Globalists Push SDRs as World Reserve Currency
Once again the IMF is calling for SDRs, short for Special Drawing Rights, to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
“Over time, there may also be a role for the SDR to contribute to a more stable international monetary system,” said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF. He said there are some “technical hurdles” involved with SDRs, but he believes they could help correct global imbalances and shore up the global financial system.
In addition to creating a globalist fiat currency controlled by the financial elite and their central banks, the IMF is proposing the creation of SDR-denominated bonds, which would reduce the use of U.S. Treasuries if implemented. The IMF also suggested that assets such as oil and gold, which are currently traded in U.S. dollars, should be priced using SDRs.
The nominal value of an SDR is derived from a basket of currencies — specifically, a fixed amount of Japanese Yen, US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros. The IMF cooked up the SDR scheme in 1969. It was originally intended to be the primary asset held in foreign exchange reserves under Bretton Woods, but after the collapse of that system in the early 1970s — a victim of the bankster plan to send the U.S. deficit into the stratosphere — SDRs took on a far less important role.
Following the onset of the engineered global financial crisis in 2008, the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — led primarily by Russia and China, have called for dumping the dollar and moving into a global currency scheme. The SDR facility stands ready.
The IMF and the globalists plan to elevate China and undermine the United States. Strauss-Kahn told reporters last June in a news briefing that he believed there would be more pressure to include yuan, also known as the renminbi, among SDR currencies.
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Turkish Clothing Firm Loses USD 2mln Due to Turmoil in Egypt
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 10 — A leading Turkish clothing firm, Sarar Apparel, whose shops in Alexandria and Cairo have been severely damaged during the recent street protests in Egypt, announced that it has incurred a loss of nearly 2 million USD due to the turmoil. Speaking to Anatolia news agency on Thursday, Sarar Group’s chairman Cemalettin Sarar said that his company had a total of seven stores in Egypt, two of which had been heavily damaged during the ongoing demonstrations in the country. “Egypt is our brother country. We were planning to increase the number of our stores there to 10, however, we have delayed such plan due to latest developments. Our stores have been looted by protesters and we are now faced with a loss of nearly 2 million USD,” Sarar said. Sarar noted that containers filled with his firm’s products waited at customs and they might have been damaged as well. “We hope this problematic situation ends soon so that we can carry on with our business activities,” the chairman said.
Turkey’s leading ready-to-wear brand Sarar Apparel has nearly 5,000 employees, 45 retail stores and over 300 selling points all across Turkey, as well as an annual turnover of 150 million USD. The company also has a wide business network with its concept stores and dealerships in Europe, USA, Japan, China, Russia, India and the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Trade Deficit Widens to $40.6 Billion in December
WASHINGTON — The trade deficit widened in December as rising oil prices pushed the value of imports up faster than U.S. exports.
The deficit increased 5.9 percent in December to $40.6 billion, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
U.S. exports of goods and services rose to $163 billion, a 1.8 percent gain and the best showing since July 2008. Sales of industrial machinery, civilian aircraft and autos and auto parts led the export gain.
But imports rose even faster. A 2.6 percent gain pushed total U.S. imports to $203.5 billion, the highest level since October 2008. The increase was led by a 16.8 percent rise in imported oil. The average price for a barrel of imported crude oil climbed to $79.78 in December, the highest point since crude imports averaged $91.73 per barrel in October 2008.
A widening deficit is bad for the U.S. economy. When imports outpace exports, more jobs go to overseas workers than to U.S. workers.
For all of 2010, the U.S. trade deficit rose to $497.8 billion, a 32.8 percent surge. It was the biggest annual percentage gain since 2000. In 2009, the deficit had fallen to the lowest point in eight years as demand for imports plunged.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Unveils Plans to Wind Down Mortgage Giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The U.S. government is set to wind down mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it tries to prevent a repeat of the sub-prime crisis.
In a long-awaited white paper, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled three options to overhaul the country’s $10.6trillion mortgage market, all of which would involve the gradual unwinding of the troubled institutions.
And all would dramatically scale back government involvement in the housing system, which it has propped up — to the tune of $150billion — since 2008, making way for private financial firms.
But critics warned the proposals could increase mortgage rates and discourage consumers who are already wary of getting back into the housing market, potentially weakening property prices.
Mr Geithner said:’This is a plan for fundamental reform — to wind down [Fannie and Freddie], strengthen consumer protection and preserve access to affordable housing for people who need it.
‘We are going to start the process of reform now, but we are going to do it responsibly and carefully so that we support the recovery and the process of repair of the housing market.’
He estimated the slow withdrawal of federal support would take between five to seven years to complete.
In the short term, the administration will require larger down payments — up to ten per cent from five per cent — on government-backed loans, increase fees for home loans and shrink Fannie and Freddie’s mortgage portfolios by ten per cent each year.
But the plans attracted criticism from Democrats and consumer groups alike, who say they will make it more difficult for Americans to buy their own home, a policy long-cherished by successive administrations.
The Consumer Federation of America told the Washington Post the plan ‘could threaten consumers’ access to affordable mortgage credit … shifting control of the mortgage market to Wall Street banks and investors whose previous missteps have already caused massive foreclosures and losses.’
Barry Zigas, the federation’s director of housing policy, told the newspaper: ‘The administration today has laid out a series of options that could lead to the abandonment of a nearly 70-year commitment to affordable homeownership by working American families.’
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been central to the U.S. housing market for decades, but they played a key role in the 2008 financial meltdown and were bailed out by then-president George W. Bush.
Since then, they have cost the U.S. taxpayer around $150billion.
But they still dominate the market, guaranteeing or owning nearly one in two U.S. mortgages.
Together with the Federal Housing Administration, the two GSEs — government-sponsored enterprises — back 95 per cent of new mortgages…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Computer Hacking Bill Coming in Congress
Strengthening cybersecurity is the goal of legislation being introduced in Congress after reports of hack attacks on computer networks at Nasdaq OMX Group and at oil and gas companies.
“Cyber-threats are not on the horizon, they are upon us,” Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who is introducing the bill, said in a statement on Thursday.
The bipartisan Cybersecurity Enhancement Act would fund more cybersecurity research, awareness and education.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Los Angeles Gets Tough With Political Protesters
Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is throwing the book at dozens of people arrested during recent political demonstrations — a major shift in city policy that has him pressing for jail time in types of cases that previous prosecutors had treated as infractions.
Some of the activists arrested, including eight college students and one military veteran who took part in a Westwood rally last year in support of the DREAM Act, face up to one year in county jail.
[…]
Trutanich said in an interview that recent demonstrations, conducted without permits, had cost the city thousands of dollars for police response and disrupted traffic. Organizers of illegal protests should face consequences, he said.
“My whole deal is predictability,” he said. “In order for us to have a civilized society, there has to be a predictable result when you break the law. I want to make sure that they don’t do it again.”
The new policy, he added, was designed with an eye on what he called “professional” protesters who demonstrate repeatedly — sometimes for pay, he said — and never seem to be punished for their illegal activities.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way” to protest, Trutanich said. “When you break the law, it’s a not a mainstream 1st Amendment activity. You have the right to protest; you don’t have the right to break the law.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Man Up and Go to Your Happy Place’, Nurse Tells Patient After Stealing His Pain Relief Injection
A nurse who allegedly self-injected a powerful pain killer meant for an operating table patient told him to ‘man up’ before gruelling kidney stone surgery.
After using the powerful sedative on her self, nurse Sarah Casareto, 33, reportedly told the patient to ‘go to his happy place’ as he screamed in agony during the operation at a Minneapolis hospital.
The kidney-stone patient, known only as L.V.K., reported his ordeal to police on 4 December, prompting an investigation.
According to the StarTribune, the patient said his doctor told him he would not feel pain during the procedure at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, which involved inserting a tube through his back and into one of his kidneys.
But before the operation, Casareto — who is reportedly addicted to pain medication — is said to have taken a syringe filled with a 500ml dose of the powerful sedative fentanyl and injected herself.
This left only 150ml for the patient.
The patient said Casareto then told him: ‘You’re gonna have to man up here and take some of the pain because we can’t give you a lot of medication.’
He reportedly told police the operation felt like, ‘very long needles going through my skin and down into my kidneys.’
He added hospital staff had to hold him down to finish the procedure.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Philadelphia Priests Accused by Grand Jury of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up
A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests.
The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.
“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.
At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations.
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Playing the Global Warming Card
Carbon dioxide is natural and beneficial to plants. Rises in carbon dioxide follow temperature rise. It is a lie that the cause and effect are the reverse.
[…]
In 1992 the federal government, by executive decree, made the core of every cabinet agency’s mission the implementation of Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. Global Warming is the global crises used to restructure human life so as to implement world governance under the Agenda 21 action plan. Other crises are prepped in the event that Global Warming theory becomes exposed. Agenda 21 serves the globalist movement with its policy cornerstones: abolition of private property, education of the youth for global citizenship, and the utilization of technological advance for the purpose of monitoring and controlling human action.
Michael Shaw of FreedomAdvocates.org says, “Agenda 21 is the action plan that calls for the establishment of world government in accordance with principals that negate the political recognition of an individual’s unalienable rights. This alone accounts for much of the turmoil we see today. Our future under Agenda 21 is bleak as power becomes centralized.“
[…]
The proper role of government is to protect the people and their property; this is why destructive policies are cloaked in “safety” provisions.
Because a national cap-and-trade scheme failed in Congress, the feds are using the EPA to institute draconian laws. The EPA has drawn up an 18,000 page document with new federal regulations that affect energy production and transportation in addition to a cap-and-trade scheme. House Republicans are planning to stop the EPA (but Obama and the Senate will likely block them). As of September 2010, Texas is the only state that has had the good sense to oppose these absurd and unconstitutional mandates based on a vague Supreme Court ruling.
Almost every level of the federal government has a “sustainability” plan, from the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force’ to the USDA, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, Department of Transportation, HUD, the Department of Defense, and even the Post Office. The regulations include everything from centralizng control over supergrids to licensing homes for energy efficiency. Each agency and many of their sub-departments have regulations based on phony science designed to centralize control.
[…]
State Mandates
Thirty two states are involved in unconstitutional alliances to implement global warming laws that directly affect energy production and transportation. Northeastern states are already engaged in a carbon trading scam and California’s plan is to permanently break its economy by imposing a cap-and-trade scheme and implementing outrageously invasive restrictions on individuals and businesses.
[…]
While the overwhelming regulations attack energy production, transportation and land use and ownership, the ultimate goal of the UN Agenda 21 is depopulation. The UN’s Global Biodiversity Assessment report says on page 773 that only 1 billion people are ‘sustainable’ in an industrialized world; therefore, an 85% population reduction is necessary to maintain “sustainability”.
In addition to energy and transportation as targets for destruction, independent farms are also under the “sustainable” attack, again in the name of fighting global warming.
[…]
Overpopulation is another enormous lie that the UN has foisted upon us. Their very own documents [link] reveal that the population will reach 9 billion people by 2050 AND will plateau there into 2300.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Intellectual Godfather’
Is the jazz standard “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” a heartwarming ode to winter romance or the worst example of American hedonism?
After hearing the song at a Colorado church dance in the 1940s, Egyptian exchange student Sayyid Qutb viewed the song as a moral indictment of the West — views that some say could now shape the future of Egypt.
After returning to Egypt, Qutb emerged as the intellectual godfather of Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that now appears poised to assume a larger role in Egyptian society, possibly including whatever government takes root after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
The massive demonstrations across Egypt have revived interest — and debate — over Qutb’s impact on the Brotherhood, and whether his anti-Western views that were shaped by his time in America will find renewed favor in a more democratic Egypt.
Qutb lived in the United States from 1948 to 1950, but even Qutb experts are divided on whether he was ultimately more disenchanted with the United States or with authoritarian Islamic governments that themselves didn’t live up to Muslim ideals.
Born in 1906, Qutb received both a Western and Islamic education, and in the 1930s he became a civil servant in Egypt’s education ministry. He made his name as a writer, specializing in social and religious issues.
In 1948, Qutb was sent to study the American education system. Some scholars say Qutb already viewed America negatively because of its ties with Great Britain, Egypt’s former colonial master, and later because of its support for Israel.
“There was a sort of Utopian quality to his vision. He thought that if society reached a certain level of education, then this ideal Islamic society will come into being,” said Ellen Amster, an associate history professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
Qutb began in Washington at Wilson Teachers College and then moved to Greeley, Colo., home to Colorado State College of Education, where he spent the bulk of his time. It was a religiously conservative town; consistent with Muslim beliefs, alcohol was prohibited.
Still, Qutb disdained what he saw.
“Nobody goes to church as often as Americans do. . . . Yet no one is as distant as they are from the spiritual aspect of religion,” he wrote in “The America I Have Seen,” a 20-page tract he published in 1950.
Qutb was also critical of American sexual mores, arguing that objectifying females and promiscuity had led women away from the roles as mothers and resulted in the breakdown of the family…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Jewish Groups Congratulate Egyptians on Ousting Mubarak
ADL, Simon Wiesenthal Center urge Egyptians to take advantage of new found democratic power and maintain a peaceful relationship with Israel.
American Jewish groups across the board congratulated Friday the Egyptian people on ousting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and expressed hope that the country maintained peace with Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement in response saying that “We join with the Egyptian people and the international community in hoping this new era will unfold peacefully and smoothly.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Union Operatives’ Salaries Raise Eyebrows in Capitol
Many Who Engage in Class Warfare Rhetoric Earn Six Figure Salaries
The MacIver News Service has examined hundreds of pages of public records available through the U.S. Department of Labor and via the online search site Guidestar and found that many of the most prominent union advocates in the state make well in excess of $100,000 a year in salary alone.
