circumvent Egyptian border controls.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jerusalem: Israel Reopens Historical Tunnel, Tension
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, JANUARY 25 — At the end of seven years of excavations carried out with maximum secrecy, the Israeli Department for Antiquities has announced that it has completed the reopening of the ancient tunnel that runs in part under the Old City of Jerusalem, not far from the Temple Mount (also known as the Esplanade of the Mosques). According to the Israeli press, there are fears of protest demonstrations by the Arab population, even though the underground passage does not pass under the Mosques and thus the excavations have not threatened their stability.
Daily paper Maariv reports that the tunnel was used to carry rainwater from the zone of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem towards the underground pool of Siloe. 2,000 years ago quantities of water would be made available to Jewish pilgrims which periodically flowed to Jerusalem. In subsequent centuries, the tunnel was filled with soil and detritus.
The newspaper adds that the tunnel is 600m long. It starts near the Dung Gate (the gate in the walls of the Old City that is nearest to the Wailing Wall). The tunnel then drops down steeply under homes in the Silwan quarter, before reaching the pool of Siloe. Maariv specifies that the police in Jerusalem have been put on high alert. In recent months, Silwan has been the scene of frequent clashes between the Palestinian population and the Israeli police following friction caused by the progressive expansion of a nucleus of Jewish settlements called ‘Ir David’ (namely the city of King David) within the neighbourhood.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai: Nakheel Cancels Trump Tower Project
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, FEBRUARY 03 — The project to build the Trump Tower, another skyscraper meant to be an icon of the unbridled luxury residencies for which Dubai is known, will no longer be built, announced Chairman Ali Rashid Lutah of real estate giant Nakheel, which built the Palm Jumeirah, the palm-shaped island on which the Trump International Hotel&Tower was supposed to be built. We have to be realistic about these projects now, said Lutha, cited by The National. “There is no demand. We have to be selective.” In place of the skyscraper, announced during two exclusive events in New York and Los Angeles in 2008 attended by American multimillionaire Donald Trump (to whom the tower was dedicated) and international VIPs, a more pragmatic shopping centre will be built.
Nakheel’s portfolio includes other ambitious projects — such as a 1km-high skyscraper that should have taken the record from Burj Khalifa, built by another UAE real estate giant, Emaar — nonetheless, first the global financial crisis and then the local crisis forced Nakheel, which is part of Dubai World, to undertake a significant restructuring of its nearly 1.2 billion dollar debt.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: 2010 Production, 140 Mln Barrels of Oil
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 31 — In 2010, Syria’s crude oil production reached 140.3 million barrels, about 386,000 barrels/day on average, with an increase of about 9,400 barrels/day compared to 2009. The state run companies, explained a statement from the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) office, contributed with 52% of the overall production. Natural gas production amounted to 10.1 billion cubic meters
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pacepa on Soviet Exploitation of Islamic Radicalism
Further evidence of the Soviet roots of Islamic terrorism.
From Ion Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union.
Pacepa was a two-star Romanian Securitate General who simultaneously held the rank of advisor to President Nicolae Ceaucescu, acting chief of his foreign intelligence service and state secretary in Romania’s Ministry of Interior.
“In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.
“According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Soviet Moon Rocket Secrets Revealed
Research that digs back over the decades is providing an illuminating look at the former Soviet Union’s failed bid to send cosmonauts to the moon. Between February 1969 and November 1972, Soviet space engineers repeatedly saw any dream of landing a cosmonaut on the moon literally go up in flames. A succession of four failures of the Soviet-built N-1 mega-booster led to the project’s cancellation by decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
For years, Charles Vick, senior technical and policy analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, has been doggedly poring over on declassified files, talking with Soviet space program pioneers and culling through their memoirs and diaries. “I would suggest that the race was far closer than publically perceived, based on declassified intelligence all the way back before Sputnik,” Vick said. “It was the Soviet system that ultimately defeated itself in the lunar race,” Vick told SPACE.com.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths Reached ‘Record’ In 2010
Kabul, 1 Feb. (AKI) — An Afghan human rights organisation said that civilian deaths last year reached a record level since the US troops invaded the country in late 2001.
