California Asks: Who Will Work for Free?
At first glance, it’s difficult to decide which is more pathetic: that an information technology company couldn’t give away its services to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or that the cash-strapped state actually requested proposals on a contract that offered no payment for the job.
Late last year DMV put out word that it wanted “a no-fee security risk assessment” of its computer system and set a Dec. 31, 2010, deadline for applications.
Department spokesman Mike Marando said DMV posted the request after a firm offered the service for free. It opened the bidding process to be fair, while telling potential bidders they shouldn’t expect a paying job later.
The state spends about $650 million on information technology projects annually, but a $0 bid request? Are things really that bad?
A spokesman for the Department of General Services, which handles state purchases and contracts, called DMV’s IT post an “anomaly.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cotton Prices Jump, With Possible Difficulties for Asian Populations
US cotton futures rose 25 per cent since mid-January. Prices are at their highest level in 150 years. The commodity almost doubled in value last year. Cyclone Yasi and its potential damages to Asian growing regions will have an impact.
New York (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The price of cotton is rising fast and could threaten Asia’s mills and factories. US cotton futures jumped for the third straight day on Wednesday, setting another record. Cotton futures have rallied almost 25 per cent since mid-January, in what is the latest wave of a historic run that began in 2010 and sent cotton prices to their highest levels in almost 150 years. Cotton has had the biggest gain among major commodities so far this year, matching a feat it achieved in 2010 when it gained 90 per cent for the year.
Cyclone Yasi is worrying the market however because it will eventually hit prime cotton-growing areas in Asia. Losses there could further crimp supplies in Asian markets and negatively influence cotton prices and local economies. After being hit by higher prices on a broad range of goods, local communities will suffer even more. The textile industries in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka are in fact very sensitive to cotton prices.
A survey at the Beltwide Cotton conference this month forecast US 2011 cotton plantings to cover between 12.48 million to 12.53 million acres, a 5-year high and an increase of around 15 per cent from last year’s cotton sowings.
Although the United States is the biggest fibre exporter in the world, such a rise in plantings is seen by some in the trade as not enough to satisfy global cotton demand.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hackers Penetrate Nasdaq Computers
Hackers have repeatedly penetrated the computer network of the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market during the past year, and federal investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators and their purpose, according to people familiar with the matter.
The exchange’s trading platform—the part of the system that executes trades— wasn’t compromised, these people said. However, it couldn’t be determined which other parts of Nasdaq’s computer network were accessed.
Investigators are considering a range of possible motives, including unlawful financial gain, theft of trade secrets and a national-security threat designed to damage the exchange.
The Nasdaq situation has set off alarms within the government because of the exchange’s critical role, which officials put right up with power companies and air-traffic-control operations, all part of the nation’s basic infrastructure. Other infrastructure components have been compromised in the past, including a case in which hackers planted potentially disruptive software programs in the U.S. electrical grid, according to current and former national-security officials.
“So far, [the perpetrators] appear to have just been looking around,” said one person involved in the Nasdaq matter. Another person familiar with the case said the incidents were, for a computer network, the equivalent of someone sneaking into a house and walking around but—apparently, so far—not taking or tampering with anything.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Bankers’ Basic Pay Rises to Take Up Bonus Slack: Fd
Bankers’ pay in the Netherlands is back to pre-crisis levels due to rises in basic salaries, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday.
The paper says actual bonuses did not reach 2007 levels last year, but were much higher than 2009.
The paper bases its claims on interviews with bankers, headhunters and advice bureaus.
‘Many basic salaries have gone up 25% in the past year,’ Chris de Groot of executive search bureau Financial Assets told the paper.
Bonuses
Another source who did not want to be named put the increase at 50%. The basic salary of merchant bankers has, for example, been raised from €120,000 to €180,000. ‘But bonuses are 40% down on 2007,’ he told the paper.
Dutch bankers will hear how big their 2010 bonuses will be over the coming few days. Merchant bankers can count on 100% to 200% of salary depending on how long they have been in the job, the paper says.
Insiders argue that Dutch banks have to pay staff well to stop them defecting to foreign competition.
That theory was emphasised this week when ING CEO Jan Hommen told a government committee he ‘could not run an international company without performance related pay’, the paper points out.
Under the Dutch bank’s own code of conduct, bonuses for senior executives are not supposed to be higher than 100% of basic salary.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Palin Says Obama’s Policies Have US on Road to Ruin
Palin warns of new era of big government
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Feb 4 (Reuters) — Republican Sarah Palin said on Friday an explosion of government spending and debt under President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats had put the United States on “the road to ruin.”
In a tribute to former President Ronald Reagan, the potential 2012 White House contender said leaders in Washington had lost sight of the values that made Reagan a Republican icon and a hero to conservatives — a belief in limited government, low taxes and personal freedoms.
“This is not the road to national greatness, it is the road to ruin,” Palin said of the growth in government spending, budget deficits, joblessness and housing foreclosures under Obama. “The federal government is spending too much, borrowing too much, growing and controlling too much,” she said.
Palin said Obama had revived the era of big government, and she ridiculed the infrastructure spending and investment he outlined in his recent State of the Union speech.
“The only thing these investments will get us is a bullet train to bankruptcy,” the 2008 vice presidential candidate said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California, part of two days of festivities marking the late president’s 100th birthday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Battle Against the Clock
Madrid Is Saving to Save the Euro, But Will It Be Enough?
Spain’s economy has hit bottom, with unemployment soaring past 20 percent, as speculators bet the country will require an EU bailout. Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is undertaking mass austerity measures, and he has been praised for his action by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The stakes are high: If Spain goes bust, the euro could collapse.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Wall Street Execs on New Terror Threat Info
Security officials are warning the leaders of major Wall Street banks that al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen may be trying to plan attacks against those financial institutions or their leading executives.
Intelligence officials stress the threats are general in nature and there is “no indication of a targeted assassination plot” against any Wall Street executive. But NBCNewYork.com has learned officials fear the names of some top banking executives have been discussed by terror operatives overseas.
Intelligence analysts added they have a general but growing concern that operatives in Yemen may again try to send package bombs or biological or chemical agents through the mail to Wall Street bankers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hannity: Radical Imam’s Warning to America: ‘Islam is Coming to Your Backyard’
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: If you tuned into this program last night as I hope you did, you witnessed a very heated confrontation between myself and a controversial Muslim cleric. His name is Imam Anjem Choudary. He’s known for spouting anti-American rhetoric, and calling for the spread of radical Islam all around the world.
Now during our debate, Choudary talked about what he believes is motivating those behind the uprising in Egypt. Now he also described in great detail his support for Sharia law and the Muslim brotherhood. Now additionally I asked if he thinks the killing of innocent men, women and children on 9/11 was justified. His response was nothing short of shocking. If you missed it, take a look.
[…]
HANNITY: Islam is coming to your backyard.
Joining me now to help break down last night’s debate is the president for Act! for America.org. Brigitte Gabriel. Brigitte, I hope you saw it in full. So, and I’m very — I know you are well aware of who this so- called Imam is the one I called the mean, sick, miserable, evil SOB, which I believe he is. Your reaction?
BRIGITTE GABRIEL, ACT! FOR AMERICA.ORG: He is and I congratulate you on that interview yesterday. I watched it in full. Here’s the perfect example of someone born in Britain, as a British citizen and a Muslim family, went to British schools, raised in Britain, went to college, became an attorney in Britain. Now, how can someone like him become so radicalized to the point where he loathes the West. I mean, here’s somebody who was exposed to Judeo Christian values system, our way of life, our democracy and he despises it.
This is the problem that we are facing all over the West right now. And you tried to nail him on talking about the innocent. I mean, these people that died on September 11th, they were innocent people. And he couldn’t bring himself to say that, and here’s why — he considers them all criminals because Americans, infidels who are not Muslims who pay money, taxes to the United States government, who funds the wars against Muslims, they are not innocent, they deserve to die. And this is how people in the Muslim world look at that as non-Muslims.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Inside the Mind of an Islamist
5 Keys to the Psychology of an Honor Killer
Excerpt:
1. When Is The Aggressor Not The Aggressor? When He Has Been Forced to Defend Himself and His Lost Honor
On February 12, 2009, immediately after stabbing his unarmed wife 40 times with two large hunting knives and then brutally beheading her, he became calm, relieved. For the first time in years, he felt “peaceful.” Only then did he feel “safe from the Evil Dragon Terrorist” which is how he referred to Aasiya Zubair Hassan, the wife he had viciously battered for seven years.
Muzzammil Syed Hassan quietly told the police that he had killed his wife—but he immediately pleaded “not guilty” to second-degree murder. In fact, he told the police and the media what he is now telling the judge, prosecutors and jury in a Buffalo courtroom: that he, not she, was the “abused” and long-suffering spouse…
[…]
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Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady: Robert Gates’ Destruction of the Military
Under his watch: The Pentagon admits it cannot identify where millions of dollars go (Gates is covering for his fiscal inefficiencies by huge defense cuts, cuts that will have no economic effect and that he will not have to live with); nor can it identify the remains in over 200 graves at Arlington, which is an administrative disaster; the op-tempo is from hell (60 out of 80 months deployed is not atypical) — contributing to unprecedented rates of suicide and PTSD among soldiers and depression and anxiety in their families. As a further blow to morale, Gates hopes to cut the force, is mutilating the Marine Corps and is proposing the smallest pay raise since 1962! Plus, he’s demanding the military do more with less — a familiar term to service members that simply demands more sacrifice from them.
Initially a media darling, since the debacle with Rolling Stone magazine, Gates has set unprecedented media access controls. Still, under his leadership, more state secrets have been compromised — causing immeasurable damage — than at any time in history. He has allowed the premier combat life saver, aeromedical evacuation (once revered as Dust Off), to be stripped from the medics. This is the first time a medical resource has been so usurped since the Civil War, and I have heard horror stories from the battlefield on delayed reaction times. (I actually had a soldier from Iraq turn his back on me when I told him I was once a Dust Off pilot.)
Under Gates’ watch, soldiers’ Bibles were destroyed to avoid annoying Muslims. There can be no excuse for the military to burn Bibles. They would be court-martial for destroying Qurans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: The Closet President
By Ismael Hossein-zadeh
President Ronald Reagan did not make any bones about his intention to reverse the New Deal economics when he set out to promote Neoliberal economics. Likewise, president George W Bush did not conceal his agenda of aggressive, unilateral militarism abroad and curtailment of civil liberties at home.
There is a major similarity and a key difference between these two presidents, on the one hand, and President Barack Obama, on the other. The similarity lies in the fact that, like his predecessor, Obama faithfully, and indeed vigorously, carries out both the Neoliberal and militaristic policies he inherited. The difference is that while Reagan and Bush were, more or less, truthful to their constituents, Obama is not: while catering to the powerful interests vested in finance and military capitals, he pretends to be an agent of “change” and a source of “hope” for the masses.
There has been a wide-ranging consensus that the excessive financial/economic deregulations that started in the late 1970s and early 1980s played a critical role in both the financial bubble that imploded in 2007-2008 and the continuing persistence of the chronic recession, especially in the labor and housing markets.
Prior to his recent u-turn on the regulation-deregulation issue, Obama shared this near unanimous view of the destructive role of the excessive deregulation of the past several decades and, indeed, strongly supported the need to bolster regulation: “It’s time to get serious about regulatory oversight,” Obama argued as the Democratic nominee for president; and again, “… this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control”, as he stated in his inaugural speech.
