Bundesbank Boss Warns Greece to Reform
Germany’s new central bank president Jens Weidmann warned debt-laden Greece that international creditors will pull out aid if it fails to pursue painful cuts to tackle its huge deficit as promised.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ECB Tries to Squash ‘Fruitless’ EU Plans for Greece
European Central Bank executives struggled last week to parry European Union plans to aid Greece via potentially risky schemes that could see Athens declared in default on its sovereign debt.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Asks Italy for New Measures to Combat Debt
Reforms needed to tackle ‘structural weaknesses’ in the economy
(ANSA) — Brussels, June 7 — The European Commission on Tuesday told Italy that it needed to adopt further, concrete measures to reduce the country’s deficit and debt as well as reforms to tackle “structural weaknesses” in the nation’s economy.
In a series of recommendations, the European Union’s executive said that while Rome’s program for the economy appeared “plausible” for this year and next, Rome needed to adopt new, “specific” measures by this October in order to ensure that it meet its fiscal targets in 2013 and 2014.
Italy must also be ready to act swiftly to avoid any risk of not meeting its targets this year and next.
According to the European Commission, Italy will be able to stimulate growth and create jobs, even in the economically depressed south or Mezzogiorno, only if it takes bold action in 2011 and 2012.
These measures included placing a ceiling on public spending, stimulating the labor market, creating greater competition in the services sector and bolstering policies in support of innovation and research in order to better exploit financing from EU structural funds.
Because of excessive red tape involved in setting up business enterprises, above all in the Mezzogiorno, Italy is not taking advantage of the opportunities offered by these funds, the Commission said.
Between 2007 and 2013, Italy will use an average of only 16.8% of available EU funds, a percentage which is even less in regard to the south, the executive added.
European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, who is responsible in the executive for industrial affairs, defended Italy saying it had “embarked on the right path” but admitted that Rome “must now respect the commitments it has made by pushing through measures needed for growth”.
According to Tajani, the EU executive had “recognised the efforts we have made towards reducing the deficit and debt” and he added that Italy was not alone in needing to adopt “further measures” to meet fiscal objective and stimulate growth and development.
In Tajani’s view, Italy needed to enhance flexibility in the labor market, shift the weight of taxation from earnings to consumption and offer greater possibilities for growth for small and medium-sized enterprises, ensuring them greater access to credit and cutting red tape.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: The Fed’s $600 Billion Stealth Bailout of Foreign Banks Continues at the Expense of the Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All the QE2 Money Went
In summary, instead of doing everything in its power to stimulate reserve, and thus cash, accumulation at domestic (US) banks which would in turn encourage lending to US borrowers, the Fed has been conducting yet another stealthy foreign bank rescue operation, which rerouted $600 billion in capital from potential borrowers to insolvent foreign financial institutions in the past 7 months. QE2 was nothing more (or less) than another European bank rescue operation!
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Investigates ‘Major Breach’ of IMF Security as Fund Comes Under Cyberattack
The FBI has been called in as the International Monetary Fund has come under a ‘serious and sophisticated’ cyberattack.
The scale of the hacking is still unknown — but the confidential information held by the IMF has the potential to move markets.
Should it fall into the wrong hands and become public, the results could trigger political and economic chaos.
One expert said the goal of the attack was to establish a ‘digital insider presence’ for a nation inside the fund’s network.
[…]
The IMF manages financial crises around the world — such as the currency crisis currently gripping much of Europe.
It receives highly confidential information about the fiscal condition of many nations that, if revealed, could prove disastrous.
Its database also contains the negotiations between national leaders on the terms of international bailouts — negotiations that are often held behind the scenes.
One official told the New York Times such agreements, if publicised, are ‘political dynamite in many countries’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece “About to Sink”, Turkey’s President Says
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JUNE 9 — Greece could soon go bankrupt due to the crushing interest payments it is being forced to pay as part of an international restructuring plan, daily Hurriyet website reports today quoting Turkish President Abdullah Gul as saying to a group of Istanbul minibus drivers during an impromptu conversation Wednesday. “As you know, we are going to European countries frequently. They really envy Turkey,” said the president. “Greece is about to go bankrupt. If someone’s ability to pay is weak, they demand high interest. If the ability to pay is high, the interest demanded is low.” Responding to a driver’s question at the Tarabya minibus stop after attending a funeral on Wednesday, Gul said the current stability in Turkey was “of key importance.” Greek 10-year government bonds were yielding above 16.6% at 2:20 p.m.