In 2010, a minimum of 2,421 Afghan civilian died and more than 3,270 were injured across Afghanistan as a result of the conflict, Kabul-based Afghanistan Rights Monitor said on Tuesday in a report. “This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.”
The organisation blamed the emergence of pro-government militias for much of the the jump in violence.
‘These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse,’ the report by Afghanistan Rights Monitor said.
The organization has been monitoring and reporting on human rights violations since 2008.
Afghanistan has been recruiting and arming local militias, supported by the United States and NATO-coalition allies, in an effort to stem security gaps and combat rebels.
The insurgency was blamed for 63 percent of the total reported civilian deaths, which included the assassination of 690 people, the report said. Coalition forces were held responsible for of 21 percent of the civilian deaths; pro-government Afghan forces — police, army and militias — were accused of 12 percent of the reported deaths, the report said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Car Bomb Kills Three in NW Pakistan: Officials
A bomb planted in a car exploded Saturday killing three passengers and wounding two pedestrians in a Pakistani tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, officials said.
The bomb, which was on a timer, exploded in a moving car at Barqambarkhel village in the lawless Khyber tribal district, they said. “Three people were killed and two pedestrians were wounded when a time bomb planted in a car exploded,” Khyber’s top administrative official Shafirullah Khan told AFP.
The wounded were in stable condition, he added. Local intelligence officials confirmed the incident and the death toll. Khyber is home to Taliban insurgents and militants from the extremist group Lashkar-e-Islam, led by local warlord Mangal Bagh. Washington has branded the tribal belt a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and wants Pakistan to do more to fight insurgents streaming across its border into Afghanistan…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
In a Pluralistic Part of India, Fears of Rising Islamic Extremism
IN MUVATTUPUZHA, INDIA Wearing jeans and leaving her auburn hair uncovered never created problems for Rayana Khasi, a 22-year-old Muslim engineering student in the coastal state of Kerala.
But then came the threats. About two months ago, members of the Popular Front of India, a fast-growing Muslim political and social organization in Kerala, allegedly started sending text messages to her saying, “You’re committing blasphemy.”
They admonished her publicly in her home town of Kasaragod, confronted her family and pelted her car with stones, she said.
“Many women here are now listening to them and covering. But this is India, not Afghanistan,” said Khasi, who has moved to a different city and changed her cellphone number several times as Indian authorities investigate her charges.
For centuries, Kerala has been known as “God’s country,” and generations of Muslims, Christians and Jews were warmly welcomed by Hindus here. One of India’s most religiously diverse states, Kerala has rarely experienced the religious violence that has flared in other parts of the country.
But the Popular Front’s rise here is stirring concern as a growing number of its young members embrace a radical brand of Islam. Authorities say they fear that the group has become an example of how extremism can creep into a society, even one in which the vast majority of Muslims are not conservative.
Intelligence authorities say the government is investigating threats against women such as Khasi and other attacks, including a case in which Popular Front members are accused of severing the right hand of a Christian professor for what they felt was a slight against Islam. More than 25 men have been arrested in the case, and trials are set to begin soon.
The Popular Front, which has denied involvement in any attacks, says it sets out to defend minority groups and lower castes. But officials say they are troubled by the group’s connection to the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which was banned in 2001 for supporting terrorism and accused of involvement in the 2003 train bombings in Mumbai that killed 10 people. Many Popular Front members were once part of SIMI.
The government has struggled with how to respond to the Popular Front because it often voices ideas through protests, a right “available in a democratic society and provided for by the Indian constitution,” said Hormis Tharakan, former chief of India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. “But it’s the propensity toward violence that is most worrying.”
The group’s emotional messages that mention the Palestinians and such common Muslim grievances as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan resonate among Kerala’s highly educated population, which tends to be more aware of global issues. And nearly every household has at least one male working in Persian Gulf countries, a migration that began during the oil boom of the 1980s.
