ECB Warns of Threat to Greek Democracy
Greek debt costs were bludgeoned on Thursday (15 April) after news filtered through markets that the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, came out publicly saying that a restructuring of the Hellenic republic’s debts may be required. Separately, the European Central Bank has warned that such restructuring — default by another name — would threaten Greek democracy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Announces Privatization Plan to Reduce Debt
The Greek government said it will carry out 26 billion euros ($37.6 billion) in new austerity measures and 50 billion euros in state-asset sales through 2015 to meet goals to reduce the deficit and debt.
The measures were unveiled Friday in a statement by the Finance Ministry, which said the asset sales will cut debt by 20 percentage points by 2015. The government will sell stakes in the country’s phone, power and gambling companies and airport to raise funds to trim debt expected to peak at 159 percent of gross domestic product in 2012.
“Greece’s problems won’t be solved by restructuring its debt but by restructuring the country,” Prime Minister George Papandreou said earlier Friday at a Cabinet meeting. “Even if with the wave of a wand the debt disappeared, Greece in a few years would have debts again without these reforms.”
Greece will sell a stake in Hellenic Telecommunications Organization, reduce its stake in Public Power Corp. to 34 percent from 51 percent and will begin reducing its stake in Athens International Airport, according to the statement. The sales will help raise 15 billion euros in proceeds by 2013 and 50 billion euros up by 2015.
Greece came close to defaulting on its debt last year, requiring a 110 billion-euro bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, after it emerged that the country had underreported the size of a budget deficit that reached 15.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2009.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Why Elections in Finland Could Doom Portugal’s Bailout
Right-wing populism has arrived in Finland. The True Finns stand to gain close to 20 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections on an anti-Islam, anti-Europe platform. That could be bad news for Portugal.
Timo Soini, 48, grins as he takes an enormous bite out of his shrimp sandwich. “I am just traditionally Finnish. Nothing more than that,” he says. His appearance lends credence to the claim. He is a tad on the heavy side, with straw-blond hair combed straight back and a round, friendly face. Soini loves his sauna, his summer house and going to the harness races.
“Everyone needs roots,” he recently told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “In that sense, I am also a populist.”
Soini is the head of the True Finns political party, the most recent arrival on Europe’s right-wing populist scene and one that is armed with the usual collection of phobias. He is anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-abortion and anti-Europe. Of particular concern on the Continent, however, is Soini’s extreme skepticism regarding efforts to provide euro-zone aid to heavily indebted Portugal. And should his party do well in general elections on Sunday, the True Finns — together with anti-bailout allies — could block efforts to prop up Portugal.
“I’m not a bad person,” Soini told the Wall Street Journal recently. “I’m just saying that bailing out these countries is not going to function. It is outrageous that countries which have governed their economy badly are now putting their problems and debt on Finnish taxpayers.”
Struggle to Save the Euro
Recent political polls have shown that the True Finns stand to receive up to 18 percent of the vote on Sunday, up from just 4 percent in the 2007 election. In addition, the center-left Social Democrats, which have likewise said recently they would vote against the Portugal bailout package, are hovering around 20 percent.
Euro-zone aid money from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) must be unanimously approved by euro-zone countries. And Finland is the only country in the common currency union which requires parliamentary approval before lending its support to payouts. Which means that Sunday’s election has suddenly vaulted Finland — and the True Finns — into the center of the struggle to save the euro.
While no numbers have been officially confirmed, it is thought that Portugal is seeking €80 billion from the EFSF in order to meet its obligations for the next three years. After resisting for months, Lisbon made its aid request two weeks ago. It is the third country, following Greece and Ireland, which has sought assistance from the EU.
According to the Financial Times, European Union officials have begun working on a plan B in case Finland ultimately fails to approve the Portugal bailout, scheduled to be finalized in May. The Finnish Social Democrats already voted against the bailout packages for Greece and Ireland, but the country’s centrist-conservative government — a pro-Europe coalition led by Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi — was able to prevail in parliament.
Disgust with the Mainstream
The rise of the True Finns is just the latest indication that the reign of center-left parties in Scandinavia is approaching its end. While the right-wing populists in Sweden only managed 5.7 percent in 2010, the Danish People’s Party received 13.9 percent in 2007 parliamentary elections and their counterparts in Norway raked in 22.9 percent. There is a possibility that the True Finns could emerge as the country’s second strongest party on Sunday.
While the party’s rise has mirrored that of similar political groups across Europe, its most recent boost has been assisted by events at home in Finland. After years of enjoying top rankings when it comes to financial stability, education and the fight against corruption, Prime Minister Kiviniemi’s predecessor Matti Vanhanen resigned amid revelations that he had accepted dubious payments from a large real estate fund. Several other mini-scandals have likewise led to growing Finnish disgust with mainstream parties.
And while the anti-Islam, xenophobic platform of the True Finns may repel many, the core of the party’s message is patriotism — one combining traditionalism, conservatism and an image of being upfront and down-to-earth. Soini himself seeks to be an embodiment of that image. He has lived in the same 90-square-meter (970 square foot) apartment in Espoo, the second largest city in Finland, for the last 42 years.
‘Members Rather than Subjects’
It was partly that background which led him to quickly recognize the growing anger in Finland with the succession of euro-zone bailouts which have, from the perspective of many in the country, served primarily to benefit countries which have not traditionally been as fiscally conservative as Finland. Finns, as he sees it, are growing tired of always toeing the Brussels line.
“In the past, Finland has always been the good pupil, following the EU rules,” Juha Jokela, head of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told the Financial Times. “But now we are seeing more critical debate. We are becoming true members rather than subjects.”
And should the True Finns do well on Sunday, the country could also become a major hurdle on the euro’s road back to health.
With reporting from Manfred Ertel
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
World Bank: Food Prices Have Entered the ‘Danger Zone’
Food prices have entered the “danger zone”, threatening to condemn a generation to extreme poverty and malnutrition, the World Bank has warned.
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said food prices are at “a tipping point”, having risen 36pc in the last year to levels close to their 2008 peak. The rising cost of food has been much more dramatic in low-income countries, pushing 44m people into poverty since June last year.
Another 10pc rise in food prices would push 10m into extreme poverty, defined as an effective income of less than $1.25 a day. Already, the world’s poor number 1.2bn.
Mr Zoellick said he saw no short term reversal in the damaging effect of food inflation, which is felt much more in the developing world as packaging and distribution accounts for a far larger proportion of the cost in the advanced economies.
Asked if he thought prices would remain high for a year, Mr Zoellick said: “The general trend lines are ones where we are in a danger zone… because prices have already gone up and stocks are relatively low.”
Rising prices have been driven by the changing diet of the ballooning middle classes in the emerging markets. “There is a demand change going on, with the higher incomes in developing countries. People will eat more meat products, for example, that will use more grain.
[Comments: This reasoning is incorrect. The real reason is that ethanol production is diverting land and food from actual food production.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Ex-Ford Engineer Sentenced for Trade Secrets Theft
A Chinese engineer who stole Ford Motor Co trade secrets was sentenced to almost six years in prison, said the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Coverage of Pew Prison Study Stinks
In language designed to alarm viewers, the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric reported on Wednesday night that the U.S. has the world’s largest prison population—more than two million people behind bars—and that a Pew study says it is costing states more than $50 billion a year. But what Couric and national correspondent Jim Axelrod failed to point out is that more prisons have equaled less crime.
In other words, the policy is working. This is something that state governments are doing right.
Axelrod’s story on the CBS News website is linked to an Associated Press account which is headlined, “Despite large increases in spending on corrections, many commit crimes within three years of prison release.” This would seem to suggest that these criminals ought to be serving longer prison terms because they cannot be rehabilitated. Instead, Axelrod proposed more spending—not on prisons—but on “drug treatment and general education degree programs—plus help transitioning back into society…”
So we are supposed to let the criminals back out on the streets and coddle them even more, in the hope that they will not commit more crimes. This means, of course, that the money saved on prisons will not be truly saved. Instead, it will be spent on the George Soros approach of “alternatives to incarceration” recently reflected in an NAACP report that was extremely flawed and completely ignored the cost of handling illegal alien criminals.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump’s Insane Campaign to be the US President
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser of August 13, 1961, Mr and Mrs Barack H Obama of 6085 Kalanianaole Highway had a son on August 4. That son, whose birth was also announced in the rival Honolulu Star-Bulletin, is now President of the United States of America. If you believe this, you are sane. If you don’t believe this, you are a “Birther”.
Donald Trump, the property mogul and TV celebrity, recently became a vocal proponent of the Birther cause. He doubts Obama’s US nativity. He has sent his own investigators to Hawaii to see what they can come up with, and has given dark warnings that what they are coming up with is really astonishing.
Which it certainly would be, if the Trump private dicks managed to turn up a single incriminating or embarrassing fact overlooked by (a) Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team in 2008; (b) the Republican Party’s combined dirty tricks departments, not excluding Karl Rove; (c) the best efforts, unrelenting since Obama’s election, of the Birthers themselves, whose dearest wish is to prove that we have an impostor in the White House, a man born in Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia or on the Planet Zog — anywhere but American soil — and therefore not qualified to be President.
From the point of view of the saner Republicans (if we may call them that) there is one vital reason for distinguishing clearly between Republicans and Birthers. It is the independent vote. If the Republican Party is seen as nutty, the independent vote goes to the Democrats, because (so the saner Republicans fear) independents “don’t do nutty”. Unfortunately for this “saner” Republican constituency, it is rather short of prominent and articulate members. Mitt Romney, who has his own credulity issues (he is a Mormon), has spoken out absolutely clearly and said that the party should drop the subject. Karl Rove has warned that if Trump goes on about Birtherism “it will marginalise him … he’s falling into Barack Obama’s trap. Barack Obama wants Republicans to fall into this trap because he knows that it discredits us with the vast majority of the American people.”
But others, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, while affecting not to be Birthers themselves, have nonetheless refused to “tell others what to think”. They have sought to trade off the doubts and suspicions of the Birthers while maintaining a straight face. Anybody wishing to maintain a Birther position has some tough explaining to do. The source of the original birth announcements was the Hawaii Department of Health’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, which supplied records of births, marriages and deaths to the newspapers in question. So if there was a conspiracy it must have begun an awfully long time ago, and it must have involved the Hawaiian bureaucracy.
This doesn’t deter the conspiracy theorists for a moment. The measurements and meaning of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, the Prophecies of Merlin as inscribed in flaming letters on tablets found at Glastonbury, the source and the causes of Aids — nobody is deterred merely because others have been happily fishing these same waters for years and have come up with nothing. According to a handy summary of the evidence by Joshua Green on the Atlantic website (from which I have taken the facts given above), you can garner all the Obama birth evidence in a day’s research in Honolulu, after which there is nothing more to say.
Trump, we may assume, knows this perfectly well, but he has made a cynical calculation, and that calculation has so far paid a handsome dividend. Having previously figured low on the list of possible Republican presidential candidates for 2012, since he came out as a Birther he has gone to near the top. And he has done so, it would seem, at the expense of Romney, who was hitherto by far the best-placed potential candidate.
It is hard to think of a Republican presidential candidate more vulnerable on the basis of his past record than Donald Trump, who has been a supporter of the Democrats and the Reform Party, who has switched sides on abortion and healthcare, and whose colourful home life would not recommend him to social conservatives. The mere fact that he is being considered at all is an indication of the weakness of the field overall, and, by implication, good news for Obama.
But Trump is a celebrity and he is personally wealthy. And certainly he has television celebrity enough to build a high-profile campaign. Whether he is wealthy enough, supposing he was not adopted by the Republican Party, to run as an independent is quite another matter. To go down that road, it appears, you need not only amazing wealth but an amazing indifference to how you spend it. Even to think of running independently is an expensive business; actually running is super-expensive.
Ross Perot, who ran in 1992 on a proto-Tea Party platform, spent $65.4 million of his own money. He split the Right-wing vote all right, and received almost 20 million, or nearly 19 per cent, of the popular vote. But he failed to win a single seat in the Electoral College. So if his money makes Trump an electoral threat, one has to imagine him not only spending the modern equivalent of $65 million, one has to picture this sum improved upon sufficiently to buy some crucial Electoral College votes. Trump likes to make a good deal of noise about his wealth, but he is no stranger to bankruptcy, and to imagine that he would or could cheerfully dispense with hundreds of millions of his own hard-earned greenbacks definitely strains belief. All mouth and no trousers then? Let’s just say, a lot more mouth than trousers, and a symptomatic figure of our times.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jackson Subject of Gay Harassment Complaint
A former employee of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. at the Rainbow Push Coalition has filed a bombshell wrongful termination and discrimination complaint against the civil rights leader with the City of Chicago’s Commission on Human Rights.