Thursday, compared to just above 3% for similar maturity German bonds. Germany is also concerned that qualified Turkish-Germans “are returning to Turkey” these days, Gul said, according to media reports.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IMF Becomes Latest Known Target of Major Cyber Attack
WASHINGTON/BOSTON, June 12, 2011 (Reuters) — The International Monetary Fund, the intergovernmental group that oversees the global financial system and brings together 187 member nations, has become the latest known target of a significant cyber attack.
A cybersecurity expert who has worked for both the Washington-headquartered IMF and the World Bank, its sister institution, said the intruders’ goal had been to install software that would give a nation-state a “digital insider presence” on the IMF network. Such a presence could yield a trove of non-public economic data used by the Fund to promote exchange rate stability, support balanced international trade and provide resources to remedy members’ balance-of-payments crises. “It was a targeted attack,” said Tom Kellerman, who has worked for both international financial institutions and who serves on the board of a group known as the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Public Healthcare Deficit Almost 10 Bln Euros
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JUNE 9 — Spain’s public healthcare debt rose to 9.4 billion euros in the first six months of 2011, an 11% increase on December 2010, according to Farmaindustria figures published today in El Pais. Of the accumulated deficit, 4.3 billion euros concern healthcare materials and 5.191 billion pharmaceuticals. Regional administrations are also on average over a year late in paying for healthcare and laboratory supplies, a period much longer than the 50 days set by law for public sector contracts. Over the past three years, the volume of pending invoices has doubled and the average time for paying off pharmaceutical debts rose by more than 60%, according to the data by the Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology Enterprises. In some regions the delay in payment is close to two years, such as in Castilla y Leon, which has a healthcare deficit of 950 million euros and is almost 725 days late in the payment of supplies; Murcia, which has an accumulated debt of 865 million euros and has arrears of up to 667 days to pay off debts; the Valencian community, with a deficit of 1.7 billion euros in pharmaceuticals and healthcare technology and about 645 days to pay off debts; and Andalusia, with 2.35 billion in debt and an average payment time of 659 days.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Unwind Begins: Eurogroup President Juncker Redirects From a Broke Europe by Throwing US and Japan Under the Insolvency Bus: “the Debt Level of the USA is Disastrous”
The first rule of media (especially when dealing with an idiot audience that has a 7 second attention span): when all else fails, redirect. That’s precisely what Eurogroup president, and certified, sanctimonious, pompous liar, Jean-Claude Juncker just did today, as it is becoming increasingly clear that nobody in Europe has any clue just what the Greek bailout #2 will look like now that the ECB and Germany are at polar opposites on how to proceed, the ECB thinks it is a rating agency and can dictate what an Event of Default is, and German bankers are willing to cede to private involvement in the bailout, but in a way that is voluntary. The problem is that these three are very much mutually exclusive. So what does Juncker go ahead and do — he redirects to highlighting the problems of the US: “The debt level of the USA is disastrous,” Mr. Juncker said. “The real problem is that no one can explain well why the euro zone is in the epicenter of a global financial challenge at a moment, at which the fundamental indicators of the euro zone are substantially better than those of the U.S. or Japanese economy.” That may well be the defining moment: by now everyone knows that the global economy is a massive pyramid scheme. Yet to this point, those in control have at least kept their mouths shut. However, when in order to explain one’s insolvency, those at the very top of the control pyramid have no other choice than to point out just how broke others are (when in reality it is all one big, interconnected, “globalized” and truly insolvent Ponzi), then the unwind has begin.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bipolar Kids: Victims of the ‘Madness Industry’?
Also known as manic depression, this serious condition, involving dramatic mood swings, is increasingly being recorded in American children. And a vast number of them are being medicated for it.
The problem is, this apparent epidemic isn’t real. “Bipolar emerges from late adolescence,” says Ian Goodyer, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge who studies child and adolescent depression. “It is very, very unlikely indeed that you’ll find it in children under 7 years.”
How did this strange, sweeping misdiagnosis come to pass? How did it all start? These were some of the questions I explored when researching The Psychopath Test, my new book about the odder corners of the “madness industry”.
The answer to the second question turned out to be strikingly simple. It was really all because of one man: Robert Spitzer.
[…]
Spitzer grew up to be a psychiatrist at Columbia University, New York, his dislike of psychoanalysis remaining undimmed. And then, in 1973, an opportunity to change everything presented itself. There was a job going editing the next edition of a little-known spiral-bound booklet called DSM — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
DSM is simply a list of all the officially recognised mental illnesses and their symptoms. Back then it was a tiny book that reflected the Freudian thinking predominant in the 1960s. It had very few pages, and very few readers.
What nobody knew when they offered Spitzer the job was that he had a plan: to try to remove human judgement from psychiatry. He would create a whole new DSM that would eradicate all that crass sleuthing around the unconscious; it hadn’t helped his mother. Instead it would be all about checklists. Any psychiatrist could pick up the manual, and if the patient’s symptoms tallied with the checklist for a particular disorder, that would be the diagnosis.