“Once there, some Keralites undergo a spiritual reawakening in countries that espouse a far stricter version of Islam,” said M.G.S. Narayanna, former chief of the Indian Council of Historical Research, who is based in Kerala. “They are told that Indian Islam is not pure and they should learn Arabic, study the Koran in Arabic. That is how it starts. Then they start learning about what they are told is hatred and injustice against Muslims around the world.”
T.J. Joseph, the professor whose right hand was cut off in July, was allegedly attacked by a mob of Popular Front recruits…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Indian Court Considers Astrology a Science
Go on, admit it, you probably take a sneaky peak at your horoscope in the newspaper now and then, out of idle curiosity of course. In India, a country legendarily associated with mysticism, millions live their daily life by what the stars dictate. Rituals to commemorate births and deaths — the bookmarks of our lives — only take place at auspicious times of the day and month. Marriages are often nixed, no matter how in love a couple may be, if the horoscopes don’t match. Even so, the news that on February 3, the Bombay High Court threw out a case questioning the validity of astrology and related practices such as reiki, feng shui, and tarot cards, is worrying.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Spot-Fixing Trial: ICC Hands Lengthy Bans to Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif
Former Pakistan captain Butt has been banned for 10 years, five of which are suspended.
Michael Beloff QC, who chaired the three-man anti-corruption tribunal in Doha found the charge that Butt had failed to disclose an approach from player agent Mazhar Majeed to bat out a maiden over in the fourth Lord’s Test against England in August as proved, although a charge that he agreed to bat out a maiden over was dismissed. Asif was banned for seven years, two of which were suspended, while Amir will serve a five-year ban…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: If the Left is to Rise Again, It Must Lift the Official Silence on Race and Culture
Today a bunch of racist hooligans will march in Luton. They are simply stupid men in casual sportswear, and nothing to do with anyone who reads this paper. The English Defence League is just a revamped version of the BNP. Right, is that good enough? Have I passed Baroness Warsi’s “dinner table test”? Have I shown that I am not an “Islamophobe” with these sentiments? I fear not. Indeed, I fear the slow response to a fast-growing movement requires more sophistication.
The EDL did not arise out of some political vacuum. They are themselves a clever, post-modern response to our muddled discourse about race, culture, identity and religion. For me to use the word “clever” about the EDL will mean I am automatically branded some kind of fascist. So batten down the hatches. I saw this week the amount of “lefty” self-congratulation floating around after the EDL leader Tommy Robinson (the man has several different aliases) appeared on Newsnight. Jeremy Paxman is back to his sneering best, even using Naughties’s four-letter word about cuts. Maybe it was thought that Paxman versus a clueless thug would be the best way to destroy this organisation’s credibility. But it wasn’t. No one was there to stop the flow.
The man may be inarticulate (ie, working—class) but he made several sharp points that are often found in the mainstream media: about sharia law, “Muslim paedophile gangs” and the treatment of women. This was a coup for the EDL, while the chattering classes mostly amused themselves by commenting on his chavdom.
Many of the same people who thoroughly condemned Robinson’s “racism” had earlier sat through My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and had been appalled at the way traveller women were treated. Is it racist to say that the traveller technique of “grabbing”, a courtship ritual leading to the mad “fairytale” wedding, is not something to be approved of? Is this another cultural difference that we can’t comment on? We now watch the white working class in programmes like The Only Way is Essex with incredulity. Aren’t these idiots with their perma-tans and stupidity ridiculous? Look at those pikies!
So I don’t agree with Sayeeda Warsi that anti-Muslim sentiment is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry. I think there are all kinds of bigotry out there, but simply some are spoken about more than others.
The reaction, though, of both the left and the right to Warsi’s speech about prejudice against Muslims told us a lot. The right wing dismiss her basically as a dumb token who is a disaster when she speaks out. The left does much the same and points to her “homophobia”, as if this negates all that she has to say. Personally I think anyone who has taken on both the BNP and the imams who wanted her to veil up is an interesting figure in the current political landscape.