Expressions of such pro-regulation sentiments were part of his earlier promises of “hope” and “change” in a new direction. Back then, that is, before showing his Neoliberal hand, the majority of the American people believed him — the middle, lower-middle, poor and working people who were tired of three decades of steady losses of economic security were desperately willing to believe a charismatic leader who peddled hope and change in their favor.
Recently, however, the president seems to have had a change of heart, or perhaps an epiphany, regarding the regulation-deregulation debate: he now argues that protracted recession and persistent high levels of unemployment are not due to excessive deregulation but to overregulation!
Accordingly, he issued an executive order on January 18 this year that requires a comprehensive review of all existing government regulations. On the same day, the president wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he argued that the executive order was necessary in order “to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive”.
The president further argued that “Sometimes, those [regulatory] rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business — burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs. … As the executive order I am signing makes clear, we are seeking more affordable, less intrusive means to achieve the same ends — giving careful consideration to benefits and costs.”
Stripped from its Orwellian language, this “cost-benefit” approach to health, safety and environmental standards is clearly the familiar Neoliberal rhetoric that is designed to help big business and their lobbies that have been working feverishly to stifle the widespread pro-regulation voices that have grown louder since the 2007-08 financial meltdown.
Indeed, the president’s recent agenda of further deregulation has already born fruits for big business. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 20:…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama, Egypt & History of the Muslim Brotherhood
As Egyptians ponder revolution, the globe awaits how this will effect energy prices, Middle East relations, and world stability, especially considering agitation by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is mystifying how Obama supports these protesters, while admitting he hadn’t yet called Mubarak—America’s ally and Egypt’s president. Remember Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights routine when Iranians protested rigged elections. So what is different this time?
As with all things Barack, if we scratch beneath the surface of superficial incompetence we find a genuine commitment to real leftism. It is axiomatic what excites Obama is some form of revolutionary liberalism, hence his “Change” mantra, and all subsequent progressive policies and past associations.
So his backing leftist radicals makes splendid sense considering his instinctual sympathy for Marxist revolutions, Hegel’s fatalism and hem-of-the-garment Islamism. These issues are the topic of this essay.
[…]
Evans claims Carter gave the Ayatollah hundreds of millions of dollars during his four months in Paris. Khomeini then used these funds for revolution, and seeding al-Qaeda. Carter hailed the Ayatollah as a human rights loving reformer, while booting the imperfect Shah to the curb like a plague corpse.
Dr. Evans describes how…
“President Jimmy Carter provided checks of $150 million each to Khomeini who plotted to kill the Shah of Iran and overthrow his nation. Provided $500 million to the Muslim Brotherhood freedom fighters who became the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Wire-transferred $7.9 billion to buy-back the hostages after 444 days of humiliation.”
Is history repeating itself with the sanctimonious Obama demanding Mubarak step aside? Does Barack have any idea who will replace the old Egyptian regime? Does he even care? Could we possibly be surprised if a retrograde radical Islamic sect began demanding fundamentalist policy concessions in the name of Allah?
Evans also includes this astounding fact:
“Leonid Brezhnev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, warned Jimmy Carter in 1979 NOT to assist in overthrowing the Shah of Iran. He told Carter if he did that Brezehnev would in turn invade Afghanistan.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Foreign Gifts
On the third day of Obamass, it came time to list all the gifts sent his way by foreign leaders… and the foreign gift registry has a list of gifts given to Barry Hussein , his family and his associates by foreign leaders.
The most expensive gift on the list came from, “Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” in the form of a “Large desert scene on a green veined marble base featuring miniature figurines of gold palm trees and camels”, valued at thirty-four thousand dollars.
He also kicked in a fourteen thousand dollar “necklace made of 33 pearls with a sterling silver pendant” for Michelle Obama. Along with a Ruby and diamond jewelry set. Estimated worth, 132,000 dollars.
[…]
Peres, being predictably peace goofy passed along, a “Bronze statue of a girl releasing a flock of doves”. Yes, peace, doves. We get it. Expect the statue to be buried far out of sight, only to make an appearance during the election when the big O is trying to appeal to Jewish voters.
[…]
The gift registry provides a snapshot of who’s giving as an overview of our relations with the rest of the world. And the gifts are generally coming from Muslim leaders and other enemies of the United States. The Saudi king has lavished gifts all over the White House to an almost obscene degree. To a lesser degree Pakistan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq and Qatar have too. The Chinese Communist have contributed more than the expected amount, especially as this listing predates the Hu Jintao visit. The European picture however is lacking. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi sent a lot of gifts in and Sarkozy to a lesser degree. But England is far less visible in the aftermath of Gordon Brown’s ill-fated visit to Washington, when he came bearing a fairly well thought out gift of a pen from a captured slaver vessel, and got a DVD collection in return.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oppose Obama’s Grand Islamic Plan
Thursday was the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Weakened politically and likely at this point in his administration to lose the 2012 presidential election, the “mullah in chief,” Barack Hussein Obama decided to show his face at the annual event and pretend that he is a believer in Judeo-Christian culture and ideology. But, as has been true throughout his presidency, Obama’s actions speak much louder than his insincere if not fraudulent words.
We all remember last year’s Obama outrage; canceling the White House commemoration of May’s National Day of Prayer and instead celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in the people’s house. To add insult to injury, the president used the occasion to effectively endorse the Ground Zero mosque. What we witnessed before this shocking display was a chief executive who went out of his way to humiliate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he first interrupted and then left the Jewish leader waiting during a meeting in the White House, while Obama went off to have a cozy dinner with first lady Michelle. That’s not to mention the administration’s generally hostile attitude and approach toward Israel and its now obsessive “outreach” to radical Arabic interests. Couple this with Obama’s dissing of and failure to support the Persian freedom movement in Iran, a natural ally of Israel and the West if there is regime change, and we have the backdrop of a president, true to his black Muslim Chicago roots, not only obsessed with the radical Arab world, but also hostile to Jews, Christians and Persians.
So, regrettably if not tragically, it came as no surprise when the “mullah in chief” wasted no time supporting the protesters in Egypt by literally throwing President Hosni Mubarak, a 30-year ally of the United States and Israel, under the proverbial bus.
[…]
Once the Muslim Brotherhood gets a political foothold in Egypt, it will shortly emerge, much like the mullahs in Tehran, as the ultimate force in this crucial nation. Next to follow will likely be Yemen, Jordan and even Tunisia — Lebanon having already gone this route. And what nation is behind the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Revealed: US Envoy’s Business Link to Egypt
Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government.
Mr Wisner’s astonishing remarks — “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical: it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy” — shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama’s judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a “personal capacity”. But there is nothing “personal” about Mr Wisner’s connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises “the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the US”. Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials — nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Speech Planning and Great Expectations
I missed input from President Barack Obama on the State of the Union in his State of the Union address. Maybe I’m still groggy from anesthesia.
Instead of discussing the dangers posed by the America’s debt, or possible solutions for the mortgage foreclosure frauds running rampant throughout our court system (please note my non-use of the words “system of justice”), or the war in Afghanistan — or the state of anything — the President filled the airwaves with words like “I’ve ordered … I’m willing … I am prepared … I will veto … I know … I urge … I’m proposing … I disagree … I would” and a lot of other words were placed after the pronoun “I.”
[…]
It is called “State of the Union” for a reason. It is on this night the President of the United States is supposed to tell the citizens of this country the problems faced by the nation and the impact the problems had on the Union during the past year.
Let’s see how gently this can be put. The subject of a sentence defines what the person who says or writes the sentence considers the most important part of the sentence. When the word “I” is the subject of so many sentences, the speaker obviously considers “I” the most important. If he didn’t, the word “I” would not be the subject of so many sentences.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Plot to Kill the Tea Party
Freedom Works sent out an e-mail Tuesday over the signature of Dick Armey that states: “Our latest intel indicates that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to offer a Repeal Obamacare amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill today!”
And now John McCain is singing the praises of Barack Hussein Obama as a centrist. Lindsay Graham will not be far behind McCain.
Only two days ago, the media were covering a comment by Obama in 2008 where he said that he did not want mandatory insurance as part of health-care reform (they neglected to add that Obama actually wanted a government-controlled socialist single-payer model).
We are all being set up. These guys do not want Obamacare to go to the Supreme Court because it will force the justices to define the limits of the powers of Congress and the executive branch. So they (Democrats and RINOs) are preparing us for a repeal of Obamacare in such a way that Obama can let it happen without embarrassing himself.
Look at the current situation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Al Qaida Maghreb, 3 Years of Kidnappings
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 4 — The vast area of the Sahara Desert between Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Algeria, where on Wednesday an Italian tourist was kidnapped, has been the site of a series of kidnappings of Western citizens by Al Qaida for the Islamic Maghreb for over three years. The group was founded in January of 2007 as the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which at the end of the 1990s inherited the legacy of the violent Armed Islamic Group, the organisation led by Abu Mussab Abdel Wadud. Responsible for violent attacks in Algeria, since 2009 the group has cut down on attacks to intensify its kidnapping “business”. FEBRUARY 2008 — An Austrian couple was kidnapped in the Tunisian desert at the Algerian border and then freed in Mali in October after 8 months in captivity. DECEMBER 2008-JANUARY 2009 — Al Qaida for the Islamic Maghreb kidnapped two Canadian diplomats in Niger, one of whom was a UN special envoy, and 4 European tourists: a Swiss couple, a German woman and a British man. In the months that followed they were all freed except for the British man, Edwin Dyer, who was killed. NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2009 — In Mauritania 3 Spanish aid workers were kidnapped, two men and one woman, while a French man was taken captive in Mali, and Italians Sergio Cicala with his wife Philomene Kabore were kidnapped in Mauritania. The French man and the Spanish woman were freed, while two other Spanish citizens were held by kidnappers until August 2010. APRIL 2010 — On the 19th, Al Qaida for the Islamic Maghreb kidnapped French citizen Michel Germaneau, and on July 25 they announced that they had killed him. SEPTEMBER 2010 — Seven workers for Areva and Saton (Vinci Group), including five French citizens, a Togolese man and a Madagascan, were kidnapped in Niger. The group, which was transported to Mali, has still not been released. JANUARY 2011 — The most recent dramatic episode took place in Niger, where on January 7 two French citizens, Vinent Delory and Antoine de Leocour, were kidnapped in a restaurant in Niamey. The two hostages were killed the day after during an attempt to free them.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi: Judges and Journalists Are Peeping Toms
(AGI) Rome — “While in Italy some judges illegitimately interfere with the private sphere of individuals, newspapers sit and watch”. This is the introduction to the new message by Silvio Berlusconi posted online on the Website of Michela Vittoria Brambilla’s Promotori della Liberta’. Berlusconi goes on to say: “they’re concentrated on watching these events as if through a key-hole while in the world, and more specifically on our borders, momentous changes are happening. We will not be distracted by these controversies and we shall not be intimidated by an opposition that continues to pursue a ‘all the worse, all the better’ policy”, the Prime Minister repeats and says that he “is sure that citizens know well who is working for the good of Italy and who is doing the opposite”.
“So be untroubled and disseminate as usual our message, for which I thank you very much, extending a warm embrace”, is his closing formula.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi to Present Phone-Tapping Reform Soon
(AGI) Milan — Since Fini dropped out of PDL, the party has become more robust and justice reforms, which had come to a halt, will carry on now, PM Silvio Berlusconi said on the phone during Lombardy’s assembly of Alleanza di Centro. “We are preparing — he explained — the reform which Fini and his supporters blocked. We will soon present a bill to Parliament aimed at authorizing phone-tapping solely during investigations into: murder, child abuse, organized crime, and international terrorism”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Catholic Theologians Call for End to Celibacy for Priests
More than 140 Catholic theologians from Germany, Switzerland and Austria called Friday for an end to celibacy as part of sweeping reforms in the wake of a sex scandal that rocked the Church.