For six years Spitzer held editorial meetings at Columbia. They were chaos. The psychiatrists would yell out the names of potential new mental disorders and the checklists of their symptoms. There would be a cacophony of voices in assent or dissent — the loudest voices getting listened to the most. If Spitzer agreed with those proposing a new diagnosis, which he almost always did, he’d hammer it out instantly on an old typewriter. And there it would be, set in stone.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Federal Prosecutor and Member of the US House of Representatives Says “E-Verify” Is a Stealth National ID
For years, politicians have been preying on the American people’s fears of terrorism and the hysteria over illegal immigration, to push for a national ID. Concerns with government snooping and citizen privacy have taken a back seat to these efforts. Now, they’re at it again. In the late 1990s a national identification provision was included in an illegal immigration “reform” bill; it was later repealed. Then, in 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the REAL ID Act as part of an “emergency” supplemental military spending bill… The latest stealth attack by the feds to implement a de facto national identification system, however, lurks in the E-Verify program, designed to “assist” employers in determining the work eligibility of a prospective employee. This program was designed to help prevent illegal aliens from obtaining employment in the United States.
[…]
Members of Congress are pushing to have the E-Verify program mandated in all 50 states. As explained by Harper, employers would not be allowed to opt-out of this “cardless” national ID system.
“[N]ot having data in the E-Verify databases means not having legal work, so ‘participation’ in E-Verify can be fairly called practically required. Second, try to opt out of the system and you will meet a dead end,” Harper wrote at the Cato Institute’s blog earlier this month. He added that E-Verify is “legally required if the state or federal governments have got your identity data.”
In addition to verifying Social Security numbers of prospective hires, E-Verify would meet the final requirement for a de facto national identification system, by allowing the federal government to gain access to state databases; ostensibly allowing access to other identifiers, including the photo on your state-issued driver’s license.
There are other potentially troublesome consequences if this federal program is expanded. As Harper notes, “E-Verify can be put to use in regulating access to health care and housing, in gun control and registration, in monitoring travel and lodging — the list goes on and on.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kansas: Muslim Driver Hits, Kills Man, Drives for Three Miles With Corpse on the Roof of His Van
New York City cabdriver Mohammed Azam ran over two of his passengers for no apparent reason. Another cabbie, Hassan Daly, who was described as a “devout Muslim,” plowed his cab into a crowd on a sidewalk in San Diego, injuring over 24 people. Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar explicitly grounded his hit-and-run in the teachings of the Koran. Munir Muthana told the police who arrested him that “the Muslims will fix this country.” Omeed Aziz Popal, we were told, was suffering from stress from an arranged marriage. Ismail Yassin Mohamed, we were informed, was mentally ill, suffered from depression, and hadn’t being taking his medication. And Muhammad Teshale, according to “law enforcement officials,” “did it to be famous.”
Coincidence or jihad? Certainly there are a lot of hit-and-run and incidents involving people hit by cars that have nothing to do with Muslims, but in the cases listed here there is a degree of intentionality in these that we do not usually see.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New York: Maniac Slash Attack in Supermarket Meat Aisle
A crazed man made a Pathmark meat aisle extra bloody this morning when he plunged a knife into an elderly shopper’s neck, allegedly after the perpetrator stepped on the victim’s foot, police and store employees said.
Abdullah Mohammed, 51, of 125th Street, was at the Harlem supermarket yesterday morning when he started arguing loudly at the customer service desk with William Perry, 70, a former truck driver. Perry was at the desk buying Lotto tickets when Mohammed stepped on his foot, irking the older man, according to his older brother, Charles Perry.
Mohammed, who was clad in a peach linen suit, was booted out of the store, but stormed back in minutes later and cornered Perry in the meat aisle, two employees said. He then allegedly whipped out a razor and slashed Perry across the neck.
“People ran out of the store. One guy was screaming, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like this,’“ said Rafael Feliciano, a repairman who witnessed the melee.
A heroic store employee tackled Mohammed and subdued him until the police responded to the meat aisle melee, cops said. Mohammed was dragged out of the supermarket screaming “at everyone around him,” Feliciano said.
Mohammed was arrested and charged with assault in the first degree. Perry was taken to Harlem Hospital and was likely to survive his injuries, police said.
“He’s a coward and … didn’t fight fair,” Charles Perry said from his brother’s hospital bed.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
P.C. Washington State Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction
In 2007, Kevin L. Monday Jr. was convicted for the murder of Francisco Green and received 64 years in prison. The incident ad been caught on a 3-minute video recording shot by a street performer, and the footage clearly showed Monday coolly and calculatingly firing 11 shots at Green on a crowded Seattle, Washington, street corner. Thus, despite the reluctance of witnesses to testify, it was an open-and-shut case.