For example, Marty Beil, executive director of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME )Council 24 SEPAC, made $161,847 in 2008 according to the organization’s Form 990. That’s considerably more than the $144,423 a year Scott Walker makes as Wisconsin’s Governor.
Despite this, Beil has repeatedly attempted to portray Walker as a member of some upper class elite. In December, Beil said Walker’s treatment of state employees was like “the plantation owner talking to the slaves.”
[…]
The heated rhetoric is not sitting well with some lawmakers in Madison.
“I don’t begrudge anyone an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, and the market determines your value,” said Rep. Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha). “But it’s pretty hypocritical to whine about being treated like a slave when you pull down well over 100-grand a year.”
Beil is not the only public sector union leader to be making a six-figure salary, the MacIver News Service discovered. Even his assistant director at AFSME 24 SEPAC, Jana Weaver, made $138,553. In fact, all six full time AFSCME 24 SEPAC employees make six-figure salaries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Weigel : CPAC 2011: Nobody Expects the Muslim Brotherhood
In my ongoing quest for opinions about Egypt at CPAC, I sat in on a session on the threat of Sharia law, featuring Ayaan Hirsi Ali and former CIA Director James Woolsey. Egypt came up in the form of this question: How great is the risk of a Muslim brotherhood takeover? “The answer to that question depends on three things,” said Hirsi Ali. “One, it depends the Muslim brotherhood’s influence within the Egyptian military. A second factor is how gullible the U.S. administration is.” That got a worried laugh.
“Take the national intelligence director’s remarks yesterday,” said Hirsi Ali, “describing them as a secular, eschewing violence, and so on. If that is the policy, that is how the American government perceives the Muslim Brotherhood to be, that’s a great asset for the Muslim brotherhood, a third factor is the level of organization or disorganization within the secular forces in Egypt. All three forces, at the moment, seem to be directed toward a Muslim Brotherhood between now and 2-5 years. And the military is the only institution within Egypt that has been preventing such a government, but there are reports that the Muslim Brotherhood has got a great deal of influence within the law, and the mid-ranking officials. And they’re going to bide their time and they’re very, very clever about it.”
Woolsey more or less agreed.
“The key point about Egypt is that there’s a long tradition,” he said, “unfortunately, of revolutions against autocrats, shortly after they take place and during the time that they’re overthrowing the Bastille, say, by moderates and librarians. It happened in the French revolution. It happened in the Russian revolution, with Kerensky. It happened in Iran, with the reformers who took down the Shah. And then the simple phrase is ‘the revolution devours its children.’ What tends to come around later, after a period of a couple of months or so, is that the hard-liners kill the liberals and take over, and if you’re very disciplined and very organized you can pull off what the Bolsheviks pulled off in 1917.”
The early, happy headlines might not last.
“Even if things look good here for a few weeks or even a few months, don’t take your eyes off the situation, because as Ayaan says, the Muslim Brotherhood will be working very hard to get contral. And you could get the hand of Iran in there. Iran is an equal opportunity terrorism sponsor. They’re happy to work with Sunni as well as Shi’ite.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Czech Watchdog Office Against EU Access to Flight Passenger Data
Prague — The Czech Office for Personal Data Protection (UOOU) is opposed to the EC’s proposal that EU authorities have access to international flight passengers, UOOU spokeswoman Hana Stepankova told CTK today.
Brussels has prepared the relevant draft directive as a step to help fight terrorism.
Privacy protectors, however, object that the measure’s effectiveness is not evident, as terrorists can also use other means of transport, apart from planes.
“What sense does the gathering of data from air carriers have in an area where borders can also be easily crossed by train, coach or car. Criminals can also arrive otherwise than by plane, and information would be only gathered at airports, from decent citizens,” Stepankova said.
The UOOU also opposed similar measures previously, when they were introduced by the U.S. and Australia, she recalled.
Under the EU’s draft directive on PNR (passenger name record), EU member states’ authorities should have access to the information on the data of the flight passengers arriving in or departing from the EU.
The plan has also been opposed by the Czech Senate commission for privacy protection, which, too, said it is not evident that the amount of gathered and used data would be appropriate in view of their possible usefulness.
The commission suggested that flight passenger data monitoring rules should be formulated as an agreement and submitted to national parliaments for approval.
The EC says the data, which air carriers would have to provide at the authorities’ request, would also help uncover drug and people smuggling.
The authorities would compare the provided data with various databases and lists of suspects. The data include e-mail address, phone number, information about luggage and credit card, the EC says.
The authorities would not have access to information indicating the passengers’ racial or ethnic origin, faith or political opinions.
Author: CTK
www.ctk.cz
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Copenhagen’s First Purpose-Built Mosque
Denmark’s Muslim Council says it is trying to raise funds to build Copenhagen’s first purpose-built mosque after the project was given the green light.
The City Council approved the plans late Thursday, overruling objections by the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party.
Denmark’s Muslim Council said Friday it’s trying to raise up to 200 million kroner ($36.56 million) for the Sunni mosque.
Since the 1970s, Muslim immigrants have discussed building a grand mosque in the capital, but plans have been held back by disputes mainly over funding.
Now a plot of land about half-a-mile (1 kilometer) from City Hall Square has been designated for the project.
Muslims make up an estimated 4 percent of Denmark’s 5.5 million residents…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Leaders Finally Learning to Reject Islamist ‘Multiculturalism’
For more than a decade Islamic immigrants have poured into welcoming parts of Western Europe. Many of those open-armed nations have allowed and even promoted that Muslims be able to live the Islamic way without being truly merged into European society. Some nations, most notably the UK, have even allowed the spread of Sharia law in Muslim communities.
Well the times, they are a changing. Leaders of the UK, Germany, and France have all recently called for the end of full blown Islamic multiculturalism and a restored push for a national identity among all its citizens.
Yesterday, in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy shocked many in his own country when he declared that multiculturalism is dead in The French Republic. Sarkozy made the surprising remarks on French television.
“Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want… a society where communities coexist side by side…If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France… We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him.” — Sarkozy
While France had already rejected some of Germany and the UK’s multicultural practices (no Muslim veils in public or headscarves in schools), Sarkozy had been known as someone open to multiculturalism before becoming President in 2007. Now, he has made it clear that Muslims who move to France must pursue “a French Islam and not just an Islam in France.” Such words did not sit well with Islamic groups, but Sarkozy was merely echoing recent statements heard in England and Germany.
Last week, the UK’s British Prime Minister David Cameron told the annual Munich Security Conference that European nations have been too lenient on allowing anti-western view to spread unhindered in Islamic immigrant circles.
“We won’t defeat terrorism simply by the actions we take outside our borders. Europe needs to wake up to what is happening in our own countries…We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. We have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream…We’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them.” — Cameron
The United Kingdom, in recent years, had opened their doors to all types of pro-Sharia initiatives. Our friends across the pond have often been seen as a possible future for America when it comes to the spread of Sharia. (For a recent example see this NRB blog). The UK has a population of Muslims where Sharia is demanded and even 1 in 3 UK college Muslims think killing for Islam is okay. It is clear now that the British Prime minister knows their policies have failed…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
European Commission Funds Turkish Construction Association
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, FEBRUARY 10 — The Association of the Turkish Building Material Producers, or IMSAD, has been awarded funds from the European Commission to develop and promote financing models for energy efficiency in buildings in six European countries, according to the IMSAD chairman Huseyin Bilmac. Turkey as the chairing country of the “EU-Build Project” will collaborate with Albania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia and list all kinds of funding suggestions for energy efficiency for the European Commission. The draft version of the project is planned to be submitted to the commission by June this year. The total amount of the funding for the EU-Build Project is kept confidential, IMSAD officials told the Hurriyet daily.
Talking to journalist at the press meeting in Istanbul on Wednesday, Chairman Bilmac said, “In order to reach a sustainable level of energy efficiency, we have to do more than use energy-saving light bulbs.” Both the state and private sector should start developing policies for energy efficiency, he said. According to him, the EU has the target of decreasing the amount of the energy consumed in buildings by 20% with preventive methods, along with a new road map for EU energy efficiency to be launched in March.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ferrari to Use Race Car’s Full Name to Dodge Ford Charge
US automaker claimed F150 ‘copied from F-150 pick-up’
(ANSA) — Maranello, February 10 — Ferrari said Thursday it would be using the full name of its Formula One race car to avert a law suit filed by Ford for alleged breach of copyright.
The F150 car, whose name Ford claimed was copied from its F-150 pick-up truck, will “henceforth always be referred to by its complete name, the Ferrari F150th Italia,” a letter to Ford said. In the letter, the Italian glamour carmaker said it was “really hard to understand” Ford’s claim.
It stressed the F150, like all its racing cars, would never be turned into a commercial vehicle and could not be confused with any, still less a Ford pick-up.
F150 was merely an abbreviation of F150th, marking the 150th anniversary of Italian unification this year, it said.
In its suit, filed in Detroit, Ford noted that F150 was virtually the same as F-150, the name of one of the US giant’s most popular pick-ups.
The suit also accused Ferrari of publicising the name on the Web.
Ford said they had asked Ferrari to change the car’s name but the Italian company had allegedly been too slow in getting back to them.
This left Ford “no alternative but to take legal action to protect this important brand”.
“F-150 is an important and steady brand and the name of its highest-selling pick-up model in the F series, the most sold truck in America in the last 34 years,” it said.
“This hard-won brand is now seriously threatened by the adoption of the name F150,” it said. Ferrari is owned by the Fiat group, which took over Chrysler in 2009 and is one of Ford’s major competitors on the American market. photo: Fernando Alonso puts new car through its paces in Spain last week
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Ronald McDonald ‘Beheaded’ By Food Campaigners in Sick Publicity Stunt
Campaigners for ethically produced food today carried out their threat to behead Ronald McDonald — in a sick publicity stunt that has been branded ‘poor taste’ by the restaurant chain.
Members of a group calling themselves the ‘Food Liberation Army’ staged the beheading in a Helsinki art gallery, after sparking outrage last week by releasing an Al Qaeda-style spoof video in which they were seen holding a hooded Ronald McDonald hostage.
Members of the group stole a Ronald McDonald statue from a Helsinki restaurant on January 31, posting their videoed demands on YouTube days later.
Finnish police later recovered the statue and arrested two of the members.
But the group had prepared their own version of the iconic fast food character, which was executed in a performance with a guillotine today.
Artist Jani Leinonen was present at the event — unmasked this time as he posed for photographers with the disconnected head of Ronald.
Mr Leinonen is one of the two members of the group who was arrested earlier this week.
In the original YouTube video, the group are seen in black balaclavas with Ronald in the foreground, wearing a hood.
The spokesman threatens to execute the character if the fast food chain refuses to answer questions about how it produces its products.
McDonalds told MailOnline after the footage was released that the stunt was ‘in very poor taste’. It also denied the group’s suggestion that it was attempting to hide details about its food quality and manufacturing processes.
‘Meanwhile, we are focused on our customers and are fully transparent about our high quality food and industry-leading standards and practices.’
The food group had demanded that McDonald’s release information about its manufacturing process, and the additives used in its product…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Bubbly Wine Production Overtakes French
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 25 — In 2010 the Italian production of white bubbly wines (basically prosecco and spumante) was greater than that of champagne with 380 million bottles compared to 370. The figures were provided by Assoenologi.
But the step forwards is only in terms of quantity, because the Italian turnover is still considerably lower than that of champagne. The average price of a bottle of spumante, which ranges from 8.5 to 18 euros, is much lower than that of a bottle of champagne. However, the global export of spumante and prosecco increased by 17% during the first nine months of 2010, while the export of champagne is starting to pick up again after years of decline.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Pisa Pushing for UNESCO Status for Roman Ships
Mayor to ask govt to back drive for ‘extraordinary’ site
(ANSA) — Pisa, February 3 — Pisa is pushing for an extraordinary collection of ancient Roman ships to be given UNESCO world heritage status.
A petition from prominent intellectuals and officials was sent to city mayor Marco Filippeschi as a planned museum for the ships, scheduled to open in December, is still short of funds to get going.
The nearly 3,000-strong petition urges Filippeschi to persuade the government to campaign for UNESCO status. The mayor said he would try to hand over the petition to Culture Minister Sandro Bondi in person and “ask for greater attention for this site of extraordinary cultural importance”.
He said it wasn’t a petition “against (the government) but a proposal to work with the government”. The mayor said it was time for Bondi, who recently survived a no-confidence motion filed for his alleged mishandling of issues like recent collapses at Pompeii, to “fully carry out his duty as minister”.
The discovery of the spectacular Roman vessels 13 years ago provided an unprecedented vision of Pisa’s vanished past as a thriving port.
Pisa’s ancient harbour began to merge in 1998 when workmen uncovered the remains of an ancient boat while digging the foundations of a new State Railways building.
Since then, an astonishing 20 ships have been unearthed in the area, as well as a host of other items, including navigational instruments, human and animal bones, ropes, incense burners, oil lamps and writing implements.
The as-yet-unopened museum features a selection of these finds as well as reconstructions of two of the boats, displayed in the order in which they were uncovered.
The first of these is the Alkedo (‘The Seagull’), a six-person rowing boat that sank when the River Arno flooded in around 10AD.
Archaeologists uncovered over 90% of the original structure, now kept underwater in a special wood preservation tank.
The next vessel is a river canoe, nearly half of which was still in perfect shape when it was dug up.
There is also the reconstruction of a fishing hut from the 1st century AD, displayed with a selection of the plates, pans, oil-lamps, amphorae and terracotta jars that were found inside.