The complaint, filed sometime last year by Tommy R. Bennett, a regular on the Tom Joyner Radio show and member of Barack Obama’s LGBT Leadership Council, includes shocking allegations about Jackson’s behavior toward the openly gay staffer including an allegation that the civil rights leader propositioned him.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Incorrigible, Militant Statist
In my book “Crimes Against Liberty,” I described President Obama as dishonest, hyper-partisan, a bully, a narcissist and a hard-core left-wing ideologue. Anyone who thinks my description is exaggerated or too harsh didn’t hear his Wednesday speech on the budget.
One might have expected that a newly elected president who had “inherited” such a disturbingly high deficit, a growing national debt and a forecast of unfunded entitlements soon to explode because of baby-boomer demographics alone would roll up his sleeves and tackle this deficit and debt problem.
Instead, Obama saw that $1.3 trillion deficit, licked his Marxist chops and used it as an excuse to double down on the profligate spending that was driving our budgetary problems in the first place. He proposed — and secured — an $800 billion “stimulus” package.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Deception Indicators “Off the Charts” During Stephanopoulos Interview
If you watch and listen carefully to the 20-minute, 14 April 2011 interview of Barack Hussein Obama by George Stephanopoulos, you will notice something very telling that takes place during that interview when the discussion shifts to the issue of Donald Trump and ultimately, the “birther conspiracy.” Veteran investigators who are experienced in interviewing and interrogating suspects, witnesses, criminals and non-criminals have undoubtedly identified numerous big red flags of deception precisely when expected, and in textbook fashion. To observe this in action, begin watching the video at about the 13:25 minute mark, when Stephanopoulos lobs the following softball, leading question to Obama and receives his answer[ii]:
George Stephanopoulos: I wonder how you size up your potential opponents? I mean all of us have been struck by Donald Trump rising to the top of the Republican field by feeding fantasies about your background. What do you make of that?
First, note that Stephanopoulos sets an amicable tone for easy rebuttal by Obama to anyone believing that anything might be amiss with regard to Obama’s eligibility. He asks a leading question that automatically suggests that any reference to the “birther issue” as raised by Donald Trump is “fantasy.” Accordingly, Obama should be able to handle the question without any obvious stress or difficulty. But here’s exactly where the difficult-to-control verbal and non-verbal clues of deception take over. First, read his response:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
This Weekend’s “Powershift 2011”: Organizing for Socialism?
Nonstop deluge of radical weekend retreats and workshops coming from the far left progressives.
It is hard to keep up with the nonstop deluge of radical weekend retreats and workshops coming from the far left progressives these days. This weekend’s special event, Power Shift 2011, is billed as the largest organizer training session in history, with over 10,000 youth activists anticipated.
Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters.org has already highlighted some of the very special keynote speakers including Van Jones, Al Gore, and the EPA’s Lisa Jackson. Noel also highlighted some of the questionable instructors and workshops led by representatives of the International Socialists.
Many more of the usual radical leaders and groups are represented in the weekend workshops, including the following:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: City to Stakeout ‘Ghettos’ With Video Surveillance
The neighbourhoods of Tingbjerg and the area of inner Nørrebro known as Mjølnerparken are slated to get surveillance cameras in public spaces, following a unanimous decision by the City Council on Thursday evening. The decision came on the heels of a month that saw fatal gang-related shootings in some of Copenhagen’s most economically and socially-challenged neighbourhoods. Lars Weiss, the Social Democrats’ spokesperson, said the decision to stakeout residential streets and public spaces with video cameras was serious, but needed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurosceptic Populism Invades Finnish Election
The Finnish general election is on Sunday 17 April. The election results are expected to be announced around midnight. These two items are about the only thing that can be said with certainty before this election. The advance of the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic populist True Finns Party, along with the crisis in the euro countries, has shaken up the country’s political patterns.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fox Nation Promotes Trump’s Islam Bashing
Continuing its practice of shamelessly promoting and embracing controversial statements by Donald Trump, Fox Nation is hyping an interview Trump gave to Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) David Brody, in which he said that “[t]here’s something” in the Quran “that teaches some very negative vibe” and defended the assertion that there is “a Muslim problem” in the United States.
Fox Nation may not realize it, but Trump’s charge that there is “a Muslim problem” originated with Fox’s own Bill O’Reilly. During an appearance on The View in October 2010, O’Reilly asserted that “Muslims killed us on 9-11” while discussing a proposed Islamic center in New York City. O’Reilly later apologized, saying, “If anyone felt that I was demeaning all Muslims, I apologize,” but pushed back against his critics by repeatedly insisting that “there is a Muslim problem in the world.” O’Reilly continued to defend his remarks during an interview with Trump, who agreed that a “Muslim problem” exists, saying: “Absolutely. Absolutely. I don’t notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: James Watson Menaced by Hoodies Shouting ‘Racist!’
The co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, 83, was menaced by protesters yesterday in Greece, while giving a lecture at Patras University. A group of 20 protesters shouting “Racist!” burst into the lecture theatre, and a young man — wearing a hood, naturally — approached Watson brandishing a flag.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Most of Jail Sentence Over Cocaine Find Suspended
[I’m sending this story of “The Irish Justice system” not because I think it’s relevant to national or international affairs, but: I don’t really understand the Irish mentality of making a victim out of a criminal in almost every instance. Perhaps that’s why almost all Irish believe the Palestinians are victims and the Jews evil monsters? — McR]
A WOMAN who was apprehended at Dublin airport with €140,000 worth of cocaine concealed in her suitcase has succeeded in having the majority of her five-year sentence suspended on appeal.
The Court of Criminal Appeal found “something went awry” in the imposition of a five-year sentence on Rochell Pieters (28) by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in January last year.
Pieters, of Salt River, Colleridge Road, Cape Town, and originally from South Africa, pleaded guilty to possession of 2kg of cocaine valued at €140,000 for supply at Dublin airport on November 18th, 2008. She was intercepted by customs officers after travelling from Brazil.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell, sitting with Mr Justice Eamon de Valera and Mr Justice Michael Hanna, said the case was unusual as the appeal court was not asked to determine whether the trial judge had erred in principle, but whether there had been incorrect evidence before the court which fostered an error in principle.
He said it was clear Judge Delahunt had attached significant weight to evidence that the cocaine had been hidden loosely in clothing packed in Pieters’s suitcase, rather than in the lining of the suitcase itself.
Mr Justice O’Donnell said the sentencing judge had been provided with inaccurate information by a witness, as the drugs were in fact hidden in the suitcase lining, and the error in the sentencing process was “clearly not” attributable to her.
He said the court found this error may have had a significant bearing on the outcome of the case and it was therefore possible for the appeal court to reconsider the sentence imposed.
Mr Justice O’Donnell said the court would suspend the balance of Pieters’s five-year sentence with effect from the June 1st, having regard to the fact she had pleaded guilty and was a “vulnerable” person who had been abused in many different ways in her life.
Conor Devally, for the applicant, had told the court that, although the judge committed no error in principle, the weighting she attached to the guilt of his client was assessed on the basis of inaccurate evidence.
Mr Devally said the inference that Pieters “must have seen” the cocaine packages hidden under her clothing could have coloured Judge Delahunt’s assessment of the case.
He told the court Pieters had endured a traumatic childhood, had no previous convictions and had an eight-year-old girl at home who lived with her former partner.
Mr Devally said she was seen as a “plaything” for the men who gave her the drugs and that she had been diagnosed with HIV while in custody in Ireland.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
The European Court of Secrecy: Officials Refuse to Name Judges Who Rejected British Appeal Over Giving Prisoners the Vote
The European Court of Human Rights was plunged into a ‘secret justice’ row last night after it refused to name the judges who rejected Britain’s appeal against prisoner votes.
A spokesman for the Strasbourg court said the names constituted ‘confidential information’ which would not be made public.
Critics said the decision went against cherished principles of open justice, and ‘added insult to injury’.
On Tuesday the court released a short statement saying it had rejected a plea by ministers that the judges reconsider their demand for the 140-year ban on prisoners voting to be overturned.
It said five judges, sitting as a panel of the court’s final appeal body, the Grand Chamber, decided the case did not even merit a full hearing as it was not a ‘serious issue of general importance’.
But it did not detail the full reasons for the ruling, or name the judges who threw the case out.
When asked by the Mail which of the court’s 47 judges were involved, the court refused to say, claiming it was ‘established practice’ that names of panel judges were not published.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Yes’ Donor Electoral Reform Society Admits it Will Profit if AV is Adopted
The biggest donor to the referendum Yes campaign has privately admitted that it stands to profit if the public votes to change Britain’s electoral system.
A leaked memo from the Electoral Reform Society, which has given more than £1million to the Yes campaign, says there could be ‘increased business opportunities’ if Britain adopts the Alternative Vote system.
The memo last night sparked claims from the No side that those pressing for electoral reform have ‘wilfully misled British voters’ about their financial interest in the campaign.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: An Evening in Honour of Juliano Mer-Khamis
The murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis has been met with shock and disbelief by all who knew him and his work.. The son of a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father, Juliano is best known for his work with the children of Jenin refugee camp and for his cultural resistance activism, particularly with the Freedom Theatre he co-founded.
On the evening of Wednesday 20th April, we will meet in London to hear more about his life and activities, to remember him, and to think of ways of continuing his work.
Join us for this programme in honour of Juliano and the work he will continue to inspire:
Venue:
Amnesty International UK,
The Human Rights Action Centre,
17-25 New Inn Yard,
EC2A 3EA
Directions
Programme:
6.30 — 8.00 Contributions by Juliano’s friends and colleagues from Jenin, Haifa, and Tel Aviv
8.00 — 8.30 Reception
8.30 — 10.00 Film screening: Arna’s Children
With Contributions From:
Ala Hlehel, Akka
Ala is an author, translator, and filmmaker. He is the editor-in-chief of Qadita.net
Stephan Wolf-Schoenburg, Freedom Theatre, Jenin.
Stephan is an actor and teacher at the Freedom Theatre. He was a close friend of Juliano’s and a witness to his assassination.
Udi Aloni, Coach, Cinema Department, Freedom Theatre, Jenin.
Udi is a filmmaker. He was a close friend of Juliano and was working on two films with him at the time of his death.
This event is free. However, a recommended donation of £10 per head is invited in order to support the work of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin.
Please note: As space is limited, advance email registration is required. Please email your name(s) to: submit@palestinefilm.org no later than midday on Wednesday 20th April.
Event organised by Amnesty International UK, SOAS Palestine Society, Palestine Film Foundation, and JNews.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bride-to-be in a Jelly Bean: Kate Middleton’s Face Spotted in a Sweet
Usually it is the face of a deity that turns up in food products, but days before the Royal wedding a man has claimed he has spotted the face of Kate Middleton in a Jelly bean. The bride-to-be’s long hair, strong facial features and her smile can be picked out in the yellow sweet which is covered in red blotches. Wesley Hosie, 25, spotted the perfectly formed face as he ate his way through a jar of the beans.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Culture: Will Turner Gallery Help Margate to a Brighter Future?
Once a thriving seaside resort, Margate has recently become a ‘dumping ground’ for vulnerable people. But the opening of the Turner Contemporary Gallery could revive the town’s fortunes
This weekend sees the much-publicised opening of the Turner Contemporary Gallery on Margate’s seafront, built on the site of the boarding house run by the painter’s lover, Sophia Booth. Boarding houses and hotels have been this Kent coastal town’s blessing and its curse. During the 19th century, visitors flocked to the resort in their thousands by steam boat and railway and the hotel industry boomed. A new cinema in the 1930s and a Butlins holiday camp were followed by the mods and rockers in the early 60s. But when tourists fell out of love with Margate and sought fun and sun farther afield, hundreds of seaside hotels and guest houses were left empty. Unable to attract paying guests, unsuitable for family accommodation, but cheap and easy to convert into bedsits and small flats, many once elegant, tall, terraced buildings with many rooms were converted into high-density, poor-quality accommodation.
This has become a magnet, not just to individuals in need of a cheap place to live, but also to external agencies and local authorities who, according to the British Urban Regeneration Association, have used Margate as a “dumping ground” for vulnerable and highly dependent people. Such inward migration has created a huge imbalance in Margate’s population with a disproportionate concentration of vulnerable people, including homeless families, care leavers and ex-offenders. Half of all ex-offenders in the Thanet area live in Margate and four ex-offenders are released into the town each week. “Services — statutory and voluntary — are close to collapsing because of the concentration of highly dependent people in Margate,” says Derek Harding, director of Margate Renewal Partnership, the town’s regeneration body..