In a letter published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily, the group said the Catholic Church in Germany had suffered an “unprecedented crisis” last year and that “2011 must be a year of departure for the Church.”
“The Church needs married priests and women in the ministry,” the group wrote.
They also called for acceptance of same-sex partnerships and divorce, in a radical departure from current Catholic thought.
“The high value that the Church places on marriage and a celibate form of life should not be called into question.
“But this does not demand that we exclude people who live responsibly with love, fidelity and mutual respect in a same-sex partnership or as re-married divorcees,” the group wrote.
The letter marked the strongest internal criticism of the Church in Germany since the Cologne Declaration of 1989 in which more than 200 German-speaking theologians attacked the conservative teachings of then Pope John Paul II, the paper said.
The current pope, Benedict XVI, himself German, also questioned the issue of celibacy when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, the paper recalled.
Ratzinger was part of a group of nine German theologians who in February 1970 wrote a letter to bishops in Germany asking whether the practice was still necessary, the paper wrote, citing archives in Regensburg.
The 83-year-old Benedict is due to visit Germany for his first official visit to his native land on September 22 to 25, 60 years after he was ordained as a priest.
Germany has faced revelations over the past year that hundreds of children were physically and sexually abused in institutions throughout the country, all but a handful run by the Roman Catholic Church.
The Church in Germany has said it failed to properly investigate claims of abuse and that in some cases there was a cover-up, with offending priests simply moved elsewhere instead of being disciplined and reported to the police.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Man Tried to Blackmail Priest Over ‘Affair’ With Mother
Cleric reported case to police
(ANSA) — Belluno, February 3 — An Italian man has been arrested for trying to blackmail a priest over an alleged affair with his mother.
The man, a 38-year-old drug addict in this northern city, discovered the relationship after reading the priest’s “passionate” letters, local daily Il Corriere Veneto reported Thursday.
He allegedly asked for 700 euros to keep quiet but the priest told the police and a fake handover was set up after which the man was arrested.
Prosecutors have asked for a fast-track trial at which the correspondence and the marked bills used for the bogus payoff will be filed as evidence, judicial sources said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mafia Boss of Bosses Says Too Sick to be in Jail
Bernardo Provenzano to undergo tests
(ANSA) — Palermo, February 3 — Ailing ex-Mafia boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano has asked to be let out of jail because he is too sick.
Provenzano, who has just turned 78, has a “syndrome akin to Parkinson’s disease” and has also recently suffered an ischemia, or restriction of blood flow to the heart, the Il Giornale di Sicilia daily reported Thursday.
It said the former Cosa Nostra no.1, caught in 2006 after 43 years on the run, had obtained permission for a medical check-up to see if his health was “compatible” with confinement.
Under Italian law, any class of criminal is entitled to be released to house arrest or custody in a medical facility if adjudged too ill to stay in jail.
Provenzano, serving life for crimes including the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia heroes Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, is currently in solitary confinement at Novara high-security prison north of Turin.
Judicial sources told Il Giornale di Sicilia that after an initial examination the sick criminal will be given a thorough going-over by the head of oncology at Novara hospital. photo: mugshot after April 2006 arrest
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Rotterdam Boroughs Stop Ethnic Registration
Rotterdam borough councils have stopped registering the ethnicity of youths who get into trouble with the police on the orders of the CPB privacy watchdog, the Volkskrant reports on Friday.
The CPB had threatened the borough of Charlois with a fine of €2,000 a day if it did not stop registration, which it has now done, the paper says.
The boroughs have been unable to prove registring ethnicity has improved the situation of the youths concerned or reduced petty crime and other social problems, the paper said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
New German Anti-Muslim Party Calls Islam ‘Totalitarian’
The leader of a newly created anti-Islamic party in Germany said he wants to stop the immigration of Muslims and described Islam as a “totalitarian system” bent on supplanting western liberal values.
In an interview with The National, Rene Stadtkewitz, 46, said Muslims were not integrating into German society as well as other immigrants and that authorities should become stricter, by banning headscarves in school, stopping public funding for teaching young children the Quran and curbing the influence of Islamic organisations.
“Islam is far more than a religion. It’s an entire model of society that is incredibly binding for many people,” he said. “It’s basically a political system with its own legal system that seeks to regulate all aspects of life. We criticise the socio-political component of Islam, which I see as an ideological one similar to other totalitarian systems, and which I think is dangerous.”
He called Islam “the opposite of a free society” and said the faith posed a threat because it sought to instil different values in Germany, and because it encouraged immigrants to segregate themselves.
Mr Stadtkewitz, a former member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), set up his party, Freedom, last October. He had been expelled from the CDU’s parliamentary group in the Berlin city assembly for inviting Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch Islam critic and head of the Party for Freedom, to Berlin for a conference.
Germany has had no populist, anti-Islamic party until now. Opinion polls suggest a party such as Freedom could get some 20 per cent of the vote in a general election. A recent survey commissioned by Berliner Zeitung, a local newspaper, showed as many as one in four Berliners could imagine voting for it.
Mr Stadtkewitz and his supporters reflect growing sentiment across Europe.
On Saturday, the British prime minister, David Cameron, declared during a speech in Munich that state multiculturalism had failed and left young Muslims vulnerable to radicalisation.
Mr Cameron, in the speech to a security conference, argued that Britain and other European nations needed to “wake up to what is happening in our countries”.
Mr Stadtkewitz said his party now had 1,400 members and was setting up regional branches across Germany. It plans to contest its first election in September when Berlin votes for a new mayor and city parliament. Mr Stadtkewitz said the aim was to cross the 5 per cent threshold needed to obtain seats in the assembly. “If that goes well, we’ll prepare for the general election in 2013,” he said.
He wants a temporary halt to immigration and favours introducing Swiss-style referendums in Germany. He said he would not stand in the way of a public vote on banning the construction of minarets, as Switzerland did in 2009, although he saw such a move as just “scratching at the surface” of the problem.
Mr Stadtkewitz denied accusations that he was a far-right populist. He said his party was espousing mainstream views about Islam and was part of an “uprising” by people across Europe against growing Islamic influence.
“Anyone who criticises Islam stands in the centre of society,” he said. “Islam is becoming more visible in western countries and people are starting to rise up against that.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Rumoured Plan to Bring Mubarak to Germany
A rumour published in The New York Times that President Hosni Mubarak could be brought to Germany to facilitate a transition of power in Egypt caused a diplomatic stir at the weekend.
According to the paper, representatives of the US government suggested that 82-year-old Mubarak could come to Germany on the pretext of taking medical leave.
The point of this manoeuvre would be to bring the opposition to the negotiating table with the Egyptian government. If Mubarak were not in Egypt, a government led by Vice President Omar Suleiman could negotiate with the Egyptian opposition movement without Mubarak formally losing his position.
The German Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the story, other than to say, “The question does not arise.”
Mubarak had a gall bladder operation in Heidelberg University hospital early last year, and was also treated for a slipped disc in Munich in 2004.
Members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government welcomed the idea, provided it facilitated an orderly transition of power in Egypt.
“I would welcome Mubarak’s trip to Germany, if that would help to stabilize the situation in Egypt,” said Elke Hoff, spokeswoman for the Free Democratic Party (FDP) — the party led by Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. She said this would not constitute granting Mubarak political asylum.
Andreas Schockenhoff, deputy leader of the parliamentary faction of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said, “If Germany can do this to help make a constructive contribution within an international framework, then we should take Hosni Mubarak in, if he agrees. We need a peaceful transition in Egypt.”
Speaking during a security conference in Munich, Merkel warned against deposing Mubarak too hastily. She drew a comparison between the current situation in Egypt and the reunification of Germany in 1990.
“We couldn’t wait a single day then either,” she said, but it would be wrong to call “very quick elections to begin a process of democratization.” She argued that important steps needed to be prepared carefully.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Church Imposes Equality in Easter Processions
(ANSAmed) — Madrid, FEBRUARY 2 — Equality and equal opportunity even during the processions of the Holy Week. In a Spain with Zapatero’s human rights even the Church is falling in line and stated the “total equality” of the members of the arch-confraternities that participate in the traditional processions. Such is the content of a decree on the new Diocesan regulation signed by the archbishop of Seville, monsignor Juan José Asenjo Pelegrina, that was distributed today to the media. In the decree the archbishop calls for respect of the “total equality of rights” between members of the arch-confraternities, “without any discrimination because of sex, including the participation to penitence stations as an act of external worship”. The archbishop of Seville expressed “the will to end a process that dates back to 1997”, so that women may participate in the penitence stations of the Holy Week, under the same conditions as the men, including in the role of ‘costalero’, the bearer of the heavy carts that replicate the steps of the passion of Christ. Already in 1997 the Diocesan regulations established equal rights between the brothers and sisters of the arch-confraternities. In 2001, the then archbishop of Seville Carlos Amigo Vallejo insisted on this line in a call to the confraternities. A few decades ago the first women dressed as Nazarenes appeared in the processions. Now they will also have to be accepted as bearers, thanks to the decree that will enter into force on March 2.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cameron ‘Livid’ After Multiculturalism Speech Comes Under Fire
David Cameron was forced yesterday to defend his controversial claim that multiculturalism can foster Islamic extremism, after attacks from Muslim groups and Labour MPs. The shadow Justice secretary Sadiq Khan accused Mr Cameron of “writing propaganda for the English Defence League”, while Muslim groups said he was attempting to “rip communities apart”.
In an interview the Prime Minister — said by a Downing Street source to be “livid” about the attacks on his speech — stood by his philosophy. “You have to confront the extremism itself,” he said.”You have to say to the people in Birmingham Central Mosque, or wherever, who are saying 9/11 is a Jewish conspiracy, that that is not an acceptable attitude to have.
“We don’t tolerate racism in our society carried out by white people; we shouldn’t tolerate extremism carried out by other people.
“It certainly means changing the practice, changing the groups you fund, the people you engage . . .the people you let into the country. It needs a whole new way of thinking.”
Mr Camero’s comments were made on the same day as the anti-Muslim EDL held a big demonstration in Luton, prompting accusations that he was playing into the hands of the far-right. Stephen Lennon, the EDL leader, reportedly said of Mr Cameron: “He’s now saying what we’re saying. He knows his base.”
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth group, accused the Prime Minister of trying to “score cheap political points” in a way that would “rip communities apart”. He said: “Singling out Muslims as he has done feeds the hysteria and paranoia about Islam and Muslims. Multi-culturalism is about understanding each others’ faiths and cultures whil.rbeing proud of our British citizenship…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ed Miliband’s Ally Sadiq Khan Left Isolated After Race Attack on Cameron
A senior ally of Ed Miliband who branded David Cameron a far-Right ‘propagandist’ for criticising multiculturalism was left isolated by Labour colleagues yesterday.
They refused to back Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan after his extraordinary attack on the Prime Minister’s speech in which he pledged to crack down on Muslim groups that sympathise with Islamic extremists and oppose British values.
Mr Khan accused Mr Cameron of ‘writing propaganda’ for the far-Right English Defence League, an anti-Islamist group linked to the BNP. He provoked fury within Government, with Tory Party Chairman Baroness Warsi demanding an apology from Mr Khan over the ‘outrageous and irresponsible’ smear.