‘Il Porto delle Meraviglie’ (the Port of Wonders) as the archaeological site has been dubbed, lies some ten kilometres inland, near the Tuscan town of San Rossore.
Although most of the the cache of boats dates back to between 200BC and 500AD, archaeologists have also found an Etruscan-built stone pier and wooden breakwater from the 5th century BC.
Other remains suggest the port may even have been operational as much as 300 years earlier.
From this, experts have deduced that the Pisan port was operational for about twelve centuries, acting as a gateway for routes to Naples, southern Italy, Marseilles and Carthage.
This was a particularly surprising discovery given that scholars were completely unaware of its existence before the ships were unearthed. The port is not in fact mentioned in any surviving documents.
EXCELLENT CONDITION.
The other remarkable aspect of the Porto delle Meraviglie is the excellent condition of the boats.
Although hundreds of wrecked Roman vessels have been found over the years, only sections buried under cargos of amphorae are usually protected from decomposition. More often than not this leaves only the base of the ship, which tends to yield little new information.
This has also meant that scholars usually only have mercantile vessels to work with, as warships or fishing boats rarely carried the pottery jars.
However the situation at the Porto delle Meraviglie is unique.
In the 5th century AD, devastating floods repeatedly swept the area — once a harbour connected to the sea by river — silting up the site so rapidly that the ships were preserved in outstanding condition.
The conservation process was further aided by the mineral content of the damp sand in which they were buried, together with several strata of clayey soil. These prevented oxygen from reaching the wrecks and triggering decomposition.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Swiss Father of Missing Twins Wrote Wife She’d Never See Daughters Again
Foggia, 11 Feb. (AKI) — The Swiss father of missing six-year-old twin girls wrote his estranged wife that she will never she her children again, unnamed sources close to the investigation told Adnkronos.
“You’ll never see Alessia and Livia again,” wrote Matthias Schepp, 42, in a letter to Irina Lucid, before he ended his own life on 3 February by leaping in front of a train in the southern Italian town of Cerignola, the sources said.
Investigators in France, Italy and Switzerland are working in Interpol to trace the whereabouts of the blond twin girls who were taken by their father from the Swiss village of St. Sulpice on 28 January, before travelling to France and Italy.
Police have said Schepp surfed websites on suicide, guns and poison before killing himself.
The history of his computer work showed he’d consulted the websites, as well as sites with ferry schedules. Police said he had been spotted on 31 January travelling with the twins on a ferry headed from Marseille for the French island of Corsica.
“These factors show that the father had carefully planned his journey,” Lausanne, Switzerland police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel told reporters late Thursday.
“The investigation is now focusing on trying to establish more precisely the movements of the father from Tuesday noon, when he arrived in Corsica with the girls, until Thursday noon, when he was in the region of Naples,” said Sauterel.
Schepp had been given custody of his daughters for the weekend, but did not return them to their mother. The parents, who were in the midst of divorce proceedings, lived in St. Sulpice, a wealthy lakefront community in Lausanne. They had joint custody of their twin daugters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Multiculturalism Under Attack Across Europe
The “failure” of multiculturalism pronounced by the leaders of France, Britain and Germany comes as far-right parties gain ground across Europe, capitalizing on fears of the growing Muslim population.
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday became the latest top politician to join the attack on a policy generally understood as meaning that no single culture or set of values should be promoted above any other.
“If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France.
“We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,” Sarkozy said on a televised interview.
A week earlier, Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron said that “under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.”
This had resulted in a lack of national identity in Britain, which had made some Muslims turn to extremist ideology, he said.
Germany’s Merkel, who like her French and British counterparts is centre-right, said in October that efforts toward multiculturalism in her country had “failed, totally.”
The comment followed weeks of anguished debate sparked by the popularity of a book by a central banker saying that immigrants, in particular Muslims, were making Germany “more stupid.”
Jean-Yves Camus, a French academic who studies the far right, said it was ironic that these statements were being made as people in Muslim countries such as Tunisia and Egypt were rising up to demand western-style freedoms.
“When the people of the Arab world are aspiring to more democracy … we in Europe are telling people who have chosen to live in our countries that their integration is a problem,” he said.
Camus noted that although integration models vary among EU states, “the common denominator is immigration
that comes from outside of Europe and which is Muslim.”
Declarations like Sarkozy’s are part of a “general trend in Europe towards an increase in very tense discourse on immigration caused by the economic crisis,” said sociologist Agathe Voisin, who researches immigration in France and Britain…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Good for UK — Cherie Sister
The sister-in-law of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has said a rise in the number of Muslims in Britain would be “good for the country”.
Journalist Lauren Booth — sister of Mr Blair’s wife Cherie — converted to Islam last year.
And she told a conference in Colchester, Essex, that since becoming a Muslim she was a “better worker” and a “better mother” to her two daughters.
She told the University of Essex’s annual Islamic Conference that Britons were “seeking not to be afraid” of Muslims and wanted Muslims “to be happy”.
Ms Booth was asked how Mr and Mrs Blair had reacted to her conversion and said: “My sister … recognises that it is a great faith that people follow. Tony Blair is Tony Blair.”
“If the number of British Muslims increases you should know it will be only good for the country,” Ms Booth told the conference, in a lecture entitled My Journey to Islam.
“I am a better community person, I am a better worker, I am a better mother.”
Ms Booth said she had been “scared” of Arabs, and “probably” of Muslims. She said that given the amount of “one-sided news” people absorbed it was hard for Britons not to be prejudiced.
But she told the conference, called Islam: Fear or Not to Fear, that British non-Muslims “wanted it to be OK”.
“They are seeking not to be afraid of us,” said Ms Booth. “The British people want us to be happy in their community. The British people are pretty good, you know. We all really want this to work.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Intrigue at the Berlinale
A film by a German director about the Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was to premiere at the Berlinale. But it’s been stolen — and the director is afraid.
Thorsten Schmitz
Cyril Tuschi sounds excited and speaks fast. His documentary on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, critic of the Russian government, should have been celebrating its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on 14 February. But for the last few days the director has had the feeling he’s the lead actor in a movie — and not one he signed up for. “It’s like a bad thriller,” says Tuschi. Currently staying with friends, he says: “They want to scare me, and I must say they have succeeded.”
Behind the curtain of Putin’s propaganda machine
Sometime during the night on Friday Tuschi’s production premises in Berlin were torn upside down. Two laptops and two PCs were stolen, and with them went the 111-minute final cut of the film. The police spoke of “highly professional burglars.” This is the second time that computers have been stolen from Tuschi. The last was a few weeks ago in a hotel room in Bali, where the director wanted to put the final touches to his Berlinale entry.
“I’m totally rattled,” Tuschi says. In Russia, the country has been “in the grip of hysteria in the run-up to the premiere”. The business daily Kommersant printed on its front page over the weekend a report that the film would have legal consequences for the interviewees. And on Sunday Khodorkovsky’s ex-wife Elena, who talks in the film, wrote Tuschi a concerned e-mail: “It was a mistake for you to give an interview to Russian journalists.”
Over five years, Cyril Tuschi gathered 180 hours of interviews in Moscow, Tel Aviv, London, New York, Siberia, and Berlin. His film peeks behind the curtain of Putin’s propaganda machine and shows how the once richest man in Russia became an opponent of the state and a convict. Interviewees include Khodorkovsky’s mother and son living in exile in New York, the former major shareholder of the Yukos oil company, Leonid Nevzlin, and former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. It tells the story of a strange encounter with Russia’s then president in Hamburg at which Putin had boasted that the state could swallow Yukos unscathed.
I wanted to make a feature film about Assange, but now…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Genes Similar to Brits and Danes: Study
Swedes have a similar genetic make up to the Danes and the British, although variations between those living in the south and the north of the country are greater than once thought, a new study shows.
An extensive genetic survey of researchers in Sweden and Finland shows clear variations between different parts of the country and indicates that Swedes are closer to Brits and Danes genetically than to Finland.
The significant differences between Swedes and neighbouring Finns has surprised researchers, as Finland and Sweden were united for several hundred years.
“It is both strange and interesting that the genes are so linked to language. It may be that if we speak different languages, you are less likely to jump into bed with one another,” said Per Hall, Professor at Karolinska Institute, and one of the researchers behind the study.
He believes that the results may have important medical implications as genetic differences, such as those between populations in northern and southern Sweden, can often explain the prevalence of certain diseases.
“Stomach cancer is for example very common in the north. It may be due to genetic factors, because lifestyle differences in Sweden are not really very significant,” Hall said.
The study compared the genetic make up of a total of 1500 persons of Swedish origin, with just over 3000 people from other European countries.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Future of Islamic Ireland
Ireland’s Muslim population has grown tenfold in 20 years and is still expanding. But official Ireland is failing to engage with the increasing number of ethnic and political groups
‘DOWN A ROAD on an industrial estate in Togher, a suburb two kilometres south of Cork city centre, stands a nondescript former engineering premises whose future will mark a significant chapter in the story of Islam in Ireland. Within a year the hulking concrete building will be transformed into a mosque complex capable of accommodating 1,000 or so worshippers. Design plans show a crescent-topped glass tower overlooking gleaming white arches and domes. The one-acre site will be the second-biggest such complex in the country, after the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (ICCI), in Clonskeagh in Dublin, and the second purpose-built Sunni mosque outside the capital. It is yet another sign of the deep roots Islam has laid in Ireland.
“This is a very important step for us,” says Salim al-Faituri, the mosque’s Libyan-born imam. “We have been moving from one rented premises to another for years. Finally we will have a place of our own.” The new mosque, funded by donations including one €800,000 gift from a Qatari benefactor, will cater for 6,000 Muslims in Cork and several thousand more living in its hinterland.
“This is the second-biggest Muslim community outside Dublin,” says Ahmed H Zahran, an Egyptian academic at University College Cork who sits on the mosque committee. “And it’s growing.”
Ireland’s Muslim population, when compared with other European countries’, is relatively young, but it is changing fast. Almost 10 times more Muslims live in Ireland today than lived here 20 years ago. The 2006 census put the figure at just under 33,000, but most observers agree the true figure is well in excess of 40,000. The number of Muslims here increased by almost 70 per cent between 2002 and 2006, making Islam one of the fastest-growing religions in the country.
Ireland’s Muslim community is also becoming more diverse — so much so that it is truer to speak of a constellation of communities. In the past Muslims from the Middle East and north Africa tended to predominate. Most of this earlier generation came for educational or professional reasons and decided to stay, often marrying Irish citizens. From the early 1990s, however, the population swelled to include more Muslims from south and southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans. Many of the new arrivals were young economic migrants; others were asylum seekers. (Muslims from Nigeria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Algeria and elsewhere have sought asylum in Ireland.) Irish converts make up a small percentage, with some estimates putting the number in the hundreds. The vast majority of Muslims in Ireland are Sunni, but there is also a substantial Shia population in Dublin.
“This is probably one of the most diverse Muslim populations in Europe,” says Dr Oliver Scharbrodt, who is leading a pioneering three-year research project on Islam in Ireland at UCC. “In other European countries you have a particular ethnic group or nationality being dominant because of historical or colonial links, but that is not the case in Ireland. One could say that Ireland constitutes a microcosm of the global ummah [community of believers], with all the different nationalities, trends and movements present and visible in a fairly small geographic and communal space.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
TV4 Reported After ‘Swedish Mafia’ Suicide
A man has reported Swedish television network TV4 after his 21-year-old foster son took his life following the airing of a programme on criminal gangs in which the young man took part.
According to the foster father, the young man, identified as Victor by TV4, did not realise the implications of his participation in the six-part documentary series Swedish Mafia (Svensk Maffia), currently airing on Thursdays.
After changing his mind, he unsuccessfully tried to have all references to him cut from the programme. However, the channel chose to broadcast the episode on Thursday and showed the young man’s name and photo.
He was described as a gang member in the programme about criminal gangs. Three days later, he was found dead and is believed to have committed suicide following a pill overdose.
The man’s foster father has reported the programme to the Broadcasting Commission (Granskningsnämnden för radio och TV), newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter (DN) reported on Wednesday.
“It caused him a great deal of anxiety when it was broadcast,” the foster father told Aftonbladet on Wednesday.
He added that his son did not understand what the programme was about. When he realised that it was about crime, he no longer wanted to take part. He then wrote a letter to Swedish television production company Strix Television, in which he indicated that he would no longer participate in the programme.
Strix was founded and is chaired by Swedish journalist Robert Aschberg. He regrets what has occurred, but does not believe that the company has made any mistakes.
“We have acted entirely properly. That this has happened is a tragedy,” Aschberg told the Aftonbladet daily on Wednesday.
When asked by The Local on Wednesday whether TV4 will continue to air the show on Thursday, as well as the remaining episodes, press officer Magnus Törnblom responded that the network’s plans are currently unclear.
Fredrik Lundberg, editor-in-chief of TV4 and Lasse Wierup, editor of Swedish Mafia, said in a statement released on Wednesday that they met Victor, a native of Stockholm, in early 2010 through a self-help organisation for former criminals.
Several months earlier, he was convicted of robbery and attempted robbery. The verdict was of the opinion that he had psychiatric problems, but did not suffer from serious disturbances.
The week before the programme aired, a female relative of Victor’s called Strix Television after having read an article in DN, saying that he did not realise it would not be in his best interest to participate and that he was incapacitated.
Strix responded that they had no way of determining his clearance and that as an adult, he had consented to his appearance. The relative requested a copy of the requested material on DVD, which was granted, but only to Victor as a participant.