There are also high numbers of looked-after children who have been placed in the town by other authorities. Of the 500 looked-after children in Thanet, more than half have been placed by 58 out of area local authorities, including many London boroughs. Secondary schools are now refusing to admit looked-after children from other local authorities. “We think it’s wrong to place the most vulnerable children in England in an area that already suffers from significant deprivation and where our schools are under pressure to meet the needs of local looked-after children,” says Andy Somers, chair of Thanet Secondary Heads Group and principal of Hartsdown Technology College. “It simply doesn’t help the life chances of young people who are placed miles away from their homes, where their difficulties may in fact get worse and future prospects are limited.”
Margate is also a popular destination for migrants, but without adequate resources to manage their arrival and integration, there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest economic migrants are easy prey to unscrupulous landlords and employers and victims of racism and crime. Andres Balog comes from Slovakia and with his three children and their aunt Iveta lives in a rundown, squalid flat in Cliftonville, a once afflluent suburb of Margate. There are hanging wires, lethally gaping holes in the floor, a pipe that leaks into the flat below and the tiny kitchen bears the scorch marks of a previous fire. The family pays no rent, Balog is unemployed and the local authority taskforce helping them has had great difficulty in tracing the landlord. When asked how they found the flat, 15-year-old Andres junior, acting as translator, vaguely says “friends”, who also help to provide food. In effect they are squatting, although Andres says his father “wants a job to pay for a better place”.
Beneath them live 19-year-old James Thompson with his girlfriend Josephine Brown, 18. Their six-week-old baby is in foster care but the couple are splitting up in order to improve the possibility of the child being returned, so Thompson needs to leave the flat and find somewhere else to live in the next few days. He has lived in Margate all his life and is currently on bail for burglary, awaiting a court date. Brown was placed with relatives in Margate, but was taken into foster care in the town following a violent relationship in her early teens.
“It’s complicated. Our son is in foster care and my history is not too good,” says Thompson. “I used to live with my sister and from the age of 10 I helped to bring up her kids. I’ll be a brilliant dad.” He hopes to get a community rather than custodial sentence and wants to find a job and a way to be part of his child’s life.
Margate’s problems stem from the fact that like many coastal towns, its economy has been over-reliant on tourism. When that dried up, so did the jobs, and changes in farming meant that seasonal agricultural work was also lost. Unemployment in the poorest parts of Margate is around 38% — more than 10 times the south-east average. The recent announcement of the closure of the Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in nearby Sandwich will see another 2,500 people in the Thanet region looking for work. Some 63% of Margate’s population are dependant on welfare and more are on incapacity benefit than jobseeker’s allowance. What jobs there are tend to be in retail and administration.
Dependency industry
“Deprivation and dependency are an industry in Margate,” says Sarah Woodward, director of the Margate Task Force, which brings together the district and county councils, police, probation, local NHS, housing and employment services. Efforts to regenerate the town have so far only been a partial success. Some £40m has been poured into the area since 2007 to kickstart the regeneration programme in which the new Turner gallery is the centrepiece.. While there are signs in Margate Old Town of a different type of business — boutiques, cafes, studios and workshops are springing up — sections of the main seafront remain a swath of boarded-up arcades, and parts of Margate have yet to benefit.
Thanet’s public services have struggled under the growing burden of care while the cycle of decline outside the old town continues, inextricably linked to social problems of worklessness, benefit dependency, poor health, crime and antisocial behaviour. Now, in an attempt to stop councils sending so many vulnerable people to Margate, Thanet district council and Kent county council are trying to dissuade external authorities from placing people in Margate.
Meanwhile, the taskforce is trying to improve life and prospects for residents at a grassroots level in the two most deprived wards in the town — Cliftonville West and Margate Central. This part of town is one of the 3% most deprived areas in the country. Unemployment is running at two in five of the working population in these wards and Margate is seventh in the national rankings for welfare benefits dependency, with 63% of residents on benefits. When JMW Turner died in 1851, he was 76. The life expectancy of a man in Cliftonville West today is 69.2 — 17 years less than a man living just 15 miles away and more than a decade less than the national average of 80 years.
Woodward says despite a multiplicity of public services, agencies and initiatives over the years, little has been achieved apart from “fire-fighting” immediate crises. “More of the same simply isn’t going to work, so we have to take a different approach using community-based programmes,” she says. The taskforce is focusing on housing, employment and skills, health inequalities and street cleanliness and antisocial behaviour. It is tracking down absentee landlords and enforcing regulation to deal with the estimated 800 vacant properties, in the hope of driving down the number of small, privately rented flats which represent 82% of the two wards’ housing stock. It wants to get rid of dreadful landlords and owners by forcing them to improve properties, to make housing more suitable for families instead of numerous small flats and bedsits. And it has introduced several neighbourhood initiatives, working to deal with issues ranging from flytipping, dog fouling and litter, to cracking down on truancy, and criminal and antisocial behaviour. “We’re on a journey and we’ve a way to go but I can see the fractures that exist between services. Now we’re talking to each other, building relationships and that means we can respond more quickly so both long standing residents and the most vulnerable can see we are listening and responding,” says Woodward. The taskforce has been operational for just six months but it has successfully enforced antisocial behaviour measures and issued arrest warrants for drugs trafficking, sex offences, theft and assault, inspected over 600 homes and carried out truancy sweeps. The visible presence is helping reassure people in the poorest parts of the town that they are not being ignored.
But the long-term prospects for Margate depend on whether the town can make itself more attractive to business. Richard Samuel, outgoing chief executive of Thanet district council says he is optimistic and pessimistic in equal terms. “Turner, housing initiatives and regeneration will move the area on but I’m hugely nervous about the impact of benefit changes which will take £20m out of the local economy,” he says. “It is not public money that will change places like Margate. Private investment creates wealth that creates jobs.”
One of the major barriers to attracting inward private investment and creating more highly skilled, better paid jobs is transport and Samuel hopes the council’s bid to upgrade and extend the rail line so that it services Kent’s Manston airport is successful. Extending the high-speed rail link from London, which currently goes as far as Ashford, would cut the journey time from London to neighbouring Ramsgate to around an hour, opening up huge potential for Margate. It would cost £50m but the economic impact in the area could be enormous, he says.
The hope is that the Turner gallery will act as a catalyst for more regeneration. But Samuel is not getting carried away. “If Turner wasn’t there, Thanet district council would still be tackling the problems,” he says. “It [Turner] is the jewel in the crown but it is not the only thing.”
Some names have been changed.
[JP note: No.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Culture: What’s This … Slough-on-Sea?
by Brian Sewell
In 1811, Margate was little more than a village dependent on fishing and the barge and coaster trades. In 1911, its heyday, it had become a destination for day-trippers on pleasure steamers from London and a place of asylums, infirmaries, common boarding-houses and hotels of only Pooterish grandeur.
Now, in 2011, within a suburban swathe of bungalows, its seafront — the only reason for its enfeebled survival after decades of desuetude — is a jumble of unloved Victorian and Edwardian buildings, locked and bolted public lavatories and the new art gallery to be known, fashionably deprived of both “the” and “gallery”, only as Turner Contemporary.
Of Turner Contemporary, the words “elegant”, “inspiring” and “spectacular” have been used by its protagonists, but this cluster of super-industrial sheds on the site of the Georgian boarding-house in which Turner occasionally stayed is an unsympathetic and abrasive assault on its neighbours. Lacking their occasional ventures into architectural whimsy and instead constructed in the idiom of the modern warehouse and the factory and seeming gigantic in scale, David Chipperfield’s Turner Contemporary might be unnoticeable on the fringe of Heathrow or the outskirts of Slough, but in poor old Margate its featureless and gleaming bulk is alien, brutal and bleak. Its presence is as aggressive and threatening as that of a hyena in a sheepfold, nothing about it announces a benign purpose, nothing speaks of art and welcome; its only invitation is to the local graffitisti.
It could be argued that alien is what Turner Contemporary has been compelled to be, in that the existing architecture of the seafront is too derivative and commonplace to be allowed to influence a new building designed to initiate the transformation of a town once “inhabited by savages and lunatics” (The Times, 1871). Should sentimental conservationists battle for this place of tumbledown neglect when its own panjandrums (apparently) have decided to impose regime change and convert it into the Kent coast’s Capital of Culture? The sceptic may be inclined to echo Betjeman’s “Come, friendly bombs…” and wish wilderness upon the town and a pox upon all parties.
The entrance floor of Turner Contemporary is largely surrendered to Mammon, to the shop, the café and the “multi-function events space” that can accommodate receptions. To reach the exhibition galleries aloft one must either take the huge lift designed for vast works of art or 40 passengers, or climb a cranked staircase that is dangerously narrow, both tucked out of sight. Architects determined to shunt the prime purpose of a gallery into its upper floors should surely design stairs and lifts to be immediately obvious to visitors, welcoming and matched to their demands — but all contemporary architects seem no longer to know how to make a staircase beautiful and functional. Everywhere I was troubled by the noise: all surfaces are hard and clean and from them sound repeatedly rebounds to create a muffled blur of background babel — silent contemplation has no role in this building.
>From the galleries the much talked-of skies over Margate — “the loveliest in all Europe”, Turner was once fool enough to say — are banished. These rooms might as well be bunkers. There are roof lights with diffusers and a sliver of natural light can eke through shallow windows high in the north walls, but most of the exhibiting artists have chosen the gloomy benisons of artificial light. As exhibition spaces they are, though lofty, disappointingly small, together seeming scarcely a match for just one ground-floor room in the Saatchi Gallery, and they exhibit only 11 works and some addenda; a 12th embellishes the entrance hall and a 13th the risers of the staircase and is only visible to those who climb them. Four of these works are new commissions.
There is, in a painting of 1815, a nod to Turner with, not a view of Margate or thereabouts, but an erupting volcano on St Vincent, his imagination of this distant event formed by a sketch made three years before by an amateur who witnessed it. Of only one of the six “major international artists” in Revealed — the obscure title of the opening exhibition — Conrad Shawcross, need anything be said. The combination of a highly intelligent and enquiring mind with respect for skill and craftsmanship sets him apart from most of his generation, and I share his aesthetic response to the machine, though not necessarily his contention that a machine must be useless if it is to be a work of art; an interview with him, published in the catalogue, is in his responses the most lucid exegesis of his work I have yet encountered. A whole retrospective devoted to him might have been a wiser choice, for neither of his exhibits is as convincing as any previous work and both seem to mark a tentative merging of paths that should remain divergent; nor have they any particular relevance to this gallery, though they were made with it in mind. Even so, for intellectual integrity, they thump the other contributions.
Douglas Gordon, winner of the Turner Prize in 1996, offers on the stairs word play on Turner’s dying utterance, “The Sun is God”, reaching “God is the Sun” by way of childish permutations of God and good, Sun and son, good and bad. Ellen Harvey evokes the decadence of Margate with a wooden shack, scratchy lightbox views and a shop-front sign ARCADIA — a shabby thing in every aspect, but then she likes her work to be “a bit embarrassing”. From Teresita Fernandez we have a meaningless floor piece in the shape of a palette and a meaningless big graphite drawing, but meaning is not to be expected of her, for she starts with “a concept that makes no sense” and is most interested in what she believes to be the narrow space between the second and third dimensions. Russell Crotty is the most contemptible scribbler I have ever encountered masquerading as an artist; based on astronomical observation, his work is, as he says, “not hard science” but about locating himself somewhere in the universe, and his drawings are as feeble as his drivel. Daniel Buren has done no more than brighten this bleak building with black and yellow stripes — a trick that we have seen so often that it needs no signature.
Can Margate support this free-admission institution without a flood of Londoners? Two hours of quite fast driving got me to the edge of town, but then it took half another hour to find a parking space — and there is deliberately to be no dedicated parking at Turner Contemporary. For four or five hours at the wheel I expect more art than this meagre handful of examples of the familiar Serota-Saatchi orthodoxy, so much of it more easily seen in half a dozen London institutions. I also question the wisdom of establishing a gallery the very name of which declares devotion only to the art of the immediate present and is just one more of thousands now mushrooming all round the world, all their exhibits conforming to the same narrow canons. With no other local gallery offering a glimpse into art’s history, Turner Contemporary provides only a rootless experience of the art of the immediate present, an ubiquitous phenomenon that is too often badly made, aesthetically unrewarding, conceptually exasperating, intellectually the instrument of casuists and little or nothing to do with art as most of us understand the term in any ancestral sense.
Were this gallery intended to serve a broader range of living artists and present exhibitions of past art (and even the art of other cultures), it might have a chance of survival, but, as fettered to the foolish present as any other out-station of the Serota Tendency, I fear for it the fate of the white elephant.
