Don’t Count on Currency Revaluation
It is sometimes suggested that our trade problems (job losses, international indebtedness) will go away on their own once currency values adjust. Bottom line? A declining dollar will eventually solve everything.
In the short and medium term, of course, foreign currency manipulation will prevent currency values from adjusting. But even if we assume currencies will eventually adjust, there are still serious problems with just letting the dollar slide until our trade balances.
For one thing, our trade might balance only after the dollar has declined so much that America’s per capita GDP is lower, at prevailing exchange rates, than Portugal’s. A 50 percent decline in the dollar from early-2011 levels would bring us to this level. And how big a decline would be needed to balance our trade nobody really knows, especially as we cannot predict how aggressively our trading partners will try to employ subsidies, tariffs, and nontariff barriers to protect their trade surpluses.
Dollar decline will write down the value of wealth that Americans have toiled for decades to acquire. Ordinary Americans may not care about the internationally denominated value of their money per se, but they will experience dollar decline as a wave of inflation in the price of imported goods. Everything from blue jeans to home heating oil will go up, with a ripple effect on the prices of domestically produced goods.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Endgame for Europe’s Currency Reform
Is Euro Summit First Step Toward Economic Government?
The future architecture of Europe’s common currency is starting to take shape. On Friday, leaders of the 17 euro-zone countries are meeting in Brussels to hammer out details of a plan to ensure the stability of the beleaguered euro. German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains under tremendous domestic political pressure to remain tough, but concessions are expected.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone A New Trafalgar for Merkel and Sarkozy?
“Are we about to face another Trafalgar? The battle that will oppose ‘the euro continent’ and the Anglo-Saxon markets is set to begin on 11 March,” warns Eric Le Boucher. The Les Echos columnist explains that the outcome of this battle “will be determined by the Franco-German couple: Nicolas Sarkozy and his opposite number Angela Merkel.” Both leaders are intent on convincing the countries of the eurozone to adopt their Competitiveness Pact at the European Council summit on 25 March.
With the pact, “the Chancellor has prepared a particularly long list of demands,” notes Süddeutsche Zeitung. And “many commentators believe that most of them will likely be met — especially since she benefits from the unconditional support of Nicolas Sarkozy. All the indications are that the French President, who is hoping to be re-elected for a second term next year, is aiming to convince voters that a German style economic model is the perfect antidote to Southern European penury.”
“On the one hand, we have the French who have accepted the German principle of budgetary austerity. On the other, Germany has accepted a concept of ‘economic governance’’ that takes into account other aspects of economic competitiveness — a development that amounts to a major change of heart on the other side of the Rhine,” explains Eric Le Boucher.
“Unfortunately, Poland, Austria, and the Netherlands are none too pleased by what they perceive to be an attempt to undermine their national sovereignty and to impose a diktat drafted in Berlin and Paris. Herman Van Rompuy has watered down the proposals on governance, transforming the rules for states into recommendations. But the deal is still in doubt, while German economists remain unhappy with what they believe is a blank cheque for states that overspend.”
“Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy are aware of their responsibility,” adds the business daily columnist. “They have to avoid a repeat of Trafalgar. Respect for the sovereignty of small states, which is one of the principles of the European project, must be guaranteed, but at the same time, governments will have to acknowledge that more battles on financial markets are a greater threat to their sovereignty than a diktat.”
But “before making any concessions, Merkel will want to see what she can obtain in return,” warns Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Without the Competitiveness Pact, there will be no approval for a sustainable bailout mechanism. And the Chancellor will not green-light any reform of existing funds until the banks have passed a stress test. Without adequate knowledge of the situation in Greece and Ireland, Berlin will not give in to demands for a lower rate of interest on loans. The basic message is: ‘she who pays the piper calls the tune’.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Globalists Behind Financial Chaos to Create NWO
We are witnessing a New World Order that is being incrementally forced through financial terrorism
The now infamous phrase “New World Order” (NWO), which implies the erosion of our national sovereignty subjugated by global governance was once mocked and ridiculed as a mere conspiracy theory of the fanciful by all but an outspoken few. Those with the insight and fortitude to speak out about the existence of the NWO infrastructure were, and continue to be, mocked, ridiculed and marginalized by elected officials of the Republican and Democrat parties alike, media pundits, and talking heads of all kinds.
Despite evidence to the contrary, there are still those who believe that the New World Order is nothing more than conspiracy fodder. Others believe that the New world Order is merely conceptual, or at worst, it is an altruistic plan that is necessary to facilitate a global economy and stabilize the economies of nations, including that of the United States. It’s a good thing, we are told, and something that will quell the volatility of the global economy. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.
We are witnessing a New World Order that is being incrementally forced through financial terrorism. And the tempo of the financial terrorism is picking up at a rapid pace. We are seeing it in food prices, gas prices, and the cost of goods bought and sold in our economy today.
[…]
To properly investigate, however, it is imperative that an audit of the Federal Reserve be conducted. If the economic crisis being faced by the U.S. today stems or is related to the actions of the Federal Reserve over the last several years, we must hold the proper people, groups, institutions and entities responsible. Again, access must be gained to the innermost deals within the Federal Reserve.
The last time this was suggested, however, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had the hubris to threaten economic collapse if audited, a tactic tantamount to domestic financial terrorism. No one, it seems, has the right to look at the books of the Federal Reserve.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Homeless” Man Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini is “John Doe #2” in Oklahoma Bombing
On Wednesday, a “homeless man” was arrested in the Boston suburb of Quincy, Massachusetts, on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after allegedly striking another man with a beer bottle. His name is Hussain Hashem al-HUSSAINI, although has several other aliases and a previous arrest record.
His arrest would have likely gone unnoticed except for the tenacious investigative journalism conducted in the months and years following the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by author and investigative journalist Jayna Davis. Ms. Davis, a former reporter for KFOR-TV at the time of the bombing, identified al HUSSAINI as the “John Doe #2” in the April 19, 1995 bombing that claimed the lives of 168 people, including 22 children, three who were unborn. Her investigation is chronicled in her book, The Third Terrorist, and is an important investigative report into the actual events that took place in the months, days and weeks leading to the bombing, and perhaps even more importantly, in the years afterward.
The disheveled homeless man arrested this week is at the epicenter of a plot that involves not only domestic terrorism, but the inexcusable failures and activities of the FBI that led directly to the events of September 2001. Ms. Davis documented the direct involvement of a Muslim terrorist operation involved in the 1995 bombing, and attempted to warn the FBI of additional attacks being planned. Despite impeccable documentation compiled by Ms. Davis that I personally reviewed in my capacity as an investigator, her warnings went unheeded. Six years later, the worst attack on American soil killed another 3,000 people. It is my belief that the attacks of 9/11 could have been stopped had the FBI acted upon the evidence she submitted to the FBI.
Instead, twenty-two witness affidavits she compiled and submitted to the FBI in January 1999 that, in part, connect al HUSSAINI to the events of the bombing “disappeared.” Those affidavits contain sworn statements of multiple witnesses who placed al HUSSAINI in the company of Timothy McVeigh prior to the bombing, exiting the Ryder truck that was used for the bombing, and speeding away from the area just prior to the blast. Despite solid witness statements, the FBI reportedly failed to interview al HUSSAINI.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brooklyn High School Acid Attack: Zhanna Smsaria Charged With Trying to Burn Classmate’s ‘Eyes Out’
A simmering feud between two Brooklyn high schoolers exploded when one of the girls tried to blind her helpless frenemy with acid, authorities said Thursday.
Zhanna Smsarian, 16, admitted she wanted “to burn the eyes out” of honor student Albina Eshimbaeva when she slipped up from behind with a bottle of acid in their Wednesday morning chemistry class, cops said.
Albina, 15, told the Daily News Thursday night that she had a feeling Smsarian was gunning for her the day of the attack in Fort Hamilton High School.
Smsarian “was standing against a wall staring at me in an evil way,” Albina said. “She was smiling, but it was evil.
“I knew something bad was coming, but didn’t know what it was. Two seconds later, I felt the liquid falling down my bangs.”
Smsarian was in her ROTC uniform and wearing a pair of goggles as she swore in Russian and splashed the acid.
“My whole face was burning,” recalled Albina, an immigrant from Kyrgyzstan. “I thought I was blind. I couldn’t see anything.”
Doctors who treated Albina said the teen only avoided losing her sight because the diluted solution was just 10% acid, sources said.
The two girls were once close, with the victim even attending Smsarian’s Sweet 16 party.
Albina, who also participates in the school’s ROTC program, said she broke off their friendship after tiring of Smsarian’s lies and rumor-mongering.
The victim’s mother, Syrga Eshimbaeva, said the older girl resented her daughter’s success in the school’s gifted and talented students program.
“It’s all over nothing,” said the 42-year-old mom of three girls. “Just for being jealous of my daughter.”
A sobbing Smsarian — still in the military outfit she wore to school Wednesday — was freed yesterday on $7,500 bail and left the Brooklyn courthouse in her father’s waiting SUV. A judge issued an order of protection blocking Smsarian from contacting Albina.
“She’s never been in any problems before,” defense lawyer Igor Vaysberg told the judge. “She’s an honor roll student with excellent grades.”
Classmates said the teens also had a feud over a 22-year-old graduate of their high school, but police sources said there was much more to it than that.
“They have had a beef with each other for awhile,” one source indicated. “It boiled over [Wednesday]. This dispute has nothing to do with a guy. It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
The Eshimbaevas also denied there was any man involved.
Still, a young man who said he came between the girls told The News that he had complained to Smsarian that Albina had become too clingy.
“Zhanna said she was going to take care of it,” said the man, who gave his name only as Mohammed. “I told her to do what she had to do, but I didn’t expect her to throw acid.”
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Dispute Over Staten Island Man Sparks Alleged Acid-Throwing Incident, Report Says
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Irate over a dispute over a Staten Island man, a Brooklyn teen allegedly tried to blind a classmate by splashing her with acid during chemistry class, according to a report in the Daily News.
Zhanna Smsarian, 16, told a police officer she “was trying to burn [Albina Eshimbaeva’s] eyes out” during the incident at Fort Hamilton High School, the News is reporting, citing court documents.
The women were friends prior to a falling out, which occurred over a 22-year-old Staten Island male who had dated Miss Eshimbaeva, according to the report. The man, an Egyptian-American, is identified only as Mohammad.
The man spurned Miss Eshimbaeva, and then turned to Miss Smsarian to get her friend to leave him alone, according to the report.
“I told her to do what she had to do, but I didn’t expect her to throw acid,” Mohammad said, according to the report.
Miss Eshimbaeva was rushed to the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze. She suffered skin irritation because the solution contained just 10 percent acid, sources told the News.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Fort Hood Shooting: Nine Army Officers Get Reprimand for Missing Warning Signs Raised by Nidal Hasan
Nine Army officers received reprimands for missing the warning flags raised by accused Fort Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan as he rose through the ranks of the military.
The nine officers — all ranked lieutenant or above — were sanctioned with either oral reprimands or possible career-ending written letters of censure, said Army Secretary John McHugh.