The same day, on January 31st, Victor went to Strix unannounced looking for a reporter who was unavailable. He left a handwritten note asking that his face be pixellated and that he not be named.
The programme aired as schedule on Thursday. On Monday, Strix received learned that Victor had died.
Police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the death, the editors wrote. A forensic investigation has begun and is expected to be completed in the spring.
“In the meantime, we can only conclude that there are no concrete signs that Victor decided to take his own life in connection with TV4’s publication,” the editors wrote.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bloated Councils Are Cheating Democracy
There will be almost unmitigated misery. So boasted the Labour leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese, this week in response to the need to reduce his authority’s vast budget.
Duly, he announced rubbish will only be collected once a fortnight, five libraries will be axed and the city will close all its public lavatories bar one. There was no other option, the council insisted.
Balderdash. Today we reveal that, while it cuts frontline staff, Manchester still employs armies of highly-paid officials filling utterly unnecessary politically-correct jobs.
Oh yes, and while its chief executive is paid £232,000 a year, 96 councillors last year received allowances of £1.97million — an average of more than £20,000 each.
No, councillors are not cutting valued frontline services because they have to: they are seeking to score ideological points by blaming the Tory-led government for the cuts, while ensuring their own lavish perks are protected.
And make no mistake: such cynical acts are being deployed by councils across the land. Only this week, 88 senior Liberal Democrats, including 17 local authority leaders, demanded the Coalition slow the pace of the spending cuts, and accused Nick Clegg of ‘letting them down’ by giving his support to the Conservatives.
At no stage do these council leaders —who, incidentally, run the country’s most wasteful local authorities — explain how Britain is going to pay off the £1trillion debt that, unless dealt with, will haunt the lives of our grandchildren.
Nor do they acknowledge how the private sector made far deeper cuts during the recession than those currently expected of Town Halls.
The sad truth is there is no democratic accountability in our local authorities.
Ever since Margaret Thatcher lost the poll tax argument, they have had the luxury of spending money without having to raise it.
Three-quarters of Town Hall funding comes direct from central government. Council Tax, which accounts for the remainder, is capped by ministers.
Thus, councillors — who have become cut off from democratic scrutiny — are relaxed about paying 166 executives more than £150,000 a year because so little of the money is coming direct from local people.
If Town Halls were made to raise the bulk of their money through local taxation rather than Whitehall grants, they would have to justify to their own electors how they were spending it.
They could either stop wasting fortunes on pay, perks and highly dubious jobs or face voters’ anger at the local ballot box.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Fury as Europe Tells us it is ‘Deeply Disappointed’ After Our MPs Take Historic Decision to Reject Ruling by Human Rights Court
The body that oversees European human rights law angered MPs last night by attacking their decision to reject demands to give prisoners the vote.
The Council of Europe said it was ‘deeply disappointed’ by the defiance of Parliament and had expected better from one of Europe’s oldest democracies, which it said must ‘abide by its international obligations’.
Despite the outburst, David Cameron told colleagues he would rather pay compensation to prisoners banned from voting than try to pass legislation that had no chance of getting through the Commons.
The Prime Minister will scrap plans to introduce a Bill later this year responding to rulings on prisoners’ votes from the European Court of Human Rights, unless an acceptable compromise can be reached that satisfies his MPs.
He is also expected to announce within weeks that the Government is setting up an independent commission to draw up plans to rebalance human rights laws by creating a new British Bill of Rights.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hate Preacher Beats Ban by Beaming Vile Rants to Your Telly
A HATE preacher banned from entering Britain has been broadcasting messages into people’s homes via satellite TV.
Zakir Naik, 45, claims “every Muslim should be a terrorist” and was prevented from visiting the UK by Home Secretary Theresa May, 54, last year.
Eight months on and the Islamic loudmouth is a key figure in poisonous satellite channel Peace TV, which is being shown in the UK.
Yesterday broadcasting watchdog Ofcom revealed it was investigating the channel after a complaint from a viewer about its extremist messages.
Programmes on Peace TV have praised Mujahideen fighters in Iraq, labelled Jews an “enemy of Islam” and claimed 9/11 was an “inside job”.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: “The Home Secretary dealt with Naik extremely effectively.
“I think she will be furious to discover he still has a licence to spread his poison on satellite television. Ofcom should revoke it immediately.”
Naik was banned from entering the country after it was judged his presence was “not conducive to the public good”.
During the British court case, Home Offi ceofficials also suggested his sermons acted as inspiration for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
During his appeal, lawyers for the firebrand revealed he was chairman of Universal Broadcasting Corporation Ltd, a company registered in Britain.
UBCL has held the broadcasting licence for Peace TV since 2007.
Naik was also named as chairman of the Islamic Research Foundation International, which appears to have given £1.5million to the channel in 2009.
Hannah Stuart, of the Centre of Social Cohesion, said: “Zakir Naik has been excluded from the UK. “To allow him to continue to broadcast here makes a mockery of that decision.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hidden Camera Shows Beatings and Religious Segregation Inside Muslim Faith Schools
It is an assembly hall of the sort found in any ordinary school. Boys aged 11 and upwards sit cross-legged on the floor in straight rows. They face the front of the room and listen carefully. But this is no ordinary assembly. Holding the children’s attention is a man in Islamic dress wearing a skullcap and stroking his long dark beard as he talks.
‘You’re not like the non-Muslims out there,’ the teacher says, gesturing towards the window. ‘All that evil you see in the streets, people not wearing the hijab properly, people smoking . . . you should hate it, you should hate walking down that street.’
He refers to the ‘non-Muslims’ as the ‘Kuffar’, an often derogatory term that means disbeliever or infidel.
Welcome to one of Britain’s most influential Islamic faith schools, one of at least 2,000 such schools in Britain, some full-time, others part-time. They represent a growing, parallel education system.
The school is the Darul Uloom Islamic High School in Birmingham, an oversubscribed independent secondary school. Darul Ulooms are world-renowned Islamic institutions and their aim is to produce the next generation of Muslim leaders. In fact, these schools have been described as the ‘Etons of Islam’.
This school is required by its inspectors to teach tolerance and respect for other faiths. But the Channel 4 current affairs programme Dispatches filmed secretly inside it — and instead discovered that Muslim children are being taught religious apartheid and social segregation.
We recorded a number of speakers giving deeply disturbing talks about Jews, Christians and atheists.
We found children as young as 11 learning that Hindus have ‘no intellect’ and that they ‘drink cow p***’.
And we came across pupils being told that the ‘disbelievers’ are ‘the worst creatures’ and that Muslims who adopt supposedly non-Muslim ways, such as shaving, dancing, listening to music and — in the case of women — removing their headscarves, would be tortured with a forked iron rod in the afterlife.
In 2009 this school was praised by Government-approved inspection teams for its interfaith teachings. The report said that ‘pupils learn about the beliefs and practices of other faiths and are taught to show respect to other world religions’.
It seems that the inspectors were unaware of the teaching methods revealed by our undercover reporter, Osman. He was taken on as a volunteer at the Darul Uloom school in Birmingham in April 2009 and was allowed to sit in on some lessons — but not their Islamic classes.
So, in July last year, he went into one of the rooms where we’d heard they taught Islamic studies and left a secret camera to record the lessons.
Filming intermittently over a period of four months, the camera recorded children being taught a hardline, intolerant and highly anti-social version of Islam.
During the same period our reporter also attended the Markazi Jamia mosque in Keighley, West Yorkshire, after hearing of serious allegations that children were being hit at its madrassa.
Madrassas in the UK are part-time after-school or weekend classes, often held in mosques, where children are taught to read the Koran. In Keighley it is not what they are being taught that is the problem, but how.
Again, Osman went into the mosque and left the camera in the room where classes took place.
The film shows children as young as six sitting on the floor of a large room in the mosque, one of the biggest in the country. The boys are hunched over wooden benches, rocking backwards and forwards as they rote-learn the Koran in Arabic. A man with a long white beard dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez — tunic and trousers — sits at the head of the class.
‘He slaps one boy, strikes another and kicks a third’ Periodically he gets up and walks behind the boys. As he passes, the children appear to cower and watch him nervously. It soon becomes clear why.
He unexpectedly raises his hand and slaps a young boy hard on the head. Moments later he strikes another. And then he kicks a third child.
In just two days of filming in December 2010, the camera recorded the teacher hitting children as young as six or seven at least ten times, in less than three hours of lessons.
From what we could see, every single blow was pretty much unprovoked. We soon realised that the beatings were routine. The behaviour of the boys, the way they flinched and backed away when he approached, indicated that they were long-accustomed to being hit and kicked as they studied.
In another incident an older boy, left in charge of a class while a teacher is out at prayer, picks up a bench and threatens to hit a younger boy with it…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: It’s Nazi Party Time
by Henry Langston
Guess what? The English Defence League are pissed off about Muslims infiltrating all their skinhead drinking clubs and hooligan firms, and they’re not afraid to show it! Last weekend various regional chapters of the EDL got together in Luton to ruin everyone’s weekend. Before the day’s event, the EDL promised that 7,000 of their members would be joined by Defence League comrades from mainland Europe in order to “reclaim” the grim provincial airport town for the white working class. In reality only about 1,500 people showed up and one of them punched EDL leader Tommy Robinson in the face. That was the best bit.
Robinson had been on a massive recruitment drive before the march, banging his drum on the radio and even securing the chance to rant like a daytime drunk in a suburban pub to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. Robinson’s deputy Kevin Carroll pitched in too. He came up with a story about a Muslim coming to his house and shooting at him with a sawn-off shotgun (but missing from a distance of 10ft) in an attempt to enrage people into attending. It didn’t work, really.
The 2,000 police that had been drafted in from places where they don’t have any crime like Devon and Gloucestershire were met with 20% of the expected EDL turnout. Cost to the taxpayer? A million pounds. None of which the EDL were able to immediately pour back into the treasury’s coffers as police had ordered a blanket ban on the sale of alcohol across Luton starting at 11am. This didn’t stop them from bringing a shitload of glass bottles with them to hurl at me and the other photographers, though.
[…]
As usual Unite Against Fascism showed up to protest against the EDL. Some of them managed to get into the train station and stop a large group of EDL members from getting off trains. The police responded by shutting the station and diverting the EDL to Luton Airport, two miles away from the designated muster point. As funny is that is, imagine having to be the conductor who has to explain to 300 fat skins that they’re being taken away from a race riot.
As usual the EDL ‘Angels’ were at the demo in force. While I don’t agree with the politics, it’s hard to deny the quality of the babes, huh? I can see us together now: me drinking Fosters in the bath; she gets off the toilet, wipes her ass with yesterday’s Star and hops in to join me.
The EDL put their new token Asian on show after everyone found out the last one was a massive racist. Having an Asian racist in your gang to prove that you aren’t racist is the equivalent of repressed gays who hang outside clubs beating up men who suck them off.
The best bit of any EDL rally is when all the pricks start fighting each other; one football firm finds themselves crammed into the same small space as a pack of their hated rivals and suddenly white brotherhood seems unimportant. This is why no-one should worry about them as a political force…
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: I’m Not Bothered About Stopping People Trafficking — Just Burglary: What Detective ‘Was Told by Her Boss’
A detective whose work may have saved the lives of seven prostitutes trafficked into Britain was allegedly told by her boss: ‘I’m not interested in trafficking. I am interested in burglaries.’
Detective Constable Jennifer Coleman, 33, claims senior officers tried to ‘conceal’ the scale of the trafficking because they feared a major investigation would tie up resources and leave them unable to meet crime detection targets.
DC Coleman told an employment tribunal that colleagues put the lives of many women in danger when they refused to raise the status of a human trafficking case she was leading to a nationwide level.
The officer made the claims as she sued South Wales Police for discrimination under whistleblower laws. It is understood she is seeking a total of £30,000 for loss of earnings and hurt feelings.
The tribunal in Cardiff heard that DC Coleman was seconded to a national serious organised crime task force in January 2006 to join an investigation into the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe to work as prostitutes in Britain.
She was the officer in charge of two trafficking cases and the point of contact for two victims of a crime ring which had brought them to the UK and set them to work as prostitutes at a brothel in Cardiff.
In a statement, DC Coleman said she had ‘received positive feedback’ for her work, but after nearly a year with the task force she was transferred back to CID.
She claimed her CID colleagues treated her trafficking work with ‘disdain’ and that her new ‘line manager’, Detective Sergeant Chris Cullen, ‘did not appreciate’ that she still had work to do on her human trafficking cases.
DC Coleman complained to Detective Inspector Gary Osborne that she felt ‘bullied’ and that this was impacting on her health.
On New Year’s Eve 2006 she received a call from the madam of a Cardiff brothel in ‘a hysterical state’ telling her that a trafficked woman was working as a prostitute at her premises and that the victim’s pimp was ‘bashing at the door’.
The victim told police she had been trafficked from her home in Eastern Europe to Sheffield, then to Cardiff. The next day the victim said seven more women were being held in a brothel in Sheffield and forced into prostitution. DC Coleman made contact with a detective at South Yorkshire Police…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lies, Damned Lies and Multiculturalism
Maybe, just maybe, the old lion of the sceptred British Isles is showing some signs of vigour. Maybe it will yet rouse itself in defending once more the England of Henry V, Shakespeare and Churchill against the ravages of multiculturalism.
British Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced in Munich that “multiculturalism has failed.” He had spoken similarly when he was in opposition, but this was different.
In speaking as head of government at a security conference of EU member-states, Cameron went further by indicating multiculturalism has undermined national security.
This is significant, and Cameron is the second leader, following Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, in pronouncing upon the failed policy of multiculturalism.