Revealed is at Turner Contemporary, Margate (01843 233 000, turnercontemporary.org) from Saturday until Sept 4. Open Tues-Thurs & Sat, 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-10pm. Admission free.
[JP note: Nice to see the Evening Standard’s art critic putting the boot into the globo-metroplitan art tendancy (aka schlock). A classic case of top-downism where the wishes of local residents are overridden in favour of what among liberal left circles passes for high culture. Incidentally, ‘hyena in a sheepfold,’ used in the article above, might also be a useful expression for the agglomeration of jihadis the UK has imported over the last decade with a cavalier disregard for the inevitable consequences.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council Backs Marks Barfield’s Islamia School
Brent Council has thrown its weight behind Marks Barfield’s plans to rebuild a London Muslim primary school. But work on the Islamia Primary School scheme is still dependent on it receiving planning permission after an initial approval was pulled by the council in the wake of planned legal action by local residents. They had complained about the way the process was conducted.
The project must also get permission from funding body Partnership for Schools to extend the period by which £3 million of government cash must be spent. Under Treasury rules, this funding must be spent by this August — or the council will have to hand it back or spend it on other schools projects. This week, the council said work on the £8.8 million redevelopment in Queens Park should go ahead. Brent’s director of children and families Krutika Pau added: “There is a strong educational case for this project which would modernise and expand the overcrowded school.”
The revised planning application is due to be heard by May, and the council is hoping it can persuade PfS to allow it to delay spending the £3 million by nine months to May next year.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cock Tavern Theatre Announces Permanent Closure
Award-winning London fringe venue the Cock Tavern in Kilburn has been forced to close after it emerged that it had been operating without a valid entertainment licence. Its current production of A Butcher of Distinction will transfer to the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, while A Cavalier For Milady has been forced to cancel its run but will transfer to the Charing Cross Theatre in the autumn.
The Cock Tavern had been forced to postpone performances earlier this week after it emerged that the pub in which it was housed did not hold an entertainment licence for the second floor of the building, where the theatre was situated, meaning that the company had been unknowingly operating without a licence since it launched in 2009. Following discussion with Brent council’s licencing department, it emerged that the stairs which lead up to the venue and those which act as its emergency exit were “too steep and too short” and major work would be needed to alter them if the venue were to receive a licence. The company has said that “structurally and financially” it could not afford to make the changes.
Artistic director Adam Spreadbury-Maher added: “I’d like to thank my hard working and talented writers, directors, actors, designers, producers, agents and general management for their dedication, commitment and passion to The Cock over the past 26 months. I also thank the press for their belief in, and support of, our venue and work, with special mention to the Peter Brook Empty Space Award, and the local and national publications. And to our fearless audiences without whom it would have been lights-out long ago. The Cock will continue to produce world-class theatre, so stay tuned.” The company has now started a hunt for a new London venue.
[JP note: Brent Council turns the screws on a traditional British culture venue.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Elderly ‘Must Expect to Sell Their Homes to Pay for Care’
Pensioners should expect to sell their homes to pay for care, a Government commission has been told.
The Commission on Funding of Care and Support collated evidence on the system from hundreds of organisations and concluded that free care is unrealistic.
It is likely pensioners will be forced to sell their homes to release equity if they need care in later life, the report’s authors said.
Andrew Dilnot, the commission’s chairman, said the only solution which was truly sustainable “is going to come from responsibility being shared between the individual and the state”.
But they warned that urgent reform is needed because young people are taking so long to get onto the property ladder that future generations could be less able to pay for their care.
It also voiced concerns that more people are retiring before their mortgages have been paid off while people with debilitating conditions and disabilities are living longer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Extremist Fears: Concern Over English Defence League March Through Weymouth
FEARS are mounting over a march through Weymouth by the right-wing English Defence League protesting at Islamic extremism. The newly-formed Weymouth branch of the group organised the march following a TV programme that showed Islamic extremists on the streets of the town. They will be undertaking the protest in Weymouth on Saturday, April 30 at 1pm to protest the ‘entrapment of the youth of Weymouth by extremist Muslims.’ A counter march by opponents of the English Defence League (EDL) will take place at the same time.
The group, which was formed after the showing of the programme ‘My Brother the Islamist’, now has more than 330 members and has said it will be a peaceful protest.
The programme followed film-maker Robb Leech, originally from Wey-mouth, as he documented his step-brother Richard Dart’s sudden change to an extreme Islamist called Salahuddin with minority group Muslims Against Crusaders. In one scene he and a group based in London visited Weymouth and preached in the town centre.
The counter march will be headed by the Labour Party. The group said that it is a non-political peaceful protest and anyone from any party opposed to the EDL in Weymouth would be welcome. Richard Baker from the group said: “We plan to peacefully oppose the presence of the EDL in Weymouth and I encourage councillors, candidates, MPs of all political parties, and the general public to join us; divided not by party, but united by a common humanity and compassion. “We want to make it clear that the community of Weymouth and Portland does not share the narrow and prejudiced views of the EDL.”
Weymouth and Portland Borough Council spokesman for Community Safety Ian James said that people should not be worried by the marches. He said: “I’m disappointed the EDL feel it necessary to hold a protest march in Weymouth based on one TV programme, we’re not harbouring millions of terrorists here for goodness sake.” He added: “Hopefully it will be a very small turn-out and hopefully people will ignore them.” Mr James said that any trouble on either side of the march would be dealt with by police. He said: “I don’t want people to worry about it.. The police are aware, any group wanting to protest have to give notice and there will be a police presence. Residents should feel safe.” He added: “Anybody, on either side causing any trouble will be dealt with.”
A spokesman for Dorset police said that they were aware of the requests for the demonstration and were liaising with both the EDL and the Labour Party.. He said: “We are aware of requests made for a potential meeting of the EDL in the Weymouth area this month. We are currently liaising with spokespeople for the EDL and our partners in the borough council to consider the logistical issues surrounding any such event.” He added: “We are also aware of a request made for a Labour Party meeting. Similarly, this is subject to ongoing liaison with organisers and the borough council.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How the Brixton Riots, 30 Years Ago Today [11 April 1981], Handed Power to the Mosques
by Ed West
It is 30 years since the worst urban riots in modern British history, in Brixton, south London, disturbances that resulted in one of the most disastrous government-funded initiatives of recent times — and that’s from a wide field. The riots had complicated causes, but rather than looking at both sides of the story most people in the media then and now accepted the view expressed by Salman Rushdie in the 1982 television documentary, The New Empire Within Britain. “For the citizens of the new imported Empire,” he said, the police were a “colonising army, those regiments of occupation and control”.
And so, as Kenan Malik recalls in From Fatwa to Jihad, in order to prevent large-scale uprisings in the inner cities, the government introduced state multiculturalism, with Sir George Young made Britain’s first “minister for race relations”, the aim being to encourage moderate minority leaders at the expense of the militants. And so local authorities, many of them run by radical Trotskyites who had joined the Labour Party in the late 1970s, began to follow the House of Commons home affairs committee’s advice to “make as much direct contact as possible with ethnic minorities”.
Between 1981 and 1986 the Greater London Council under Ken Livingstone pioneered “a new strategy of making minority communities feel part of British society,” in Malik’s words. “It consulted with them, drew up equal opportunities policies, established race relations units, and dispensed millions of pounds in grants to minority groups. “At the heart of the GLC’s anti-racist strategy was not simply the reallocation of resources but also a redefinition of racism. Racism now meant not the denial of equal rights but the denial of the right to be different.” Minorities should no longer be forced to adopt a British identity: they should express their own, live by their own values, pursue their own lifestyles.
In Birmingham the city council created nine umbrella groups, based on ethnicity and religion, which were supposed to represent the needs of their community and help the council allocate resources. This hardened racial and religious divisions. Malik quotes Joy Warmington of Birmingham Race Action Partnership, who said: “People are forced into a very one-dimensional view of themselves by the way that equality policies work… If somebody in Handsworth or Lozells wants a community centre or a health centre it is often easier to get funding if they say ‘We want an Asian community centre’ or ‘We want an African-Caribbean health centre’. They are forced to see themselves in terms of their ethnicity, their race, their culture and so on rather than in broader terms that might bring people together.”
In Birmingham multiculturalism led to race riots in 2005, in London it helped to aggravate the problems of the black poor; but it was most catastrophic in towns life Bradford, where it encouraged religious rather than racial separatism. Following the 1981 trial of the “Bradford 12”, radical Muslim-born secular Leftists — almost an extinct species today — Bradford Council copied the GLC by issuing equal opportunities statements and creating race relations units, and throwing money at minority organisations. These organisations were mainly religious. That same year Bradford Council began funding the Bradford Council of Mosques to create “new channel of communications”. Its Community Relations Council bred and funded a new generation of politicians who, unlike highly secular groups such as the Asian Youth Movement, were tied to the mosques.
As Malik said: “For what the pattern of mosque building in Bradford reveals is that it was not the piety of first-generation Muslims that led to the Islamisation of the town. It was, rather, the power, influence and money that accrued to religious leaders in the 1980s as a result of Bradford City Council’s multicultural policies. Multiculturalism helped paint Bradford Muslim green.”
And not just Bradford, either: Britain’s Muslim communities are, on average, far more separate and segregated than those in France or Germany, so much that a woman arguing for France’s highly illiberal veil ban on the radio this morning said “we don’t want to end up like Britain”, Britain’s record on integration being the internationally recognised standard of failure.
The anniversary of the Brixton riots is a chance to celebrate 30 years of failure, fear, stupidity and moral cowardice on the part of the authorities, the resulting problems far worse than the south London riot that triggered it. Happy birthday, multiculturalism!
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: High Steps Close Award-Winning Pub Theatre
A pub theatre which triumphed at this year’s Olivier Awards has been closed because of health and safety concerns. Two productions have been suspended at the Cock Tavern Theatre, in Kilburn, because the height of the steps on its staircases do not comply with council rules. An inspection of the 56-seat theatre, which is above a pub, also found that it had no entertainment licence.
A Cavalier for Milady, by Tennessee Williams — which was playing at the theatre — will transfer to the Charing Cross Theatre in the autumn. A Butcher of Distinction, by Rob Hayes, transfers to the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, with the first performace on Sunday. The theatre said today: “Due to sudden licensing negotiations, the Cock Tavern Theatre has suspended sales to all shows as we cannot guarantee when performances will recommence. We are doing everything we can to get our productions back on as soon as possible. We are now contacting all customers to refund and reallocate tickets.”
The council [Brent Council] said the venue had “inadequate escape routes, poor seating and an unsuitable staircase… In the event of a fire it would be hard to get out.” It added: “We have told the theatre that Brent is happy to work with them should they carry out improvements to the premises and reopen with the correct licence.”
The theatre’s production of La Bohème won best new opera at the Oliviers last month.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lutfur Rahman Councillor Charged With Fraud
One of the most prominent supporters of Tower Hamlets’ extremist-backed mayor, Lutfur Rahman, has been charged with fraud. Councillor Shelina Akhtar (also spelt Shelina Aktar) appears in court next month. Her arrest, last year, was first reported by this blog. Akhtar is one of eight councillors who were thrown out of the Labour Party after backing Lutfur — himself barred by Labour for his close links with the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE).
Akhtar — whose day job, hilariously, is as a part-time “youth and enrichment worker” — is accused of part-time self-enrichment. She is charged with one count of “false representation” and three counts of failing to notify a change of circumstances which would have affected her entitlement to benefit. She remains a member of Tower Hamlets council at the time of writing and continues to draw another much-needed benefit entitlement — her £200-a-week councillor’s attendance allowance.
In less than six months, three of Lutfur’s tiny band have been the subjects of police investigations. The second is Shiraj Haque, Lutfur’s chief business backer who is currently under investigation for a massive alleged scam involving selling fraudulent wine in his restaurant empire. The third is Lutfur himself — who has been accused of failing to declare substantial donations from Mr Haque, a criminal offence under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.
And that’s not including Cllr Alibor Choudhury, the former employee of an IFE front organisation who Lutfur has, quite incredibly, put in charge of the council’s budget. Alibor has a deeply unsavoury past and a record of encounters with the police. In 2006, he was charged with violent disorder in connection with a gang attack. The case was stayed at the committal stage after Alibor claimed he had been the subject of an “abuse of process.” Hmm… I’ll tell you a bit more about Alibor’s dodgy back-story when I get a moment.
Nor does it include Zamal Uddin, a convicted sex attacker for whom Lutfur gave a character reference in court (the mayor claims that he didn’t know what crime Uddin had pled guilty to, an explanation that simply beggars belief.)