Some of the things that Warsi was getting at in her speech, and indeed Robinson did in Newsnight, is the stuff that many people say when they think no one is listening. It is everyday speech. Remember, the EDL formed in 2009 after a demonstration against the returning troops from Afghanistan. Banners were held up saying “baby-killers” and “butchers of Basra”. This demonstration was organised by Al-Muhajiroun and included members of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. These are extremist groups. This is the bit where it is obligatory to say that most Muslims are not like this. The EDL evolved, if that is the right word, into the “United Peoples of Luton” in response. Many of its members have BNP pasts, criminal convictions and come out of the hooligan firms of the football casuals. This is also the bit where I will say that not all EDL support is so straightforwardly thuggish, either.
I agree with Jon Cruddas, who has fought the BNP and won in Barking and Dagenham, that the EDL may crash and burn. “But it may not, because it taps into a politics born out of dispossession but anchored in English male working-class culture of dress, drink and sport.” These people may formerly have been traditional Labour supporters, but I am afraid the language they speak echoes eerily all that New Labour told us about extremist Islam. To see the far right use women’s rights as an excuse for a ruck would be funny if it were not simply dangerous. The EDL is apparently very concerned about the treatment of Muslim women. And so was our government once. Isn’t that one of the reasons we went into Afghanistan? The EDL are now cutting their interviews with footage of a horrific stoning of a woman in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, our leaders are indeed talking to the Taliban. The EDL also speaks of the civilizing force of Israel in the Middle East, and in this momentous week I can’t help but note that at the beginning of the protests all reporters were raising the subject of “radical Islam”, while the people on the street were not. This fear of radical Islam is not conjured out of thin air. The leaders of the EDL live in a violent world. It’s not in their heads. They spread fear and hatred. They intimidate and are intimidated in return…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
EU: ‘Bloodless Persecution’ Predicted for Christians
Expert says European hostility to free, open demonstrations of faith growing
Christianity has been around what now is Europe since the first century, with some parts of the New Testament written to people in Greece and Rome. But a new report is warning that open hostility to Christianity across the continent is on the rise and intolerance is being paired with legislative power to attack and violate the religious rights of the faithful.
“There are signs that hostility towards free and open demonstrations of faith is growing. Christians are increasingly marginalized and are appearing more often in courts over matters related to faith. So I think that we are heading for a bloodless persecution,” Gudrun Kugler told Mercatornet about her organization’s newest report.
The report, called “Shadow Report on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe,” [pdf] cites page after page of examples of attacks on Christians and Christianity across Europe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Legal Abduction of Children
Horrendous as it sounds, it’s true: child abuse has become a business — an industry of sorts — that actually pays states to legally abduct your children and put them up for adoption!
Even more unbelievable is that, instead of pumping the money back into child protective service programs, some states actually are putting it into their general funds to help balance their budgets.
A number of groups have tried to reform this shady practice, but it was a California politician who caught media attention this past summer, when he said that, if elected, he would expose how local governments were amassing billions of dollars in annual reimbursements, in exchange for what amounted to legal abduction of children.
“Most people are not aware of how much profit many of these services provide the county,” John Van Doorn told a San Diego newspaper. “These profits are hard to ignore and even more difficult to pass up.
“Counties can bring in thousands of dollars in excess revenue for each child in foster care, Van Doorn said — which means they have more incentive to remove children from their families than to keep families intact. “As such … our county government is a major factor in the dismantling of families and/or destruction of children’s lives,” he said.
He then cited San Diego CPS for “egregious behaviors” that included accusing parents of child abuse without any evidence.
The ugly truth is that San Diego isn’t the only community where false accusations of child abuse occur. Across the nation, the practice has become so blatant that some of the leading experts on child abuse and foster care have started to cry “foul.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man is Banned From Having Sex by High Court Judge Because His IQ is Too Low
Known only as Alan, the 41-year-old was in a relationship with a man he lived with and said he wanted it to continue.
However, his local council said his ‘vigorous sex drive’ was inappropriate so started legal proceedings to restrict the relationship.
The authority said that his moderate learning disability and IQ of just 48 — the average is 100 — meant he did not understand what he was doing.
One psychiatrist said that he would be confused if sex education was given to him.
Mr Justice Mostyn said the case threw up issues ‘legally, intellectually and morally’ because sex is ‘one of the most basic human functions’ according to the Daily Telegraph.