What will be important to see is how Cameron and Merkel propose to repeal a failed state-sponsored policy that is harmful, subversive and contrary to the core principles of liberal democracy.
For several years, indeed since soon after 9/11, I have written here about how multiculturalism is a lie — perhaps a delectable or pleasing lie, yet a lie nevertheless — hoisted upon open and generous societies, such as Canada, by those who lost faith in liberal democracy and those who sought to unravel it from within.
Multiculturalism as official state policy proposes all cultures are equal. But there has to be some independent or objective standard for measure in offering such proposition.
Proponents of multiculturalism do not use an objective standard as the basis by which they judge or rank cultures, and conclude all cultures are equal.
If the culture of liberal democracy — that is, a culture based on individual rights and freedoms, equality of sexes, equality before the rule of law, etc. — is taken as an independent measure, it would be then false to conclude that while other cultures might not be liberal, nor democratic, they are all equal irrespective of different values they hold.
The entire edifice of multiculturalism is, hence, based on a lie. For we know from history and experience that all cultures are not equal, and if it were so, then the culture of Islam in North Africa, for example, would be on par with the culture of Europe across the Mediterranean…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Protesters Hope to Meet With Jack Straw Over ‘Grooming’ Comments
MUSLIM leaders are hoping to meet with Jack Straw over his recent comments concerning Pakistani males and ‘grooming’.
More than 1,000 people have signed a petition asking for the Blackburn MP to publicly apologise for implying that Pakistani males see white girls as ‘easy meat’.
The petition has also been signed by some Labour councillors in Blackburn with Darwen.
Mr Straw has been criticised by some sections of the Pakistani community for the comments which made national headlines.
The online petition has been backed up by canvassers collecting signatures outside mosques.
Waqar Hussain, of the ‘Lancashire Muslims’, which is heading the petition, said the comments had perpetuated several myths.
He said the myths were, “firstly, that Pakistani men were a threat to young white women due to their cultural background.
“Secondly, that citing ethnicity as a causal factor for sex crimes stops racism, and finally that there has been a ‘conspiracy of silence’ on the issue of grooming by Pakistani heritage men.”
The organisation, set up to promote community harmony, said it believed Mr Straw’s comments did nothing to protect the victims of sexual violence, they only served to ignore the complexity of the situation.
Members of the community are hoping to meet Mr Straw at his surgery at Bangor Street Community Centre.
Backburn councillor Damian Talbot, who runs Mr Straw’s office, said the MP had already met with some of his councillors to apologise for the way his comments had been reported.
He said: “Jack would never intentionally offend any section of the community.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pupils Must Not be Forced to Eat Halal Church Tells Schools
The Church of England has told its schools to ensure they are serving non-halal food after concerns that a number are only providing meat slaughtered according to Islamic law.
The official guidance was issued after Church members complained that the use of halal meat was effectively ‘spreading sharia law’ across Britain.
The Church’s financial arm has also come under pressure to withdraw its investments — worth millions of pounds — in supermarkets that do not clearly label halal food.
The moves follow disclosures by The Mail on Sunday last year that halal products were widespread in schools, hospitals, pubs and sporting venues but members of the public were not informed.
More than 10,000 Christians, many of whom have reservations about eating meat from animals that are bled to death while an Islamic prayer is recited, have signed a petition calling for proper labelling.
Animal rights campaigners have also expressed anger because animals are often not stunned before their throats are cut with a sharp knife.
Alison Ruoff, a long-standing member of the Church’s ‘parliament’, the General Synod, said: ‘The Church is only just waking up to this. We have been pathetic and mealy-mouthed but we should be really concerned about this.
‘There is a lot of fear about upsetting Muslims but as a Christian you have to stand up for Christian values. Because we are unwittingly eating halal meat, we are spreading the practice of sharia law.’
An influential official body representing both Muslim and Christian leaders also said non-Muslims should not be compelled to eat halal meat.
The Christian Muslim Forum, set up by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams four years ago, said there were concerns about ‘some public authorities which provide only halal products in schools and other institutions’.
It said in a statement: ‘We urge all food outlets, catering organisations and public authorities to label halal food properly, for the benefit of both non-Muslim and Muslim consumers.’
John Pritchard, the Bishop of Oxford and chair of the Board of Education, which runs more than 4,000 Church schools, told the General Synod in London last week that guidance had been sent across the country. The guidance said if halal meat was served in schools it should not be the only option and suppliers should be changed.
Mrs Ruoff has challenged the Church Commissioners, who manage the Church’s £4 billion assets, to sell its shares in supermarkets that did not clearly label halal food.
The Rev Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican cleric who runs the international Barnabas Fund charity for Christians facing persecution, said some extremist Muslims viewed the growing use of halal food as part of their efforts to ‘impose’ sharia law on the West…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rastamouse Provokes Complaints of Racism and Teaching Bad Language
He is an animated reggae-singing mouse who has become a hit for the BBC, entertaining children with his attempts to fight crime and spread love and respect.
Yet dreadlocked Rastamouse has provoked more than a hundred complaints to the corporation with parents expressing fears the show is racist and encouraging the use of slang.
Mothers on online parenting forums have even raised fears that the programme could result in playground fights if children try to copy the mouse.
One mother on the Mumsnet forum, using the name TinyD4ncer, says she is concerned her child be attacked for repeating some of the Jamaican Patois phrases used by the mouse.
“The thing I’m most worried about is her saying the words like ‘Rasta’ and going up to a child and saying (these) things … my child is white and I feel if she was to say this to another child who was not white that it would be seen as her insulting the other child.” Another parent, on Bumpandbaby.com, says: “just watched a couple videos . i’m going to say it is racist,” while a blogger on musicmagazine website describes the show as “a mildly racist take on Rastafarians in the form of a cute mouse”.
The BBC has received complaints from six viewers that the animated show stereotypes black people, while another 95 have complained about the language used in the show.
The Rastafarian mouse, who leads a band called the Easy Crew and speaks in Jamaican Patois, uses phrases such as “me wan go” (“I want to go”), “irie” (“happy”), “wagwan” (“what’s going on?”). His mission is to “make a bad ting good”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Women of Italy Versus Silvio
On 13 Feburary, women will demonstrate to demand greater respect for feminine diginity and gender equality, and to condemn the degrading image of womanhood highlighted by the recent sex scandals which have implicated Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Dacia Maraini
On 13 February, women will take to the streets for a nationwide day of protest. News of the planned demonstration, which has barely been mentioned in the press, has spread like wild fire on the internet — further proof of the increasing dominance of the web as the medium for the free and rapid circulation of information.
Following the example of democracy activists in Egypt who used web to mobilise thousands of people to protest against the arrogant despotism of the Egyptian government, Italian women are spreading dissent on the Internet. But what exactly do they aim to achieve with their demonstration? Paradoxically, in a country that is supposed guarantee freedom for its citizens, they are campaigning for the same rights as those demanded by the young people in Tunisia and Egypt: freedom of speech and opinion, more democracy, better access to the working world and more action to combat corruption.
Italy, which is one of the world’s most developed countries, is increasingly marked by waning respect for women’s rights and aspirations, and growing pressure to keep women at home. In an atmosphere of general indifference, women have been forced to contend with dwindling job prospects and declining prestige. Italy is now the country in Europe where women are least likely to work outside the home. It is also the country where — setting aside certain high-profile exceptions — women are less and less likely to be actively involved in state institutions or to occupy positions of power.
Bodies of young women sold to the highest bidder
In the minds of today’s young generation, ideals of meritocracy and the value of the individual have been supplanted by a mercantile understanding of human relations. Young men are encouraged to develop intellectual abilities that will increase their chances of selling themselves on a globalised labour market, while young women are advised to act quickly to obtain the highest possible price — because unlike intellectual skills, sexual capital is subject to rapid depreciation — for the only value that still commands the respect of the market: the value of ready-to-use bodies. What else can we say of this attitude except to remark that it is an insidious and ghastly incitement to feminine prostitution?
Perhaps we should remember that there is nothing new in this situation which already existed in the time of Tolstoy…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Amnesty International Slams ‘Lack of Political Will to Prosecute’
Zagreb, 11 Feb. (AKI) — Human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Friday accused Croatia of lack of political will to prosecute war crimes dating back to the 1991-1995 war of independence.
Amnesty’s investigator for Croatia, Marek Marczynski, said that fifteen years after the war there were still some 700 unresolved war crimes cases and only 18 were being processed annually.
“That clearly shows how much political will there was to confront the past,” Marczynski said in a statement posted to the popular video-sharing website You Tube. He said hundreds of war criminals, especially those who committed crimes against Serbs, have gone unpunished.
He singled out the case of Milan Levar, a Croat who fought for independence from the former Yugoslavia, but was shocked by crimes committed by the Croatian forces against Serb civilians in the western town of Gospic.
Levar openly spoke of the crimes and submitted evidence to the Hague-based United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was killed by a bomb eleven years ago, but no perpetrators have been brought to justice, Marczynski said.
Many Croatian officials attended Levar’s funeral and promised an investigation, but nothing has happened since then, Marczynski added.
Levar’s wife Gordana said she was disappointed with the work of the police and judiciary. “They never told me anything, and when I ask they say the investigation is ongoing and they can’t release any information,” she said.
Croatia is expecting to join the European Union next year, but officials in Brussels have warned that Zagreb government would first have to deliver more results in prosecuting war crimes.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Over 2 Mln Serbs Live in Balkan Countries, Minister
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, FEBRUARY 10 — The population census in five regional countries, scheduled for April 2011, will show both formally and legally the number of Serbs living in the Western Balkans, which is estimated at over two million, Serbian Minister of the Diaspora Srdjan Sreckovic stated, reports Tanjug news agency.
Sreckovic called on the members of the Serb national community to declare themselves as Serbs in censuses which will be carried out in Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) and Croatia, as there is no reason for them to be afraid, taking into account that these are democratic and civilized countries, EU member states or on the way to becoming one.
Sreckovic specified that the ministry’s estimates show that about 2,120,000 Serbs, which is more than a quarter of Serbia’s population, live in regional countries, mainly in Republika Srpska — about 1.1 million, and about 200,000 in Croatia and Montenegro.
Apart from the countries that are scheduled to carry out a census, the data on the total number of Serbs in the region also include Slovenia and Romania.
Sreckovic pointed out that the members of the Serb national minority in Albania have not been able to declare themselves as Serbs for over 50 years, adding that he hopes that they will be able to do so in the next census. According to certain data, about 30,000 Serbs live in Albania. When it comes to other regional countries, the 2003 statistics show that about 36,000 Serbs lived in Macedonia at the time, and their number is assessed to have increased by 15,000 by now.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cooperation Guide in English, French and Arabic
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JANUARY 28 — A publication on Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Regional Cooperation is now available in english, french and arabic from the EU-funded ENPI Info Centre (www.enpi-info.eu).
This publication describes how regional cooperation can build bridges between the EU and its mediterranean partners through the funding of multi-country programmes and projects that contribute towards creating an area of peace, security and prosperity. It shows how regional programmes function as a forum for dialogue, by bringing together people from partner countries to engage in discussion, exchange views and experiences. The regional approach contributes to defining and implementing policies in fields ranging from energy, environment and transport, to gender, youth, education and culture. Achieving equality between men and women, for example, is an objective in most of the Mediterranean neighbouring countries, following commitments made at a ministerial meeting in Istanbul in 2006 and Marrakech in 2009.
The ENPI Info Centre is one of the main communication tools of the ENPI Information and Communication Support Project, launched by the European Commission in January 2009 to make more known the relationship between the EU, its nine partner countries in the Mediterranean and seven partner countries in the East.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Govt Demands Extension to EU-Morocco Fishing Deal
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 2 — Madrid has asked the European Commission to extend the current fishing agreement with Morocco by one year, as it is impossible for the agreement to be renewed before the deadline on February 27. This is according to government sources quoted today by El Pais. Spain is the European country that benefits the most from the agreement, using 100 of the 119 licences assigned to the European fleet of fishing boats.
The deal was signed in July 2005 and came in to force on February 28 2007. It lasts 4 years and sees Morocco compensated to the tune of 36.1 million euros per year, 144.4 million over the whole period.
The renewal of the deal was complicated by disagreements between the Spanish government and the European Commissioner for Fishing, Maria Damanaki. In December, the Commissioner proposed to exclude the waters of Western Sahara from the agreement, with the international community failing to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over a stretch instead claimed by the Polisario Front for Saharawi independence. Madrid is opposed to this request, as 80% of the Spanish fleet fishes in these very waters, which are the richest in terms of fish.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria Shuts Down Internet and Facebook as Protest Mounts
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka’s repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. “The government doesn’t want us forming crowds through the internet,” said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria. “Security forces are armed to the teeth out on the street, and they’re also doing everything to crush our uprising on the internet. Journalists, and especially those with cameras, are being taken away by the police.” President Hosni Mubarak had tried to shut down internet service providers during 18 days of protest before stepping down as Egyptian leader on Friday.
Mostafa Boshashi, head of the Algerian League for Human Rights, said: “Algerians want their voices to be heard too. They want democratic change.
“At the moment people are being prevented from travelling to demonstrations. The entrances to cities like Algeria have been blocked.” At least five people were killed in similar protests in Algeria in January, when the Interior Ministry said 1000 people were arrested. On Saturday at least 500 had been arrested by early evening in Algiers alone, with hundreds more in Annaba, Constantine and Oran taking part in the so-called February 12 Revolution.
“The police station cells are overflowing,” said Sofiane Hamidouche, a demonstrator in Annaba…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Analysis: U.S. Eyes Egypt Islamists as Extremist Fears Fester
U.S. officials are concerned that Islamic extremists may try to exploit Egypt’s upheaval but are not yet convinced that the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most influential Islamist opposition group, is necessarily a threat.