I predicted when Lutfur won the election that his mayoralty would become a “slow-motion car crash.” It’s crashing rather quicker than that. Lutfur’s curious attraction for the criminal — and allegedly criminal — is yet another reason why Labour must be deeply relieved that it did not give way to some people’s siren calls to readmit him.
[JP note: The fabled ‘youth and enrichment worker’ appears to exist!]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Motorist Claiming £40 Pothole Damage Gets 200-Page Rejection Letter
When Terry Rothery filed a £40 claim to his council for pothole damage to his car, he wasn’t really expecting much of a response.
The reply he got, however, turned out to be rather overwhelming.
For while council bureaucrats did, as expected, refuse to compensate the retired magazine executive, they also felt the need to send him a 200-page letter explaining their decision.
Over-officious highways bosses even included their entire 186-page road maintenance strategy along with a lengthy explanation letter.
Mr Rothery, 65, filed the claim in protest at the council’s road maintenance after he hit a massive pothole as he was driving his blue BMW along a road at night near to his home in Billericay, Essex.
The father of four and grandfather said: ‘The rejection letter was a load of gobbledygook, with clauses and subclauses and explanations which basically said they could not be held responsible.
‘Why they had to send me the complete highway maintenance strategy, I have no idea.
‘It just needed the couple of pages within that document that are relevant — not the complete works.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Scots Voters ‘Could Force AV on US All’: Former Scottish Secretary’s Warning to Cameron
Britain will face a constitutional crisis if voters in Scotland impose electoral reform on an apathetic England, David Cameron was warned yesterday.
Conservative former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth claimed the Alternative Vote referendum on May 5 has been ‘rigged’ by the Liberal Democrats to try to ensure that voters north of the border deliver a ‘yes’ verdict.
The peer told the Daily Mail that the historic Union between Scotland and England would be under serious threat if AV, in which candidates are ranked in order of preference, is introduced thanks to Scottish votes.
Polls suggest that Scotland is among the most pro-AV parts of Britain.
It is expected to see a large turnout in the referendum because elections to the Scottish Parliament take place on the same day.
But ministers fear there will be a dismal turnout in England — which seems more likely to vote ‘no’ — because although some areas have council elections, many have no other polls.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sham Marriage Fixer Who Tried to Wed Nigerian Man and Dutch Lesbian Jailed for Three Years
Abdallah Magezi, 36, fled the scene when police arrested ‘Bride’ Roqsilmar Marti, 28, and ‘groom’ Abraham Akinola, 32, at St John the Baptist in Tilbury, Essex, last year.
Abdallah Magezi, 36, from Uganda, fixed the ceremony to make money. Makanjuola and Marti have already pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentence.
By marrying someone from the UK or any other EU country, Makanjuola would have gained the right to live, work and claim benefits in Britain.
Andy Harvey, from the UK Border Agency, said: ‘Magezi was the Mr Fix-It of the operation. He was the one pulling the strings.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: We Too Should Ban the Burka
There is a mosque in the East Midlands, an impressive building, exuding a sort of muscular serenity. Almost next door, is a private girls’ secondary school, an offshoot of the mosque, where, from the age of 11, the niqab is a compulsory part of school uniform. Just across the street is an advice centre that offers rulings to the community on points of Islamic law.
If you go to the centre’s website, as I did yesterday, and click on Women’s Issues you will find the Islamic equivalent of the Cathy and Claire problem page. Only instead of an agony aunt, we find a chap called Muhammad offering solutions to those tricky, girly dilemmas that keep us awake at night. Women Exposing Their Arms Whilst Driving — Should It Be Allowed? Are Tampons Permissible to Use Before Marriage? Can Women Travel Without a Male Relative? The Female Voice and Singing (is it OK to sing in front of men?) and — this has to be my absolute favourite — A Comprehensive Guide to Women’s Nakedness.
For those of you scratching your head over the toast and marmalade, the answers are as follows: Women are most certainly not allowed to expose their arms while driving. Anything above and including the wrist is likely to inflame passing motorists so “Muslim sisters must not be careless in this regard and should wear long tight sleeves.” I’m afraid it’s a no to tampons before marriage for reasons too weird to go into. As for females moving around freely, “It is impermissible for a woman to travel the distance of three days (48 miles) without her husband or a male relative.” Meanwhile, singing, that most natural and joyous act of human expression, also falls into the dread category of temptation. “The charm in the voice of a female plays a vital role in provoking the sexual appetite of a man,” explains our guide. This goes some way to solving the cruel mystery of why, in certain primary schools, parents have insisted that Muslim children be excused from music lessons.
My youthful feminist instincts may have grown slack with disuse, but the website’s ruling on female clothing made me want to kick and shout. Muhammad the Agony Uncle advises: “There should be no imitation of the Kuffar (non-believers) because ‘whosoever imitates a nation is amongst them’.” A Muslim woman is allowed to dress like a British slapper in the home, if it pleases her husband, but if the intention is to imitate Kuffars — that’s creatures like you and me with our brazenly exposed wrists — then it’s forbidden. According to Mr Muhammad, if a Muslim woman starts copying the style of the country she lives in then she will soon be part of it — and we can’t have that, can we? No man is an island entire of itself, said the poet. A beautiful sentiment, but the women of this mosque and its girls’ academy seem to be instructed, quite specifically, to be an island, separated from the mainland where the rest of us live.
How did we end up with a school in the East Midlands where the door opens to release the children into the spring sunshine and out flaps a flock of crows? Young girls my daughter’s age clad from head to toe in inky black, a sight both alien and intimidating. “It’s their own choice,” runs the argument, so it must be tolerated by our liberal society. Exactly what choice does an 11-year-old girl have when her designated school uniform is a magician’s black cloth that conceals her from the world and never brings her back? Think of the paranoia that shroud breeds not just in the child who wears it but also in those who look upon her and turn away in dislike. At what point does tolerating the intolerant become intolerable?
Well, the French have had enough. This week, they banned the burka, imposing a fine of £130 on any woman who appears veiled in public. I like President Sarkozy’s bracing assertion of France’s values: “We cannot have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity. That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity.”
Compare and contrast with our own politicians’ policy of appeasement. The terror of appearing racist far exceeds any fear of what may happen to girls, British-born but living, to all intents and purposes, in Saudi Arabia. There are now 160 Muslim faith schools in Britain, double the number of a decade ago. Many provide an excellent education in enviably calm and respectful classrooms, but others are narrow and bigoted. Barry Sheerman MP, the former chairman of the Education Select Committee, once said: “I think it is very difficult for politicians to actually be absolutely frank on this subject. Some Muslim schools give one great cause for concern.”
The burka and the niqab should be banned in Britain. They are a barrier to integration, a statement of hostility to the host country. Poor women who have been brainwashed into hiding their faces are victims, not martyrs. The burka is a not a sign of religion, but of subservience. When Atatürk outlawed the veil in Turkey in 1934 the result was a soaring rate of literacy among women and equality between the sexes was ushered in.
How dare Muhammad the Agony Uncle and his kind, all enjoying the benefits of a modern democracy, presume to give such advice as: “A female is encouraged to remain within the confines of her home as much as possible. She should not come out of the home without need and necessity.” Not in our country, mate. The Islamist agony uncles and their imams should go somewhere where their musings on women will be more appreciated. Get on the A1, travel due south, gentlemen, and keep going for, oooh, about 1,000 years. I have a final question for Muhammad’s problem page. What kind of a God would give a girl a voice, then keep her in a cage and never let her sing?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
“Srebrenica” And the Power of Reason
by Srdja Trifkovic
…..
Having spent five days interviewing over 20,000 Srebrenica survivors at Tuzla a week after the fall of the enclave, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Henry Wieland declared, “we have not found anyone who saw with their own eyes an atrocity taking place.” A decade later a Dutch field investigator, Dr Dick Schoonoord, confirmed Wieland’s verdict: “It has been impossible during our investigations in Bosnia to find any people who witnessed the mass murder or would talk about the fate of the missing men.”
A “PROTECTED ZONE”?—It is often pointed out that Srebrenica was an UN “protected zone,” but it is seldom noted that the enclave was simultaneously an armed camp used for attacks against Serb villages in the surrounding areas. Muslim General Sefer Halilovic confirmed in his testimony at the Hague Tribunal that there were at least 5,500 Bosnian Muslim Army soldiers in Srebrenica after it had obtained the “safe haven” status, and that he had personally arranged numerous deliveries of sophisticated weapons by helicopter.
French General Philippe Morillon, the UNPROFOR commander who first called international attention to the Srebrenica enclave, is adamant that the crimes committed by those Muslim soldiers made the Serbs’ desire for revenge inevitable. He testified at The Hague Tribunal on February 12, 2004, that the Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, “engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region.” Asked by the ICTY prosecutor how Oric treated his Serb prisoners, General Morillon, who knew him well, replied that “Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself… he didn’t even look for an excuse… One can’t be bothered with prisoners.”
Cees Wiebes, who wrote the intelligence section of the Dutch Government report on Srebrenica, notes that despite signing the demilitarization agreement, Bosnian Muslim forces in Srebrenica were heavily armed and engaged in provocations (“sabotage operations”) against Serbian forces. Professor Wiebes caused a storm with his book Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995, detailing the role of the Clinton administration in allowing Iran to arm the Bosnian Muslims.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: International Envoy Blames Serb Leaders for “Irresponsibility”
Sarajevo, 14 April (AKI) — The high representative of the international community in Bosnia (OHR) Valentin Inzko, has expressed “serious concern” for the situation in the country and blamed local Serbian leaders of irresponsible behaviour.
In a statement published on Thursday, Inzko was reacting to the decision of the parliament of Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS) to hold a referendum on the abolition of the federal court and state prosecutor’s office, blaming them for anti-Serb bias.
The parliament voted late on Wednesday with 66 votes in favour of the referendum, two against and seven abstentions. The referendum should be held 45 days after the decision becomes effective and should be held on the entire territory of the RS.
In a document submitted to the parliament, Serb entity’s president Milorad Dodik said that the creation of federal court and state prosecutor’s office were imposed by the high representative of the international community and were not a part of the Dayton peace accord that ended the 1992-1995 war.
He said that in 2010 the federal court sentenced Serbs to 1,067 years in jail for war crimes, Bosnian Croats to 137 years and majority Muslims to 124 years. In the 1992-1995 war 3,299 Serbs were killed only in the capital Sarajevo and no one was ever processed for those crimes, he said.
The parliament said it wants “to distance itself from the work of federal court and prosecutor, because these institutions generate inter-ethnic hate and intolerance”. Dodik blamed them for “selective processing of war crimes at the expense of Serbs”.
But Inzko said in a statement that “enticing” entities to “initiate a process against crucial part of the Dayton peace agreement is irresponsible”. He conceded that the law of forming federal court and prosecutor was imposed by his office, but pointed out that OHR was granted such rights by the peace accord.
“Denying these institutions harms chances of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina to achieve a progress on the road towards membership in the European Union, prosperity and stability,” Inzko said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ultranationalist Serbs Organize Pro-Qaddafi Campaign
BELGRADE — As the NATO bombing of Libya continues, Serbian ultranationalists are trying to stoke support for Muammar Qaddafi by portraying both Tripoli and Belgrade as twin victims of Western aggression.
The pro-Qaddafi campaign comes as Serbia today marks the 11th anniversary of the start of NATO’s bombing campaign to end the Serbian crackdown on Kosovo. To mark the anniversary, air-raid sirens sounded out across Serbia today.
The government has stressed that it fully supports Libya territorial integrity and sovereignty but that it also supports the UN Security Council’s decisions. Belgrade has suspended all activities with Libya’s Defense Ministry but taken no other actions against Tripoli.
Nationalist leaders have gone far beyond Serbia’s official ambivalence. They have called for a rally on March 27 in Belgrade to protest the bombing of Libya and, to build support, regularly rail against Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Dragan Todorovic is the head of the parliamentary caucus of the Serbian Radical Party, whose leader Vojislav Seselj is being tried for war crimes in The Hague:
“Qaddafi absolutely has our support and we absolutely think that nonmeddling in one country’s affairs has to be respected and that citizens of that country should choose the government that suits them,” Todorovic said.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Gaddafi Staying “Unthinkable” Say Cameron, Sarkozy, Obama
(AGI)London- A future Libya still under Gaddafi is “unthinkable” and would be “a betrayal” said allies Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama. In a joint letter sent to various newspapers worldwide, the British Prime Minister, French President and US President stated it would be “an unconscionable betrayal” to the Libyan people if the dictator were to remain in power.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: AISI Reports a Wave of Migrants on Their Way From Libya
(AGI) Rome — Migrants may be a secret weapon of Col Gaddafi.