The secretary said the officers failed to meet the “high standards” expected of Army officers when they supervised Hasan at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
The harsh sanctions “send a clear message to everyone that the Army will not tolerate such negligence and passivity in reaction to clear signs that a soldier is radicalizing to Islamist extremists,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gang Rape of 11-Year-Old Girl Sparks Racial Tensions in Texas Town
New Black Panthers Rally Is Moved Because of a Death Threat
The alleged gang rape of an 11-year-old girl by at least 18 boys and young men has sparked shame and outrage in a tiny Texas town, but it has also stirred racial tensions that threaten to split the East Texas hamlet. All of the defendants arrested are African-American and the girl is Hispanic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gov. Scott Walker: Why I’m Fighting in Wisconsin
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best new teachers in the state be one of the first let go? Because her collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be made based on seniority.
Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union leadership would not accept reasonable changes to their contract. Instead, they hid behind a collective-bargaining agreement that costs the taxpayers $101,091 per year for each teacher, protects a 0% contribution for health-insurance premiums, and forces schools to hire and fire based on seniority and union rules.
My state’s budget-repair bill, which passed the Assembly on Feb. 25 and awaits a vote in the Senate, reforms this union-controlled hiring and firing process by allowing school districts to assign staff based on merit and performance. That keeps great teachers like Ms. Sampson in the classroom.
Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in property taxes—or both.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
King Defends Muslim ‘Radicalization’ Hearing, Saying Critics Are ‘In Denial’
Republicans pushed back on Democratic objections Thursday at a controversial hearing on whether American Muslims should be investigated for radicalized tendencies.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Pete King (R-N.Y.), defended his decision to hold the hearing, saying his panel “could not live in denial.”
“I am well-aware that the announcement of these hearings has generated considerable controversy and opposition,” King said at the hearing.
“The committee cannot live in denial, which is what some would have us do when they suggest that this hearing dilute its focus by investigating threats unrelated to al Qaeda.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Leftist Press and Academia, Torpedo Arizona State Rights
On March 3rd, Arizona Senator Lori Klein was one vote shy of passing her SB 1433 initiative which would have made Arizona the first in the nation to protect its Tenth Amendment rights and place the state in a position to void unconstitutional acts of the federal government currently bankrupting all states.
Sixteen Senate votes were needed to pass the measure on to the House and on March 4th, sixteen senators voted YES to put SB 1433 back on the floor for consideration vote on March 8th.
But between March 3rd and March 8th, the leftist press came out of the woodwork against the bill and through a string of false news reports, convinced three YES votes to defect by Tuesdays vote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Liberals Attack America’s Security
Communist infiltration in Hollywood, Peter King is holding hearings on Islamic radicalization in America
“Exactly thirty years after Bolshevism consumed St. Petersburg and Moscow, it created a firestorm in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. In October 1947 the U.S. Congress held dramatic hearings on the subject of Communist infiltration in Hollywood.”
Now, decades after repeated attacks on U.S. embassies, U.S. Marines in Beirut, the USS Cole, and, of course, nearly a decade since 9/11, Rep. Peter King is holding hearings on Islamic radicalization in America, the kind that led to the murder of soldiers at Fort Hood and which The Wall Street Journal identified as “more than 50 known cases, involving about 130 individuals, in which terrorist plots were hatched on American soil.” 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities
The similarities between the 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities and Rep. King’s hearings are remarkable and, in both cases, the mainstream media played an extraordinary role in depicting them as a witch hunt. That metaphor was used by playwright Arthur Miller when he wrote “The Crucible” and Miller’s application to join the Communist Party of United States of America was one of the items the Committee made public.
Along with revelations that many Hollywood scriptwriters were CPUSA members, sworn to obey Russia and their Soviet masters and that a number of Hollywood stars had been duped by Communists to lend their names to anti-American activities has long been subsumed by a relentless campaign to depict the Committee as Un-American, not those working to undermine America. At the heart of that campaign, then and now, was the mainstream media and those in academia.
[…]
To give you an idea of how great the threat to America truly is, Rep. King and his family have been protected, according to the Associated Press, by “round-the-clock security” provided by the New York Police Department and the Nassau County, N.Y. police.” Capitol police secured the congressional hearing room and surrounding areas, as well as his office.”
And, then, true to the media agenda to undermine and disparage the current and past hearings, the Associated Press report noted that “Critics have likened them to the McCarthy-era hearings investigating communism.” Bingo!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Doc Hits US Imams
A prominent Muslim physician plans to tell Congress tomorrow that many imams in the Muslim-American community promote a “culture of lack of cooperation and lack of assimilation” that nurtures Islamist radicalization.
The misguided imams are “telling Muslims with brochures at mosques, ‘Do not talk to the FBI unless you have an attorney’ — basically conditioning and indoctrinating Muslims that the FBI, the government, the military is against you,” M. Zuhdi Jasser said.
“All of this propaganda is being disseminated at many mosques, and we have to address that,” he said. “They are not advocating for violence, but they are feeding into that ideology.”
‘The root cause of radicalization is an inability of some Muslim youth to identify with Western society. They don’t view it as Islamic or righteous.’ -M. Zuhdi Jasser, a prominent Muslim physician who will testify before Rep. Peter King’s Homeland Security Committee tomorrow
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim American Groups, Not Rep. Pete King, Are the Ones Fomenting Hysteria With Hearings on Tap
Headlines about Rep. Peter King producing ‘panic’ in the rank-and-file Muslim community are nonsense, writes Steven Emerson.
Never in my entire career in Washington have I encountered the hype and scare tactics of those opposing the hearings into Islamic radicalization by Rep. Pete King. A classic example was a headline on MSNBC.com: “Inquiry by congressional committee looks like inquisition to many Muslims.”
The line of attack is now familiar: If King (R-L.I.) were truly interested in violent extremism, his hearings would focus on a wide range of groups that wreak havoc on America, including neo-Nazis and others; by focusing solely on Muslim extremism, the argument goes, he is betraying his bias.
This is utterly ridiculous. Our organization, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, recently did an analysis of all terrorism convictions based on statistics released by the Justice Department. These stats show that more than 80% of all convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism since 9/11 involve defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda. Though Muslims represent less than 1% of the American population, they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases the Justice Department lists.
The figures confirm that there is a disproportionate problem of Islamic militancy and terrorism among the American Muslim population.
This is not to say that, on a percentage basis, American Muslims tend to be violent or extremist. To the contrary. Those involved in terrorism are a tiny sliver of the overall Muslim American population.
But one ought to be able to focus on a very real problem — homegrown terrorism fueled by Muslim extremism — without being accused of painting the entire U.S. Muslim population with a broad brush.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Calling Tea Party Racist Reveals a Disturbing Reality
Please consider the validity of what I am about to say rather than having a knee jerk reaction dismissing it as being “over the top.” Folks, we have an irresponsible egocentric evil man occupying the Oval Office.
The democrats and the liberal mainstream media sold the American people on Obama, “the man.” Despite Obama’s zero experience at running anything, they said a leader with his spirit and heart was “what we have been waiting for.”
Fearful of criticizing our first black president, politicians politely say, “President Obama’s policies have been unfruitful”; while ignoring the huge elephant in America’s living room.
The elephant of which I speak and America’s major problem is “Obama, the man”; socialist, divisive and evil.
My dad says a snake can stay under water a very long time just like a fish. But eventually, it must come up for air. Why? Because, it is not a fish. It is a snake. Obama continues to come up for air revealing his true self.
President Obama said the Tea Party is racist. The liberal media, NAACP and democrats have been relentlessly promoting this same baseless allegation. When final confirmation comes down from the highest office in the land, the Oval Office, that the Tea Party is racist; the allegation becomes “official” in the minds of millions. President Obama is slandering millions of decent hard working Americans who simply disagree with his progressive/socialist agenda.
Obama saying “race is a key component in the tea party protests” is simply a smooth crafty political way of making his point; which is unmistakable. I guarantee Obama’s homeys on the left “got it” and cheered and exchanged high fives upon hearing it. President Obama said the tea party is racist; adding fuel to the Left’s efforts.
Think of the repercussions. Obama’s indictment of the Tea Party will birth tremendous racial discord across America in schools, churches, and etc. Obama’s proclamation will cause Americans to double down on their already extreme caution when criticizing our black president. Sadly, I suspect such intimidation is a part of Obama’s plan; anything to empower his mission to “fundamentally transform America.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
One Missing on California Coast as Tsunami Continues
One person remains missing and two others were rescued from the surf in Northern California after a tsunami caused by a deadly earthquake in Japan continued to reverberate across the Pacific Ocean.
Three people taking pictures of the surf near the mouth of the Klamath River, about 20 miles south of Crescent City, Calif., were surprised by large waves and swept into the water, said Cindy Henderson, emergency services officer for Del Norte County.
Two of the people struggled out of the surf and a male in his 20s is still missing, and is now the focus of a search and rescue operation, said a Coast Guard spokesman.
The tsunami, which has prompted warnings along the west coast and in Hawaii, was created after a 8.9-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan’s eastern coast. A 30-foot tsunami hit northern Japan, engulfing buildings and cars. Japanese media reported nearly 200 people had died in the quake—the most powerful to hit the country in at least 300 years—and 700 were missing.
On the west coast, the tsunami has delivered a series of surges that began sweeping ashore by mid-morning and so far peaking at 8.1 feet in the Crescent City area, according to Henderson.
Each surge is preceded by a rapid decrease in water level as the approaching wall of water at sea pulls water away from the shore only to deliver it back in a surge that is both higher and at greater volume.
The powerful draw drained virtually all the water form the Crescent City Harbor, said Henderson, leaving boats sitting on the bottom and then refloating them minutes later in a crashing jumble.
“We’ve got boats on top of boats down there,” said Henderson. It’s incorrect to say any of the craft sank because the water keeps going away, she said.
Henderson said most of the docks and about 35 boats have been damaged.
The shallow and open mouth of Crescent City Harbor makes it susceptible to tidal surges. The harbor even experience some tsunami affect from last year’s Chilean earthquake, she said.
Most commercial fishing boats based in Crescent City put to sea last night when the tsunami alert was first broadcast. It’s easier to ride out big waves at sea than at the dock. Now many of those boats are running low on fuel, but they are unable to return to port while the surges continue, said Chris Renner, owner of C. Renner Petroleum Co. in Crescent City, which serves the fleet.
“I’ve got customers trying to figure out what’s next,” said Renner, who has been in radio contact with the skippers, but hasn’t been allowed to return to his waterfront facility to assess the damage.
He estimated there were between 11 and 14 vessels outside the harbor waiting for calm. The nearest ports that could service the vessels are Eureka, Calif, about 80 miles south, or Gold Beach, Ore., 50 miles to the north.
Further north, two people watching the surf near Pistol River, Ore., about 50 miles north of Crescent City, were rescued from a tsunami surge estimated to be about six feet.
Don Kendall, emergency services coordinator in the region said onlookers were surprised by waves and pulled from the surf by companions and local fire and rescue staff. Officials are urging spectators to be cautious and in some communities Kendall has sounded a second tsunami alarm.