The toppling of President Hosni Mubarak on Friday marked the beginning of a new, uncertain era in Egypt that promises to empower Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, long viewed with deep suspicion in the West.
Al Qaeda is widely seen as weak in Egypt thanks partly to Mubarak, and his departure is raising fears in the U.S. Congress that the rise of even moderate Islamists may give radical elements more room to operate.
James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, sought to play down fears about the Muslim Brotherhood this week, saying it “has eschewed violence and has decried al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”
“They have pursued social ends, betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera,” he told lawmakers on Thursday.
Clapper acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood was only an umbrella group, and FBI Director Robert Mueller noted that some elements have supported terrorism in the past.
The movement, which Mubarak’s government banned and sought to demonize, is certainly hostile to Israel and the U.S. policy in the region.
It has historic links with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which Washington considers to be a terrorist organization, and shares its belief in armed struggle against Israel.
But unlike the militant groups that fought Mubarak’s rule in the 1990s, the Brotherhood is led by professionals with modern educations — engineers, doctors, lawyers and academics. The core membership is middle-class or lower middle-class.
President Barack Obama himself has acknowledged the group’s anti-American ideological strains but said the Muslim Brotherhood did not have majority support in Egypt.
The group itself said on Saturday it would not seek a parliamentary majority or the presidency.
FRAYED NERVES
But that is unlikely to sooth frayed nerves in the U.S. Congress, where anxiety is growing that Islamic extremists might turn a key U.S. ally into an opponent that would harbor militant groups and pose a threat to Israel.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, warned against allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to emerge as a powerful force…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt-Tunisia: EU Works on Transition Assistance Package
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 9 — The EU Commission is working on a package to assist the transition to democracy in Egypt and Tunisia. So said a spokesperson of the executive who reported that EU High representative for foreign policy Catherine Ashton and Enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule are preparing a large package of measures to assist the transition process with democratic reforms and economic development.
This programme goes beyond support in the preparation of the election process on which the EU is already committed. After Fule’s mission in Tunisia, next week it will be Ashton’s turn to visit Tunis and, quite probably, also Egypt and other countries of the region. Meanwhile the European Commission is still examining its neighbourhood policy, in the context of which there is a desire for greater links between European funds and the progress achieved by countries in terms of human rights and democracy.
Today Ashton’s spokesperson, Maja Kocijancik, stated that the Commission has “full confidence” in the work carried out by European ambassador Adrianus Koetsenruijter in Tunisi, thus answering to the request by EuroMP Helene Flautre of the green party that asked for her resignation. According to the MP, Koetsenruijter cannot be the man for transition, in light of the work carried out during the regime of the deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt/Tunisia: EU to Revise Neighbourhood Policy
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS — While Egypt and Tunisia are experiencing the winds of revolution, Brussels is asking what did not work and how it now has to change the EU’s neighbourhood policy. The basic idea among the high ranking officers of the new European diplomatic service led by Catherine Ashton is to reward the Countries that ‘dare’ more in terms of human rights and democracy with greater European funds.
During his visit on Tuesady to Rabat, in Marocco, the EU neighbourhood policy commissioner, Stefan Fule, emphasised the need to establish “new priorities” to support the transition process in Tunisia, and to come up with something of the sort for Egypt as well. Fule stated that now it is important to “reflect in our strategy what is happening in Tunisia and in the region”.
The potential new guidelines for European action were explained by Hugues Mingarelli, director of the European service for external action for the Middle East and South Mediterranean, during a speech to the European Parliament. Migarelli stated that “The (EU neighbourhood policy) action plans with partner countries must be more demanding in terms of governance and human rights. The topic of democracy and fundamental rights is there, but to date it has not had a great impact. It is not correct to say that nothing has been done, but the impact on the Egyptian or Tunisian society was negligible”. Therefore for the future “we need stronger political conditioning, and the most daring Countries in terms of democracy will be those that will be awarded the most European funds”.
Even EuroMP Pier Antonio Panzeri (Pd), president of the delegation for relations with the Maghreb Countries, sees the need for change. “We need to be aware that the compromise that comprised the basis of the European neighbourhood policy — support to governments in return for the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and fundamentalism — has broken down”.
Consequently there may well be a revolution concerning the latest package approved for the 2011-2013 period, which included 16 bilateral cooperation programmes with 12 partner Countries, mostly on the South shore of the Mediterranean, worth 5.7 billion euros in total.
Among the 12 interested Countries, Morocco will receive finances amounting to 580.5 million euros, the largest, Egypt will receive 449,3 million euros, Tunisia 240 million euro, Jordan 223 million euros and Algeria 172 million. The ‘New entry’ for 2011 is Libya, with 60 million euros. The various cooperation methods also include the interregional programme, open to partner Countries from the East and the Mediterranean, which from 2011 to 2013 can rely on 757.7 million euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Islamists Welcome ‘Day of Victory’
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood says main goal of revolution achieved, Hamas demands change.
A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest opposition group, said Egyptians had achieved the main goal of their popular uprising after President Hosni Mubarak resigned on Friday.
“I salute the Egyptian people and the martyrs. This is the day of victory for the Egyptian people. The main goal of the revolution has been achieved,” Mohamed el-Katatni, former leader of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc, told Reuters.
Katatni said the Brotherhood awaits the next steps to be taken by the Higher Military Council, which has taken charge of the country’s affairs after Mubarak’s decision.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza let off fireworks and shot into the air to celebrate Mubarak’s departure Friday, and Hamas called on Egypt’s new rulers to change his policies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Own Obama
In their zealous ousting of the long-ruling and much-reviled strongman, Hosni Mubarak, the people of Egypt stand to make the same mistake that Americans made in 2008, except in this case, the mistake could well be fatal to any hopes or dreams of attaining the Arab world’s first spontaneous democracy.
Standing in the wings is Egypt’s own Obama, the incompetent and ineffectual Mohamed ElBaradei. Iran ran circles around ElBaradei during his tenure as Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as did North Korea, with both countries initiating robust nuclear weapons programs that the IAEA was powerless to slow, much less stop. ElBaradei, who doesn’t actually reside in Egypt, has coyly stated that if called upon to lead Egypt, he would be happy to shoulder the burden. ElBaradei would be readily acceptable to Western leaders as a replacement for Mubarak, as they see him as a nuanced, rational and cosmopolitan leader. He would be particularly acceptable to Barak Obama in that it would give the president an opportunity to kick off his own reelection campaign by pointing out to Americans that Egypt has also opted for “hope and change.”
But ElBaradei will soon find himself a pawn of the Muslim Brotherhood, the real force behind the events culminating in Mubarak’s ouster.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Hosni Mubarak Used Last 18 Days in Power to Secure His Fortune
The former Egyptian president is accused of amassing a fortune of more than £3 billion — although some suggest it could be as much as £40 billion — during his 30 years in power. It is claimed his wealth was tied up in foreign banks, investments, bullion and properties in London, New York, Paris and Beverly Hills.
In the knowledge his downfall was imminent, Mr Mubarak is understood to have attempted to place his assets out of reach of potential investigators.
On Friday night Swiss authorities announced they were freezing any assets Mubarak and his family may hold in the country’s banks while pressure was growing for the UK to do the same. Mr Mubarak has strong connections to London and it is thought many millions of pounds are stashed in the UK.
But a senior Western intelligence source claimed that Mubarak had begun moving his fortune in recent weeks.
“We’re aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets,” said the source, “And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now.”
The revelation came as the ruling military council, which took power as Mr Mubarak stepped down on Friday, confirmed its pledge eventually to hand power to an elected civilian government, although it did not set a date.
It also reassured allies that Egypt will abide by its peace treaty with Israel, as it outlined the first cautious steps in a promised transition to elections and “to build a democratic free nation”. The military council’s spokesman, Gen Mohsen el-Fangari, appeared in front of a row of Egyptian military and national flags as he read a statement, proclaiming respect for the rule of law — a sign that the current system of emergency law may be ended. But demands were growing among protesters in Cairo last night for Mr Mubarak to be put on trial for corruption…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Shows ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Was a Myth
Since the end of the Cold War, conservatives have argued that the world should be seen through the lens of a clash between civilizations. The world could be divided, they argued, on the basis of different cultures and their distance from Western values.
Countries where the majority of the population is Muslim were grouped together as the ‘Islamic world’ and seen as culturally prone to fanaticism and violence. Revolution there could only mean Islamic revolution along the lines of Iran in 1979. Democracy could only emerge if imposed by force from outside, as disastrously attempted in the Iraq War.
Liberals had their own version of such thinking, particularly after 9/11. Rejecting the necessity of a clash between civilizations, they spoke of a dialogue between civilizations. But they shared with conservatives the assumption that culture was the primary driving force of political conflict.
There was something of this thinking in President Obama’s famous 2009 speech in Cairo, addressed to “the Muslim world.” Liberals like Obama thought it possible that dialogue could allow for the peaceful co-existence of cultural differences between Muslims and the West. Conservatives, on the other hand, feared that no dialogue was possible with Islam, and it was better for the West to ready itself for inevitable conflict.
These have been the terms of debate between liberals and conservatives since 9/11.
Significantly, both sides in the debate assumed that the fundamental divisions in the world were cultural rather than political. In the case of the Middle East, conflict was seen as rooted in a cultural failure of Islam to adapt itself to modernity, rather than a political aspiration to freedom from regimes the West was backing. The Egyptian revolution has finally demonstrated in practice that this cultural assumption no longer holds. Popular sovereignty, not God’s sovereignty, has been the basis of the revolution. Muslims and Christians have marched together on the streets. The slogans have been universal demands for rights, dignity and social justice. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood has been one among the many strands of the movement, accommodating themselves to its democratic and pluralist thrust.
All of this confounds the “clash of civilizations” thesis which holds that the ‘Islamic world’ has necessarily “bloody borders.” It also confounds the “dialogue of civilizations” approach, which seeks to address the people of the Middle East as a culturally distinct “Muslim world” rather than as populations whose demands are political and universal.
[…]
[DF — Arun Kundnani is a fellow at the open society foundations a George Soros organization]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
John Bolton: Egyptian Democracy May be Bad News
Former U.S. ambassador John Bolton said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday that Americans should be wary of the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, arguing that it could lead to the country falling in the hands of anti-American Muslim extremists. It is the “responsibility of our government to protect our interests and our values and our friends and our allies,” Bolton said. Referencing former President Theodore Roosevelt, he adding that “first and foremost we must make the world safe for ourselves.”
Mubarak’s fall may end up making America less safe, Bolton said, because in a democracy a radical group like the Muslim Brotherhood may end up in power. He warned of the threat of “rising radicalism in the Middle East” and said Sharia law could soon be imposed on Egypt’s citizenry.
“We have to have a careful and prudent approach to these developments, because we’ve seen revolutionary situations go wrong too many times before,” said Bolton, pointing to the Nazis, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Bolton, who is considering a GOP presidential run, said that democracy is “a way of life,” not simply a political system. “We have to acknowledge that a Democratic election can produce illiberal results,” he said.
The former ambassador argued that allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in Egyptian elections is putting the country on the “road to disaster,” and suggested the Obama administration has been “hesitant, inconsistent, confused and just plain wrong” in its handling of the situation in Egypt.
To a standing ovation from the conservative activists gathered for the conference, Bolton described President Obama as “weak, indecisive and apologetic.”
Bolton said he does not believe Mr. Obama cares about foreign policy because it gets in the way of his priority of “nationalizing our health care system.” He attacked the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, for suggesting the Muslim Brotherhood is a largely secular organization, saying the reason he opposes Clapper’s resignation is because “in this administration, we could get somebody worse to replace him.” Bolton also attacked the administration for its handling of Russia and its passage of the New Start missile treaty.
John Bolton answers questions from reporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Feb. 12, 2011. (Credit: Brian Montopoli) Taking a stand against the call by Libertarian-leaning Republicans like Ron Paul to reduce defense spending, Bolton said it is “not the time for indiscriminate budget cuts in our national defense budget.”…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Party is Over — What Now for Egypt?
The senior army officer who interrogated Ahmed Saif-al-Islam Hafez 10 days ago clearly knew what he was talking about. Deep in the bowels of Cairo’s Camp 75, a nondescript military police barracks in Manshiyet el-Bakri, not far from Hosni Mubarak’s presidential palace, the officer treated Mr Hafez to a distinctive view of events unfolding in the outside world.
Mubarak was clearly finished, he said. The army could not abandon him entirely — the former air force general was One of Us, after all — but he had made too many mistakes. The Charge of the Thugs, the cavalry and infantry attack organised by National Democratic Party bosses on the Tahrir Square protesters the day before, had been a particular act of idiocy, he said. The army had had nothing to do with it. The army was moreover grateful to the demonstrators, he went on, for one thing in particular. “That would be Gamal,” Mr Hafez guessed correctly. Everyone knew Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, was cordially disliked by the army, which never wanted him to succeed his father but had been unable to work out a way to stop him.
But what of the future? “Suleiman is not an option,” Mr Hafez was told. That was a surprise — at that point, everyone was expecting Omar Suleiman, the newly appointed vice-president, to manage a “transition to democracy” and even succeed his patron.
But this was just one prediction among many where the officer, whom Mr Hafez refused to name the day after his release, has since been proved correct. Mr Suleiman now seems to have been sidelined as thoroughly as Mr Mubarak, and his future is uncertain.