Sources report that the Libyan leader has released over 15,000 migrants from the Horn of Africa, Chad, and Sub-Saharan Africa, previously held in camps. These people will all now be heading to Italy. They are going to leave from the port of Zuwarah, 120 kilometres from Tripoli, and still under regime control. This emerged from a meeting of COPASIR (the Parliamentary Committee for the Intelligence and Security Services and for State Secret Control), which heard from Giorgio Piccirillo, head of the AISI (the Internal Information and Security Agency).
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Qaddafi Forces Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas
Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have surrounded the Libyan city of Misurata and vowed to crush its anti-Qaddafi rebellion, have been firing into residential neighborhoods with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world and ground-to-ground rockets, according to the accounts of witnesses and survivors and physical evidence on the ground.
Such weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely, and when fired into populated areas place civilians at grave risk.
| [Return to headlines] |
Rasmussen Confirms Significant U. S. Participation in Libya
(AGI) Berlin — Speaking in Berlin at the meeting held by NATO Foreign Ministers, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that although the USA has withdrawn 50 fighter jets, participation in Libya operations with significant military capabilities. “The USA is one of our eminent allies and its contribution is important,” added Rasmussen .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bloodied, Bound and Paraded on Youtube… Then Hanged Hours Later: Horrific Fate of Peace Activist Kidnapped in Gaza
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
- Body of Italian Vittorio Arrigoni was found dumped in a deserted house
- Activist taken by Islamic hardliners who wanted Hamas to release leader
- Mass protests by Palestinians and Mr Arrigoni’s colleagues in wake of killing
A peace activist has been found hanged in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip just hours after he was paraded on YouTube by his abductors.
Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was blindfolded and had been badly beaten before the broadcast. A hand was seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.
The video, posted just hours after the pacifist was kidnapped, sparked a frantic race against time to track him down before he was killed.
But though Hamas security forces quickly received a tip-off about his whereabouts in Gaza’s Sheikh Rudawan district, they arrived too late to save him.
From the Sidebar:
Arrigoni was an outspoken critic of Israel, but in an interview in 2008 he also also criticised Muslim extremists for trying to impose a hardline version of Islam in Gaza.
He noted the increase in the number of Gazan women wearing Islamic face veils and the fact that young women were barred from participating in public life.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Italian Activist Kidnapped by Islamic Extremists, Is Killed
Vittorio Arrigoni was found hanging in the den of his kidnappers after a blitz of Hamas militants to free him. According to police sources the man had been dead for several hours. Arrigoni worked for years as a volunteer in Gaza and had been kidnapped last week by a group of Salafis, the Islamic terrorist movement that has spread throughout the Middle East. Hamas: “This act is a heinous crime against our values.”
Gaza (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist of the International Solidarity Movement, was found dead last night in Gaza City by Hamas militants. The man was kidnapped by a group of Salafis. According to local sources, police raided the hideout of the kidnappers, but found Arrigoni hanged. So far, only two kidnappers have been arrested. This morning, Hamas condemned the act, calling it “a heinous crime against our values.”
Arrigoni had been kidnapped last week by a group of Salafis, the Islamic terrorist movement that has spread throughout the Middle East. In the afternoon, the extremists have claimed the kidnapping posting a video showing Arrigoni blindfolded and bleeding and with writing in the background against Italy, termed an “infidel country.” In the video, the kidnappers order the release of group leaders imprisoned in Gaza, on the pain of the hostages death. The expiration of the ultimatum was scheduled for today at 16.00. Hamas sources said the Salafist killed the activist several hours before the raid.
Arrigoni is the first foreigner to be kidnapped in Gaza after the British BBC journalist Alan Johnston, captured in 2007 by another Islamic extremist group close to al-Qaida. Unlike the Italian, Johnston was freed after 114 days of captivity and protracted negotiations.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Hamas Accuses Israel of Italian Activist’s Murder
(AGI) Gaza — Hamas has indirectly accused Israel of the murder of pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni and promised punishment for those responsible. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar spoke to a crowd of 500 people who gathered in Gaza’s Square of the Unknown Soldier. A reporter for the newspaper Wafa Sani Abu Salem reported to AGI that politicians, artists, journalists and common people came to honor the Italian activist. Hamas has been in charge of the Gaza Strip since 2006.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Condemns Murder of Italian Activist in Gaza
The Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza, Hamas, has condemned the murder of Italian pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni.
A Hamas spokesman described the killing as “against the humanity… of the Palestinian people”.
Mr Arrigoni was found dead hours after being seized on Thursday by a radical group in conflict with Hamas.
Police said he was found hanged in a Gaza City apartment and two people have been arrested.
‘Awful’ killing
Mr Arrigoni, 36, was seized by Salafist radicals, an Islamist movement that considers Hamas as too moderate, BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says.
The Salafists had threatened to execute Mr Arrigoni by 1400 GMT on Friday unless several prisoners, including their leader, Sheikh Abu Walid al-Maqdasi, were released. Sheikh Maqdasi was arrested by Hamas police last month in Gaza City.
In a video posted on YouTube, Mr Arrigoni appeared to have been beaten and his eyes were covered with thick black tape.
A caption on the video read: “The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption.” The video called Italy “the infidel state”.
It is not clear why Mr Arrigoni was killed before the given deadline, but the Hamas interior ministry said he had died soon after being abducted.
Hamas officials said two people had been arrested and others were being sought, but gave no further details.
Interior ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghussein said Mr Arrigoni was killed “in an awful way”.
Mr Ghussein told reporters that the security forces had been led to the house in Gaza City after a tip-off.
He described the killing as a “heinous crime which has nothing to do with our values, our religion, our customs and traditions”, and vowed to hunt down and bring to justice those who were involved.
Hamas spokesman Salama Marouf said the killing went “against the humanity and against the custom and tradition of the Palestinian people”.
About 2,000 people in Gaza attended a rally to protest Mr Arrigoni’s killing.
‘Humble man’
In Rome, the Italian foreign ministry expressed “its deep horror over the barbaric murder”.
Italian diplomats have been in touch with Israel regarding the transfer of the body from the Gaza Strip, possibly on Sunday, an Israeli official has told the BBC.
His mother said he was a humble man.
“He never hung out with the powerful, he never went to the ‘palaces,’ if that’s what you can call those [headquarters] of Hamas,” Egidia Beretta said.
“He had two rooms in this apartment house that overlooked the port,” she told Italian TV.
Friends of the activist gathered outside the hospital where his body had been taken on Friday morning.
“He came from across the world, left his country and family and his entire life and came here to break the siege, and we kill him? Why?” asked one of his friends.
Mr Arrigoni was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and had been in Gaza for several years.
Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of the ISM, said he was very well-known in the territory and had a “dynamic, humanitarian personality”.
“I even thought that whoever has him is going to see his humanity and just let him go, so when I heard what happened to him I was totally shocked,” she told the AFP news agency.
Hamas had been credited with eliminating the threat of kidnapping in Gaza until his abduction.
Mr Arrigoni was the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston was abducted in 2007.
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been held in Gaza since June 2006. He was captured in a raid into Israel by Hamas and other militant groups.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Kidnapped Italian Human Rights Activist Found Dead in Gaza
(AGI) Rome- The Italian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that ISM activist Vittorio Arrigoni was killed through suffocation in Gaza. The body was found a short time ago and identified at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital morgue. The ministry expressed “heartfelt dismay for the barbaric murder” in a statement condemning “the vile and unreasonable act of violence in the strongest terms”.
The manner of Arrigoni’s death was affirmed by a Hamas spokesman.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Turkey’s Cautionary Tale
Today’s Turkey is a cautionary tale for the West. But Western leaders are loath to consider its lessons.
Ever since Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development AKP party under Recip Tayip Erdogan won the November 2002 elections, Western officials have upheld the AKP, Erdogan and his colleagues as proof that political Islam is consonant with democratic values. During Erdogan’s June 2005 visit to the White House, for instance, then-president George W. Bush praised Turkish democracy as “an important example for the people in the broader Middle East.”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan to Try Danish Cartoonist
A JORDANIAN court will try Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard over a controversial caricature of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. Zakarya Sheikh, spokesman for a group of local media outlets that sued Westergaard in 2008 for depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, said the artist and others have been summoned by a magistrates’ court in Amman to stand trial on April 25. The subpoena states Westergaard “is accused of the crime of blasphemy.” “These legal measures seek to prevent attempts to insult Islam and incite racial hatred against Muslims worldwide, particularly in Europe,” Sheikh said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rights Group: Syria Tortures Detained Protesters
Syrian security and intelligence agencies have detained and tortured hundreds of protesters during a month of demonstrations against one of the Middle East’s most repressive governments, a human rights group said Friday.
The statement came as the country braced for what is expected to be another day of demonstrations, which have been gathering momentum since the uprising started four weeks ago, inspired by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Syrian authorities to immediately stop the use of torture and free all demonstrators, activists, and journalists in custody. The group said hundreds have been arbitrarily detained and subjected to “torture and ill-treatment.” It didn’t provide a precise number.
Protests across Syria have steadily increased, with tens of thousands calling for sweeping political reforms to President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime. More than 200 people have been killed during the government crackdown on protesters, according to Syria’s main pro-democracy group.
“There can be no real reforms in Syria while security forces abuse people with impunity,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “President (Bashar) al-Assad needs to rein in his security services and hold them to account for arbitrary arrests and torture.”
Also Friday, A Syrian journalist told The Associated Press he was set free after 16-day detention during which he was whipped and beaten. The journalist, who also had his head shaved, said he was set free shortly before midnight Thursday.
The journalist, who asked that his name not be made public, said he saw some 200 detainees being freed from the detention center where he was held.
The release came a day after al-Assad ordered the release of hundreds of detainees involved in the protests seeking to wrest political freedoms from one of the Middle East’s most repressive governments.
Al-Assad’s order signaled an attempt to calm weeks of growing protest anger and pre-empt protests planned for Friday.
The Obama administration said Thursday that Iran appears to be helping Syria crack down on protesters, calling it a troubling example of Iranian meddling in the region and an indication that al-Assad isn’t interested in real reform.
Syria’s government and its state-run media have sought to cast the unrest as a foreign conspiracy perpetrated by armed gangs targeting security forces and civilians. Reform activists, however, say their movement is peaceful.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Another Friday of Protests in Syria Despite Assad’s Announcements
Demonstrations are taking place in a growing number of cities and villages. The president approves the new cabinet, but most of its members are from the old. He also announces the release of prisoners, but more people are being arrested. Among those who were freed, many talk about torture.
Beirut (AsiaNews) — Today was another Friday of blood and protest in Syria, despite President Assad’s continued attempts to placate the population by releasing some prisoners and promising reforms that do not materialise. News of demonstrations indicate that protests are spreading across the country.
Not only is the capital Damascus affected but so are cities like Aleppo, Banias, Douma, Daraa, Homs, al-Soueida, Deir al-Zour, al-Qamishli, Amouda, Derbesia, Derek, Seri Kanyeh and Ras al-Ain. Unconfirmed reports say that clashes have erupted in the village of Mohammadieh in Deir al-Zour after police tried to prevent residents from entering a mosque. One person was killed in the incident. People were also wounded in Latakia
Everywhere, people in the streets are shouting “freedom”. Security forces have been deployed in great numbers but despite attempts at dispersing the crowds, they appear to be holding back. Other reports indicate however, that they carried out many arrests.
For his part, Assad is still promoting the idea that he is making changes. Syria’s government-controlled media continue to focus on the country’s new government under Adel Safar, who was Agriculture minister in the previous cabinet. In fact, the key ministries (Foreign Affairs, Defence, Presidential Affairs, Communications and Technology) in the new government will be held by the same people who held them in the old cabinet.
Assad’s announcement that all protesters arrested in recent weeks would be released as long as they did not engage in any criminal act against the nation and the people could turn against him.
Not only can the authorities keep in jail anyone they want given the vagueness of the announcement, but they also face the possibility that the people they do let go might confirm allegations of torture made by Human Rights Watch.
The human rights organisation said in fact that 19 people jailed in Damascus, Deraa, Douma, al-Tal, Homs and Banias and their families have complained about torture. (PD)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: She is Not That French Actually
Muriel Marland-Militello (L) said her Armenian-Turkish family was saved in 1915 by their Muslim neighbors, who helped them escape from Turkey by boat.
The European parliamentarian the Turkish prime minister accused of being “foreign” to Turkey is actually of Armenian-Turkish origin and her mother is from Istanbul, the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review learned Thursday.