“This situation isn’t over and people need to be cautious,” said Kendall…
| [Return to headlines] |
Tears Help Radical Rep. Ellison Deflect Scrutiny of His Own Record
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) got some headlines for breaking down in tears during the Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday, but another witness, Abdirizak Bihi, Director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, offered something more newsworthy—an indictment of Ellison himself.
Although he didn’t identify Ellison by name, Bihi’s criticism of local leaders, religious and political, was seen as partly a reference to Ellison being an obstacle to finding out what happened to 20 Somali young people who had disappeared from Ellison’s congressional district and showed up in Somalia as terrorists.
No wonder Ellison had called the hearing a “witch-hunt.” He was the witch.
As noted in advance by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “Bihi has been publicly critical of Ellison’s handling of the disappearance of some 20 Somali youths recruited by a Jihadist group in their native country.” Bihi’s nephew Burhan Hassan was killed in Somalia after traveling there to join Al-Shabbab, a terrorist organization working to overthrow the Somali government.
But it wasn’t just Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. The Star-Tribune previously reported that Bihi had “accused the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Minnesota chapter of discouraging local Somalis from cooperating with the FBI” in trying to find out what happened.
The FBI had cited CAIR’s links to terrorist groups. But Ellison has worked with CAIR and has spoken at their events.
[…]
Bihi was restricted, like other witnesses, to five minutes in his opening remarks. In his prepared testimony, Bihi went into detail about how the leadership of his local mosque, as well as CAIR, obstructed the search for the missing youth. He said, “the mosque leadership was always in the mode of ‘double-speak,’ claiming to the larger community in English that they were victims of our efforts to find our ‘fake’ missing children and creating open house events in the mosque where big organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) would stand beside the mosque leaders and support them blindly, without having ever met with the families of the missing Somali youths (even though we had requested several times to meet with CAIR, but never did as we were left without a response).”
[…]
Ellison testified that he had made a presentation, sponsored by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), called “Strengthening America’s Security: Identifying, Preventing and Responding to Domestic Terrorism.”
He explained, “My presentation addressed causes of violent extremism and solutions for prevention and intervention.”
Ellison should know something about domestic terrorism, having been a vocal supporter of communist terrorists such as Sara Jane Olson, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), and Bernardine Dohrn, the former leader of the communist terrorist Weather Underground. In a speech, Ellison had also praised cop-killers Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row in Pennsylvania, and Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur), who escaped the U.S. and is now living under the protection of the Castro dictatorship.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Teenagers’ Brains Wired to Resist Bad Behaviour Just as Peer Pressure Kicks In
It is news that will be a welcome relief for parents who worry about their children being led astray at secondary school.
Scientists have found that just when children are facing intense peer pressure to misbehave, their brains are developing the skills to resist risky behavior.
Researchers at the University of Oregon measured the brain activity of 24 girls and 14 boys when they were 10 years old and again when they were 13.
Each time, the youngsters were given MRI scans to measure blood flow in their brains while they were shown photos of faces making neutral, angry, fearful, happy and sad emotional expressions.
The children also filled out surveys about their ability to resist peer influences and risky behaviour.
The scientists found that there was a significant increase in activity in the ventral striatumin deep inside the brain over the three-year period.
‘This is a complex point, because people tend to think of adolescence as the time when teenagers are really susceptible to peer pressure,’ said Professor Jennifer Pfeifer, of the University of Oregon.
‘That is the case, but in addition to that added susceptibility they are also improving their ability to resist it.
‘It’s just that peer pressure is increasing because they spend a lot more time with peers during this time and less time with family. So it is a good thing that resistance to such influences is actually strengthening in their brains.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Watchdog: TSA ‘Cooked’ Data on Airport Security
The Transportation Security Administration “cooked the books” to understate the costs of using federal workers rather than private contractors to screen airport passengers, a key TSA critic in Congress charged Wednesday.
Federal auditors found the agency erred in its cost comparisons, and a skeptical lawmaker said TSA did so to stop the use of private contractors to do screening — an option Congress wrote into the 2001 law that created the agency.
Sixteen airports throughout the country use private screeners under the Security Partnership Program (SPP), but TSA has barred other airports from joining the program.
In a letter to Congress released Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said TSA’s new estimates show that private screeners are just 3 percent more expensive than federal workers — not 17 percent, as the agency previously had stated.
Auditors said that earlier TSA estimates had not accounted for the costs of workers compensation, liability insurance, retirement benefits and administrative overhead involved in using federal employees. Rep. John L. Mica
“TSA cooked the books to try to eliminate the federal-private screening program,” said Rep. John L. Mica, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “GAO found that TSA ignored critical data relating to costs.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Witnesses at King Hearing Say America ‘Failing’ To Confront Radical Islam
Witnesses at a high-profile congressional hearing on Islamic radicalization said Thursday that America is “failing” to confront the threat posed by homegrown extremism, as lawmakers traded accusations over whether the inquiry unfairly singled out Muslims.
Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said “paralysis” over the issue has seized the nation’s leaders and he urged the Muslim community to confront what he called an “exponential increase” in the number of Muslim radicals in the United States.
“The U.S. has a significant problem with Muslim radicalization,” said Jasser, who is Muslim. “It is a problem that we can only solve.”
[…]
“This committee cannot live in denial,” King said, accusing critics of trying to “dilute” the focus by turning attention to groups other than Al Qaeda.
“Only Al Qaeda and its Islamist affiliates in this country are part of an international threat to our nation,” King said.
He said the hearings “must go forward, and they will.” He said backing down would amount to a “craven surrender to political correctness.”
[…]
Lawmakers heard Thursday from two witnesses whose family members were lured away from their community by Islamic radicals.
Melvin Bledsoe, whose son allegedly attacked an Army recruiting center in Arkansas, said Americans are ignoring the issue. He described how his son, Carlos, was radicalized when he went off to college in Nashville, Tenn. He described how his son’s personality changed and how, when he returned home for the holidays in 2005, he told his family he converted to Islam. Bledsoe also said he noticed something was wrong when his son took his picture of Martin Luther King Jr. down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Berlin Annoyed as Paris Recognizes Libyan Rebels
Germany expressed caution Thursday on the issue of recognising Libya’s opposition as the country’s representative, as France irked Berlin by opening diplomatic relations with opponents of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.
France became the first country to recognise Libya’s opposition as its rightful representatives, pledging to send an ambassador to rebel-held territory rocked by violence, officials said.
But the unilateral decision — made ahead of an EU summit on the issue set for Friday — was met with displeasure within the governing coalition, media reports said.
The question of Berlin following France’s lead “has not arisen,” a high-ranking government source said on Thursday.
“You do not recognise a government, you recognise a state,” the source said under condition of anonymity. “The question of recognising a rebel council is not relevant in terms of international law,” added the official.
Berlin recognises Libya’s national transition council “as someone who speaks for some parts of the population,” he added.
Earlier on Thursday, state minister for the Foreign Ministry Werner Hoyer told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily that “the situation is still too confused to be able to decide how to proceed.”
Even if the current government is “discredited,” it is “still not clear” how a transition government would work, he said.
Meanwhile Germany froze billions in assets held by the Libyan Central Bank and the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the economy ministry said Thursday, as it implemented European Union sanctions.
The sanctions, applied Wednesday, also targeted the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio and the Libyan Foreign Bank, the ministry said, adding: “The measures block billions worth of assets” without specifying the currency.
Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle said: “The measures taken yesterday are a
clear reaction to the developments in Libya.”
He said the brutal suppression of the Libyan freedom movement could no longer be financed by assets held in German banks.
“The German government is sending a clear signal with this move that it is firmly on the side of those in Libya who are demanding freedom, democracy and the rule of law,” added Brüderle.
On Tuesday, the 27 nations of the EU decided to impose tough new sanctions on the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi, notably on the LIA, the overseas investment vehicle for Tripoli’s oil revenues.
Set up in 2006, the LIA has significant holdings in Italian bank UniCredit, Italian defence and aeronautical group Finmeccanica, Juventus Football Club and Pearson, the publisher of the Financial Times, which itself froze that holding last week.
The German move comes ahead of a frantic 48-hour period of European diplomacy as countries ponder how to deal with the continuing unrest in Libya.
Foreign ministers and leaders were set to meet over consecutive days for talks that will shape the prospects for military intervention via a no-fly zone, as well as humanitarian aid and economic props.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi is Poorer
Italian premier slips down Forbes list of world’s richest men. Reference to “bunga bunga”
MILAN — This year, the world’s richest man is again Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecommunications magnate, at least according to the traditional list drawn up by Forbes magazine. In fact, the top three slots are unchanged from last year. Number two is Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, followed by Warren Buffet of Bertshire Hathaway in third place. In fourth position is the first European, Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury goods group, which has just acquired Bulgari.
BERLUSCONI SLIPS BACK — There are no Italians in the top 30. The first red, white and green surname to crop up is Ferrero, followed by Luxottica owner Leonardo Del Vecchio in 71st place. The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has slid down to 118th from last year’s 74th slot, with a family fortune that has shrunk from the 2010 estimate of nine billion dollars to today’s 7.9 billion. However, Mr Berlusconi’s political and media heft earned him 14th place on the list of the most powerful people, where influence is factored in along with financial muscle. Forbes provides a brief profile of each of the billionaires on the list. In Silvio Berlusconi’s entry, the family’s business activities take a back seat to his personal affairs: “Another year, another scandal for Italy’s Prime Minister”, says Forbes, mentioning the “Bunga Bunga sex parties”, “relationships with showgirls” and “using his power to promote pretty girls to positions within his government”. Referring to Mr Berlusconi as “the politician with nine lives”, Forbes recalls the prime minister’s beginnings as a singer on cruise ships and his subsequent business career. Other Italians on the rich list include, for the first time, the Della Valle brothers. Tod’s owner Diego is in 938th position and brother Andrea is 993rd…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Why Earn a Living When You Can Demand One?
In the second part of our series, Gunnar Viby Mogensen talks about what the welfare state has done to our work ethic
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Prison is a Nice Break From the Daily Grind for Young Criminals, According to New Study
The results of a new study show that conditions in prison are actually better than conditions at home for many of Denmark’s youngest generation of criminals. According to an 18-year-old named Zaid, who participated in the recent study of young criminals’ feelings about their criminal careers and incarceration, going to prison was less like getting punished than like taking a nice holiday. “I don’t think of it like a punishment. The opposite actually — it’s more like a holiday. It is the best place to go and take a break. Right now I actually wouldn’t mind getting in and just having a rest for a month.” Some 14 young people took part in the study conducted by associate professor Inge M. Bryderup from the Danish School of Education.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark Respectful of Islam, Says Pan-Arab TV Star
Al Shugairi has never hidden the fact that he wants to see change in the Islamic world. ‘Khawater’ effortlessly weaves Quranic verses and the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed together with encouragement for scientific advancement and moral evolution. His unorthodox approach urges viewers to re-examine Islam and its implementation in modern society. “Prophet Mohammed came and he just re-emphasized the human values that already existed in precious religions and cultures since Adam. Justice, cleanliness, hygiene, health, tolerance — that’s what people are missing, common human values,” said Al Shugairi.