He said that the court must ‘tread especially carefully’ when the state gets involved.
Despite his fears for interfering in a person’s sex life, he agreed that he did not have the mental capacity to know about the health risks and should be banned from having sex.
His council will now monitor him closely to make sure he doesn’t breach the order.
Justice Mostyn said: ‘Alan does not have the capacity to consent to and engage in sexual relations.
‘In such circumstances it is agreed that the present regime for Alan’s supervision and for the prevention of future sexual activity is in his best interests.
Alan, who lived in a house owned by the council, was in a sexual relationship with someone known as Kieron and contact between the two men has been restricted.
He was said to be physically able but ‘seriously challenged in all aspects of his mental functionality.’
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Human Genome Turns 10: 5 Lessons Learned
“We have not just primate evolution, not just mammalian, but almost back to the very beginning of life on Earth leaving a kind of archeological footprint in our DNA sequence,” said Ronald Cole-Turner, professor of theology and ethics at the Pittsburg Theological Seminary. “It suggests how deeply interwoven we are with the history of life on Earth.”
Since the human genome was sequenced, we know more about our own history, and the lines between us and other species have blurred, Cole-Turner said. A comparison with the Neanderthal genome revealed that Neanderthals likely mated with our ancestors, since between 1 and 4 percent of some modern humans’ DNA came from Neanderthals. Even the genome from the first amphibian to be sequenced, the African clawed frog, showed surprising similarities to the human genome.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kids Believe Literally Anything They Read Online, Even Tree Octopuses
Anyone can publish anything on the Internet. Despite that, children aren’t taught how to evaluate the reliability of information they read there. As demonstrated by a recent study, this is true to a shocking extent, and there may be dire implications for the future of today’s young people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Men Are Now From Venus, Women From Mars
Chalk it up to the difference between romantic comedies and real life: A new survey of American singles finds that men want babies and commitment, while women are more likely to want independence in their relationships.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Political Ideology
Why is the political left gaining ground in most Latin American countries while it is losing sympathy among the people in some Western European countries that were once called fortresses of social democracy?
If the reason is the difference between the ideologies and the people in those western countries who have started to dispute leftist ideas then the tendency can be understood. However, all political parties, from the left or the right, have nowadays been discussing almost the same social, economic and political maladies and propose almost the same remedies. What, then, is the difference? If there is not a serious difference why have people changed their minds?
The problem might be the gap between the definition of the ideologies by different political parties and the implementation of policies by those parties when they come to power. If a conservative party intervenes in every corner of the economy while defending the free market mechanism and free private enterprise, who can trust it? A social democratic party which promised a welfare state but then created a serious crisis due to the implementation of bad economic policy, thus further deteriorating income distribution, will naturally lose the sympathy of the people.
Ideology must be defined properly. In other words, political parties must define and explain their ideologies as they are written in the book, not in a way they prefer. Ideology consists of the common beliefs, approaches and concepts of a group of people — for example the sympathizers of a political party. This indicates that belief alone is not sufficient to define an ideology. It is necessary to have some approaches or policies to realize those beliefs and some concepts to support them.
For example, a person who supports the fight against poverty and unemployment cannot be at once called a leftist. Nowadays, every civilized member of society defends this idea. To be defined as a leftist one must think, discuss and, if given the chance, design policies to balance unjust income distribution and to create new job opportunities. And these policies must depend on realistic concepts, not on unrealistic dreams. Political parties on the right must also design and when in power implement policies that support the free market mechanism and fight against unjust competition, corruption, etc.
When ideology is properly defined, it is easily understood why some political parties are losing ground when others are gaining. If political parties do not stick to their properly defined ideologies they lose the trust of the people who believe in those ideologies. Or more importantly, even when they stick to their ideologies, if they are not successful in solving problems because of unrealistic approaches or policies, in the end people naturally put the blame on them.
Britain and Sweden are recent examples. According to political commentary from seasoned analysts, Britain’s Labour Party made two mistakes. First, the Labour government could not accomplish what it promised: reforming the education system, health care, transportation, etc. Secondly, when it was observed that the party was losing popularity, the headquarters began to adopt new approaches and the policies which the Conservative Party had followed for years. These two mistakes accelerated the loss of popularity.