Instead, the officer pinpointed Lt Gen Sami Enan, the army chief of staff. “He is the man who has the power in the army already,” he said. “We want a face supported by the army and accepted by the people.” Mr Hafez, 60, owed his special treatment and his frank discussion in Camp 75 to his long standing as a lawyer, human-rights activist and previous inmate of Mr Mubarak’s jails. Puffing on his cigarette in his office last Sunday, he continued his tale with a wry smile. “I said I didn’t think he would agree with a civilian person in charge,” Mr Hafez recalled. “He smiled, and replied that they refused that absolutely.” Mr Hafez related this conversation five days before the army did indeed take power, with Lt Gen Enan at the helm. The figurehead may be Field Marshal Hussein Tantawy, the defence minister, but it is hard to see how a man who used to be called “Mubarak’s poodle” can win the confidence of the people. Gen Enan already has it.
“Everyone thinks he is a good man,” said Walid Mohammed, a youth worker celebrating the end of the Mubarak era on Tahrir Square in Cairo yesterday. “We are all hoping he will lend his weight to the revolution.”
That is the hope to which everyone is nervously giving voice, from the Western leaders who slowly came to the realisation that they had to support the protesters, whatever the consequences, to the protesters themselves. “We trust the army,” said Mr Mohammed. “But we don’t fully trust the army.”
This is more than understandable. It is well understood outside Egypt — as well as inside — that the army was not just part of the regime, it was the regime: not only President Mubarak and defence minister Tantawy, but vice-president Suleiman and even the prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, are all generals.
What has been less obvious, amid all the concern that the revolution concealed a struggle between pro-Western dictatorship and Islamist populism, is that the convulsions that tore the regime apart were a battle between largely secular visions of Egypt’s future…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Manouba, 85 Houses Illegally Occupied
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, FEBRUARY 10 — More houses have been occupied illegally in the area of Tunis. This time the incident regards 85 apartments built by Societe de Promotion des logements sociaux (Sprols) in the district of Douar Hicher, in the governorate of Manouba. Press agency TAP reports that the squatters have justified their initiative pointing at their serious economic problems.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
In Gaza, Young Palestinians Want Their Revolution
Disillusioned Palestinians have three targets: Hamas, Fatah, Israel
“How do I see the revolution in Cairo? Like this: a blocked road,” says Youssuf, 50, pointing to the barrier behind some stalled construction projects that separates the Palestinian city of Rafah and Egypt proper.
Since January 25, the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has been sealed. The only way to cross is through the underground tunnels that were built in 2007, in violation of an international embargo that followed the takeover of Gaza by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Through this route, many Hamas militants — who escaped Egypt’s prisons when the revolution began three weeks ago — have been able to return home to Gaza. The corpse of Youssuf’s cousin, Ali Yousni, came back to Gaza this way, too. He died of a heart attack last week, while he was in El Arish on business.
The voices from Cairo’s Tahir Square that arrive in Gaza are strong, but there’s a price. The current instability has made it more difficult to travel through the Sinai. For this reason, the value of smuggled goods is on the rise. “I have to pay 300 (Israeli) shekels (around $80) extra for every cargo, because I have to hire an armed escort,” says Abu Khalis, who owns one of the illegal tunnels.
The price of gas has doubled and the cost of cement has risen from 430 to 900 shekels per ton. At first sight, life in Gaza has not changed. There are the same disappointments and daily problems.
For the first time, Palestinians are spectators of an ‘intifada,’ or uprising, rather than participants. But the number of police cars at the corners of the dirt roads tells another story. Everyone is waiting to see what will happen — if a wider Arab revolution will be sparked — as is happening with the Facebook group Karama. From the name, it is impossible to understand who the real organizers are, though many think they are linked to the Palestinian political party Fatah.
“I am not going, because if people will rally in the streets, the security will shoot to kill,” says Asmaa Alghoul, a 29-year old journalist. She wears a 1970s-style leather jacket, has purple varnish on her nails, and black eyeliner. She does not seem scared at all. Over the past five years, Alghoul has argued openly with Hamas and, regularly denouncing “Islam that kills freedom, while faking a struggle against Israel’s occupation.” In 2009, she was fired by a Ramallah newspaper, al Ayyam, because she denounced abuses and torture perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank.
Now that the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are giving wings to millions of young Arabs’ dreams, her blog has became a key target for Hamas, and she has been arrested along with her brother and father.
Alghoul stretches over the balcony and points to a dark car on the street, which she says has been following her for days. “They hit me, they threatened me with death. They say I am an enemy of the government, and that I have organized the rally for the revolution. But it is not true. I am not going to the rally because I am not affiliated with any party. When the revolution will start, it will be a popular revolution.”
Alghoul is not alone. Since Hamas took power in Gaza five years ago, its popularity has greatly diminished. The mothers at the market, the fishermen fathers who sit on boats that do not sail, Mahamoud — who has a client every hour and a half in his hardware shop — all say the same thing. “We did not gain anything moving from Fatah to Hamas,” they say.
Still, the older generation does not want to expose themselves to risks. Their children, however, are ready. In the last two months, before the beginning of the Tunisian revolution, eight university students, between 20 and 25, launched Facebook the “Gaza Young People Manifesto” on Facebook. In short, it says, “F-you, Hamas. F-you, Israel. F-you, Fatah. F-you, UN. F-you, USA.”?
They refuse to be victims, and also demand that Hamas and Fatah reconcile their differences for the sake of the Palestinian people. “Change starts from facing up to each one’s responsibility,” they say. At the beginning, Wael Ghonim — the blogger and Google employee who has became a symbol of the Egyptian revolution — was with them. Now they have almost 20,000 supporters. To meet them in a cafe in Arimal, Gaza City, it is necessary to have a mediator and to agree to not mention their real names, along with any details that could make them identifiable to the authorities.
I cannot mention their studies, or where they live. Three of them arrive. They wear jeans, sweaters, and sneakers. They could be students in London, Paris, or New York. They listen to the Beatles and Fairouz, the Lebanese singer. They know by heart quotes from The Godfather. We agree to use pseudonyms: “Everything has started as a game. Among friends, we were wondering what we wanted to be when we grew up. It started out as a game about the fact we could do nothing. We could not take advantage of our studies, get married without a job, nor run away,” says Abu Yaz. “So, we wrote the Manifesto, but just because we were among friends. We grew up knowing that you cannot trust anyone,” adds Abu Oun. ??A policeman enters in the cafe to buy some sweets. The guys change topic. They speak about football, Inter, Milan, and Real Madrid. Then they start again when the officer leaves. “We do not want to sit by anymore. Our struggle is different from the Tunisian and Egyptian ones. We have three enemies: Hamas and Fatah — each of which fights against the other and have bled our cause to death — and Israel,” they say.
Their network is growing. Since Alghoul began her blog, almost 20 other bloggers have spoken up. Among them is Afun, just a boy. By word-of-mouth, the Manifesto has been quietly spread.
The Hamas security has shut down the young people’s center Sharik. “Like other young people our age in the other Middle East countries, we do not want to be exploited,” says a veiled girl, while she drinks a tea on the terrace of the Hotel Beach. Religion is important, she says, but not in politics. “Until now, we were useful for everyone. For Iran that pays Hamas, for the US that pays Israel and Fatah. We want to chase away government leaders who do not represent us,” she says. “Degage,” (Go away) people shouted in the streets of Tunis. “Mubarak out,” the cheer echoed in Cairo. And, as the children here begin to voice the long-held frustrations of their parents, Gaza is starting to grumble.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Emirates: Construction First Nuclear Plant Starts in 2012
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 8 — Work for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will start next year, the newspaper Gulf News reports.
The plant will be ready in 2017 and by 2010 two more will be built on the same desert location: Braqa, in the far south-west of the emirate, 75km from the border with Saudi Arabia.
The projects have been approved by the IAB, the International Advisory Board chaired by Hans Blix, who was general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAB has given a positive judgement on the UAE’s nuclear programme for the production of energy for civilian goals, as well as the adopted safety measures. The power plant, Blix said, are able to withstand the impact of a large commercial airplane.
The four 1,400 MW plants, with a total investment of 20.4 billion USD, will be built by a consortium led by South Korea.
The new installations are built in response to rising energy demand for at least 41,000 watt per year and are part of the UAE’s energy plan, which states that 20% of the emirate’s energy requirements will be covered by nuclear solutions by 2020.
The strategy for the processing of radioactive waste is still being assessed, Blix added, while the IAB underlines the need to speed up the definition of laws to regulate the imports and exports of nuclear materials, equipment and technology, in line with the Convention of Vienna.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
HP Begins Producing Computers in Turkey
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, FEBRUARY 9 — HP has begun producing computers with label of “Made in Turkey” at its factory in Corlu town of Turkey’s northwestern province of Tekirdag, as Anatolia news agency reports. Ertug Ayik, an executive with HP Turkey, said on Wednesday that 2.4 million computers, which would be manufactured at Corlu factory, would be put on markets all over the world. Ayik said that HP had been the best-selling computer in Turkey for the last eight years, adding that HP sold 546,265 computers across Turkey in 2010. He noted that HP Turkey had sold 17.8 million computers since 2002 and that the factory in Corlu was founded with an investment of USD 60 million in cooperation with Foxxcon.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
From a Life a Luxury in Pakistan to a Modest House in Blackburn: Molly, A Teenager Torn Between Two Cultures
Her sudden disappearance from a British school led to an international hunt and a diplomatic row with Pakistan.
And when 12-year-old Molly Campbell turned up in Lahore — 4,000 miles away from the home she shared with her mother on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland — it was feared that her Pakistani father was about to force her into marriage with a man twice her age.
Then Molly went on television insisting that she was happy and had chosen to live as a Muslim. She became Misbah Ahmed Rana and faded from the headlines.
But last week, four years on from the drama of her disappearance, it was revealed that Molly has turned her back on Pakistan and has returned to Britain, living in a small three-bedroom terrace house in Blackburn, Lancashire, with her sister, two brothers and her toddler niece.
Today Molly, now 16, talks for the first time about her life in Pakistan, her disappearance and why she has come back.
With her head covered by a scarf as a mark of her Muslim faith, the teenager said: ‘I’m Misbah Ahmed Rana, not Molly Campbell and I’m back because I want the freedom to choose what I do in life.
‘I’m my own person now I’m 16, and no one can force me to stay anywhere I don’t want to. If I’d stayed in Pakistan, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I want to achieve. But now I’m back in Britain, I can spread my wings and see where they take me.’
But the teenager said she is struggling to adapt — having led a pampered, cossetted life in Pakistan as part of the upper class, with servants to wait on her hand and foot.
Home was her wealthy property developer father Sajad Rana’s imposing eight-bedroom villa in Lahore’s affluent Township district in a compound of luxury homes protected by security guards.
Horse-riding with friends and cricket on the lawn outside the family home were among her favourite pastimes in the neighbourhood, which is populated by a mix of upper and middle class rich businessmen and their families.
She said: ‘It’s easy to get used to that lifestyle. We didn’t have to do anything in the house. We had two servants to do everything. One did morning duties, like clearing away the breakfast dishes and making sure our clothes were newly ironed for the
day. There would be a shift change around lunch time and the other would take over. We used to have a driver as well.
‘It made me feel uncomfortable to begin with but you learn to accept it when you are told that if they don’t do that they won’t have a job and they and their families will starve.’
She added: ‘I loved my bedroom too — really big with a separate dressing room and its own ensuite bathroom. We have two kitchens and two public rooms as well. It’s a big house!’
Her new home is in Blackburn’s Asian district. It is cramped and the family shares one bathroom. Molly said: ‘It’s very different. But to me, if you are living in a mansion and you don’t have your family around you, you won’t be happy. It doesn’t matter about how nice a place is.
‘This way, I get to see more of my mama and I have my brothers and sister around me. The house is small but cosy.’
She added: ‘Now I’m having to get used to doing my own cooking, ironing and cleaning. It is taking a bit of getting used to but there is only so much sitting around doing nothing that you can take. It’s time for me to take control of my life and do these things for myself.’
In Lahore, Molly went to one of the best fee-paying Islamic schools but she admits her education has suffered badly. ‘I loved the Islamic school but it could only take my education so far. I was top of my class for Arabic and that was probably my favourite subject. But we also did lots of vase-making and working with wax and henna, as well as cooking skills, which were fun and I was good at them but they don’t prepare you for a career.’
She added: ‘It’s different if you’re a boy. There is a lot more choice. But being a young woman in Pakistan, the choices are limited. You can be expected to marry young but my dad doesn’t want that for me…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
In Indonesia, A Model for Egypt’s Transition
The Obama administration, seeking to help stabilize Egypt following President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, is looking at the 1998 overthrow of Indonesian dictator Suharto as a model for a democratic transition in a Muslim-majority country, said senior U.S. officials.
National Security Council officials in the past week have been discussing with foreign-policy experts similarities between Egypt’s revolution and Indonesia’s, which led over a decade to what is one of the developing world’s most open political and economic systems, according to these officials.
Key issues U.S. officials are tackling in Egypt, and which were prominent in Indonesia, are how to balance an expected rise in support for Islamists and the continued role of the military.
White House officials have been reading studies comparing Egypt’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamist organization, and Indonesia’s, which has played only minor roles in post-Suharto governments. A senior U.S. official this week called Indonesia “something that’s widely seen as the best example” of where Egypt could be headed.
For Washington, hopeful implications of the Indonesia comparison are tempered by fears among U.S. officials and allied governments that Islamist organizations could hijack Cairo’s revolution. They have specifically drawn comparisons to Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which itself reshaped the Middle East.
Many U.S. officials and lawmakers say they don’t believe the Muslim Brotherhood will prove as benign a force as its Indonesian counterpart. “I’m very deeply concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood. I don’t think they’re moderate, but extremists,” said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).