He wants to see more understanding between the West and the Islamic world and sees Muslim integration in media, politics and social life — especially in European countries — as the fastest path to progress.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
European Parliament Report Strains Already Fragile Turkey-EU Ties
The European Parliament plans to send a team to follow the trial of recently arrested journalists.
The European Parliament’s adoption Wednesday of a report containing sharp criticism of Turkey on press freedom issues has further frayed already troubled relations between Ankara and the European Union.
The report is “biased” and “unfair,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a written statement following the European Parliament’s decision to adopt the text penned by Turkey rapporteur Ria Oomen-Ruijten, a Dutch Christian Democrat politician.
“The documents and reports published by the European Parliament bear meaning for Turkey only if a serious, constructive and objective approach is adopted,” the ministry said.
The European Parliament meanwhile said it is readying to create a delegation to closely follow the trial of some Turkish journalists arrested recently on charges of having links to an alleged illegal organization accused of plotting to topple the government.
The report expressed serious doubts about the “deterioration in freedom of the press” in Turkey and called on the government to “uphold the principles of press freedom.” After a motion for amendment, the latest crackdown on journalists, including the arrests of Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, was also inserted into the final version of the report.
The European Parliament is expected to establish a delegation to follow the cases of Sener, Sik and what it described as “other journalists facing police or judicial harassment,” daily Hürriyet reported Thursday.
The report also emphasized that investigations of alleged coup plans, such as the Ergenekon and “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) cases, need to demonstrate the proper, independent and transparent functioning of Turkish democratic institutions and the country’s judiciary, and expressed concerns about excessively long pre-trial detention periods.
The international body also said it is “concerned by the lack of progress in these [coup-plot] investigations” and noted that “the recent detention of well-known journalists such as Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik might lead to a loss of credibility of these trials, which should, on the contrary, strengthen democracy.”
The European Parliament’s report is the most critical issued in recent years and comes after Turkish government officials hit out at the European Union for the lack of progress in Turkey’s EU accession negotiations since forma talks began in 2005.
“If they do not want Turkey in, they should say this openly … and then we will mind our own business and will not bother them,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said recently.
Turkey has so far opened 13 chapters in its entry talks with the EU…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
European Parliament: Lazy MEPs Unmasked
El Mundo, 9 March 2011
“Take the money and run”: El Mundo borrows the title of a celebrated film by Woody Allen to denounce the “subterfuges” of MEPs who show up in parliament on Friday morning to pocket the daily allowance of 304 euros and then immediately leave for a weekend at home. The practice is commonplace for about sixty MEPs (out of 726), the majority of whom “are from France and eastern Europe,” notes the Madrid daily. The scheme has been exposed by the independent British MEP Nikki Sinclaire, who took photos of his colleagues in parliament and at several train stations and airports in Europe and had them published in the British weekly News of the World. “The European Parliament, however, refuses to review its policies,” adds El Mundo. A spokesman for the Assembly asserts that this practice “conforms wholly to the rules” and that “only political parties can encourage their members not to tick off the days when they do no work.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy Gets Tough With French Islamists — Fires “Diversity” Advisor, Abderrahmane Dahmane, After Threat
San Francisco, CA — PipeLineNews.org — Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, which contains Europe’s largest Muslim population, has fired his diversity advisor, Abderrahmane Dahmane, after he urged Muslims to quit Sarkozy’s UMP party, upon the disclosure that a scheduled national debate regarding whether Islam’s codes are compatible with a free society, would go forward.
Over the last 5 years France has been the scene of numerous Muslim uprisings, usually accompanied by riots and car burnings. The resentment lingers however, with swaths of largely Muslim areas now being considered “no-go” zones by the police.
According to the BBC [see,
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=sarkozy3112011101.htm
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Snub for Obamas as Royal Sources Reveal They Will Not be Invited to Prince William’s Wedding
President Obama and his wife Michelle will not be invited to Prince William’s wedding.
Because Prince William is not yet heir to the throne, his wedding to Kate Middleton is not classed as a ‘state occasion’ — and the couple feel under no pressure to fill the 2,000-strong guest list with heads of state, the Mail understands.
They are more eager to ask ordinary citizens and charity workers than foreign dignitaries and VIPs to what will be the first royal ‘people’s wedding’, courtiers suggested.
A handful of heads of state are likely to be invited in line with previous royal weddings, possibly including France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK Suspect ‘Financier’ Behind Stockholm Bomb
The man who is being held in Glasgow on suspicion of being an accomplice in a suicide bombing in Stockholm in December is thought to have been the financier behind the failed attack, according to the Glasgow Herald daily.
Police were on Thursday granted more time to question the 30-year-old man of Kuwaiti origin over his suspected links to the attack which killed the suicide bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab, and injured two others in the Swedish capital.
The man was arrested in a pre-dawn raid in the Whiteich area of Glasgow on Tuesday and is being held at Govan police station.
His identity remains unconfirmed with reports suggesting that he was nursing student at North Glasgow College rejected by the college, the newspaper reported.
The Swedish Security Service and the UK’s MI5 are reported to be assisting the police with their enquiries. According to UK anti-terror laws the police are able to detain the man for questioning without charge for 14 days.
Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish citizen who lived in the British town of Luton with his wife and three children, narrowly missed wreaking carnage among Christmas shoppers when he blew himself up next to Stockholm’s busiest pedestrian street on December 11th.
He was carrying a cocktail of explosives and is believed to have mistakenly set off a small explosion that killed him before he could carry out what appears to have been a mission to kill “as many people as possible,” a Swedish prosecutor said days after the attack.
An Islamist website, Shumukh al-Islam, posted a purported will by Abdulwahab which said he was fulfilling a threat by Al-Qaeda in Iraq to attack Sweden.
Shortly before the explosions, Säpo and the TT news agency received an email with audio files in which Abdulwahab is heard telling “all hidden mujahedeen in Europe, and especially in Sweden, it is now the time to fight back.”
The attack was the first suicide bombing on Swedish soil.
| — Hat tip: Freedom Fighter | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Five Boys, 13, Hauled to Police ‘Justice’ Meeting for Calling Woman Officer ‘PC Nipples’ Behind Her Back
Five schoolboys were subjected to a 90-minute dressing down by four police officers after they called a female constable ‘PC Nipples’.
The group of 13-year-olds were forced to attend the ‘restorative justice conference’ after calling the officer names behind her back.
The conferences are usually held to allow the victims of serious crimes to come face-to-face with the perpetrators.
But in this case the group of boys were hauled before the PC involved, a sergeant and two other officers to make them aware of the consequences their actions had.
The deputy head of Purbeck School, Wareham, Dorset also attended, as did the boys’ parents, with the meeting concluding after they apologised to the female officer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Drugs Turned This Grammar Schoolboy Into Monster Who Killed His Own Grandmother in Knife Frenzy
[Comments: WARNING: Graphic content.]
With his winning smile and sharply-cut blazer, Jack Langlands seemed to be a promising young pupil with a bright future ahead of him.
But just a few years after this picture was taken, drug and alcohol abuse had transformed the former grammar schoolboy into a psychotic murderer who stabbed his grandmother to death.
Now his parents have spoken out for the first time since the 27-year-old was sentenced to life in prison for the attack to warn others of the dangers of cannabis, cocaine and alcohol, saying: ‘Drugs have ruined his life — and ours.’
Doris Langlands, 83, had taken in her homeless grandson only months before her appalling death while he looked for work.
His parents Irene and Malcolm said the pair got on well, with him cooking and making cups of tea for his grandmother while she did his laundry.
But over Easter last year, after weeks of erratic behaviour which included trying to strangle his brother’s dog, 5ft 8in Langlands repeatedly stabbed the frail pensioner in the head.
Mrs Langlands — who was 4ft 10in and weighed five-and-a-half stone — was found by a concerned relative who went to check on her at her home in Winchmore Hill, North London, after she failed to answer the phone.
Langlands went on the run for several days before being caught by police. Last month, he was sentenced to life in prison after a week-long trial at the Old Bailey.
He is thought have been suffering from paranoid psychosis at the time of the attack, brought on by years of heavy drinking and cannabis use which progressed to cocaine addiction.
However, his plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility was rejected by the jury, which unanimously convicted him of murder.
His devastated parents no longer recognise the little boy who had been so popular with fellow pupils at his school in Enfield, North London.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thousands Evacuated From Heathrow’s Terminal 5 as Armed Police Swoop on Man With Suspect Suitcase
Heathrow’s Terminal 5 check-in area was shut down for more than an hour today after armed police swooped on a man with a suspect package.
Thousands of passengers were evacuated after officers moved in on the British suspect, aged in his 30s.
Flyers had to wait outside for around 90 minutes before they were allowed back into the largest terminal at the airport which is used exclusively by British Airways.
Security workers are believed to have become suspicious when he walked into the building carrying a suitcase this afternoon.
Officers only evacuated people from the check-in area who had not been through passport control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Warning Sign: Elena Chudinova’s Nightmare Vision of the Islamization of the West
Russian novelist Elena Chudinova (transliterated Tchoudinova in French) is one of several writers in recent years to make a European bestseller list by protesting the Continent’s growing Islamization. After the September 11 attacks, Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci began the trend with her short bookThe Rage and the Pride. Last year, Thilo Sarrazin joined the bestseller ranks with Deutschland schafft sich ab: wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen (Germany Is Dismantling Itself: How We Put Our Country at Risk)—a literary endeavor that cost him his job on the board of Germany’s Central Bank. Chudinova’s book, published in Russia in 2005, where it became a top-selling title, was translated into French as La Mosquée Notre-Dame de Paris année 2048, with virtually no attention from the mainstream media. The French publisher is actively seeking to sell the English translation rights. While that process runs its course, readers may be interested to know what her book is about.
Unlike the Fallaci and Sarrazin books, Chudinova’s is a futuristic, dystopian novel, or as the French edition puts it, a novel with a mission. It takes place in 2048, when France has been under Islamist rule for over a decade. Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral is now the Al-Franconi mosque; those French families that have refused to convert to Islam are squeezed into ghettoes and, as the plot unfolds, about to be given the choice of conversion or slaughter. There are two underground groups: a secular resistance and a few remaining Christians, followers of the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who in the previous century had rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The book starts with a literal bang, as a young resistance fighter, just after watching a Christian get stoned to death, sets off a car bomb that kills a senior Muslim official. It culminates in an insurrection in which the two underground groups capture and reconsecrate Notre Dame in order to celebrate a mass there. As the novel ends, the cathedral is about to be blown up so that it can never again be desecrated by Muslims…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Seeks Better Relationship With Hamas
Latest move showing increased militancy by new regime
The Egyptian military command has requested a meeting with Hamas to discuss ways to build a better relationship with the Islamist organization, according to Egyptian diplomatic sources speaking to WND.