On the other hand, there are some similar, but at the same time different reasons why the rightist coalition won a second victory in Sweden. First, they did not make the mistake the Labour Party made: they did not promise anything beyond their power to provide. As a result, they accomplished most of their promised rehabilitations of the economy. Secondly, they never tried to change any approaches or policies that defined them ideologically when they faced sudden and surprise changes in the economy and politics. Thus, they did not lose their constituency’s sympathy.
There might be another element which played a role for the increasing popularity of the political right in Sweden, which was not as effective in Britain: the increasing negative reaction to migrant workers. It is sad to imagine that even in a civilized country like Sweden, such an allergy and reaction played a role in domestic politics. However, sometimes serious problems can force people to act beyond their training and education. This is a fact of life.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Progressive-Muslim Axis
Paraphrasing the telling words of Justice Jackson who made that comment in a 1949 dissenting opinion, Terminiello v. Chicago, I would say of today’s times, particularly in light of the current insurrection in Egypt — The Constitution is not a suicide pact, but the Progressive-Muslim Axis is.
The world stands at the brink — the Progressive/Muslim Axis vs. Natural Law/Christianity. Indeed, developments in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan may indeed be that fateful domino that causes civilizations to collide into global catastrophe. Muslims want to invite apocalypse to set the stage for the so-called Twelfth Imam. Since the 1880s, progressives have provoked societal chaos through a litany of diabolical ideas and welfare policies designed to plunge America and the West into utopian socialism as a pretext to destroy Christianity, Natural Law and the Constitution while forcing society into a globalist Marxist state.
Heads the Progressive-Muslim Axis wins — tails Western civilization, Christianity and Israel lose.
Predictably, the litany of what Lenin called useful idiots comes to center stage to spout their evil propaganda. When asked by “NewsHour” host Jim Lehrer if Egypt’s embattled president is a dictator, Vice President Joe Biden answered, “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with — with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”
The next useful idiot is Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA). He told the world for a dozen years (1997-2009) that Iran has no intent of obtaining nuclear capability, and if they did it would be only for their domestic energy needs. He turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear hegemony, so now that nation possess 100 nuclear warheads. Virtually all this developed during his tenure at IAEA.
Understand leftists’ dedication to tyranny and tolerance of terror in Jamie Glazov’s “United in Hate”
ElBaradei’s reward for making the world an infinitely more dangerous place? Like Arafat, Carter and Obama, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
ElBaradei now brags to the world that his recent axis with the Muslim Brotherhood is benign. This Nazi-like organization founded in 1928 is the grandfather of the modern Muslim terrorist movement, yet ElBaradei claims that this political alliance will only bring peace to Egypt and Israel. In the meantime, Israel is furious with the Obama administration for turning against President Mubarak whom they considered a good ally and the provider of Israel’s natural gas, which is now shut off to the saboteurs.
Obama’s remarks regarding the chaos in Egypt have been unprepared, tepid and cowardly, which will only further destabilize the Middle East.
This brings me to the crux of my argument: Is Islam compatible with a republic? No! Yet other than tiny Israel, where in the Middle East or in any Muslim country exists a government structure approximating a democratic republic that guarantees natural rights contained in the Bill of Rights? Such a country can never exist under Islam because Islam is incompatible with Natural Law and a pluralistic, diverse civilization.
The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is a battle cry for perpetual war against Christianity, Israel and Western civilization — Allah is our objective, the prophet is our leader, the Quran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979 began America’s financial aid of Egypt, which amounts to scores of billions of dollars to date. Most of that money goes to Egypt’s military. Egypt, along with several other Muslim nations fought (and lost), four major wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. Why for the past three decades have we given money to build Egypt’s military and keep a dictator in power? Because they signed that treasonous false peace treaty in 1979 with that nitwit Jimmy Carter while Egypt secretly ships hundreds of tons of weaponry though their shared tunnels into Gaza, which Hamas uses to kill Israelis…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
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