Senior figures within Labour, which is desperate not to be seen as out of touch with the public mood on the need to tackle Islamic extremists, distanced themselves from Mr Khan.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said: ‘It is for Sadiq to explain the context in which he made those remarks.’
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper would only say it was ‘unwise’ for Mr Cameron not to have explicitly condemned the English Defence League, which marched in Luton on Saturday as he was making his speech.
Mr Khan was last night said to be unrepentant. He told friends he believed Mr Cameron had been ‘very unwise’ to make the speech on a day when the far-Right were staging a high-profile march.
But Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, praised Mr Cameron’s speech, saying: ‘There is a lot in what he said.’…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Multiculturalism Has Failed: Cameron Takes on Islamist Extremism and Civil Service
The longer he is in Downing Street, the more aware the Prime Minister is becoming of the forces that can thwart progress.
Next week he will give a speech about just how hard it is to drive through change. Cameron will talk frankly about how every attempt at reform has to fight its way past vested interests and the forces of bureaucratic inertia.
The Coalition might be down in the polls but Cameron remains upbeat; he feels he is getting better at the job. He is still taking his kids to school one morning a week. When he does the school run, he takes his children into the 8.30 morning meeting — a gathering of his key political allies — before heading off.
Cameron’s readiness to take on the machine can be seen in the new vigour that he’s bringing to the Government’s response to Islamist extremism.
For years, Whitehall officials — led by Charles Farr, director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism — have argued that Islamist ideology becomes a real problem only when it becomes violent. It is violent extremism, not extremism per se, that is the problem.
But Cameron has thrown this approach out of the window. In one of his boldest and most significant speeches since becoming Prime Minister, he declared yesterday that extremism in all forms has to be confronted.
Farr is said by Whitehall sources to have gone ‘ballistic’ when he heard about the shift.
Under Cameron’s new rules, there will be no Government money or recognition for groups that do not promote integration.
Those such as Sir Iqbal Sacranie, former head of the Muslim Council of Britain — who once said of Salman Rushdie, ‘Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him’ — have been to No 10 for the last time.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: PM Must be Even Bolder to Fix Our Fractured Society
David Cameron has rightly recognised that we have ‘allowed the weakening of our collective identity’. He has justly blamed this on a ‘doctrine of state multiculturalism’ which has encouraged different cultures to live separate lives.
This is not the first time a British Prime Minister has sought to overcome the damaging effects of decades of multiculturalism.
Under Tony Blair, New Labour also set out to rediscover Britishness. But when they did, it turned out to be a strange and politically correct salad of equality, diversity and human rights, not actually British at all.
The inconvenient truth is that British culture rests on more than a thousand years of Christianity, a version of that religion which was by no means fuzzy or inclusive, and on which all our culture and all our institutions are ultimately founded.
It is also based on a highly specific set of ideas about law and government — Common Law rather than a Roman-based civil code, Parliamentary sovereignty, the supremacy of law over state power, trial by jury and Habeas Corpus.
Tradition and precedent act to restrain democracy. Specific rights limit the power of the State rather than granting various groups vast, vague freedoms.
These ideas, like the amazingly flexible language in which they are expressed, developed in these islands precisely because they were separated by sea from the European landmass.
Even in the 21st Century, exposed to all the forces of globalism, Britain and its culture remain highly distinct, hard for outsiders to penetrate, reluctant to adapt to new arrivals, requiring them to adapt instead.
This is not, as Mr Blair once mistakenly said, a ‘Young Country’. Nor is it a ‘nation of immigrants’. It is a very old and very settled civilisation.
It may well be that both governments and migrants have preferred multiculturalism to British integration in recent decades not because it was better, which it is not, but because it was easier, which it is in the short run.
It is also certain that some on the Left have seen it as an opportunity to dilute those British traditions and characteristics which they have long disliked.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Schoolgirl Molly Campbell Who Moved to Pakistan After Tug-of-Love Returns to UK
A British schoolgirl who moved to Pakistan to live with her father four years ago after a high-profile tug of love between her divorced parents has returned to the UK.
Molly Campbell ran away to live with her father and older sister in 2006, when she was 12, after claiming she was unhappy living with her mother and new partner.
Originally from Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, she has spent four years living in Lahore where she went to an Islamic school.
The teenager is understood to have wanted to return to the UK permanently for some time.
She flew in last week with her brother Adam, 20, and has moved in with her 22-year-old sister Tahmina.
Molly’s mother Louise Fairlie, who still lives on the Isle of Lewis, has been staying with her two daughters since the teenager flew home.
It is understood Molly returned to with her father, Sajad Rana’s approval.
Her mother said: ‘We are very happy and we are all enjoying the family life that we have got. The past is behind us and we are moving on. We would now just like to be left alone.’
The schoolgirl vanished from the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway in 2006 after just a few days at the school.
Her disappearance sparked huge controversy with her mother accusing her father of abduction and warning she might be forced into an arrange marriage.
At the time, her mother was living with her partner Kenny Campbell and their six-month-old daughter in the Lewis fishing village of Tong.
It later emerged Molly had been picked up by Tahmina and they had flown to Glasgow, where they had met their father and flown to Pakistan…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Zero Tolerance for Muslim Extremists
DAVID Cameron has declared a zero tolerance approach on Muslim extremists.
The PM urged communities to tackle religious radicals among their ranks yesterday.
He blamed Labour’s “hands-off” attitude for fuelling terror on the streets of Britain — claiming it has left some young Muslims feeling “rootless”, leading them to search for a cause and finding “extremist ideology”.
Mr Cameron’s speech to the Munich Security Conference came as the inquest continues into the 7/7 outrages.
He said: “Europe needs to wake up to what is happening in our own countries. Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism. “Each of us in our own countries must be unambiguous and hard-nosed about this defence of our liberty.”
Mr Cameron added extremist groups promoting separatism and inequality will get “no public money, no sharing of platforms with ministers at home”.
They will be barred from prisons and universities.
He said multiculturalism has failed, adding: “Instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity.”
That includes ensuring “immigrants speak the language of their new home”.
Mr Cameron also sparked a race debate by saying Britain has been scared of criticising faults among ethnic minorities.
Forced marriages will be named as one example.
He said: “When a white person holds objectionable views — racism, for example — we rightly condemn them.
“But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Fatwa to Defend Christians Ready, But Postponed
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 4 — The fatwa that makes attacks against Christians and Muslims in their places of worship equal “is ready” and its issuing “has been postponed due to a change in the political situation in Lebanon and the events in Egypt,” but it “is not up for debate”, according to the Secretary General of the Islamic-Christian National Dialogue Committee in Lebanon, Mohammad Sammak, a political advisor to the Gran Mufti of Lebanon and one of the authors of the fatwa. During a press conference at the Community of St. Egidio, Sammak explained that several countries were involved in the wording of the fatwa, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and that the measure has value for the entire Muslim world, both Shiite and Sunni. “We decided to postpone this initiative until there is a new government in Lebanon and until the situation in Egypt is resolved,” he explained, adding that the fatwa will also be approved by al Azhar. “At that point there will be a pan-Islamic meeting that we had already planned before these events, which will be followed by the issuing of the fatwa. “What is changing,” concluded Sammak, “is the timeframe, but not the principles that the fatwa intends to defend.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Lebanon Mufti Consultant, No Risk for Christians
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 4 — The changes being caused by the political situation in Egypt does not mean that there is any danger for Christians in Egypt, according to Mohammad Sammak, the general secretary of the National Committee for Islamic-Christian dialogue and political consultant to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon. Sammak, who has been speaking Rome today, even said that “I have reasons to believe that their situation will improve”.
“Despite the political stance of Shenuda, Christians and Muslims have taken to the streets together,” he said, in reference to the confidence expressed by the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Mubarak’s ability to manage the crisis. “And Muslims will now be more careful than ever with regards to the issue of Christians in their country”.
“Instead, the Coptic Church will have internal problems to resolve in the post-Mubarak era,” Sammak added. This is not the first time that the former head of Egyptian Copts has backed Mubarak, he said, and this has contributed to rising tensions between Muslims and Christians in the country. Shenuda, Sammak believes, “now finds himself in a tricky situation. But politics are different from religion”. Sammak was given a warm reception at the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East after a speech in which he spoke of the profound ties linking Christian and Arab Muslims. He was in Rome today to present a meeting on a similar theme organised on February 23 by the Community of Sant’Egidio.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Protests: Muslim Brotherhood Holds First Talks With Government
Muslim Brotherhood holds first talks with Egyptian government for years. Banks and shops reopen their doors after nearly two weeks of protests. Confusion over future of government after key figures step down. Newly-appointed vice-president survives assassination attempt. U.S. suggests President Mubarak should stay in office to oversee transition of power
The Muslim Brotherhood has held talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman to press ‘legitimate and just demands’ as the government attempts to end 12 days of protests.
Senior Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mursi said the group was sticking to the protesters’ main condition that President Mubarak stand down.
They are the first known discussions between the government and the Brotherhood in years, suggesting the group could be allowed an open political role in the post-Mubarak era.
Some opposition leaders met with Mr Suleiman yesterday, but said they had been no breakthrough.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: We Are Witnessing the Collapse of the Middle East
If Egypt should fall, it will mark the beginning of the end for what little remaining stability there is in the Middle East. Jordan is facing similar unrest, as are Algeria and Yemen. Lebanon and Tunisia fell in January. It is highly unlikely that these events are unrelated. A combination of leftist and Islamist forces provoked the protests, and we are likely looking at a ring of radical Islamic states rising up to surround Israel. Once their power is solidified, perhaps in a year or two, they will combine forces to attack Israel. If Israel falls, the United States will stand alone in a sea of virulent enemies and impotent allies.
[…]
The Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest extremist Muslim organization, is behind practically every Muslim terrorist organization ever formed. And while they may have publicly renounced violence as the LA Times article claims, internal documents [pdf] tell a completely different story.
[…]
Juxtapose Obama’s statements toward our allies with his reaction to the genuine uprising that occurred last year in Iran. Tunisia: “Reform or be overthrown.” Egypt: “an orderly transition … must begin now.” Iran: “It is not productive … to be seen as meddling.” Meanwhile, candidate Obama claimed that the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezb’allah have “legitimate claims,” and we all remember his mindless counterterrorism czar, John Brennan, reaching out to “moderate” Hezb’allah members last spring. Hezb’allah moderates?
The seeming inconsistency is astonishing. Unfortunately, there is a consistency. Obama uniformly sides with our enemies but rarely, if ever, with our friends and allies. His administration is packed with far-left radicals and vicious anti-Semites. And therein lies the rub, because what we are witnessing in reality is this president’s un-American, anti-American, treasonous ideology in full play.
Perhaps this is the real reason for Bill Ayers’s, Bernardine Dohrn’s, Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin’s and Jody Evans’s trips to Egypt in 2009. Following those trips, these same people made multiple visits to the White House.
Obama’s breathlessly arrogant answer? Not the same Ayers, Dohrn, Benjamin, and Evans. Sure.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Obama Well Knows What Chaos He Has Unleashed
My fear is that Obama is not naïve at all, but he instead knows only too well what he is doing, for he is eagerly promoting Islamic power in the world while diminishing the West and Israel, however much innocent blood will flow as a result.
Inevitably, sooner or later, the Muslim Brotherhood will take power, usher in a barbaric Islamist power in Egypt that will control the Suez Canal, and show no mercy to its own people or its perceived foes.
[…]
Now [Mubareks] thirty-year rule has been fatally undermined by U.S. President, Barack Hussein Obama, in a betrayal that is as astonishing as it is deplorable.