But now the Washington Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, has overturned the conviction and a lower court that upheld it — thus forcing a retrial — claiming that the prosecutor used “racist” arguments. What is the supposed problem? While questioning witnesses, veteran King County deputy prosecutor James Konat cited a no-snitching street code in the black community and made references to the “PO-leese.” Writes Jennifer Sullivan of The Washington Times:
During the trial, Konat questioned witnesses, many of them black, about a purported street “code” that he claimed prevented some from talking to the police, according to the Supreme Court’s majority opinion written by Justice Tom Chambers. In questioning some witnesses, Konat made references to the “PO-leese,” the justices found.
During his closing argument to jurors, Konat also said that while witnesses denied the presence of such a code, “the code is black folk don’t testify against black folk. You don’t snitch to the police…”
Question: Can something be “racist” if it’s true? The street code in question isn’t just “purported”; it is real. And everyone, save the most sheltered and culturally naïve, knows of its existence. But I guess that the truth, if dare uttered today, will set criminals free.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pro-Strauss-Kahn T-Shirts on Sale on the Internet
(AGI) Nancy — Three students in Nancy are selling T-shirts on the Internet supporting Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Strauss-Kahn was arrested three weeks ago in New York charged with rape. The students, all of them in their twenties, have already sold 500 T-shirts featuring slogans like “I seduced her and she said ‘yes’“ accompanied by the picture of a pair of handcuffs, and “No jail for DSK” where the ‘i’ is replaced by a feather duster like the one used by hotel maids.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sarah Palin Email Frenzy Backfires on Her Media Antagonists
The trove of more than 13,000 emails detailing almost every aspect of Sarah Palin’s governorship of Alaska, released late on Friday, paints a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics.
One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.
If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as “an embarrassment for legacy media”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Seattle Murder Conviction Tossed Out Over ‘Racist’ Comments
The state Supreme Court has thrown out a man’s murder conviction in a 2006 gang-related shooting in Pioneer Square, ruling that the prosecutor who tried the case resorted to “racist arguments” to attack defense witnesses.
The state Supreme Court has thrown out a man’s murder conviction in a 2006 gang-related shooting in Pioneer Square, ruling that the prosecutor who tried the case resorted to “racist arguments” to attack defense witnesses.
The court, in an 8-1 ruling, found that James Konat, a veteran King County deputy prosecutor now trying a high-profile murder case, engaged in “prosecutorial misconduct” in questioning witnesses during the trial of Kevin L. Monday Jr., who was convicted in 2007 of first-degree murder and first-degree assault, and sentenced to 64 years in prison.
During the trial, Konat questioned witnesses, many of them black, about a purported street “code” that he claimed prevented some from talking to the police, according to the Supreme Court’s majority opinion written by Justice Tom Chambers. In questioning some witnesses, Konat made references to the “PO-leese,” the justices found.
During his closing argument to jurors, Konat also said that while witnesses denied the presence of such a code, “the code is black folk don’t testify against black folk. You don’t snitch to the police,” according to the Supreme Court decision.
Monday, 25, is black; Konat is white.
Monday appealed the conviction on a number of grounds, claiming that Konat “made a blatant and inappropriate appeal to racial prejudice and undermined the credibility of African-American witnesses based on their race,” according to the Supreme Court.
The state Court of Appeals agreed that Konat had appealed to racial prejudice during the trial, but upheld Monday’s conviction.
But the Supreme Court, in Thursday’s ruling, cited Konat’s comments as grounds for the conviction to be overturned, saying that they cast doubt on the credibility of the witnesses based on their race. One justice called the deputy prosecutor’s comments “repugnant.”
“Defendants are among the people the prosecutor represents. The prosecutor owes a duty to defendants to see that their rights to a constitutionally fair trial are not violated,” Chambers wrote.
“The State repeatedly invoked an alleged African American, anti-snitch code to discount the credibility of his own witnesses … it is deeply troubling that an experienced prosecutor who, by his own account, had been a prosecutor for 18 years would resort to such tactics,” the ruling said.
The justices contend that the only reason that Konat used the pronunciation “PO-leese” was to “subtly, and likely deliberately, call to the jury’s attention that the witness was African American.”