Separately, sources in Hamas told WND the Egyptian government has been taking Hamas’ side on key points in negotiations Cairo is helping to broker to create a unity deal between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Sources in the Israeli defense establishment, meanwhile, said they are concerned the Egyptian government’s new friendliness toward Hamas will make it more difficult for the Jewish state to stem the smuggling of weapons into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France Recognizes Embattled Libyan Rebels
France is the first nation to recognize the opposition government in eastern Libya. The move by French President Sarkozy is a diplomatic coup for the rebels even as their forces in the key oil city of Ras Lanuf were reportedly retreating under fierce assault by pro-Kadafi forces.
In the coastal oil city of Ras Lanuf, captured Friday by rebel fighters, reports from the front said troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi had forced rebels to begin a retreat from the city. Rebel positions there were pounded by airstrikes, artillery and rockets, according to news accounts.
If pro-Kadafi forces are able to seize the petrochemical complex, port and airport in Ras Lanuf, it would give the regime in Tripoli control over one of Libya’s largest oil facilities. Ras Lanuf is 225 miles by road southwest of Benghazi, the rebel stronghold.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Gaddafi Will Win in the End’: U.S. Intelligence Chief Embarrasses Obama as Cameron Demands Immediate Action From EU
The head of the U.S. intelligence service said today that he believed the Gaddafi regime ‘will prevail’ in Libya.
James Clapper told the Senate armed services committee: ‘With respect to the rebels in Libya, and whether or not they will succeed or not, I think frankly they’re in for a tough row. I don’t think he has any intention of leaving. He appears to be hunkering down for the duration.’
Pressed on which side had the momentum, the Director of U.S. National Intelligence was even clearer, saying: ‘I think in the longer term that the regime will prevail.’
Hours later, the White House distanced itself from the remarks. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that President Barack Obama ‘ does not think Gaddafi will prevail’.
Mr Clapper was speaking as David Cameron demanded that Europe unite against Gaddafi and call on the dictator to give up power immediately.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Turmoil Opening Doors for Radical Terrorists
Libya’s ‘spiral into chaos’ creating environment for jihadists
The turmoil in Libya could mean the North African country’s resurgence as a base for radical al-Qaida terrorists, regional analysts say in a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The analysts are warning that given the increasing prospect that Libya could disintegrate into a rudderless territory similar to Somalia, it could become a new base of operation for al-Qaida, uniting al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula with al-Qaida in the Maghreb, which oversees North Africa.
That development would create a base of operations for militant jihadists to prepare to launch into Europe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Gaddafi Plans Full-Scale Military Action to Crush Rebels
Son of Libyan leader, Saif al-Islam, says regime will not surrender even if Western powers intervene; US National Intelligence Director James Clapper warns better-equipped regime forces likely to prevail.
Libya is preparing full-scale military action to crush a rebellion and will not surrender even if Western powers intervene in the conflict, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s most prominent son, Saif al-Islam, said on Thursday.
“It’s time for liberation. It’s time for action. We are moving now,” he told Reuters in an English-language interview.
Asked if the government was preparing to step up its military campaign, he said: “Time is out now. It’s time for action…We gave them two weeks (for negotiations).”
“We will never ever give up. We will never ever surrender. This is our country. We fight here in Libya. The Libyan people, we will never ever welcome NATO, we will never ever welcome Americans here. Libya is not a piece of cake.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: A Win-Win Plan for Netanyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is stuck between a diplomatic rock and a political hard place. And his chosen means of extricating himself from the double bind is only making things worse for him and for Israel.
Diplomatically, Netanyahu is beset by the Palestinian political war to delegitimize Israel and the Obama administration’s escalating hostility. That hostility was most recently expressed during President Barack Obama’s meeting with American Jewish leaders on March 1.
Insinuating that Israel is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East, Obama scolded Jewish leaders telling them to “search your souls,” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Trafficking in Infiltrators’ Organs
MK Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz charged on Monday that Hamas traffics organs of African infiltrators as they make their way to Israel through the Sinai Peninsula.
Katz, who chairs the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers, made the comments at the opening of a committee meeting on the subject of “Human Trafficking in Sinai — As Infiltrators Make Their Way into Israel.”
The discussion in the Knesset was attended by employees of several ministries — Defense, Health, Public Security, Justice, Population and Immigration, Social Affairs and Finance, as well as the Local Government Centre, the Municipality of Tel Aviv, Physicians for Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States Embassy, and members of other Israeli and international agencies.
During the meeting, Katz presented a document based on reports by the Italian Everyone Group, which cited sources over several years describing various forms of abuse, including murder, torture, rape and kidnapping for ransom of would-be infiltrators from Eritrea.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Israel’s Peacemaking Endangers Itself and the Stability of the Region
When Israeli leaders embarked on peace negotiations with the Islamic-Marxist terrorists who called themselves representatives of the ““Palestinian people”, they hoped to improve relations with the Muslim world. But not only did Israel not succeed in improving relations with the Muslim world, but its bid for peace has actually destroyed its old relationships which were built on a certain respect for Israel’s staying power.
The more Israel has traded land for peace, the more its staying power has diminished. There is no better place to see that shift than in Turkey, formerly Israel’s closest ally in the Muslim world.
That relationship was built not on mutual friendship, but mutual respect. Today Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu envisions a region in which Israel ceases to exist and is replaced by a Muslim-Jewish protectorate of Turkey. In 1986 that vision would have gotten him laughed off the podium when through war after war, Israel proved that it would not be pushed into the sea. But in 2011, with two Muslim terrorist states under international protection inside its own borders, and an American administration pushing for a handover of half its capital, Davutoglu’s vision of the destruction of Israel has become the basis for Turkish policy toward Israel. And the only way that Jerusalem can improve its relations with Ankara is to change that perception of its destructibility.
[…]
During the Cold War when countries were being labeled in one of two colors in a global game of chess, that alliance stayed strong. But with the fall of the USSR, the Western powers decided to employ Israel in a sacrifice play to the Muslim world. Israel was still a powerful piece, but one that no longer fit in the new game. The new gameboard was no longer a polar match between two global coalitions, but every country for itself. And by sacrificing Israel, Western governments hoped to ‘capture’ alliances with more valuable Muslim countries. It was a treacherous move, but one that Israel should have been prepared for over the years. Instead Israeli leaders convinced themselves that some arrangement with the terrorist gangs was in their interest.
[…]
At a meeting with Jewish leaders, Barack Hussein Obama told them to “search your souls” over whether Israel really wants to make peace. But all those leaders need to search is Israeli cemeteries filled with the graves of thousands of victims of the peace process. Perhaps there they can search the souls of the thousands of men, women and children, blown up in restaurants, gunned down in schools and on roads, tortured to death in the No-Go Zones of the Palestinian Authority. They are, in the memorably gruesome words of Rabin, “Sacrifices for Peace”, human sacrifices served up on the burning altar of diplomacy in an endless holocaust of appeasement. Every inch of territory that Israel has given up into the hands of terrorists, has been used as the front line of terrorism. If Israelis are less eager to be served up as human sacrifices to the Muslim Moloch, that should call for soul searching not by them, but by the Western governments who have blindly supported Muslim terrorists leaders Arafat and Abbas, and their murderous campaign against Israeli civilians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Looks to Surrender Control of Strategic Land
Defense officials fear proposal will harm nation’s anti-terror capabilities
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon unveil a plan that would give the Palestinian Authority full security control of more areas of the strategic West Bank, according to diplomatic officials with specific knowledge of the proposal who spoke to WND.
Separately, sources in the Israeli defense apparatus cited aspects of Netanyahu’s upcoming plan they fear will harm the Jewish state’s anti-terror capabilities.
The Israeli news media has been rife the past few days with reports Netanyahu has drafted a secret plan that will be announced within weeks. Netanyahu himself has talked about a new so-called peace initiative without being specific.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police Flood Saudi Capitalm, Preventing Protests
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Hundreds of police deployed in the Saudi capital Friday and prevented protests calling for democratic reforms inspired by the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.
Police blocked roads and set up random checkpoints in Riyadh, searching residents and vehicles around a central mosque as large numbers of people gathered for Friday prayers. Witnesses said groups of policemen manned street corners and intersections and a helicopter flew over the city.
By midday, no protesters had showed up in the capital and the police presence significantly decreased.
On Thursday, rare violence broke out at another protest in the country’s east when Saudi police opened fire to disperse demonstrators in the city of Qatif, where minority Shiites live. At least three protesters and one police officer were wounded.
Although protests have so far been confined to small rallies in the east, activists have been emboldened by other uprisings in the region that have toppled longtime rulers of Tunisia and Egypt. The Saudi activists have set up online groups calling for protests in Riyadh on Friday.
Any violence at Friday’s planned protests could reverberate through the world’s markets because of the importance of Saudi oil exports.
Security officials on Friday said security measures around state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco and its oil facilities in the east were beefed up protectively, in case of any violence. The company is based in Dhahran district on the kingdom’s eastern coast.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the new measures were “considered normal under the current circumstances,” referring to the online call for protests in the area.
Investors are sensitive to any sign of upheaval in Saudi Arabia because the OPEC leader has been using its spare capacity to make up for output lost amid the violent uprising against Libya’s government. When news broke that Saudi Arabian police fired shots to break up the protest Thursday, prices soared $3 in just 12 minutes.
Discord is common between Saudi authorities and the country’s Shiites, who make up 10 percent of the kingdom’s 23 million citizens. The Shiites have long complained of discrimination, saying they are barred from key positions in the military and government and are not given an equal share of the country’s wealth.
The pro-Western monarchy is concerned protests could open footholds for Shiite powerhouse Iran and has accused foreigners of stoking the protests, which are officially forbidden.
Despite the ban on demonstrations and a warning that security forces will act against them, protesters demanding the release of political prisoners took to the streets Thursday for a second day in the eastern city of Qatif. Several hundred protesters, some wearing masks to avoid being identified, marched after dark asking for “Freedom for prisoners.”
Police, who were lined up opposite the protesters, fired percussion bombs followed by gunfire, causing the crowd to scatter, a witness said. Other witnesses said the protesters threw Molotov cocktails and stones from rooftops on the security troops.
Mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia has struggled to stay ahead of the unrest that has led to the ouster of the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders in recent weeks.
Last month, the ultraconservative Saudi government announced an unprecedented economic package worth an estimated $36 billion that will give Saudis interest-free home loans, unemployment assistance and debt forgiveness.
At the same time, it reiterated that demonstrations are forbidden in the kingdom because they contradict Islamic laws and society’s values and said security forces were authorized to act against anyone violating the ban.
So far the demonstrations have been small, concentrated in the east among Shiites demanding the release of detainees. But activists have been emboldened by other uprisings have set up Facebook groups calling for protests in the capital, Riyadh, on Friday to demand democratic reforms.
One such group garnered more than 30,000 supporters.. The group called the “Honein Revolution March 11” has listed a number of mosques in 17 Saudi cities for protesters to rally.
The group says it strives to have elected officials in Saudi Arabia, including the ruler.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Police Open Fire at Protest, Says Witness
Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the mainly Shiite east, leaving at least one man injured, as the government struggled to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom.