It is clear to any child that a new Egyptian regime will, if not immediately, be hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now calling for Egypt to prepare itself again for war with Israel and for the blockading of the Suez Canal to American, Western, and Israeli shipping. Obama is no fool; he engineered this.
So, thanks to President Obama, we are back to square one with an Islamic Egyptian regime poised to send Egypt’s massively armed army back into Sinai and towards the Israeli border with the aim of exterminating the Jewish state. So much for “land for peace.”
But what economic turmoil would a new Egyptian Islamic closure of the Canal mean to the West?
It is estimated that slightly more than two million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products flow both north and south through the Suez Canal every day.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Shows Islam’s Democratic Side, Just as David Cameron Demands it
David Cameron said something uncomplicatedly right the other day: “Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights, regardless of race, sex or sexuality. [A genuinely liberal country] says to its citizens: This is what defines us as a society.” He was talking about Islam, of course. And well said. He is right to say that one’s religion is no excuse for bigotry. Muslims have no more right to repress women’s rights or gay rights, or to demand different treatment under the law, than anyone else in Britain. There has been a certain amount of anger from the Left at his comments, much of it unjustified. It is ridiculous to pretend that there isn’t a problem with intolerance in the Muslim community, and it is something we should be clear-eyed about. So, bravo Mr Cameron. (As well as intolerance, Mr Cameron also worries about terrorism, but since 52 people were killed in terror attacks in Britain between 2000 and 2009, compared to 31,098 killed on the roads, I have to say that I do not.) Let’s not paint this as some sort of politically courageous saying-the-unsayable moment, though. Mr Cameron’s remarks, though carefully couched in reminders not to confuse “Islamist extremism” with Islam, is very much playing to the galleries. Criticising Islam is not some terrible PC taboo, as some claim it is — it’s an easy political point-scorer.
You only have to read the comments on this site, sometimes, to realise that the distinction between the religious moderates and the extremists are far from clear to many British people. Mr Cameron should be wary of giving encouragement to people whose own sense of tolerance is as poorly developed as those he rightly criticises. Movements like the English Defence League have started attacking the religion for its attitude to gays and women, which is an interesting position for a group with a significant percentage of former BNP members: the language of liberalism being used as a veil for xenophobia.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour shadow justice minister, has accused Mr Cameron of “writing propaganda” for the EDL by giving his speech on the day of a major march. Which he is, albeit unintentionally — EDL leader Stephen Lennon immediately told The Daily Star: “It is no coincidence Cameron made this speech the day the EDL held its biggest-ever march… Cameron’s seen this tide turning against these extremists living in our towns and has jumped on the bandwagon.”
Of course there are problems within Islam, of homophobia and misogyny and anti-Semitism. But these last 12 days in Egypt have shown, as if it needed showing, that the demand for civil rights, equality and democracy is as strong among many Muslims as among Westerners. (We should also note the heroic actions of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, forming a protective human cordon around their Muslim compatriots during Friday prayers, even as violent pro-Government groups threw rocks and petrol-bombs nearby.)…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Uprising Falters as Negotiations With Government Begins
As the veteran president regained some of the initiative lost during nearly a fortnight of street protests, the Brotherhood, Egypt’s popular but banned opposition, dropped its opposition to talks. Mr Mubarak was also boosted by a return to relative normality in the city, which was clogged by familiar traffic jams for the first time in days.
Tens of thousands of protesters again thronged Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but for the first time there was serious tension with the army, whose role in tightening security in the city and in arresting activists has dashed hopes that it was turning against the regime. Omar Suleiman, the vice-president overseeing talks for the regime, offered leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties a string of often vague concessions.
They included a promise to move towards releasing political prisoners, a pledge to take steps to guarantee press freedom and an offer to lift emergency laws, in place for decades but only when the security situation improves.
An agreement was also reached to form a committee that will recommend constitutional reforms to ensure that presidential elections in September — in which Mr Mubarak has promised not to run — will be free and fair.
It will not report until March allowing Mr Mubarak time to maneourve while acceding to President Barack Obama’s demand that a transition of power gets underway.
While insisting that it expected more to be done, the group represented by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Laureate and leading Egyptian dissident, cautiously welcomed the meeting.
“The meeting was positive in general but it is only the beginning,” said Mustafa Naggar, coordinator for Mr ElBaradei’s National Association for Change. “We demand a full democratic transformation and not partial reforms.”
The Muslim Brotherhood denounced the concessions offered as “insufficient”, but said talks would continue. Mr Suleiman reportedly insisted that “democracy comes in stages”, adding “I am keen that there is a peaceful transitional period and civilian rule.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
John McCain on the Dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood
‘They Should Be Excluded from any Transition Government’
In a SPIEGEL interview, Republican senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, 74, discusses the United States’ Middle East policies and his fears of a role for the Muslim Brotherhood in the country’s transition to democracy.
SPIEGEL: Did it take the Obama administration too long to find a clear position on Egypt?
John McCain: I don’t think that I can second guess the president. While I wanted to be, I am not in his position, I don’t have all the information and background that he has. All I can say is that I think the president has handled the issue well so far.
SPIEGEL: Many policymakers in Washington say they want to “end up on the right side of history” with regards to Egypt. and not on the wrong side as they were in Iran after the fall of the Shah. How can that be achieved?
McCain: There’s very little doubt that for a long time we have not been on the right side of history in the Middle East, in that we have not recognized that these same ambitions for democracy and freedom are held by people everywhere in the world. The president has come a long way since 2009 when he refused to condemn the Iranian government when the demonstrations were taking place in Tehran and refused to support the demonstrators then. I think that was one of the biggest national security mistakes so far of his presidency.
SPIEGEL: You have called for open elections in Egypt. Should that happen quickly or could elections lead to chaos if organized prematurely?
McCain: The process that I would like to see and I think a lot of other people would like to see is Hosni Mubarak stepping down and the army taking charge along with other democratic organizations within Egypt — not the Muslim Brotherhood. A transition government should then launch a campaign for fair, open and democratic elections that take place in September.
SPIEGEL: How optimistic are you that the Arab world is capable of establishing democratic institutions?
McCain: I think they are very capable, especially Egypt, the center culturally and politically of the Middle East. But I would add that the longer that these demonstrators are repressed, the more likely the scenario that the issue is hijacked by radical Islamic elements.
SPIEGEL: In 2006, the US pushed for elections in Gaza — a move which ultimately brought Hamas into power.
McCain: In Gaza, people basically had only two choices: Fatah, which was a failed and corrupt organization, or Hamas, which as we know was supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead what they should have had was a multi-party campaign with lots of candidates and lots of choices for the people of Gaza.
SPIEGEL: Many people are drawing comparisons between the situation in Cairo and the Iranian revolution of 1979 which led to the country’s takeover by religious leaders. If you look at elements like the Muslim Brotherhood, how likely is a similar outcome in Egypt?
McCain: I am deeply, deeply concerned that this whole movement could be hijacked by radical Islamic extremists.
SPIEGEL: What is your assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood?
McCain: I think they are a radical group that first of all supports Sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government.
SPIEGEL: Are you afraid that someone like Mohamed ElBaradei is instrumentalized by the Muslim Brotherhood?
McCain: Oh yeah, I think it’s very clear that the scenario is very likely he could be their front man. He has no following nor political influence in Egypt. After all, he has lived outside of Egypt for most of his life.
SPIEGEL: A certain role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process in Egypt seems acceptable to the Obama White House. Does that concern you?
McCain: It concerns me so much that I am unalterably opposed to it. I think it would be a mistake of historic proportions.
SPIEGEL: Could the events in Egypt lead to a domino effect in other countries of the region?…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Gaddafi Launches Maxi-Plan for 89 Bln Euros
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, FEBRUARY 3 — While millions of people are demonstrating in Egypt and Tunisia, the Libya of colonel Gaddafi is preparing a huge investment plan in which should strengthen support for the regime and keep the uprising from spreading. In fact 150 billion dinars (around 89 billion euros) are allocated to a development plan that includes the construction of three airports, ten ports and thousands of houses. The plan also includes the modernisation of the power grid and power generation in several Libyan regions, and hundreds of new health facilities and schools. The announcement was made by Khaled Al Gaouil, secretary of the general Libyan project office, quoted by several government newspapers like Jamahourija and Al Fajer al Jadid. According to Al Gaouil, these projects will allow “a good economic recovery and will facilitate the diversification of the country’s revenues, making it less dependent on oil”. Al Gaouil added that the government has just signed contract for the construction of 300,000 apartments, part of the development projects of 41 Libyan cities. Tripoli has also passed 18 new plans for 18 new “industrial areas” in several regions, and the government has “urged” the young to create profit-yielding activities and to supply services in these areas. The invitation was made directly by the head of the general Libyan office for industrial areas, Ali Bakir. The industrial zones will focus on construction materials, food, civil engineering, there will be petrol stations, health facilities, shopping centres, administration offices and more.
A documentary has been spread in Libya to announce the initiative, from which emerged that around 400 industrial projects are under construction in these industrial areas, good for the creation of 40,000 new jobs.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Muslim Brotherhood ‘Don’t Have Majority Support’
“I think that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt,” Mr Obama said. “They don’t have majority support.”
Earlier on Sunday the Muslim Brotherhood had agreed to meet with government negotiators.
These would be the first known discussions between the government and the Brotherhood, suggesting the banned fundamentalist group could be allowed an open political role in the post-Mubarak era. Some opposition leaders had met with vice president Omar Suleiman on Saturday but said there was no breakthrough.
Mr Obama said the Brotherhood, a banned political and religious group in Egypt, was well-organised and that he hoped to see a representative government emerge in the country.
However Mr Obama, speaking to Fox News, would not be drawn into predicting whether Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down. “Only he knows what he’s going to do,” Mr Obama said. “The US can’t forcefully dictate, but what we can do is say the time is now for you to start making a change in your country. “Mubarak has already decided he’s not going to run again.” Nearly two weeks into the Egyptian crisis, the Obama administration is still struggling to find a path forward that protects US security interests without abandoning the pro-democracy protesters.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Soros Fingerprints on Mideast Chaos
Philanthropist billionaire George Soros has funded opposition organizations in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, where anti-regime chaos has already toppled the pro-Western leader of Tunisia and is threatening the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally.
Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the main opposition leaders in Egypt, has also sat on the board of an international “crisis management” group alongside Soros and other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood, which seeks to spread Islam around the world in part by first creating an Islamic caliphate in Egypt, now backs ElBaradai, who has defended the group in the news media the last few weeks.
Learn Islam’s global agenda to secure all nations under its only religious law: Get “Islam Rising” on DVD!
ElBaradei suspended his board membership in the International Crisis Group, or ICG last week, after he returned to Egypt to lead the anti-Mubarak protests.
Soros is one of eight members of the ICG executive committee.
U.S. board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Jimmy Carter; Samuel Berger, who was Bill Clinton’s national security adviser; and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who made headlines in 2009 after meeting with Hamas leaders and calling for the U.S. to open ties to the Islamist group.
Another ICG member is Robert Malley, a former adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign who resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas. WND first reported Malley had long petitioned for dialogue with Hamas.