Justice James M. Johnson, the lone dissenter, said that even if Konat’s comments “arguably tainted the jury’s impressions,” the murder case still was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Seattle police said that Monday fired at least 10 shots at Francisco Roche Green near the corner of Yesler Way and Occidental Avenue South in the early hours of April 22, 2006. Monday was also accused of firing gunshots at a vehicle and wounding the driver and a passenger. The incident was caught on video by a street musician who was in the area when shots were fired.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said he spoke with Konat after the trial and told him his comments were unacceptable. In response, all deputy prosecutors have been through retraining about potential prosecutorial misconduct, Satterberg said on Thursday.
Konat, 53, could not be reached Thursday to comment.
He is lead prosecutor in the trial of Isaiah Kalebu, who is charged with aggravated murder in the slaying of Teresa Butz and the rape of her partner in their South Park home in July 2009.
A spokesman for Satterberg’s office said Konat was not formally disciplined.
Konat’s words “do not represent the view of this office. It was regrettable,” Satterberg said. He called Konat’s method of explaining the so-called “code” in which witnesses don’t talk to prosecutors or police “inartful and offensive.”
But in response to Monday’s appeal in 2008, the Prosecutor’s Office maintained that Konat hadn’t done anything wrong.
“The prosecutor’s comment in final argument that ‘Black folk don’t testify against black folk’ was nothing more than a summary of evidence in the case, consistent with the realities of the lack of cooperation and hostility by most of the transactional witnesses who testified. This was not prosecutorial misconduct,” according to the filing written by now-retired Senior Deputy Prosecutor Lee Yates.
Satterberg said Monday will be retried, but a different deputy prosecutor will be assigned to the case.
Sarah Dunne, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Western Washington, which filed a brief in support of Monday’s appeal, said Konat’s “behavior undermined the right to a fair trial.”
Defense attorney Nancy Collins, who represented Monday in his appeals, said in an email Thursday that it’s “unfortunate that any prosecutor needed to be reminded of these basic principles in our justice system.”
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
The “Muslims First” Foreign Policy
Since 9/11 we have sunk billions of dollars into the Muslim world
In France, American embassies and consulates have been directed to “empower” Muslims and push for the passage of “social reforms” that will benefit them. In the UK, American diplomats were directed to again “empower” Muslims and made outreach to them a top priority. In Israel, the US consulate in Jerusalem caters only to Muslims and does its best to pretend that Jews and Israel don’t even exist. And when Obama visited Greece, what else did he do but push the political and religious authorities to open more mosques and Islamic schools. America’s own interests and our obligations to our allies have been put aside to focus on a single goal of overriding importance. Pandering to the Muslim world. It’s as if we have no other foreign policy goal anymore beyond keeping Muslims happy.
The United States has its first Special Representative to Muslim Communities in the person of Farah Pandith. We also have Rashad Hussain, a Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. (No relation to Barack Hussein Obama. The name Hussain is common among Muslims as a tribute to Mohammed’s grandson, Hussain ibn Ali, the ‘Martyr Of Martyrs’ in Islam.) Hussain (Rashad, not Barack) had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which helped create both Al Qaeda and Hamas, and defended Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. Farah Pandith is a Kashmiri Muslim who began her career as Barbara Bush’s secretary. But just creating two new Muslim posts in the diplomatic sector isn’t enough.
NASA Administrator Bolden told Al Jazeera that the agency’s new priority is outreach to Muslims. After gutting NASA and killing its space program, the agency focused on its new top priority by appointing Waleed Abdalati, as its new Chief Scientist. Waleed Abdalati is a twofer, as a Muslim and a Global Warming researcher. So the Obama Administration gets to kill off the space program and replace it with Global Warming junk science headed by a Muslim. It’s what the devil would call synergy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgaria: Sofia Mosque Warden Assaulted, Beaten — Chief Mufti
The warden of the main mosque in downtown Sofia has suffered a brutal assault at the hands of unidentified attackers just minutes before the start of the morning prayer on Sunday, the Chief Mufti’s Office announced.
“Today we witnessed yet another attack against Sofia mosque. This morning, 20 minutes before the morning prayer, the warden of the mosque in Sofia was cruelly beaten. Unknown people have jumped over the fence of the mosque, beaten the keeper, destroyed the security room and burst into the mosque,” says the statement.
The man was found by worshippers who came to the mosque for the morning prayer, covered in blood and unconcious, it said. He has been taken to the emergency Pirogov hospital.
“Hate crimes, acts of xenophobia and Islamophobia have risen dramatically in recent months,” says the statement of the Chief Mufti’s Office.
Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry has issued no official information about the incident so far.
The news comes just a month after a Muslim man and five policemen were hurt in clashes between supporters of Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist Ataka party and worshippers outside the Banya Bashi mosque in Sofia on May 20.