The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of more planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom. The pro-Western monarchy is concerned protests could open footholds for Shiite powerhouse Iran and has accused foreigners of stoking the protests, which are officially forbidden.
Despite the ban and a warning that security forces will act against them, protesters demanding the release of political prisoners took to the streets for a second day in the eastern city of Qatif. Several hundred protesters, some wearing face masks to avoid being identified, marched after dark asking for “Freedom for prisoners.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Special Forces Seize Shipment of Arms Iran Intended for the Taliban
Foreign Secretary William Hague has condemned Tehran’s ‘completely unacceptable’ behaviour after British Special Forces seized a shipment of Iranian arms intended for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
UK officials say detailed technical analysis has shown that the rockets, which have twice the range of the weapons currently available to the insurgents, were supplied by Iran.
It is understood that Afghan troops and British Special Forces were involved in the seizure of the arms convoy in Nimruz Province in southern Afghanistan, which borders Iran, on February 5.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rowan Williams: A Truly Islamic State Would Protect Christians
In the history of some countries there comes a period when political and factional murder becomes almost routine — Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany and its neighbours in the early 1930s.
It has invariably been the precursor of a breakdown of legal and political order and of long-term suffering for a whole population. And last week, with the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, Pakistan has taken a further step down this catastrophic road.
To those who actually support such atrocities, there is little to say. They inhabit a world of fantasy, shot through with paranoid anxiety. As the shocked responses from so many Muslims in the UK and elsewhere make plain, their actions are as undermining of Qur’anic ethics as they are of rational politics.
But to those who recognise something truly dreadful going on in their midst — to the majority in Pakistan who have elected a government that, whatever its dramatic shortcomings, is pledged to resist extremism — we have surely to say, “Do not imagine that this can be ‘managed’ or tolerated.”
The government of Pakistan and the great majority of its population are, in effect, being blackmailed. The widespread and deep desire for Pakistan to be what it was meant to be, for justice to be guaranteed for all, and for some of the most easily abused laws on the statute book to be reviewed is being paralysed by the threat of murder.
The case of Asia Bibi, so prominent in the debates of recent months, and the connected murder of the Governor of the Punjab, make it crystal clear that there is a faction in Pakistan wholly uninterested in justice and due process of law, concerned only with promoting an inhuman pseudo-religious tyranny.
Pakistan was created by Jinnah as a consciously Muslim state in which nonetheless the non-Muslim enjoyed an absolute right of citizenship and the civic securities and liberties that go with it.
In common with the best historical examples of Muslim governance, there was a realistic and generous recognition that plural and diverse convictions would not go away and that therefore a just Muslim state, no more and no less than a just Christian or secular state, had to provide for the rights of its minorities.
If the state’s willingness to guarantee absolute security for minorities of every kind is a test of political maturity and durability, whatever the confessional background, Pakistan’s founding vision was a mature one. The disdain shown for that vision by Bhatti’s killers is an offence against Islam as much as against Christianity in Pakistan.
What needs to change? There needs to be a rational debate in Pakistan, and more widely, about the blasphemy laws that are at the root of so much of this. And this is likely to happen only if the international Islamic intelligentsia can form a coherent judgment on the level of abuse that characterises the practice of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
Most Muslim thinkers are embarrassed by supposedly “Islamic” laws in various contexts that conceal murderous oppression and bullying. Their voices are widely noted; they need to be heard more clearly in Pakistan, where part of the problem is the weakening of properly traditional Islam by the populist illiteracies of modern extremism.
And there needs to be some credible proof of the Government of Pakistan’s political will not only to resist blackmail, but also to assess realistically the levels of risk under which minority communities and the individuals who support them live.
Shahbaz Bhatti knew what his chances of survival were — as the moving recorded testimony he left makes plain. He was not protected by the Government he so bravely served. How many minority Christian communities, law-abiding, peaceful and frequently profoundly disadvantaged, are similarly not protected by their government? What increased guarantees of security are being offered?
The protection of minorities of any and every kind is one acid test of moral legitimacy for a government; and such protection is built into Pakistan’s modern identity as an Islamic state with civic recognition for non-Muslims.
Many are anxious about Pakistan’s future for strategic reasons. But those of us who love Pakistan and its people are anxious for its soul as well as its political stability.
It is heartbreaking to see those we count as friends living with the threat of being coerced and menaced into silence and, ultimately, into a betrayal of themselves. This must not be allowed to happen. They need to know of the support of Christians and others outside Pakistan for their historic and distinctive vision.
Shahbaz Bhatti died, for all practical purposes, as a martyr — let me be clear — not simply for his Christian faith, but for a vision shared between Pakistani Christians and Muslims. When he and I talked at Lambeth Palace last year, he was fully aware of the risks he ran. He did not allow himself to be diverted for a moment from his commitment to justice for all.
That a person of such courage and steadfastness of purpose was nourished in the political culture of Pakistan is itself a witness to the capacity of that culture to keep its vision alive and compelling. And that is one of the few real marks of hope in a situation of deepening tragedy that urgently needs both prayer and action.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Step Up Pressure With Suicide Strikes
By Mina Habib
The Taliban have orchestrated a campaign of suicide attacks to counter claims that they are losing ground and are ready for peace talks, according to experts.
This year has seen an intensification of suicide bombings, with seven strikes killing some 400 Afghans, many of whom were non-combatants, according to security officials.
The attacks targeted a supermarket in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, the capital’s City Center shopping area, a government office in the Imam Saheb district of Kunduz province in the north, a branch of Kabul Bank in the southeastern city of Jalalabad, the town of Spin Boldak and a dog-fighting arena in Kandahar province in the south, and a crowded part of Khost, a town in the southeast.
“This past month has been almost like the [1992-96] civil war, when rockets would land every day and kill or injure dozens of innocent people,” Shokrollah, who works in a shop in Kabul, said, adding that every morning, he worried about being caught in a bombing on his way to work.
Amanullah Iman, spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said suicide attacks had increased by 40% in the past three months, with 756 acts of terrorism or violence and nearly 2,300 individuals — including foreign nationals including Pakistanis and Arabs — arrested in connection to these incidents.
Shamsullah Ahmadzai of the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan said that of the 2,380 civilians killed in the past 11 months, 70% died in suicide attacks.
Government spokesman Wahid Omar said that the fact that recent Taliban attacks targeted civilians reflected their inability to engage Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in battle.
“The point of terrorism is to kill many people in order to create an atmosphere of intimidation and fear,” he said. “If the Taliban are very powerful, why don’t they take on the foreigners? If they want to fight the national army and police, they should fight them face to face and should not target defenceless civilians. This is proof that they have lost their capacity for combat.”
Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, meanwhile, believes the Taliban are focusing more on suicide attacks tactics in order to raise their profile.
“The enemies are trying to get media coverage by changing their tactics. They want to make the news and influence the people’s spirit and way of thinking.”
Bashari said suicide attacks were by nature difficult to prevent, and the police’s main asset in forestalling them was information provided by the public.
Political expert Ahmad Sayedi argues that the attacks are a direct response to announcements by coalition forces that the Taliban are in retreat and some of its leaders are willing to negotiate.
“By carrying out these attacks, the Taliban want to say that anything the foreign forces or the Afghan government say is untrue,” he said.
Others believe the bombings have multiple aims — sowing fear among the population, highlighting the government’s inability to cope, diminishing reports that the foreign forces were gaining ground, and raising morale in the Taliban’s own ranks.
Political analyst Jawid Kohistani said a February 20 Taliban summit in Kharotabad in the Pakistani city of Quetta decided that attacks should be carried out in nine provinces of Afghanistan, as a way of rebuffing reports that insurgent leaders were prepared to cooperate with the government’s High Peace Council.
Attacks were planned for Khost, Nangarhar, Helmand, Kunduz, Ghazni, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Baghlan provinces, and a number of suicide bombers were recruited in preparation.
Kohistani said some of the planned attacks were still to take place be carried out, according to Kohistani, who added that the secondary goal was to show that the Afghan government was weak
Another political analyst, Wahid Mozhda, argued that the Taliban’s latest tactics showed worrying similarities to the methods used by al-Qaeda. He said that many of the more pragmatic Taliban leaders had been killed in combat and supplanted by more extreme figures with closer ties to the al-Qaeda movement.
“The tactics used by al-Qaeda, which are common in Iraq and Pakistan, are now being employed in Afghanistan,” Mozhda said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed claimed that the insurgents never deliberately attacked civilians.
“Innocent people are never our principal targets, and we are sorry that some defenceless individuals are killed,” he said.
Mojahed said the January suicide attack in Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan district was intended to kill foreign military personnel. As for subsequent bombings in February, the one in Kunduz targeted paramilitaries recruited by the Americans, and blasts in Khost and in Kabul’s City Center occurred when the bombers were intercepted by security forces before reaching their targets, he said.
“There has been no change to the Taliban’s ethics,” Mojahed said. “They are fighting for God. Our country has been occupied and we will never stop attacking and resisting.”
Although the Taliban regard suicide attacks as a legitimate way of hitting a powerful enemy, many religious scholars say they are not in keeping with Islamic law.
Ordinary people who have lost relatives in the attacks are urging the government to pursue the perpetrators more vigorously…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Uzbekistan Accuses Turkish Firms of Being Islamist Fronts
Uzbekistan has ratcheted up the pressure on Turkish business interests in the Central Asian country with a series of raids and legal cases in the wake of claims that Turkish firms operating there are fronts for a banned Islamic movement. ‘Over 54 Turkish nationals have faced criminal charges’ in the past two years, an Uzbek documentary says
Uzbekistan has stepped up pressure against the private business interests of its one-time ally Turkey, with state media denouncing Turkish firms as acting as a front for religious extremists.
Long wary of the influence of Islamic fundamentalism in the Muslim majority Central Asian state, secular authorities appear to be linking Turkish private business to the activities of the Nurcus, an Islamic group that is banned in the country.
Uzbek state television has repeatedly aired documentaries accusing Turkish companies of creating a shadow economy, using double accounting and propagating nationalistic and extremist ideology.
“Over the past two years 54 Turkish nationals have faced criminal charges, 50 ventures working with Turkish capital were closed down for breaching country’s laws and causing damage to the economy,” a special report by the main Uzbekistan channel said.
Over half a billion dollars worth of cash and goods were “confiscated by one Tashkent court decision alone,” according to the documentary “Kurnamaklik” (The Ungrateful Ones).
The reports came just after Uzbek law enforcement officials raided the Turkuaz supermarket, one of the biggest in the capital Tashkent, in a so-called “mask show” operation involving balaclava-clad special security forces.
At the end of last year, the first and the oldest Turkish supermarket in Tashkent was closed down for breaking local laws.
At the same time, one of the most prestigious English-language schools in Uzbekistan — which operates with Turkish funding — declared the suspension of their educational services for “safety and security reasons.”
In 1991 Turkey was the first foreign state to acknowledge the independence of Uzbekistan, whose majority population and official language are Turkic in origin.