French parliamentarian Muriel Marland-Militello drew a sharp response from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan when she asked him a question about the protection of minorities in Turkey during his appearance before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, in Strasbourg.
Erdogan said he would like to invite Marland-Militello to visit Turkey, since she had perhaps not been closely following developments in the country and was speaking based on hearsay.
“In Turkish, when somebody does not know something or speaks out of context, it is said that they are from France. Mrs. Marland-Militello is clearly from France,” Erdogan said.
“The prime minister did not know my family was from Kadiköy, Istanbul. My mother was born in Turkey. She was an Orthodox Christian,” Marland-Militello told the Daily News in a telephone interview Thursday.
“I just think his answer to me was not a correct one. He just said I was French and I know that expression and what it means in Turkish. I know that it was not very nice expression,” she said. “The prime minister did not know my mother and my grandfather were both from Kadiköy.”
Family saved by Muslim neighbors
The parliamentarian said her Armenian-Turkish family was saved in 1915 by their Muslim neighbors, who helped them escape from Turkey by boat to France during a time when widespread civil strife in Turkey resulted in thousand of deaths.
“My family was saved by Turkish Muslims who liked my grandparents. They saved my family from death. I’ll never forget that. They helped my family get away from Istanbul,” she told the Daily News, adding that she learned Turkish culture very well from her mother and grandparents.
“My grandfather was called Sselean. And I always listened to my grandmother call him ‘Sselean Efendi.’ He was a Turkish man,” said Marland-Militello.
When the family escaped from Istanbul, the parliamentarian’s mother was 5 years old. Her grandfather, who owned a carpet factory, fled to Nice along with his two daughters. Her mother later married a man of Sicilian origin and Marland-Militello was born in Nice.
“I like Turkish culture. My grandmother spoke to me a lot about the Ottoman culture. She loved Turkish people. It was a pity that the prime minister spoke to me without knowing who I was and spoke to me as if I have never been to Turkey,” she said.
She said her grandmother told her that before 1915 it was not a problem to be a Christian or a Muslim in the Ottoman Empire. “They felt they were Turkish people. That was all for them. The problem came later,” she said.
Erdogan did not present a good image of Turkey in his response to questions from European lawmakers at PACE, according to Marland-Militello.
“Turkish people are not like that. They say the truth. Turkish people are a very great people, a very deep culture. The way the prime minister spoke is very shameful on him,” she said, adding that her question for Erdogan was not a bad question.
“I asked, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, give us the proof that there is an equality of every religion in Turkey,” she said. “I wanted him to say ‘Yes we do, we do have equality for every religion.’“
Erdogan’s ‘One Minute’ to Europe
The prime minister’s tough response to questions at the PACE session sent shockwaves through the European body and was reflected in the Turkish media as a second “one minute,” in reference to Erdogan’s outburst toward Israeli President Shimon Peres at the 2009 World Economic Forum.
Tiny Kox, a Dutch parliamentarian, was another PACE member who was reprimanded by the Turkish prime minister.
“I asked Mr. Erdogan [why] he did not live up to his promise to lower the 10 percent election threshold. That was the question and his answer was not good,” Kox told the Daily News. “He said that I should not be the one to tell him what to do. The fact that he did not answer disappointed me.”
Kox said he listened to Erdogan’s earlier addresses and found him “aggressive” and “too assertive” in his remarks to PACE. “I think the election campaign has already started in Turkey,” Kox said.
The parliamentarian said he later approached the Turkish prime minister during lunch. “He did not respond; he smiled, but he did not answer. That is not good,” he said.
“We are not teaching a lesson to Turkey and of course we should not, but my question was on why he did not keep the promises that he gave himself. The translation was excellent, I think, but the prime minister did not want to give an answer because it is a bit problematic,” Kox said. “Of course it is not easy to lower the threshold but I did not invent it. He promised this.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Captured on CCTV: Belarus Bomb Suspect Seen Carrying Device on to Packed Subway Train
Dramatic CCTV footage from Belarus has shown a man leaving a bag on a subway train before a bomb attack that killed 12 people this week.
More than 200 people were injured in Monday’s blast on the platform of the main subway station in the Belarussian capital Minsk and five people have now been arrested.
Authorities believe the bomb may have been remote-controlled after CCTV showed one suspect leaving a bag in the Oktyabrskaya subway station in central Minsk and feeling around for something in his pocket shortly before the explosion.
Three men were arrested yesterday, including a man in his mid-20s who the security services said was ‘not only unhealthy in his psychological state but unhealthy in his ambitions’.
Two further arrests were made today, bringing to five the number of suspects in the deadly subway bombing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Police Find ‘Underground Town’ of Migrant Workers
Moscow police have raided an old bomb shelter that illegal migrants working at a secret defense industry plant have turned into an underground village, complete with a shop and a mosque.
The shelter was located on the premises of the plant, not far from Mozhaiskoye Shosse in the city’s west, Lifenews.ru reported Thursday.
The place housed more than 110 people despite having an area of only 200 square meters, unidentified police officers who participated in the raid told the tabloid.
Most of the place was occupied by separate male and female dormitories with two-tier beds. The migrants cooked on the premises, despite the shelter having no ventilation system.
“We couldn’t have imagined that so many people could live in such a small area,” police told Lifenews.ru. “It stank so awful there you could faint.”
But some of the dormitories were actually well-tended, sporting television sets and clean bedsheets. Police said they were likely used by senior workers.
There were also shower booths, a shop and an improvised Muslim prayer room in the shelter, police spokesman Andrei Mishel said Thursday, RIA-Novosti reported.
The plant was fenced in by a four-meter blind concrete wall. A resident of the neighborhood told Lifenews.ru that the migrants were rumored to be banned from leaving the premises.
Police said the factory in question produced blades and needles for sewing machines, but Lifenews.ru said it was only a cover-up, and the plant actually made missile complexes for the Defense Ministry.
The workers, most of them Uzbek natives, were qualified for high-level defense industry jobs, the report said.
Nevertheless, most of the migrants are facing deportation to their motherland, while 16 are being investigated for possible involvement in various crimes committed in Moscow, RIA-Novosti said.
The plant’s director, whose name has been withheld, may face numerous criminal charges, including organizing illegal migration, which carries a maximum term of two years in prison, the report said.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Hero Soldier Tells of Tackling Suspected Suicide Bomber Who Was Escaping on a Motorbike
A soldier was hailed a hero after he leapt from his vehicle to tackle a suspected suicide bomber escaping on a motorbike.
Private Lee Stephens made the courageous move after his company came under fire from a group of insurgents.
The brave intervention turned out to be even more vital as it emerged the captured man was the highest-ranking Taliban taken by regular British forces.
But the drama did not end there as the soldiers then found themselves caught up in a ‘Mexican stand-off’ with Afghans who demanded they hand over the prisoner.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Dhaka: First Encounter Between Christian Community and “Heretical” Ahmadiyya
The bilateral conference, sponsored by the ecumenical movement “Shalom”, the theme will be the Ahmadiyya motto “Love for all, hatred for none”. “An experience of knowledge”, as defined by Fr. Rapacioli (PIME), one of the founders and leaders of Shalom. The Ahmadiyya are considered “infidels” by Sunni Islam.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The first meeting between the Ahmadiyya and Christian communities of the Dhaka will be held tomorrow afternoon, in a bilateral conference organized by the “Shalom” movement. “An experience of knowledge”, as defined by Fr. Francesco Rapacioli, one of the founders and leaders of Shalom. In this case, of a controversial community “victim of strong discrimination.” The Ahmadiyya is a Muslim religious movement, regarded as “heretical” by Sunni Islam’. The community’s headquarters in Dhaka will host the meeting.
“In itself the Ahmadiyya — says Fr Rapacioli to AsiaNews — rose to prominence a few years ago for being persecuted by fundamentalists who termed them ‘infidels’, asking the government to declare this community as un-Islamic and banned all of their publications”.
Conferences like this are one of the activities promoted by “Shalom.” “The idea behind it — he says — is exchanging knowledge: to get to know the community, give them the opportunity to meet Christians, hoping to lay the groundwork for a potential and possible collaboration. For that past 5-6 years, every year, we meet a different group, usually almost or completely unknown to the Christian community, and vice versa. “
The organization of the meetings is up to both communities: creating a small committee which meets and decides the theme of the event, then draws up a letter of invitation signed by two representatives, sent to both communities. “The theme will generally be something that relates to both communities and allows for a first approach. With the Ahmadiyya community — says Fr Rapacioli — we have chosen as their theme the motto, ‘Love for all, hatred for none’: a message that challenges the Christian community closely, so it intrigues us share our point of view and learn about them”. In the past, the theme for the meeting Hindus was our relationship with God, while that of the Buddhist’s was compassion.
Fr. Rapacioli believes it will be “long and complicated meeting, precisely because it is a first approach, but crucial to understand what kind of community we have in front of us, and also to make them understand a bit ‘better who Christians are.” It remains, he repeats, “an experience of knowledge.” Perhaps with “further development, as we would like, or simply a briefing.”
“Shalom” was born in October 2005. Its founders and leaders are, as well as Fr. Francesco Rapacioli, PIME missionary, also Fr. Guillaume, a Dutch Monk from the community of Taizé working in Bangladesh for over 30 years, and the Anglican Rev. Birbal Halder. It is a movement born from the bottom up, from people belonging to different Christian denominations who want to promote peace through ecumenical, interreligious and intercultural dialogue. (GM)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Deadly Mosque Blast Strikes Central Java Province
(AKI/Jakarta Post) — A bomb exploded in a mosque in the Java port city of Cirebon on Friday, kiling at least one person and injuring at least 15 others.
The bomb exploded when the mosque congregation, mainly comprising police officers, was performing their Friday prayers.
According to a report on tempointeraktif.com, the injured victims were transferred to the Pelabuna Cirebon Hospital and Tentara Cermai Hospital.
According to a Metro TV news report, the dead victim is believed to have been the bomber. One of the injured victims was the chief of Cirebon Police.
Police are investigating the attack.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Meet Abdul: A Symbol of City’s Renewal
His name is Abdul, and he’s part of the good news for Buffalo. He and hundreds like him, and others to come, are rays of hope for a de-populating city.
I ran into him Monday afternoon, at the corner of Sycamore and Sobieski on the East Side. He is 40, a stocky guy with a graying beard, wearing a traditional Muslim kuficap. Born in Pakistan, he moved here a few months ago with his wife and three children, following relatives who came before him.
“The living is cheap here,” said Abdul, who asked that I not use his full name. “It is a wonderful little community, on these blocks. . . . If you had more jobs, even more people would come.”
A century ago, his name was Antonio or Stanislaus or Hans or Patrick. Abdul and those like him are the present-day version of the first-generation Germans and Italians and Poles and Irish who in the 19th century flowed into Buffalo. They were followed post-World War II by Southern blacks drawn by the auto and steel plants.
The recent census showed that the city’s population dropped by 31,338 over the last decade. If there’s a bright side to Buffalo’s emptying, it’s that the door is open for new immigrants such as Abdul. They are law-abiding, hardworking and like that Buffalo’s houses and apartments come cheap.
On a half-dozen blocks, Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and the Middle East are carving an immigrant oasis from a ghetto. Most of the women you’ll see on the streets bordered by Broadway, Sycamore, Fillmore and Rother wear burqas. Within walking distance are three mosques, two Muslim grade schools and a couple of Muslimowned corner stores.
“People here are addicted to this place, even with the [winter] weather,” Abdul told me. “People say, ‘We are out of stress in Buffalo.’We have a wonderful little community here.”
The immigrant faces change; the story stays the same.
“If something happens to anyone,” he said, “if someone gets sick, everyone comes together to try to help.”
As he spoke, two Muslim women walked past, one fully covered in black, the other wearing a headscarf. They waited at the corner for the bus to drop off their kids from school. The newcomers are buying houses, fixing property, erasing the scars on battered streets. It is a self-contained, low-crime, comfortable community.
“You come here at 11 o’clock at night, and you will see women walking down the street,” Abdul said. “Myself and other parents, we let out children go out with their bicycles. It is safe here, on these blocks.”
If Buffalo is going to get back on its feet, it will rise on the backs of Abdul and folks like him. Lots of them. It doesn’t matter if they wear burqas or colorful Somali robes or loose-fitting Burmese pants. They want a better life for themselves and for their kids—and they will work hard to get it.
The newcomers to the American Dream like the way it looks and feels and tastes. They are, largely on their own, succeeding where decades of government programs and master plans failed —by reversing inner-city blight.
The Muslims on these streets have an ever-expanding stake in a neighborhood that people have been fleeing for decades.