The ICG defines itself as an “independent, non-profit, multinational organization, with 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey and Morocco Step in for Tunisia and Egypt
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 4 — European tourism companies are opting for safer, less unstable destinations, preferring such countries as Turkey, Morocco and the Canary Islands to Egypt and Tunisia. According to a report on the website of Al Arabiya, the hoped-for revival of the tourism and expectations of a boom year for the industry following last year’s Icelandic volcano and swine flu scares have been dissipated and delayed once again be events in Tunisia and then in Egypt, with winter tours to these countries being suspended. TUI Travel, one of the UK’s largest operators, is expected to suffer losses of around 35 million euros from the unexpected uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. In the words of the boss of France’s Thomas Cook “we are being dogged by bad luck”, European tourists had been in the habit of spending their winters in low-cost Tunisia, or benefiting from the milder climate of Egypt.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
W. Sahara: Haidar to Give Evidence in Genocide Case
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 4 — The human rights activist Haminetu Haidar and 13 Saharawi refugees living in the Tinduf camp in Algeria have been called to appear as witnesses on March 9 and 10 in the investigation into genocide and torture committed in Western Sahara between 1976 and 1987, which the Audiencia Nacional opened in 2007. This is according to judicial sources quoted by the Europa Press agency.
Thirteen senior current of former police officials are charged with the crimes, including Hosni Bensliman, the head of the Moroccan royal gendarmerie since 1985. Bensliman is also facing an international arrest warrant for his presumed role in the murder of the opposition politician Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965.
The investigation into genocide and torture was opened after charges brought by the Audiencia Nacional judge, Baltazar Garzon, in 2007, but was frozen after a rogatory commission, that the country did not follow up, was sent to Morocco in October 2008. The magistrate Pablo Ruiz, who replaced Judge Garzon at the Audiencia Nacional’s preliminary section number 5, reopened the case in November and yesterday called 14 witnesses.
The inquiry is based on a complaint made in 2006 against 31 Moroccans charged with responsibility for the disappearance of 542 people, after Spain abandoned its former colony in 1975. The case also documents the death by torture of 56 Saharawi in Moroccan jails. After preliminary inquiries, Judge Garzon reduced the number of people being investigated from 31 to 13.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islam and the Prospect of World War Three
“I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin. I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors. All of us against the foreigner.” — Bedouin proverb
Almost from its beginning, Islam has been a religion divided by warring camps. The tragedy of Islam is that Muslims are far more likely to die at the hands of their co-religionists than by those outside their faith. All religions have their sects and divisions, but Islam’s history is particularly defined by the violence that began shortly after the death of its founder, Mohammed.
If the turmoil in Egypt is about freedom than recent history gives little evidence that Arabs have any talent for it. Iran is a prison-nation. Syria is ruled by the son of its former dictator. Hamas rules Gaza. Monarchies. Et cetera.
I am beginning to think that the world is actually witnessing a repeat of the dispute between the two main branches of Islam, the Shias (also called Shiites) and the majority Sunnis. Meanwhile, in Egypt the killing of Christian Copts continues unabated while Iraqi Christians are being driven from that nation.
When the prophet Mohammed died in 632 AD, what followed was a struggle for control of Islam. Sunni Muslims, the largest of the two branches, believe that Ali, a cousin of Mohammed, was the fourth and last of the “rightly guided caliphs”, successors to Mohammed. Shias believe that Ali should have been the first caliph.
Preceding Ali were Abu Kakr (632-634), Umar (634-644), and Uthman (644-656). Uthman was murdered while at prayer and Ali then became the caliph. He was, however, opposed by Aisha, Mohammed’s widow and the daughter of Abu Bakr. A number of battles ensued. Ultimately, Mu’awiya declared himself caliph.
Here’s where it gets very odd. The line of Mohammed’s direct decedents through Ali ended in 873 CE when the last Shia Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi disappeared within days of inheriting the title of caliph. He was four years old at the time!
Shias refused to believe he had died, concocting a story that he was merely “hidden” and would return.
This latter version of Shia is the heart of Iranian Islamic theology which includes the belief that, in order to facilitate his return, the world must first sink into complete chaos with massive loss of life, a kind of Islamic Armageddon.
Thus, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran is looked upon by Sunnis and everyone else as truly a matter of life or death on a global scale. It would be the prelude to World War Three.
Sunnis take their lead from Saudi Arabia where the royal family is seen as the protectors of the faith and the two most holy sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina.
Muslims can be found in more than 200 nations these days and represent 23% of the world’s population. One out of every four people on planet Earth is a Muslim. Only 20% live in the Middle East and North Africa, the site of present conflicts.
It has been the fate of Middle Eastern and other Muslims to live with a conflict that began in the seventh century. Islam’s Sharia laws reflect seventh century values. They are at odds with hard won modern values of civilization.
The culture of the Middle East and northern Africa, dominated by Islam, has kept the people of that region in poverty and under the fist of oppression for the last 1,400 years. Mideast Muslims in the modern era have been striking out at the world blaming it, not Islam, for their problems. Al Qaeda is an example of this, along with the Taliban, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The reappearance of a modern state of Israel in 1948 brought everything to a boil. If Islam is the one true faith, the presence in its midst of a Western, democratic, militarily powerful and economically successful Israel severely challenges that belief.
After successive wars on Israel, Arab nations were repeatedly defeated. Further aggravating Muslims is that Israel is holy to both Judaism and Christianity. Jerusalem is not even mentioned by name in the Qur’an…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: King Abdullah Meets Islamist Opposition to Defuse Tension
(By Mohammad Ben Hussein) (ANSAmed) — AMMAN, FEBRUARY 3 — The pro-west King Abdullah held today a rare meeting with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in an attempt to defuse tension with authorities over political and economic reform.
The kingdom’s streets and public squares have been a beaming with protesters from all political groups who call for reform to allow the opposition take part in decision making process.
The meeting comes one day after Abdullah’s new prime minister held similar talks with key Islamist leaders as well as members of the national coalition of opposition parties on the formation of his government.
The new prime minister, Maruf Bakhit promised to include opposition figures in his cabinet. Sources in the Islamist movement told ANSA that leaders of the group told Abdullah to dismiss his new prime minister on grounds that he is not equipped to handle political and economic reform. “We told the king that genuine reform starts by a change in the constitution that allows all groups to share responsibility, not to change faces,” said an Islamist source who attended the meeting.
The Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood has announced it will continue protests in major cities across the kingdom including Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, and Karak, calling for general reform.
Ali Abul Sukkar, president of the IAF shurah council, the highest decision making body in the group told ANSA he does not predict a calm in the streets despite efforts by officials to engage in dialogue.
“We expect the tension to continue, despite these meetings with the king and the prime minister. What is important is practical steps including the dissolving of the parliament and introduction of new laws that guarantee equality and freedom,” said Abul Sukkar, who cast doubt on credential of Bakhit to carry out badly needed reform.
“We are very surprised and disappointed to selecting Bakhit. He promised us to implement reform, but I do not think he can change his skin,” added Abul Sukkar, adding that the group has asked king Abdullah to change his policy of choosing individuals to head their governments.
“We have been very frank with the king. We told him what we expect to see to achieve reform,” added Abul Sukkar.
Aid dependent Jordan is expected to witness rising protests in the coming days from the Islamist movement and independent leftist leaning activists, despite a decision from some opposition parties to postpone their protests.
The national coalition of opposition parties appeared divided over future protests, after some leaders said they wanted to give the new premier a chance.
According to Abla Abu Elbeh, secretary general of the Hashed leftist party, the new prime minister deserves a chance to prove himself.
“We can not put the carriage infront of the horse, let us see what he has in his bag,” she told ANSA ahead of entering a meeting with Bakhit to consult on the formation of the new government.
Bakhit’s rein a few years ago was marred by accusation of being inept and heavy handed policy.
Jordan is suffering from chronic unemployment and growing poverty that reached 25 per cent.
Successive governments are blamed for worsening economic situation for failed economic policy and heavy reliance on taxation to fund well fair policy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Devil Worshippers of Iraq
I’m in a community hall, on the outskirts of Celle, a north German town. On the walls are pictures of dark blue peacocks. Sitting at various tables around the room are dozens of Devil worshippers. At least, that’s what some people call them.
Though we don’t know it yet, right now several suicide bombs are going off near Mosul in Iraq, killing maybe 400. The victims belong to the same faith as those gathered here today.
They are Yezidi. And I’m here to unearth the reality of their fascinating religion. Why do they have such troubled relations with outsiders? Do they really worship the Devil?
The Yezidi of Celle are one of the largest groups of their sect outside the homeland of Kurdish Iraq. There may be 7,000 in this small town. Yezidi across the world number between 400,000 and 800,000.
Today the Yezidi in Celle don’t seem keen to talk. I’m not surprised: I have been warned about their wariness of strangers, born of centuries of appalling persecution.
Eventually a dark, thickset man turns to me. He points to one of the peacocks on the wall: “That is Melek Taus, the peacock angel. We worship him.” He sips his tea, and adds: “Ours is the oldest religion in the world. Older than Islam; older than Christianity.”
After this cryptic statement he returns to his friends.
[…]
But some Yezidi do claim that Melek Taus is “the Devil”. One hereditary leader of the Yezidi, Mir Hazem, said in 2005: “I cannot say this word [Devil] out loud because it is sacred. It’s the chief of angels. We believe in the chief of angels.”
There are further indications that Melek Taus is “the Devil”. The parallels between the story of the peacock angel’s rebellion, and the story of Lucifer, cast into Hell by the Christian God, are surely too close to be coincidence. The very word “Melek” is cognate with “Moloch”, the name of a Biblical demon — who demanded human sacrifice.
[…]
The Yezidi reverence for birds — and snakes — might also be extremely old. Excavations at ancient Catalhoyuk, in Turkey, show that the people there revered bird-gods as long ago as 7000BC. Even older is Gobekli Tepe, a megalithic site near Sanliurfa, in Kurdish Turkey (Sanliurfa was once a stronghold of Yezidism). The extraordinary temple of Gobekli boasts carvings of winged birdmen, and images of buzzards and serpents.
Taking all this evidence into account, a fair guess is that Yezidism is a form of bird-worship, that could date back 6,000 years or more. Over the centuries, new and powerful creeds, such as Islam and Christianity, have swept through Yezidi Kurdistan, threatening the older faith. But, like a species that survives by blending into the landscape, Yezidism has adapted by incorporating aspects of rival religions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Airport Attack Was Just the Start, Militants Warn Russia
Russia’s most wanted militant has vowed to bring “a year of blood and tears” to the country, in a video where he appears flanked by a man resembling the main suspect in last month’s Moscow airport bombing.
In the clip uploaded to a rebel website over the weekend, Doku Umarov — the self-styled “Emir of the Caucasus” and the leader of the Islamic insurgency in the country’s south — was flanked by two men, one of whom is believed to be the suicide bomber who attacked Domodedovo airport.
Umarov does not mention the airport bombing in the undated video, which appears to have been made before the attack. He introduces a man standing on his left as “Seifullah” and says he is being sent to Moscow to carry out a “special operation”.
Russian media believe the man in the video could be Magomed Yevloyev, 20, from the troubled republic of Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya. Russian security agencies have said the bomber was a 20-year-old native of the North Caucasus whose identity was already known, but refused to officially release the name while investigations were ongoing.
However, media outlets known to be close to the FSB security service have named the bomber as Yevloyev, and the figure in this weekend’s video bears a striking resemblance to a widely-circulated photograph of the young man. Yevloyev, whose father is a bus driver and whose mother works as a school teacher, left his home in the village of Ali-Yurt in Ingushetia last summer, supposedly in search of work.
Instead, it appears he began a path which would lead him to blow himself up in the arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport a fortnight ago, killing 36 people and wounding 180. Eight foreigners, including one Briton, were among those killed.
Last week, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, told President Dmitry Medvedev that a “huge amount of highly powerful drugs and psychotropic substances” had been found in the bomber’s body. Since the attack both Mr Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have spoken in uncompromising terms about the need to “liquidate” terrorists, but the video will be worrying for Russia’s rulers, who have staked their reputations on pacifying the North Caucasus.