The incident was condemned by authorities and human rights groups as an example of a worrying escalation of xenophobia and religious hatred.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark-Germany: Anger Over Border Controls
Berlingske Tidende, 8 June 2011
“Conflict over German-Danish border controls escalates” headlines Danish daily Berlingske. The newspaper explains how the German government, which initially refrained from commenting on Copenhagen’s decision to reinstate border controls, has criticised Denmark. Yesterday Germany’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Werner Hoyer, published an opinion piece in Berlingske, in which, without directly mentioning the Danes, he argued that “those who sought to bring back borders failed to recognise the primary achievements of Europe and were playing with the fire of nationalism.” The newspaper reports that his remarks were later described as “off-the-wall” by the conservative Danish Defence Minister, Lars Barfoed.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: E.Coli Patients May Need Kidney Transplants
Karl Lauterbach, health spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats, has warned that some of those who have fallen ill in the E.coli epidemic could face severe health problems.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Doctors Shaken by Outbreak’s Neurological Devastation
‘A Totally New Disease Pattern’
[WARNING: Graphic descriptions.]
At first, doctors were most concerned about the kidneys of patients with enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, or EHEC. In the past week, howver, it has become apparent that neurological side effects of the bacterial infection could be even worse.
The patient at the Hamburg-Eilbek Hospital describes to doctors how she first had diarrhea, and then grew progressively weaker to the point where she could no longer eat and barely make it to the toilet. When blood appeared in her stool, she became terrified. The young woman at the hospital’s intensive-care unit in the northern German port city suspects that lettuce was responsible for putting her in this deadly situation. She then breaks out in tears, completely distraught.
Thanks to several dialysis procedures, she will most likely survive her case of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a particularly aggressive complication related to the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, or EHEC, that has appeared in more than one-quarter of the patients infected by the bacteria. So far, around 2,800 people have been infected in the dramatic outbreak of this rare strain of E. Coli, with at least 722 contracting HUS and 29 dead so far in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The number of new cases has diminished this week, but the outbreak has left doctors pondering serious questions about the new epidemic.
Rolf Stahl, a nephrologist at Hamburg’s University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, explains that, “Neurologists are being confronted with a totally new disease pattern.” Never before has an EHEC germ been as aggressive — and many consider this to be a new epidemic.
And although the majority will survive, some patients will have lasting and serious health problems. “A considerable number of the patients will permanently lose their kidney function and will be dependent on dialysis for the rest of their lives,” says Stahl.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Clothing Maker Moncler to Sell 45% Stake Rather Than Have IPO
Milan, 6 June (AKI) — High-end clothing retailer Moncler decided to sell a minority stake of the company to French investment company Eurazeo rather than sell shares on the Milan stock exchange.
Eurazeo said on Monday said it would buy a 45 stake in the Milan-based company for 418 million euros. The funds will help the maker of winter jackets with price tags that can be in excess of 1000 dollars expand in Asia and North America.
As a partner, we will support (Moncler chairman) Remo Ruffini and the management team of Moncler in order to bring Moncler to the next level: a globally recognized luxury brand,” said Virginie Morgon, a Eurazero board member in the statement.
The deal values Moncler at at least 1.2 billion euros and makes Eurazeo Moncler’s largest investor, shrinking American investment company Carlyle Group’s stake to 17.8 percent from 48 percent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi to Test Minority Investor Rules Over Broadcast Towers
Milan, 8 June (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns Italy’s biggest free-to-air TV network, wants to control the country’s broadcast towers. To do so, he must win over minority investors in a first test of the nation’s new takeover rules.
Berlusconi’s Mediaset has until 30 June to conclude exclusive talks to combine its tower operations with Digital Multimedia Technologies in return for a controlling stake in the company, known as DMT. Minority investors then will decide whether Mediaset should be exempt from buying them out too.
Italy’s stock-market regulator Consob introduced the new takeover rules in May, giving smaller investors more power and aligning the country with nations such as the UK Control of Telecom Italia, Italy’s biggest phone company, has changed hands three times since 1999 without the buyer making a takeover offer to all shareholders.
“The new regulations mean that minority investors will decide, based on the business plan and whether the new owner can convince them it can create value,” said Arturo Albano, a Milan-based independent adviser to professional investors on matters including corporate governance. “Minority investors now can’t be bypassed.”
Under the new rules, minority shareholders must decide whether to grant an exemption to a requirement for a full takeover bid after an investor reaches a 30 percent stake. Previously, Rome-based Consob decided on the exemption issue and all shareholders would then vote on its ruling.
The regulations “bring other decision-makers to the table and there will be deals that will become more complicated,” said Roberto Bonsignore, a regulations lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Milan. “Whether it brings benefits to the company isn’t clear.”