“People here are looking for cheap houses,” said Abdul, a deliveryman who aspires to drive a cab. “They buy [at the city auction] and fix them up and rent them out. I know someone who has five of them.”
A lot of people have left Buffalo. Abdul couldn’t wait to get here.
“And more people,” he said, “are coming in.”
I have a one-word message for Abdul and anyone like him: Welcome.
| — Hat tip: MS | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Multan: Threats Against Christian Nurse for Condemning Qur’an Burning and Church Attacks
Waris Masih and his family have been forced to flee their home. He strongly condemned attacks against both Islam and Christianity. By contrast, for his Muslim colleagues, burning churches and Bibles is legitimate. Pakistani clergyman urges the West to think about the consequences of its actions. Seven incidents of anti-Christian violence follow the burning of a copy of the Qur’an.
Lahore (AsiaNews) — Pakistan’s Christian community continues to be the object of intimidation and threats as well as abuse and harassment on the workplace. The latest victim is Waris Masih, a male nurse in Multan, a city in Punjab who was assaulted at work for slamming both the burning of a copy of the Qur’an in Florida (United States) and attacks against churches in Pakistan. Since 20 March, at least seven acts of violence have been perpetrated against Christians and their places of worship, in a country where extremists are riding a wave of interfaith hatred.
In the past few weeks, health care workers at the Multan Development Authority have been involved in heated arguments. Waris Masih, a Christian male nurse, condemned the burning of the Qur’an in Florida, but he also condemned attacks against churches in Pakistan. His views led to a furious debate with his colleagues who hailed attacks against Christian places of worship and the desecration of a Bible on 8 April by one Akhtar Hussain, 24, in front of the Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church.
On Tuesday, following another fight with Masih, his boss attacked the Christian health care worker and then threatened him. The next day, a group of fanatics stopped Masih, beat him up and told him to leave town or he would receive exemplary punishment.
After going home, he found out that his family had also been threatened. That night, Masih and his family left and their whereabouts have been unknown for the past two days.
The case of the Christian nurse is the seventh example of recent anti-Christian violence. The escalation started when Rev Wayne Sapp burnt a copy of the Qur’an under the supervision of Evangelical preacher Terry Jones on 20 March in Florida. Christian leaders in Pakistan and India strongly condemned the action several times because it was carried out by an American who had nothing to do with Pakistani Christians. Nevertheless, the reaction among Muslim fundamentalists was swift; in a few days, they attacked three churches and killed two people.
Similarly, workplace discrimination is commonplace in Pakistan. Last month sanitation workers in Lahore asked for some time off to mark Lent, the way Muslims do during the month of Ramadan. The deputy director of sanitation responded by attacking them and increasing their workload from eight to ten hours. On 9 April, a Lutheran church in Mardan, in Khyber province, was attacked with damages to the building. On one was injured.
“The growing hatred towards Christians has become a serious problem in Pakistan,” said Fr Joseph Xavier speaking to AsiaNews. Burning the Qur’an added fuel to the fire.
“Even though Christians strongly condemned the act, they are seen as agents of the US government, which is something totally wrong,” the priest said.
“We have condemned Terry Jones’ actions on several occasion,” he added. However, the West should “think twice before acting” since “innocent Christians pay the consequences of their actions”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Two French Terror Suspects Arrested in Lahore
(AKI) — Security agents in the eastern city of Pakistani city Lahore have arrested two French nationals suspected of belonging to an international terror group, French and Pakistani sources said late Thursday.
The pair, who have not been identified publicly, were arrested at a bus stop in the Lahore in late January after going there from the airport with a man identified as Tahir Shehzad, a Pakistani intelligence official said.
The Frenchmen are suspected of being part of the group responsible for the bloody attacks in Bali, Indonesia in 2002 that killed 202 people, the worst terror attack in Indonesia, according to Pakistani security officials, who requested anonymity.
The terror group is allegedly headed by Indonesian Umar Patek, is suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda and was himself arrested recently in Pakistan following a ten-year manhunt that involved cooperation with the CIA.
The Frenchmen had intended to travel with Patek to Pakistan’s North Waziristan region where top Al-Qaida commanders are based, the Pakistani officials said.
France has asked the Pakistani authorities for permission to visit the two detainees, a representative at the French embassy in Islamabad told media.
It was not immediately clear if the men were suspected of plotting a terror attack. One of the French citizens is of Pakistani origin and the other is a convert to Islam, the Pakistani official said.
There are an estimated five million Muslims in France, Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. To Provide Military Grade Radios to African Union
Aussie-made technology sidesteps export controls
Restrictions on the export of military-grade radio communications systems are only temporarily delaying plans within the Department of Defense to get such equipment into the hands of regional African organizations — specifically the African Union, whose member-nations include states currently banned from receiving such equipment.
It appears the solution to this obstacle is for the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) to navigate its way around Department of State export controls, according to a document obtained via federal contracting database research.
AFRICOM and the Defense Information Systems Agency will accomplish this by awarding a sole-source contract to CODAN, Inc., which has operations in Australia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada: Assimilation Was Never Intended
The truth may be shocking for some, but I feel a frank but honest discussion is more healthy than being polite but hypocritical: For many of the Chinese in Vancouver, becoming Canadian was never a reason why we moved here, nor do we have the desire to do so. Rather, we see ourselves as Chinese expatriates, living in Canada for a short-term purpose, be it providing our kids to an easier education environment, setting up a business, or even just taking a long vacation.
Much like many Canadians who spend some years living overseas and eventually return to their homeland, a lot of us would just spend several years in Canada and eventually return to Asia. With that mindset in mind, it would be silly to think that many expatriates would actually take the effort and learn a foreign language, in this case English.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Calls for Pushing Migrants at Sea Back to Tunisia
Boats from the European Union’s border patrol mission Frontex should send migrants found at sea straight back to Tunisia, rather than take them to Italy for identification, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon suggested on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Groningen Shooter’s Nationality ‘Unknown’
The man who shot dead a police officer and allegedly battered a young woman to death is a failed asylum seeker who cannot be deported because his nationality is unknown, police confirmed on Thursday evening.
The 25-year-old, known as Alasam S, was also known to the police, the Telegraaf reported. He is currently in hospital being treated for bullet wounds after police shot him five times in the leg as he tried to escape.
Local police chief Oscar Dros told a news conference the force had been shocked at the death of the 48-year-old officer who tried to stop Alasam S at the station after an alert had gone out for his arrest. The officer was in plain clothes at the time and was apparently shot with his own gun.
The shooting took place in the Groningen village of Baflo, which has a population of 1,800 and is described as a ‘close knit’ community.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
PM is Urged to Sack Cable as Immigration Splits Coalition After Lib Dem Says Cameron’s Speech ‘Will Inflame Extremism’
David Cameron was forced to brush aside Tory demands to sack Vince Cable last night after he launched an unprecedented assault on the Prime Minister over immigration.
The Liberal Democrat Business Secretary triggered the biggest coalition rift to date as he accused Mr Cameron of inflaming extremism ahead of local elections next month.
In a major speech to party activists yesterday, the Prime Minister said ‘the largest influx of people Britain has ever had’ had caused ‘discomfort and disjointedness’ in many communities.
But Mr Cable dismissed the tough stance on immigration as ‘very unwise’ and claimed Mr Cameron’s pledge to reduce the number of migrants to the levels of the 1990s was not government policy.
He said: ‘The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement. It is Tory party policy only.
‘I do understand there is an election coming, but talk of mass immigration risks inflaming the extremism to which he and I are both strongly opposed.’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: One in Every Eight People Now Living in UK Was Born Abroad
Nearly one in every eight people living in the UK was born abroad, figures have revealed.
The staggering statistic has been brought about by the biggest wave of immigration in history.
In just two decades the percentage of the UK population born overseas almost doubled to over 11 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This means that just under seven million people living in Britain are immigrants — enough to fill a city the size of London.
The figures, reported in the Daily Telegraph, were released as David Cameron warned that uncontrolled immigration had affected certain British communities and caused ‘disjointedness and discomfort’ in neighbourhoods.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
California Senate Bill Mandates Gay History in Schools
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people would be added to the lengthy list of social and ethnic groups that public schools must include in social studies lessons under a landmark bill passed Thursday by the California Senate.
If the bill is adopted by the state Assembly and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, California would become the first state to require the teaching of gay history.
Supporters say the move is needed to counter anti-gay stereotypes and beliefs that make children in those groups vulnerable to bullying and suicide.
Opponents counter that such instruction would further burden an already crowded curriculum and expose students to a subject that some parents find objectionable.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
March Madness (In April): Now Elf ‘N’ Safety Bans 400-Yard Easter Parade
Every year the Christians from different churches get together to march a 400-yard route to celebrate Easter. But this year their Good Friday parade has been banned — because it breaches health and safety laws. Church leaders say town hall bureaucrats are refusing Christians rights routinely afforded to minority groups, and have vowed to defy them.
Previously organisers of the parade in Willesden, north London, had only needed to inform police of their route. But new red tape means they now need permission from Brent Council. Officials said they banned the procession because they were contacted too late to carry out a ‘consultation’ to close the roads.
Father Hugh MacKenzie, of St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, said: ‘The rights of Christians are being overlooked in favour of the rights of Islamic groups and gay rights organisations. ‘One does wonder whether if it was a homosexual rights or Islamic group the council would have been more flexible, as it doesn’t seem like rocket science to permit us to walk 400 metres. The rights of Christians are just not respected in Britain.’
Church leaders have vowed to walk in the road anyway carrying a cross, a painting of Jesus washing followers’ feet and other religious symbols. Brent Council hosts a Diwali street celebration every year. Last November it boasted it had held the biggest Diwali event in the country, after more than 60,000 people turned out. And in July last year the council appealed to the Muslim community to notify it of any Eid events so it could promote them free of charge.
But it did not do the same for other religious festivals. Last night former Home Office minister — and devout Christian — Ann Widdecombe said: ‘Don’t Brent Council know about Easter? These processions will be taking place all over the country on Good Friday, it’s part of our tradition. ‘It’s ridiculous and petty that a group cannot walk 400 yards. Why should they need special permission to do that?’
Every Easter for 13 years, about 200 worshippers from four churches — the New Testament Church of God, St Andrew’s Church of England, St Mary Magdalen and Willesden Green Baptist Church — have marched before celebrating communion together. Father MacKenzie said: ‘It is a long-standing tradition in the area. It is a chance for us to get together.
‘The idea of tolerating the major religions, particularly the Christian religion which has been at the heart of our civilisation, and our right to express ourselves in this moderate way is a very basic aspect of religious freedom.’
Last night Brent Council told the worshippers to walk on the pavement. A spokesman added: ‘Brent Council was not contacted about the march until around a week ago.
‘There is a strict legal procedure we have to follow to issue a traffic order closing roads so people can march in the highway, which includes advertising and consultation, and this takes about five weeks. We are very sorry to say there is now not enough time for us to legally facilitate this march.’
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Red Tape Casting Doubts Over London Churches’ Good Friday Procession
Churches in north-west London say their plans for a Good Friday procession are being scuppered by the local council’s refusal to grant them permission to march on the roads.
The New Testament Church of God, St Andrew’s Church of England, St Mary Magdalen and Willesden Green Baptist Church were granted permission to hold a procession but were told by Brent Council that they would only be allowed to march on the pavements. With hundreds of people from their congregations expected to participate, the churches say that keeping to the pavements is “unrealistic” and likely to disrupt pedestrians. They fear that unless the local council grants permission for the procession to take place on the roads they may be forced to call off the annual celebration out of concern for the health and safety of marchers and pedestrians. In previous years, the churches have held the procession on the roads using their own officers to control the traffic.
Sarah Teather, Lib Dem MP for Brent Central, has written to Brent Council asking them to reconsider their decision and allow participants of the Good Friday March to walk on the roads. She said: “It is important that the Good Friday procession is allowed to take place on the roads. Brent is a multicultural area. The turnout at the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade shows that many people appreciate the celebrations of cultures other than their own. I have written to Brent Council asking them to reconsider their decision to make the Good Friday procession take place on the pavement. This provision is not only impractical, but also does not allow the people of Brent to fully enjoy the event.”
The march is due to set off at 1pm from the Convent of Jesus and Mary Infant School on Park Avenue and end at 2pm at St Andrew’s Church of England on St Andrew’s Road.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ants, Spiders and Cockroaches: Saving the World…One Mouthful at a Time
Westerners might get a bit queasy when they think about eating locusts, spiders or ants, but they make up delicacies and key sources of protein in much of the world. A new movement is trying to bring them onto Western plates in an effort to save the environment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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