“Depending on the reaction, depending on your actions, God willing, these operations will be conducted monthly, weekly, as God allows us,” Umarov says in the video. The chilling 12-minute recording is shot in a small, enclosed space, and the three men are dressed in combat fatigues, positioned below a black flag with an Arabic inscription.
Umarov, speaking in heavily accented Russian, says he is at a base of the “Riyadus Salikhin brigade of martyrs”, a terrorist division that has taken responsibility for previous attacks.
“I have made a long journey to come here and see these brothers,” he says. “I have made a long journey so our brothers can carry out a special operation… in the capital of Russia.
“It is through our actions that we are having to wake you up,” he says, addressing the Russian people. “If this is too little for you, then, God willing, other strikes will follow, too. I can tell you with 100 per cent confidence that if there is God’s will for it… we will make this year a year of blood and tears.”
The young man on Umarov’s left, who may well be the Moscow airport bomber Yevloyev, speaks at the end of the video. He talks quietly, stumbling over his words and with his face bathed in an eerie white light, saying he has accepted the task of carrying out an attack. “Other brothers will come after me to give their lives for God,” he says. “These are my last words.”
According to Russian security sources, police are hunting for two accomplices of Yevloyev, whom they believe helped co-ordinate the attack and are still at large. These are his brother, Islam Yevloyev, and Adam Ganizhev, also from Ali-Yurt in Ingushetia.
The Russian website Life News interviewed Ganizhev’s father Magomed, who said his son disappeared on 31 August last year, dressed in light clothes and with just 80 roubles (£1.60) in his wallet. “Since then we have heard nothing about him,” said the father, adding that the family had informed local police and government officials about their son’s disappearance…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Chechen Terrorist Promises Russia “Blood and Tears” [Video]
Russia’s most wanted terrorist, Doku Umarov, has posted a video message on the web hinting that he was the mastermind behind January’s bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.
The terror attack killed 36 people and injured more than 180. In the video, Umarov warned of more terrorist acts to follow, promising Russia “a year of blood and tears.”
It seems the video, released two weeks after the airport bombing, may have been filmed before the attack as there are two men standing behind Umarov — allegedly suicide bombers. Investigators believe that one of the two could be the man who blew himself up at Domodedovo Airport on January 24. That is one of the reasons why many see Umarov’s video as a claim of responsibility for the airport attack. Doku Umarov has made similar videos before. He has claimed responsibility for organizing other terrorist attacks including the Moscow Metro blasts last March, which claimed 39 lives. There has not been any official reaction to the video as yet. Previously, President Dmitry Medvedev warned against calling the case solved, during a meeting with the head of the investigative committee Aleksandr Bortnikov and the head of the Russian security service, the FSB, Aleksandr Basrtrykin. Both agencies reported to the president that the suicide bomber has been identified. They believe him to be a 20 year old man originally from the North Caucasus. They also said they may have identified the mastermind of the airport attack. Others who are believed to be linked to the terror attack have been detained…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Russia’s Muslim South is Hideout for Robust Insurgency
Neiba scrapes out a meager income selling soil-caked clumps of wild garlic she picks in the forests of Russia’s poorest province — an occupation that a growing Islamic insurgency has made increasingly hazardous.
“I will only go to the forest with my husband, and even then, we are terrified every time,” said Neiba, 43, as she adjusted her bright red hijab at the sprawling outdoor market in Nazran, Ingushetia’s largest town. “What if we see a rebel?”
“But we must make a living,” she said, flashing her remaining four teeth, each of them encased in gold.
In the mainly Muslim North Caucasus, woodlands reaching up to Russia’s mountainous southern border are haunted by rebels trying to carve out an Islamic state. It is a hideout and home base for an insurgency that the Kremlin has failed to quell or contain.
Authorities blamed the militants for a suicide bombing that killed 35 people and injured about 130 at Russia’s busiest international airport last month, saying that the attacker was a 20-year-old native of the North Caucasus.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the attack bore hallmarks of the North Caucasus rebels, who have vowed to take their bombing campaign to Russia’s heartland in the year before presidential elections, hitting transport and economic targets.
The robust insurgency in Ingushetia — a sliver of land next to Chechnya, the site of two post-Soviet separatist wars that underpin the militant movement — underscores the threat.
The head of Nazran’s central district was gunned down in his car recently near the market where Neiba has her stall, in one of dozens of attacks in Ingushetia this year and a symptom of a broader problem.
Islamist attacks in Russia were up by 14 percent in 2010 on the year, almost all of them in the North Caucasus, according to terrorism experts at the U.S.-based Monterey Institute of International Studies.
President Dmitry Medvedev also cited an increase, telling security officials that terrorism is Russia’s biggest threat.
In impoverished Ingushetia and other North Caucasus republics, experts say feelings of rootlessness and a lack of acceptance by ethnic Russians add to a dispiriting mix that pushes young men into the insurgency.
With Ingushetia’s official unemployment at 57 percent and the average salary at $234.80 a month, bored and desperate young people turn to Islamist extremism…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
India: Italian Businesses Eye Infrastructure Deals Worth €640 Billion
Rome, 2 Feb. (AKI) — Companies from Italy’s main business association Confindustria will visit the Indian capital New Delhi in October in a bid to clinch deals on infrastructure projects worth 640 billion euros.
Confindustria’s head, Emma Marcegaglia, will lead the delegation to India — one of Asia’s economic powerhouses.
“Our objective is to further strengthen our relationship with the Indian economy. There’s great potential for growth,” said Marcegaglia, recalling that Italy and India traded around six billion euros of goods and services in 2009.
“2011 is India’s year, “ said Marcegaglia.
India’s gross domestic product grew 8.9 percent in the third quarter of 2010.
Driven by strong internal demand that weathered the global recession, India’s economy is expected to expand 8.8 percent in 2010, according to forecasts.
It is predicted to become the world’s third largest economy by 2020-2025.
“We want to work together side by side to solve our problems and bolster our ties,” said Marcegaglia.
Ahead of the Confindustria visit in late October, delegations from the infrastructure, energy, automobile and other sectors will attend business forums in New Delhi in March, April and October.
Marcegaglia, Italy’s industry minister Paolo Romani and representatives of major companies eyeing business with India this week met Indian commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma and the head of India’s main business association FCCI, Rajan Bharti Mittal in Rome.
The Italian companies included engineering firm Tecnimont, construction companies Astaldi and Audostrade, Montante and coffee maker Lavazza, which last week announced it would set up its first coffee plant in Sri City in the eastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Lavazza, which bought India’s second-biggest coffee shop chain Barista Coffee Company and Indian coffee vending company Fresh & Honest Cafe in 2007, expects India to become its second largest market after Italy, the company said last Friday.
Italy and India on Monday decided to set up a joint business council, a bilateral trade cooperation body, and to work together in 10 areas including internet and communications technology, infrastructure and manufacturing and elections.
The two countries decided to set up the joint business council during a meeting in Rome on Monday between Sharma and Romani.
“Italy is the world’s largest democracy and its middle class is expanding,” said Romani. “It is going to be worth an enormous amount economically in the coming years.”
Romani moved to dispel fears that many firms could re-locate to India, taking advantage of low labour costs.
“The era of delocalisation is clear. India’s development is based on its demand and Indian companies are not seeking to re-locate to India but to gear their production to the Indian market,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia Mob Attacks ‘Heretic’ Muslims, Kills 3
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Police say a machete-wielding mob of Muslims attacked the home of a minority sect leader in central Indonesia, killing 3 and wounding six others.
Local police chief Let. Col. Alex Fauzy Rasyad says about 1,500 people — many with machetes, sticks and rocks — attacked about 20 members of the Ahmadiyah Muslim sect who were visiting their leader in his house in Banten province on Indonesia’s main island of Java.
The attackers stabbed to death at least three men. Rasyad said Sunday that six others were rushed to a nearby hospital, four with critical injuries.
The attack was the latest targeting the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Some Muslims see followers of Ahmadiyah as holding heretical beliefs.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
One-Legged Afghan Red Cross Worker to be Hanged for Converting to Christianity
An Afghan physiotherapist will be executed within three days for converting to Christianity.
Said Musa, 45, has been held for eight months in a Kabul prison were he claims he has been tortured and sexually abused by inmates and guards.
Mr Musa, who lost his left leg in a landmine explosion in the 1990s, has worked for the Red Cross for 15 years and helps to treat fellow amputees.
He was arrested in May last year as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy following a crackdown on Christians within Afghanistan.
He claims he was visited by a judge who told him he would be hanged within days unless he converted back to Islam.
But he remains defiant and said he would be willing to die for his faith.
He told the Sunday Times: ‘My body is theirs to do what they want with.
‘Only God can decide if my spirit goes to hell.’
Defence lawyers have refused to represent him, while others have dropped the case after receiving death threats.
Mr Musa was arrested after a TV station showed western men baptising Afghans during secret ceremonies…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Rassbach and McGuire: How the U.N. Encourages Religious Murder
Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s largest province, met a friend for lunch in Islamabad. On his way from the cafe to the car that afternoon, he was shot 26 times with a submachine gun.
Taseer, a Muslim, was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards because of his vocal opposition to prosecuting Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, under Pakistan’s blasphemy law. In a case that has transfixed Pakistani society, Ms. Bibi was sentenced to death last November for insulting Islam.
Because he was governor of Punjab, Taseer was pressured to mute his criticism. As he stated on Twitter days before he was killed: “I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I’m the last man standing.”
The assassin, Islamic fundamentalist Mumtaz Qadri, is responsible for Taseer’s death. But the United Nations is implicated too. How? It has repeatedly endorsed blasphemy laws like Pakistan’s, in the name of defending religion.
The U.N. got into the business of supporting blasphemy laws more than 10 years ago. Since 1999, the U.N. General Assembly has passed a resolution every year that asks countries to take measures to prevent criticism of religion. The countries that sponsor the resolutions—including Pakistan— have always done so on behalf of the 47-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which votes as a bloc.
Originally, the annual resolution attacked “defamation of Islam.” It has since come to focus on “defamation of religions” or, most recently, on the “vilification of religions.” But this general language hasn’t changed the resolution’s purpose: Each year it calls on national governments to enact laws that protect religions against criticism.
The reason countries like Pakistan promote the resolution is so they can have an international-law justification for their existing blasphemy laws. The U.N.’s official line is that such laws protect religious minorities. In fact, they do just the opposite, as Taseer’s assassination shows. In the days before the assassination, radical clerics led a violent 24-hour general strike protesting possible amendments to the blasphemy laws and supporting Ms. Bibi’s death sentence.
Ms. Bibi’s case is not an isolated event. Since Pakistan’s modern embrace of blasphemy laws in 1979, more than 30 people accused of blasphemy have been killed by lynch mobs. The law is often used to gain advantage in commercial and property disputes. Since someone accused of blasphemy is guilty until proven innocent, the law creates powerful incentives for making false accusations. The U.N.’s annual resolution aids the accusers.
The one bit of good news is that support for the blasphemy resolution is sinking fast. The Islamic Conference’s shift from “defamation of religions” to “vilification of religions” was sparked by shrinking support from democratic governments such as South Korea. Despite the Islamic Conference’s efforts to whitewash the blasphemy resolution’s true intent, in 2010 the resolution passed by the narrowest margin ever. Seventy-nine countries voted in favor, 67 voted against, and 40 abstained—raising a strong possibility that it might soon be defeated.