Mediaset is proposing to merge its broadcast towers into DMT, valuing the new entity at about 420 million euros. Mediaset would own at least 60 percent of the business, controlling more than a third of Italy’s TV broadcasting-tower business.
Three investors, Lazard Asset Management, Permian Investment Partners and Octavian Advisors, which own a combined DMT stake of about 21 percent, may hold the key to the transaction. Officials for Lazard and Permian declined to comment. DMT’s biggest investor is Alessandro Falciai, a former Mediaset executive who is willing to give up control.
A DMT spokesman said a shareholder meeting to decide whether to grant the buyout exemption has tentatively been scheduled for October.
“The Mediaset transaction is attractive and we are always in favor of rules that give shareholders a greater voice,” Richard Hurowitz, chief executive officer of New York-based Octavian, which owns 6 percent of DMT, said in an interview. He declined to say how Octavian would vote on the exemption.
Mediaset has about 1,700 towers, structures designed to accommodate multiple tenants using technologies including broadcast television and wireless services, reaching 96 percent of Italian territory, according to its annual report.
DMT hosts signals for TV, radio and mobile phone operators on its 1,500 towers. Mediaset was DMT’s biggest client last year, accounting for about 13 percent of its sales as TV made up almost half of total revenue. Mobile phone companies including Telecom Italia, Wind Telecomunicazioni and Vodafone Group generated 32 percent of DMT’s revenue in the same period.
“The deal makes sense because transmission towers are a scarce resource and will be increasingly so,” said Claudio Aspesi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London. “Antennas are strategic for data traffic and this could turn out to be a good investment.” Controlling DMT might allow Mediaset to “substantially” raise the cost of entry for any potential competitors in the digital terrestrial business, he said.
Mediaset rivals including Telecom Italia Media, the TV unit of Telecom Italia, have expressed concern about the impact of the deal on the broadcasting market. Giovanni Stella, CEO of Telecom Italia Media, a DMT client, said on a conference call with analysts in May that access to the infrastructure and pricing should be closely monitored by the industry regulator.
UniCredit analyst Giovanni D’Amico said approval by the competition regulator is “among key risks” for concluding a transaction. D’Amico said the combined company could control about 40 percent of broadcasting towers in Italy.
Berlusconi, who is standing trial in Milan on allegations he paid for sex with a minor, effectively controls Italian state-owned broadcaster RAI as well in his position as head of the government. RAI and Mediaset dominate the country’s free- to-air TV market, controlling about 90 percent of viewers.
That’s cause for concern, said Elio Lannutti, head of the Adusbef consumer group and a senator with the Italian Values party.
“This deal would increase Berlusconi’s reach over the Italian TV industry, with the risk of a monopoly,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: League Seeks Approval for Bid to Move Ministries North
Calderoli asks top court to green light proposal
(ANSA) — Rome, June 7 — Italian simplification minister, Roberto Calderoli, on Tuesday asked the country’s top court to approve a proposal to decentralise several government ministries.
Calderoli, from the Northern League, formally deposited a request at the Court of Cassation for a “legislative proposal on the territorialisation of ministries and other administrative offices”.
The anti-immigrant League, which is the coalition partner of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, stepped up its demands for decentralisation and other concessions after the prime minister suffered devastating losses in local elections last week.
As Calderoli previously indicated, steps to gather the 50,000 public signatures required to approve the proposed law will begin in Pontida, in the northern province of Bergamo, on June 19.
Calderoli’s proposal has already come under attack from Renata Polverini, governor of the Lazio region surrounding Rome.
“Minister Calderoli’s initiative is unacceptable, an affront to the capital where ministries have always had their headquarters,” Polverini said. “This obstinacy only feeds divisions in the country and distracts attention from the most urgent and serious issues that should be confronted for our citizens. “If that is not enough, this legal proposal goes against the federalism to which we are all committed, a reform for which the League has fought all these years”.
Massimo Donadi, who heads the opposition Italy of Values Party in the House, also condemned the proposal.
“Enough with this farce,” Donadi said. “The citizens of the north, like those in the centre and the south, want a government facing Italy’s real problems, in particular regarding the economic and employment crises, and certainly not the transfer of government ministries”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Risks Taking Over Milan’s Central Piazza
Milan city officials have given the green light to the largest ever Israeli celebration outside of Israel, to take place next week in the Italian city’s central Duomo piazza. Pro-Palestinian groups have vowed to protest the event
“Unexpected Israel,” an exhibition celebrating Israel, will go ahead as planned in Milan’s central Duomo piazza, despite protests from pro-Palestinian activists. Milan authorities have confirmed the location of the biggest Israeli cultural event ever organized abroad, set to take place June 13-23.