In the administration’s struggle to steer events in the most populous Arab country, the revolution has spawned a litany of comparisons, from the ouster of Iran’s shah, which led to an Islamic takeover, to Turkey’s delicate balance between secular and Islamic political forces.
In many ways, the analogies are imprecise. Egypt’s position at the core of the Middle East’s roiling political scene makes it comparable in some ways only to itself…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
India’s Protection Against Egypt Style Rebellions
Questions have frequently been asked in India during the past three weeks about whether the type of uprising seen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square could happen there, with a street-level rebellion occupying a city centre and spreading across the country to such a degree that it topples (or almost topples) the national government.
Surely, it is generally said, India’s democratic systems, though flawed, make the country immune to such social and political upheavals. As a last resort, India’s non-political army could step in as a benign temper-calming longstop, as it does from time to time around the country. India, people say correctly, is not an autocracy, so surely it has enough checks and balances in its parliamentary system to stop such an event happening.
[…]
Much is forgiven if there is development. Corrupt leaders of two parties, the DMK and AIADMK, have between them run Tamil Nadu state assembly coalitions continuously for 44 years. Operating in the style of Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, they have led strong economic, social and industrial development (including respectable SEZs) and awarded jobs and business contracts in the state and ministerial coalition posts in Delhi. This may not be ethical government, but it is a model of development that works.
The biggest threat to India comes from Maoist Naxalites, who are active in a third of the country’s districts and conduct armed terrorist attacks that security forces have not been able to quell. The rebels thrive in tribal and other under-privileged areas where there is a lack of development and where India’s often-brutal security forces and forest officers harass the poor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Terror Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Ex-Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Over Benazir Bhutto Assassination
An anti-terrorism court judge has issued an arrest warrant for former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, state-run television reported.
The warrant is the latest legal trouble to face the retired general, a one-time U.S. ally who left Pakistan for Britain in 2008 after being forced out of the presidency he secured in a 1999 military coup.
Despite his promises to return to Pakistan and lead a new political party, court action against the former ruler makes it increasingly unlikely he will.
Along with issuing the warrant today, Judge Rana Nisar Ahmad also ordered Musharraf to appear before the court on February 19, Pakistan television reported.
Bhutto was killed on December 27, 2007, in a gun and suicide bomb blast during a rally weeks after returning to Pakistan to campaign in new elections that Musharraf had reluctantly agreed to allow after months of domestic and international pressure.
Al Qaeda claimed responsibility although the exact circumstances of her death remain unclear.
The basis for the arrest warrant was not immediately released, but many of Bhutto’s supporters accuse the former president of intentionally not doing enough to ensure her protection, and trying to cover up government ineptitude in the case afterwards.
Musharraf spokesman Saif Ali Khan told reporters that the former leader will defend himself before the court ‘at an appropriate time’, but did not elaborate.
It was later reported that another spokesman in London said Musharraf would not comply, adding that the warrant was ‘totally ridiculous’.
Lawyers in the case were unavailable for comment.
After her death, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party rode a wave of public sympathy to win the most seats in the February 2008 elections.
Months later, the party forced Musharraf to quit the presidency by threatening impeachment.
He left for London later in the year, and has since spent time on the lecture circuit, including in the United States…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
China: Migrant Worker Kills Himself After He is Denied Back Pay
Liu Dejun swallowed pesticide and died after a long agony. His little daughter and two sisters, who expected him home, depended on his financial support to live. His employer had denied him 3,200 yuan in back pay. The tragedy is the result of the lack of rights for migrant workers, experts say.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Liu Dejun, a Hebei migrant worker killed himself by swallowing pesticide after his boss refused to pay him 3,200 yuan (US$ 500) in back pay before the Lunar New Year holiday. For the unskilled labourer it was too much to take.
Liu was supposed to go home in Xinglong County with money for his 11-year-old daughter and his two sisters, but on 16 January, he swallowed 70 grams of paraquat, a highly toxic pesticide, dying on 29 January, after a long agony. He had worked since November for a company owned by a man named Wang Hai, in Yutian County, who refused to pay him back pay. State-owned news agency Xinhua reported that Wang ended up paying Liu’s family 260,000 yuan in compensation.
Chinese migrants often live and work far from their families and go home only for Chinese News Year. Liu’s family instead piled up debts to pay for his medical bill, money it badly needed to live on.
In Communist China, it is not rare for companies to steal workers’ back pay. According to official statistics, in Beijing alone, 800,000 migrants were owed outstanding back pay for 1.63 billion yuan. However, the problem is nationwide.
Official data show that at the end of 2006, more than one million migrants in Guangdong were owed 1.84 billion yuan (US$ 236 million); similarly, 130,000 migrant workers in Gansu were waiting for 130 million yuan (see “Wages stolen from migrant workers amount to millions of euros,” in AsiaNews, 13 February 2007). Many cases end up in court.
In some workers take their own lives (see “Migrant worker blows himself up because he was not paid,” in AsiaNews, 23 April 2009) or are killed (see “Migrant worker who killed to get wages executed,” in AsiaNews, 21 October 2005) over back pay disputes. In September, at least 114 migrant workers were beaten up in Shaanxi for demanding payment of their salaries.
For years, workers have had a hard time in getting justice. Recently, the authorities have become more involved in such situations. On Friday, five State Council agencies urged related departments, private enterprises and contractors to take all necessary steps to prevent back pay disputes on lunar New Year when hundreds of millions of migrants go home. Local governments are now required to pay immediately wages to migrant workers involved in disputes and then collect from wayward companies.
Observers note however that the problem can only be solved if migrant workers are guaranteed more rights (see “Two thirds of Chinese migrants working illegally,” in AsiaNews, 22 January 2010 and “Chinese migrants, manual labourers without pay and without rights,” in AsiaNews, 14 January 2008) and allow them to form trade unions independent of the national trade union, which is an agency of the Communist Party acting in the interests of the state, not of workers.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pregnant at 13, Wed at 14
The Western Cape government is investigating the marriage of a city girl who was made pregnant at 13 by a middle-aged man, and married to him by Muslim rites three months after her 14th birthday.
Their daughter was born three months later.
The girl, who may not be identified because of her age, married the man in November 2009. Now 15, she has recently gone back to school, which brought the situation to the authorities’ attention.
The girl’s parents said she had made a mistake when she was very young, and was now putting it right. They were delighted she had chosen to go back to school.
“We want our daughter to have a good life and by going to school she can achieve that.”
But the Women’s Legal Centre is concerned that the draft Bill recognising Muslim marriages does not expressly state a minimum age for marriage.
Director Jennifer Williams says it is a criminal offence to have consensual sex with a child between 12 and 16.
And according to the Children’s Act, no child under 18 may be married without special permission, including in some cases from the Minister of Home Affairs. The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act also requires that the prospective spouses be 18, but the Muslim Marriages Bill does not.
“The Children’s Act specifically seeks to prevent marriages of minors, and the best interests of the child are paramount in terms of the constitution. Where there are circumstances that it is in the child’s interest to be in the marriage, this should be dealt with across the board and not according to the type of marriage. At the moment the provisions differ in relation to civil marriages and customary marriages and, of course, there are no provisions relating to religious marriages.”
The parents of the 15-year-old girl were both surprised and angry when Weekend Argus approached them this week. “It’s not something one plans for, it’s not that you want your child to get married so young, but the religion is clear: when a child messes up, marriage is the only way to make things right.”
The girl’s mother said her daughter was very mature for her age. “Many people do not believe that she is only 15. Looking at her you will never say. My daughter and her husband live with us and we make sure that we help and guide where we can. Ultimately, she is happy and it’s what she wanted. Our child had to grow up quickly but she knew what she wanted, and that’s important.”
She said her son-in-law provided well for both his wife and their one-year-old girl…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Minister: Risk of Terrorist Infiltration
(ANSAmed) — VENICE, FEBRUARY 11 — The flow of citizens escaping from Tunisia raised terrorism alert levels because of the risk of terrorists mingling with migrants. The statement was made today in Venice by minister of the Interior Roberto Maroni, during a meeting in the Prefecture.
In reference to those escaping Tunisia, he stated that “There are citizens seeking protection”, but also “criminals who broke out of jail and infiltrators from terrorist organisations” such as Al Qaeda for the Islamic Maghreb.
Maroni claimed that this is “an organisation that tries to infiltrate agents into Europe; attention is high and we warned about it”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Frattini: Flow From Tunisia Started Again
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 10 — “The flow of immigrants from Tunisia has started again, after a long time, and this worries us”. This remark was made by Italian foreign Minister Franco Frattini after the State-Regions Conference, in response to some questions asked by journalists. “We need a European Marshall Plan for the Mediterranean area, we must remove many of the reasons that have caused the protests”, the Minister continued. “There is a problem with the European resources that must be mobilised urgently. In the most recent council of Ministers in Brussels I suggested to use financial instruments, referring in particular to a Marshall Plan for the Mediterranean”, Frattini explained. “Some protests are based on political motives only but others are linked to poverty. In Egypt 40% of inhabitants earn just 2 dollars per day and wealth in Tunisia is distributed in a very unbalanced way. Europe must intervene”, the Minister concluded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hotel Owner Sparks Anger by Putting Up Provocative Sign Declaring ‘Poofters Welcome’
A hotel owner has caused uproar in his village after putting up a sign outside the building saying ‘Poofters welcome here’.
Mike Saqui meant the sign to be a pointed reference to the case where a Cornish B&B owner refused to let in gay couples.
But many in his village in Hampshire’s New Forest were left outraged and he was given a strong talking to by the police.
Mr Saqui wrote the message on the sandwich board outside his Penny Farthing Hotel, on a main road in Hampshire’s New Forest.
Residents feared they could be branded a ‘village of bigots’ but others insisted it was ‘light-hearted’ and urged councillors to ‘lighten up’.
The sign also came under fire in January after two residents complained to the council about the message: ‘There’s more than one gay in the village.’
Chairman councillor Mark Rolle told the parish council meeting this week that he had been offended by the slogans.
He said: ‘There have been some amusing signs occasionally. But last weekend I found one that incensed me.
‘The realms of decency were overstepped — we could be branded a village of bigots.’
Coun Rolle also said that when he phoned the hotel to complain, a member of staff told him the owner could ‘put what he wanted’.
Councillor Paul Boyes said: ‘I personally find it offensive. I think it is our duty to say something.’
And Angela Trend added: ‘I found it offensive. Some people aren’t confident enough to go in and make a stand.’
However, other councillors disagreed. Leonard Cornell said: ‘It’s not offensive, it’s a fact. On its website it is listed as gay friendly.’
Councillor Pat Wyeth said: ‘It wasn’t particularly appropriate but it is not something the parish council should get involved with.
‘On the whole it is only that last one and the one just before which caused offence. I honestly do not think it is something we should get involved with — the police should have a word if it oversteps the mark. If someone is offended by it, go in and say it.’…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
The Reality of a Green World
After fighting the radical environmental movement for more than 20 years, I have come to one basic conclusion: the people who understand and care for the environment the least are environmentalists. My experience has shown that the leaders of this once-popular and still powerful force simply use the environment as an excuse to impose a radical, socialist agenda. Meanwhile, the faithful rank and file of the movement believe anything if it is attached to the label “green,” rarely questioning if the statement is true or not.
For example, it is an accepted fact in environmental circles that man is not part of the ecology, only its destroyer. Say the Greens, man’s every action results in damage to the environment and to the plants and animals which are forced to co-exist with him.
Based on that premise, the entire economy of the United States has been transformed to reduce man’s earthbound “footprint,” as human civilization recedes back to that of cave dwellers freezing in the dark. The result is not only a new dark ages for the community of man, but also for the environment.
[…]
But the government, following the Green demands, brought in the wolves and the bears. Residents were assured that wolves never attacked humans, instead they stay away from man; that wolves are good for Elk populations; that they only kill what they eat; that man and the wolves will live in a harmonious utopia, right out of a Disney movie.
[…]
But that’s not quite the reality for the folks who actually live in this nightmare. Take a close look at the photos on these pages. This is the reality of growing wolf packs. Pets destroyed. Elk herd being decimated. Since, 2000, wolves have caused 45% of known deaths of radio-collared female elk on the northern range of Montana. Since wolf reintroduction, Elk populations have decreased significantly, from 16,791 in 1995 to 8,335 in 2004. Wolf kills of Elk are double the rate predicted in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). And wolves are not efficient killers, as the Greens claim. Wolves will eat their prey alive, or worse, eat a portion of the animal and leave it to suffer.
[…]
In Montana and Idaho, residents are now living in fear of reintroduced, protected, thriving wolf packs. Hunters have reported being surrounded by packs of wolves, cleverly hunted like a scene out of Jurassic Park.
One resident in Idaho reported a pack of wolves sitting in her yard as she walked down her driveway. As she tried to call a neighbor for help, they surrounded her, closing in, almost upon her before help finally arrived. In May, 2007, two Catron County, New Mexico, school children were followed home from the bus stop by three wolves. In December, 2007, at the Glenwood elementary school in New Mexico, a wolf was seen on the playground after multiple reports of the animal being seen in the town. In January, 2008, a wolf kill was found within 70 yards of a school bus stop in Idaho. Yet the wolves are the ones our own government chooses to protect.
It’s another government-funded scheme to make living in your community dangerous, forcing many to leave. Each of these programs is designed to make it just a little harder to live on the land — a little more expensive — a little more hopeless. Of course, the ultimate goal is to remove man from the land, and “rewild” it back to the days before man stepped foot on the soil. Such is the Green dream of utopia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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