But the U.N. can do more than that. The time has come for the international community not only to reject the resolution protecting blasphemy laws, but to directly condemn blasphemy laws as profound violations of freedom of religion and speech.
Governments that care about human rights should support a “Taseer Resolution” advocating the repeal of blasphemy laws and condemning their terrible effects on freedom of religion and thought. Protecting such values is the reason the U.N. was founded in the first place…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Radicals Attack Christians in Ethiopia and Force Them to Convert
In the city of Besheno in the south of the country, the authorities prevent the construction of a place of prayer and a cemetery. Three evangelical leaders forced to leave the area. Another is in hospital after being attacked.
Addis Ababa (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Islamic fundamentalists of a city in southern Ethiopia, Muslim majority Besheno, are conducting a series of attacks against Christians in the area to force them to convert or to leave. Besheno is a city where the last census (2007) 93.84% of the population is Muslim, and Christians are 5.82% of the population.
Three leaders of the Christian community were forced to leave the city, and two Christians were forced to convert to Islam. All are part of a small group of evangelical Christians — about thirty — who live in Besheno.
In recent days, signs were posted on the doors of some Christians threatening them with death if they do not convert to Islam or leave the city. An evangelical preacher, Kassa Awan, is still hospitalized in serious condition after being attacked November 29, 2010 by a group of Muslims.
A few days later more than one hundred Muslims surrounded the car of some Christian leaders who were on their way to a peace meeting with Muslim leaders, both Christians Tesema Hirego and Niggusie Denano, were injured. On January 2, another Christian, Temesgen Peteros, was attacked with a knife after he testified in court on the attacks suffered by his fellow believers.
The Islamic authorities who govern the city refuse to protect the Christians, and in particular refuse to build a prayer centre and a cemetery. “We ask that our right to freedom of religion be respected. We can not live in our city because of this inhumane behaviour, “said one of the leaders forced to leave the city.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Detained While Trying to Get From Ceuta to Morocco
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 3 — Omar Chuick is the first migrant who was detained while trying to cross the double fence at the border of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa, trying to reach Morocco instead of the other way around. Chuick, born in Mali, was trying to return to his country of origin when he was intercepted by two policemen of the civil guard who were patrolling the border. They had been warned by an alarm set off by the man at the 8.2 km long fence between the two countries.
This happened at dawn on Sunday, but the civil guard announced the news only today. The migrant, who had entered Spanish territory illegally, explained that he had been unable to reach the Spanish peninsula from Ceuta, and that he had decided to return to Mali via Morocco. He has been taken to a detention centre.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tom Tancredo: The Lie That Will Not Stand
A group of border-city mayors from Brownsville to San Diego have joined to issue a statement supporting the claim that our southwest border is secure. They say that since there is no crime wave in their cities, the violence in Mexico is not spilling over the border and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano is doing a great job.
The ranchers and farmers of Cochise County, Ariz., are not impressed. Neither is the Arizona Cattle Growers Association or the city officials in Green Valley or dozens of other Arizona communities. The drug trafficking and human smuggling across the open borders continues at very high levels.
And yet, Napolitano persists in repeating the lie that “our borders are as secure as they have ever been.” Why is the Obama administration so deeply committed to what every ordinary citizen of Arizona knows to be a lie?
The answer is that Napolitano’s mission is not to help secure the border; her job is to lay the groundwork for the next amnesty bill. For any amnesty bill to have any chance of bipartisan support in Congress, the Obama team must find a handful of Republicans to agree to the claim that the border is now “secure enough” to proceed with another amnesty. So, the debate in Congress always comes down to the question, how much border security can we “reasonably expect” as a precondition for another amnesty?
To help this process along, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been busy redefining border security. Citizens need to pay attention to this bureaucratic game and insist their congressional representatives peel away the layers of deception involved.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bahrain Arrests Scores in Raid on Gay Party
More than 100 people arrested for holding “depraved and decadent” party in Bahrain.
By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama Bahrain has arrested 127 people, mainly gays from the Gulf countries, for holding a “depraved and decadent” party.
The revellers hired a sports hall in Hidd, a conservative village on Muharraq island in the north of Bahrain, and organised on Wednesday evening a fee-paying party that brought together gay men from the Arabian Gulf countries.
Most of the gays were between 18 and 30 years old and one Lebanese and one Syrian were among those arrested following the police bust, Al Ayam daily reported on Friday.
Neighbours, complaining about the late night noises emanating from the sports hall in the traditional fishing village, had alerted the police who sent a patrol to verify the claims at around 2.30am.
An undercover agent paid the 20 dinar entrance fee and was allowed into the hall where he saw dozens of cross-dressers drinking and smoking shishas. More patrols were called in and 127 people were arrested in the police swoop, the daily said.
Initial investigations have revealed that the gays were either Gulf nationals who came to Bahrain for the party or were living in Bahrain and flocked to the hall in Hidd. The organisers are being held separately.
The embassies of the non-Bahrainis have been told about the arrest, the paper said.
The hall was shut down on Thursday pending the investigation. Hidd Club officials who own the hall said that they would look into the case and check with the investor who had rented it.
Homosexuality is banned in Bahrain, like in the other five Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and foreigners arrested in relation to gay activities are deported after serving prison terms.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The New York Times Equates the Roman Catholic Church to the Radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood
The New York Times continues to operate in a delusional bubble. In an article last Friday about the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, entitled “Islamist Group Is Poised to Be a Power in Egypt, but Its Intentions Are Unclear,” the reporter Scott Shane actually compared the Muslim Brotherhood to today’s Catholic Church:
“As the Roman Catholic Church includes both those who practice leftist liberation theology and conservative anti-abortion advocates, so the Brotherhood includes both practical reformers and firebrand ideologues.”
The comparison might have made sense five or six hundred years ago when the Catholic Church and the state were intertwined and the Church ordered heretics to be burnt at the stake. But, in case the Times hasn’t noticed, the Church has moved on since then while Islamic sharia law, on which the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology is based, has not.
[…]
The Times harbors a particular hostility against the Catholic Church because it promotes views on abortion, homosexuality and other social issues with which the Times strongly disagrees.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Health Watchdog Chief in Racism Row Over ‘Jungle Drums’ Phrase
It was a meeting of volunteers to discuss the state of local health care.
As the conversation turned to changes in the NHS, and how rumours about them can spread, the chairman said: “You cannot help the jungle drums.” When a member of the public complained that the commonly-used phrase was racist, the speaker immediately apologised and carried on. Yet the incident has led to an official investigation, six months of wrangling, and a decision to bar the health group from meeting councillors.
The row will come to a head tomorrow when senior figures on Wiltshire council — whose ruling Conservative group has been split by the affair — meet the leaders of the health care body to discuss the council’s decision to uphold the complaint of racism.
The affair began at a meeting of the Wiltshire Involvement Network (WIN), a statutory, independent health watchdog, at a Scout headquarters at Potterne Wick, Devizes.
Members were discussing how gossip can spread when Anna Farquhar, the 70-year-old chairman, made her remark.
Sonia Carr, a member of the Wiltshire Racial Equality Council who was sitting in the public gallery observing the meeting, intervened to say that a racist term had been used.
Mrs Farquhar said she did not think the remark was racially offensive, but said she was sorry and pressed ahead with the meeting. Yet Mrs Carr, 50, submitted an official complaint to Wiltshire council — which launched an investigation, produced a 10-page report upholding the complaint, and barred all watchdog members from council premises and meetings.
Mrs Farquhar, from Devizes, told The Sunday Telegraph that she believed “jungle drums” was “a common expression similar to ‘grapevine’ or ‘rumour mill’“, and this was the meaning intended. “There was a difference of opinion on this within the meeting, but I gave an apology to the complainant and the meeting continued,” she said. However, Mrs Carr, who lives with her husband Owen, 54, in Warminster, said in her complaint that the apology was inadequate, that senior watchdog figures had failed to challenge the “jungle drums” remark, and that watchdog members did not understand “equality and diversity issues”.
She is understood to want a full apology and all members of the network to have diversity training.
Speaking to this newspaper, she insisted that she had been right to complain.
“The remark was racist and my complaint is valid,” she said. “People need to think before they say things that could cause offence.” Council sources said that Mrs Carr had previously submitted allegations against the police, the fire brigade and council officers. Mrs Farquhar’s colleagues said they were “astounded” that the chairman, a distinguished former chief executive of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and St John Ambulance in the area, had been accused of racism. “Anna hasn’t got a racist bone in her body,” said one WIN member. “The while thing is ridiculous. It’s got to the point where you daren’t ask for a black coffee in case somebody takes offence.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: I’m Victim of PC Vendetta, Says Christian Drug Expert as He is Sacked From Government Advisory Panel Before He Even Started
A Christian GP claimed last night that he had been ‘sacrificed on the altar of political correctness’ after being sacked as a government drugs adviser.
Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, a respected family doctor, was dismissed for holding ‘embarrassing’ views about homosexuality.
He was appointed to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs less than a month ago and had not even had the chance to attend a meeting.
Home Office officials said he had failed to disclose being co-author of a study suggesting a link between homosexuality and paedophilia.
Anti-drugs campaigners described his sacking as an outrage. Many had welcomed him as a breath of fresh air on the ACMD, which has repeatedly called for softer attitudes to drugs, such as cannabis and ecstasy. By contrast Dr Raabe believes that children should be told to ‘say No’, rather than being told the safest way to consume a banned substance.
Dr Raabe told the Daily Mail: ‘I have been discriminated against because of my opinions and beliefs which are in keeping with the teaching of the major Churches. This sets a dangerous precedent: Are we saying that being a Christian is now a bar to public office?’
He added: ‘My appointment has been revoked based on the wrong perception that I could potentially discriminate against gay people — something I have never done; neither in my private nor professional life. Even the Home Office has not questioned my knowledge and expertise in matters relating to substance misuse and drug policy.
‘My appointment has merely been revoked as a result of my views on matters completely unrelated to drug policy.’…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Women and Power: Why Germany Needs a Gender Quota
The number of women in senior management positions is appallingly low at Germany’s leading companies. Voluntary agreements have done little to improve the situation. It is time for lawmakers to take action.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
Why Germany (or any other country) Does NOT Need a Gender Quota:
The number of women in senior management positions is low because fewer women than men want the stress and long-term responsibilities of a senior management lifestyle.
Surprisingly (to radical feminists) most women do actually still want to have a family at some stage of their lives - and having children is NOT very compatible with high-flying management expectations. At least not if you want your children to have the best possible start to life and not be cared for by strangers from birth.
Lawmakers and others should just butt the hell out!
Check out the story of Eva Herman, ex high flying German newsreader and celebrity. When she got pregnant late in life with her first and only child, she came to a watershed realisation that there was something wrong with German family policy and the pervading expectations of women to aspire to high positions and careers at the expense (as she saw it) of their families.
She wrote two books: "Das Eva-Prinzip: Fur eine neue Weiblichkeit" ("The Eve Principle: For a new womanliness") and "Das Prinzip Arche Noah: Warum wir die Familie retten mussen" (The Noah's Ark Principle: Why we must save the family") in support of the traditional mother role and of the traditional family.
As a result she was (to cut a long story short) fired from her job and publicly humiliated on a talk show where she was asked - on air - to leave.
She was recently the guest of the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen where she spoke about the witch hunt around her person.
I have not been able to find much about the case in English, but perhaps some of our German correspondents can help?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Herman
Here's the horrible video showing The Religion of Peace in action, against the Ahmadiya, in the biggest Muslim country in the world. Makes you sick to the stomach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGG1VdA3-QQ
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