Since then it has invested more than $1 billion in the Uzbek economy and around 700 Turkish firms operate in Uzbekistan. Trade turnover was around $1 billion in 2010.
The Turkish embassy in Tashkent could not be reached for comment.
The television documentary accused Turkish firms of disseminating Nurcu literature and establishing prayer rooms, which are illegal in Uzbekistan.
State television listed more than a dozen Turkish firms and said they were acting against the interests of the two countries that share common religious, cultural and linguistic ties.
The Nurcus are followers of the 20th-century Islamic thinker Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, an Ottoman-born religious scholar who placed a strong emphasis on the link between religion and science and believed that societies could be changed through education.
The group has already been banned in Russia and its members have faced persecution in some ex-Soviet republics.
Meanwhile Uzbekistan’s second main TV channel Yoslar (the Youth) denounced the activities of Turkish educational companies reportedly working to create secret cells for the Nurcus.
The documentary named a Turkish businessman, Mehmet Zeki, who funded “the sect’s activity in Uzbekistan” and said “he had recently received 16 years imprisonment.”
The report showed a number of young Uzbeks sitting behind bars in Samarkand provincial court, saying they were “found guilty of belonging to banned extremist organizations and disseminating materials that pose a threat to public security and order.”
According to the Ezgulik rights group, over 50 Uzbek men have been jailed for belonging to Nurcus over the past few years, including three journalists and five workers of the Yetti Iklim newspaper and Irmok magazine, which were shut down in 2009.
Most of the jailed men had graduated from schools funded by private Turkish organizations that flourished in the country when Turkey enjoyed warm relations with Uzbekistan in the mid-1990s.
Relations later became strained and Uzbekistan shut down the Turkish schools and brought home hundreds of Uzbek students studying in Turkey.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Tests ‘Missile-Defense System’
China used a top-secret SC-19 anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in a test last year against a target missile as part of a missile-defense system that remains shrouded in secrecy.
The ASAT missile was fired against a new medium-range missile and details were disclosed in a State Department cable made public recently by WikiLeaks that included an outline of a diplomatic protest note to Beijing about both Chinese weapons programs.
The cable provides the first detailed U.S. assessment of what defense officials say is a major strategic advancement in China’s military buildup. It reveals that China’s anti-satellite system was developed for use not only against satellites but is part of a larger strategic missile-defense system.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates offered to hold strategic talks with China on missile defenses, as well as space, nuclear and cyberweapons, during a recent visit to Beijing. The offer was rebuffed by China’s defense minister, who said only that it would be studied.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daybreak Reveals Huge Devastation in Tsunami-Hit Japan
(Reuters) — Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people.
Daybreak was expected to reveal the full extent of the death and damage from Friday’s 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the 10-meter high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.
In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out “help” and “when are we going to be rescued,” Kyodo news agency reported.
The government warned there could be a small radiation leak from a nuclear reactor whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone around the plant be expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been moved out of harm’s way.
Underscoring concerns about the Fukushima plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, U.S. officials said Japan had asked for coolant to avert a rise in the temperature of its nuclear rods, but ultimately handled the matter on its own. Officials said a leak was still possible because pressure would have to be released.
The unfolding natural disaster prompted offers of search and rescue help from 45 countries.
China said rescuers were ready to help with quake relief while President Barack Obama told Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan the United States would assist in any way.
“This is likely to be a humanitarian relief operation of epic proportions,” Japan expert Sheila Smith of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a commentary.
The northeastern Japanese city of Kesennuma, with a population of 74,000, was hit by widespread fires and one-third of the city was under water, Jiji news agency said on Saturday.
The airport in the city of Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, it added.
TV footage from Friday showed a muddy torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbor wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.
Boats, cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in the water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. Kyodo news agency reported that contact had been lost with four trains in the coastal area.
Japanese politicians pushed for an emergency budget to fund relief efforts after Kan asked them to “save the country,” Kyodo news agency reported. Japan is already the most heavily indebted major economy in the world, meaning any funding efforts would be closely scrutinized by financial markets.
Domestic media said the death toll was expected to exceed 1,000, most of whom appeared to have drowned by churning waters.
The extent of the destruction along a lengthy stretch of coastline suggested the death toll could rise significantly…
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Japan: Ishihara: Crank Call or Wake Up Call
The Independent published an interview by David McNeil with the 78 year old Shintaro Ishihara, governor of the Tokyo prefecture, which is Japan’s second-most powerful political office. Ishihara, who has been governor since 1999. has announced he will not seek reelection, but is going out with a bang by calling for Japan to go nuclear — something Japan could do within a year, he says.
Nuclear weapons were a reality “All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia —all close neighbours—have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation?”
“People talk about the cost and other things, but the fact is that diplomatic bargaining power means nuclear weapons. All the members of the (United Nations) Security Council have them.“
Ishihara has a reputation as a right-wing curmudgeon but his words could gain traction in the face of the growth of China’s defense budget and the maritime clash last year over the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan, but claimed by China. China’s arrogance, Ishihara claims, is attributable to Japan’s lack of nuclear weapons as well as Russian actions regarding the Kuril Islands. Public opinion surveys in Japan note growing hostility towards China.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Victims of the Killer Megaquake: Over 1,000 Feared Dead After Tsunami Sweeps Japan
More than 1,000 people are feared to have died after the sixth largest earthquake in recorded history devastated Japan today.
The massive earthquake — 8,000 times stronger than the one that hit New Zealand last month — sent a catastrophic 33 foot tsunami hurtling across the Pacific Ocean.
Thousands of people were also forced to flee for their lives as the wall of water bore down on them, sweeping away everything in its path.
[…]
Tonight, huge fires burned unabated across large parts of the country as damaged oil refineries and gas works billowed black smoke into the sky.
Half the country was understood to be without power, with four million homes in Tokyo alone being cut off, while the army has been deployed to the quake-hit areas to help relief efforts.
However those relief efforts were hampered by a number of aftershocks, including a 6.6 magnitude tremor which hit Tokyo and caused already damaged buildings to shake further.
Elsewhere, two high-speed bullet trains were missing alongside a cruise ship carrying 100 passengers that was swept away when the wave hit. One of the trains was reported to be carrying 400 passengers.
A state of emergency was declared at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima after the 8.9 quake caused the cooling system to fail.
Tonight, the Japanese government confirmed that they would release radioactive vapor to ease high pressure that had built up inside the reactor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Twin Catastrophes — Mega-Quake, Tsunamis
Hundreds dead in Japan, U.S. West Coast braced
The largest earthquake in Japan’s history, somewhere between 7.9 and 8.9 on the Richter scale, has killed an undetermined number of people, with at least dozens of aftershocks up to 7.1 on the Richter, and tsunamis that reached a height of 33 feet.
It is the fifth worst earthquake in the world in more than 100 years. The Kyodo news agency reported that an estimated 88,000 people are missing. An estimated 200-300 bodies already have been found in the city of Sendai, where fires are raging in the wreckage of demolished buildings.
The death toll is expected to surge as the flooding recedes.
Hawaii was hit by tsunami waves, estimated as high as six feet, although they appeared not to threaten major damage. Points along the West Coast of the United States were evacuating low-lying regions.
Matt Alt, an American living in Tokyo for the last eight years, described Friday’s ordeal.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb
N. Korea Disrupts Current Military Maneuvers With Russian Device To Jam GPS
North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users — but is a hint of the looming menace for the military.
Since March 4, Pyongyang has been trying to disrupt GPS receivers critical to South Korean military communications apparently in protest of the ongoing joint military training exercises between South Korean and U.S. forces. Strong jamming signals were sent intermittently every five to 10 minutes.
The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.
Large metropolitan areas including parts of Seoul, Incheon and Paju have been affected by the jamming, but “the situation is getting wrapped up, no severe damage has been reported for the last two days,” Kyoungwoo Lee, deputy director of Korea Communications Commission, said.
The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tremor Causes Nuclear Plant Fire
Pacific Rim Awaits Tsunami after Japan Earthquake
Evacuations are taking place around the Pacific rim as a tsunami triggered by this morning’s massive earthquake off Japan races across the ocean. Hundreds are believed dead in the massive natural disaster.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Prime Minister Gives Obama an iPod Loaded With Anti-American Music
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited the White House on Wednesday and gave President Obama an iPod. Imagine the joy on the manchild’s face when he saw the iPod, assumed he was being re-gifted the same iPod he gave Queen Elizabeth and got excited about the thought of being able to listen to his own speeches again.
No such luck. Gillard’s iPod was filled with an assortment of Aussie music, including some anti-American songs from Midnight Oil.
The Sydney Morning Herald explains:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ethiopia: Christian Churches Burned by Rampaging Muslims
Dozens of buildings destroyed by Islamic attackers
More than 50 churches, nearly 30 houses, a school and an orphanage along with other Christian-owned buildings have been destroyed by rampaging Muslims in Ethiopia’s Jamma region, according to reports from the Christian news service Compass Direct and others.
International Christian Concern’s Jonathan Racho has been in contact with a pastor in Ethiopia who confirms that more than 50 churches have been burned — along with a school, an orphanage and an office.
Racho said the wave of arson was touched off by Muslims framing Christians for desecrating a Quran.
“The Muslims desecrated a Quran and put it in a church compound and then accused Christians of desecrating a Quran, then started attacking,” Racho said. “Since this happened, since it happened in a part of Ethiopia where Muslims have the majority, the police failed to protect the Christians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Border Patrol Nabs 100s of Terror-Linked Illegals
Critics contend Obama sending signal to enemies ‘to do their worst’
Hundreds of illegal aliens from terror-linked nations such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran and Syria have been nabbed by the U.S. Border Patrol sneaking illegally into the country, and an organization that monitors government’s actions and prosecutes malfeasance says given Barack Obama’s record on border security, it’s not a surprise.
The terror-linked illegals were among the 463,382 individuals apprehended being smuggled — or smuggling others — across the U.S. borders last year according to federal documents obtained by Judicial Watch.
“We should not be surprised if terrorists take advantage of our porous borders in light of the Obama administration’s lax approach to border security,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “When you have an administration that pushes illegal alien amnesty, permits illegal alien sanctuary policies, and attacks states like Arizona for seeking to enforce the rule of law, it sends a signal to our enemies to cross the border illegally and to do their worst.”
Fitton said the Obama administration “continues to allow our borders to spiral out of control.”
“These numbers are simply astonishing,” he said. “Our country cannot secure our borders soon enough!”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Minister Fired Over Palestinian Refugees
Politiken, 9 March 2011
The Danish Prime Minister has “pulled the rug out from under” his Minister for Integration, reports Politiken. On March 8, Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Liberal Party) sacked Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Liberal Party), who was allegedly responsible for the practically systematic refusal of citizenship applications filed by young stateless persons, mostly Palestinians. He also announced the creation of a commission of inquiry. Politiken hopes that this commission will establish the responsibilities held by other ministers and senior officials. The daily is calling for answers before the parliamentary elections, which are to be held no later than November 12: “That way the voters themselves will deliver the final verdict on the government’s immigration policy.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Embattled Seehofer Calls for Immigrants to Learn German
On Wednesday, Horst Seehofer, the head of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union, called for an amendment to the state’s constitution that would force immigrants to learn German to a certain level. Seehofer’s critics believe he is merely fanning the immigration debate to divert attention away from the recent scandal surrounding his party’s once-rising star.
The head of Germany’s center-right Christian Social Union (CSU) has been accused of deliberately inflaming the country’s perennial immigration debate to divert attention away from a damaging scandal.
CSU head Horst Seehofer, whose party is the Bavarian sister to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), called for immigrants to be made to learn German to a higher standard. But critics have lashed out at his words, which come shortly after the CSU’s rising star Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg was forced to step down as Germany’s defense minister after it emerged that he had copied large parts of his doctoral thesis.
The issue of immigration and integration is a contentious one in Germany. It was put back in the spotlight by the CSU’s Hans-Peter Friedrich, who had been named interior minister when the previous incumbent, Thomas de Maizière, took over from Guttenberg as defense minister last week. Right after taking office, Friedrich said: “That Islam is part of Germany is a fact that cannot be proved by history.” The statement was a response to German President Christian Wullff, who stated last Octoberthat “Islam is a part of Germany.”
Seehofer fanned the flames again this week at the annual “Political Ash Wednesday” assembly of the CSU in the southeastern city of Passau. Each year in Germany, politicians traditionally gather on Ash Wednesday to offer political speeches on serious policy issues that are peppered with jokes and often have an atmosphere of cabaret to them. In his, Seehofer briefly mentioned Guttenberg — exhorting him to make a comeback — before arguing that foreigners in Germany need to “affirm the set of German values and, first and foremost, to learn German.”
The CSU leader went on to criticize Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a recent speechin which he called on Turks living in Germany to have their children focus on learning Turkish first. “We will not allow anyone to talk us out of the German Leitkultur,” Seehofer said in his speech. “We will not take any lessons from a prime minister like him on how we should deal with religious minorities in our country.” The term Leitkultur, which is often translated as “leading” or “mainstream culture,” is controversial in Germany. It refers to the country’s Christian roots, but many also see it as exclusionary in nature, to the detriment of immigrant groups.
Seehofer also called for an amendment to Bavaria’s constitution that would require state officials “not only to assist with integration but also to demand it from immigrants.” Such a change would require the backing of a two-thirds majority in the Bavarian parliament as well as the support of a popular referendum, which Seehofer said could be held along with state elections in 2013. There is little doubt the referendum would find broad backing in the conservative state.
An Act of Political Desperation
The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was quick to condemn Seehofer’s comments. Sebastian Edathy, a domestic policy expert in the SPD’s parliamentary faction, told the website of the business daily Handelsblatt that Seehofer had used the occasion “to fire up sentiments against minorities out of desperation.” Florian Pronold, head of the SPD in Bavaria, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that: “Whenever the CSU wants to divert attention away from itself, it finds some way to make use of animosity toward foreigners in order to appeal to the man in the street.” In the SPD’s assembly in nearby Vilshofen, Pronold also called Seehofer a “political wrong-way driver” and a “lying baron.”
And the SPD wasn’t alone in its criticism. At the Green Party’s meeting in the Bavarian city of Landshut, party co-head Claudia Roth described the CSU’s assembly as a “post-traumatic therapy group session.”
The issue isn’t necessarily split along party lines, however. SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel had some tough words about immigration last September during the affairsurrounding a book by politician Thilo Sarrazin — then on the board of Germany’s central bank — which suggested that Muslim immigrants are dumbing Germany down and that immigration is gradually overwhelming ethnic Germans. In an interviewwith SPIEGEL ONLINE, Gabriel said that immigrants who refuse to participate in programs offered by the government to help foreigners integrate are as unwelcome as hate preachers who have found homes in some of the country’s mosques and receive their funding from abroad.
But the question of whether immigrants should learn German might well soon take another twist. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the CDU and CSU (which share power in the federal government) and their government coalition partner, the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), intend to propose an amendment to immigration-related legislation being put forward by the Interior Ministry that would make it harder for some immigrants to stay in Germany if they cannot make swift progress in learning the language.
A Year to Learn German
Currently, immigrants from countries whose citizens need a visa to enter Germany are required to attend a state-funded integration course, which includes language instruction and a final proficiency exam. According to the newspaper, these immigrants would only be granted a temporary residency permit until they have passed this exam — with the permits “limited to a year’s time at most.” In other words, they would have 12 months to learn German up to the required standard before losing the right to remain in the country legally.
An Interior Ministry spokesman told the paper that making the right to reside in Germany dependent upon success in the integration course “can provide an additional incentive to quickly integrate into the living conditions in Germany.”
On Thursday, influential SPD parliamentarian Dieter Wiefelspütz called the plan “embarrassing” and said it wouldn’t help improve matters, according to the German news agency DPA. Instead, he called for improved conditions for language training, such as child care for mothers learning German, and pointed out that people learn languages at different speeds.
Contentious issues like integration often come up in Germany when it nears election time. There will be parliamentary elections in 2011 in seven of Germany’s 16 federal states (see table in the left-hand column), with the next in Saxony-Anhalt on March 20, followed a week later by Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The conservative camp is feeling particularly eager to make up lost ground fast, especially after it took a drubbingin the February election in Hamburg and after a recent national poll indicated that the ongoing commotion in Merkel’s government is taking a toll of voter backing, and that support for the CDU/CSU is lower than it has been since last fall.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: PVV Wants Action Against ‘Immigrants Who Feed the Birds’
The anti-Islam PVV party in The Hague is turning its attention to a new menace: immigrants who feed the birds.
Local party leader Richard Mos has issued a press release calling for tough action against ‘thick, largely foreign bread throwers’ in the Morgenstond neighbourhood who encourage gulls which ‘leave an unwanted brown carpet behind them’.
The AD reported on Wednesday that locals are fed up of the nuisance caused by too many birds, and the mess left behind. Officials have placed four special bins for people who are not allowed to throw bread away because of their religious beliefs, the paper said.
‘More and more native people from the Hague are suffering under Islamic rules. They are faced with the unwanted nuisance caused by gulls and vermin,’ Mos said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dramatic U-Turn as Gay Couple Who Won £3,600 From Christian B&B Owners Ditch Taxpayer-Funded Fight for More Cash
A homosexual couple who successfully sued the Christian owners of a hotel who refused them a bed are withdrawing a claim for more compensation, it was revealed today.
Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall had said Cornwall B&B owners Peter and Hazelmary Bull were let off lightly and had called for their £3,600 damages to be increased.
Taxpayer-funded lawyers for the gay couple then submitted documents to the Court of Appeal claiming the religious beliefs of Mr and Mrs Bull should have been disregarded, calling for the damages to be increased.
But today the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is representing Mr Preddy and Mr Hall said the cross appeal was an ‘error of judgment’ by its legal team and was being withdrawn.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hollywood’s War on America
Hollywood’s war on America may have claimed its first two casualties with the murder of two US airmen in Germany by a Muslim terrorist who was inspired by the Koran, and apparently by a clip from Brian DePalma’s movie, Redacted.
[…]
Redacted manufactured such atrocities for entertainment, and then those atrocities were repackaged by terrorist recruiters for distribution across sites such as YouTube, stripped of their attribution and treated as actual events. But you can hardly condemn them, when after all mainstream media outlets had already done the same thing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Hunt Saboteur, A Loving Couple and Judges Who Dismiss Christianity
A Christian couple, Owen and Eunice Johns, were recently banned from fostering children because of their belief that homosexuality is wrong.
Ten days ago, two senior judges concluded that the right of homosexuals to equality ‘should take precedence’ over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values.
On Tuesday, David Cameron blundered into the controversy. The Prime Minister asserted that the couple had been dealt with in an ‘appropriate way’, and added that Christians must be ‘tolerant and welcoming and broad-minded’ towards homosexuality.
That same day, another judge in a different court ruled that the ‘deeply held’ beliefs of a prominent animal rights campaigner and hunt saboteur called Joe Hashman should be protected from discrimination in the same way as religion.
The two cases are obviously unalike in all sorts of ways, but they both illustrate an extraordinary new phenomenon. In the eyes of the courts, secular values have supplanted religious ones and, in the second case, have been accorded the status of a religion.
Perhaps you thought you still lived in a Christian country. I wouldn’t be so sure. In the case of Owen and Eunice Johns, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson opined that Britain was a ‘largely secular’, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm ‘do not include Christianity’.
The learned judges must know that our common law is rooted in Christian ethics. Won: Hunt saboteur Joe Hasham has won a landmark legal ruling that his beliefs should be protected from discrimination at work
However, they believe that ‘because of enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the past century’ the law should be able to place secular values above Christian ones.
[…]
In view of their intolerance towards the couple’s religious beliefs, it is almost farcical to find Judge Lawrence Guyer pandering to hunt saboteur Joe Hashman, and treating his purely secular beliefs as though they amounted to a religion.
Mr Hashman says he was sacked as a designer from a garden centre when his bosses discovered he was a hunt saboteur. Judge Guyer practically genuflected in front of his reputed belief ‘that people should live their lives with mindful respect for animals and we all have a moral obligation to live in a way which is kind to each other, our environment and our fellow creatures’.
This is what many, probably most, people believe. It does not constitute a religion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Taste
Remember the tongue map you learned about in junior high—the one showing taste receptors for sweet flavors on the tip of the tongue, bitter in the back, and sour on the sides? It’s totally wrong. That bogus map came from an English mistranslation of a German research paper. In truth, any area can pick up any taste (although sensitivity does vary across the tongue).
Celery, pork, and truffle mushrooms contain androstenone, an aromatic compound that strongly influences flavor. Half of all people cannot smell it, about 15 percent find it woody or floral, and the rest think it smells like stale urine. Folks in the latter category generally are not big fans of celery, pork, or truffles. Sweet treats and alcohol fire up many of the same reward circuits in the brain. Earlier this year, Mennella found that kids with a family history of alcoholism prefer more intensely sweet tastes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Messenger Probe Promises to Show US a Whole New Mercury When it Arrives in Orbit Around the Planet Next Week.
SPACE.com: So what if humans had a really great spacesuit and they could visit the surface of Mercury. What would it be like?
Solomon: It would need to be a really great spacesuit. It would be a pretty stark landscape. The sky would be black. You wouldn’t see the exosphere, you wouldn’t smell the exosphere. You’d be walking around on a landscape with many impact craters, with huge cliffs. The sun would be as much as 11 times brighter than on the Earth. So in terms of the dimension on the sky it’d be more than three times as big. You would be subjected to charged particles of high energy, other kinds of radiation, so that’s why you’d need that great spacesuit. The day would be three Earth-months long, and so would the night. And so you would have to be able to withstand an extreme range of temperature. At the equator, the range in temperature from day to night is 600 degrees Centigrade, 1100 degrees Fahrenheit. So that spacesuit has to be able to withstand that kind of range of temperature, and you’d have to bring power sources that work for long nights.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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