Pro-Palestinian activists have posted an online plea against the event, and have threatened to organize a rally against it on June 18. “We do not want Milan to become the stage for Zionist imperialism’s propaganda,” they wrote.
Renzo Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, and Roberto Jarach, president of the Milan Jewish community, responded in a joint statement: “Giving up under threat would be a political victory for those who bring prejudice and hate.”
After the Duomo location was confirmed as the location for the event, Gattegna and Mr. Jarach said they appreciated the “firm and coherent actions” of incoming Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapia and Police Commissioner Alessandro Marangoni.
“[The event] aims to strengthen friendship and collaboration between two countries [Israel and Italy], and it is all about culture, progress, technologies and arts, which are themes that can encourage coexistence and peace among peoples,” the officials said in a statement.
After meeting a representative of the mayor, the pro-Palestinian activists said in a statement that they claim their right “to peacefully question and expose this whitewashing operation of Israeli politics.”
Opening next Monday, Unexpected Israel will exhibit an installation consisting of 15 columns and 15 monitors, which will be placed in Duomo’s vast square to illustrate Israel’s diverse realities. On June 14, there will be an Italo-Israeli business-forum. On June 15, writer Davis Grossman will talk in the Teatro Nuovo, while the singer Noa will perform in concert. The main exhibitions will be hosted in a 900-square-meter pavilion.
Milan’s Jewish communities have mobilized to support the event. Some 250 scholars and “friends of Israel” have signed a letter to Milan Mayor Pisapia, the Lombardy region president, Roberto Formigoni, Italy’s Interior minister, Roberto Maroni, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Italian President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano. “It is not acceptable for radical groups to stop the freedom of expression, to defy Italian hospitality and to deny relations with Israel in an apartheid-style,” read the letter.
Filippo Penati, vice president of the Lombardy regional council said: “Every attack on a country and its people must be condemned. Not allowing the exhibition to take place in Duomo’s piazza would be surrendering to an unacceptable anti-democratic blackmail.”
Pisapia, who just came into office as the city’s first center-left mayor in 20 years, had the last word. “Milan is an open and hospital city for everyone. It cannot be the place to reproduce a fight that for too long has not been solved peacefully,” he said. “Milan is a sister city of Tel Aviv and Bethlehem, and it must continue being a meeting point for cultures and peoples.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: ‘Indignados’ Charged in Valencia, MP Injured
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JUNE 9 — This morning the police carried out more charges against the ‘indignados’ who are demonstrating in front of the parliament in Valencia, where today the plenary constitutive session of the VIII term was held. Police sources quoted by the media say that Juan Ponce, MP of Copromis, was injured in the clashes. Eyewitnesses of the clashes quoted by Europa Press claim that two policemen started to charge the protesters, who had organised a peaceful demonstration via internet, for no apparent reason. The sources continue that five people have been arrested and that several demonstrators have been injured, as well as two policemen who suffered bruises. The rally of ‘indignant’ people outside the parliament in Valencia started last night, when around fifty young people who set up camp in the square of the Municipality of Valencia on May 15 started to move to the building of the regional assembly in Benicaró Palace, in solidarity with the members of the ‘Democracia real ya’ movement who protested from last evening deep into the night in front of the Congress in Madrid, to return later to their camp in Puerta del Sol.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Rise of Violence Against Teachers: Study
In Sweden a teacher is subjected to violence every day, on average, according to statistics from the nation’s Work Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket), reports the TT news agency.
Sweden is not alone in its escalation. As a wave of violence in schools continues to rise throughout Europe, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Culture, Science and Education took note earlier this year and called for the creation and instalment of effective educational policies against violence at school. The Assembly adopted a set of guiding principles for education against violence and challenged all member and observer parliaments to endorse them at a national level, supporting schools administratively, logistically and financially. The nature of violence described by the Council includes attacks acts of hostility and even aggression against teachers by pupils as well as acts committed by pupils with or without weapons, bullying and harassment among pupils, sexual violence, and the use of violence by teachers against pupils.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tentacles of Islam Slowly Enveloping Europe?
While the idea of Muslims taking over Rome as prophesied by the Prophet Mohammed may seem far-fetched, the historically Christian capital of Italy is now the site of the largest mosque in Europe.
Moschea di Roma, or the Great Mosque of Rome, is able to accommodate 12,000 worshippers and is a powerful symbol for Italy’s fast-growing Muslim population.
Large mosques have been built or are on the drawing board in virtually every major city in Europe.
[…]
In fact, many of the large mosque projects in Europe are funded by the Turkish government. Some are being financed by the Saudis, and some, like the one planned for Copenhagen, are being built with money from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
[…]
In London, a plan to build the largest mosque in Europe ran into strong public opposition and has been downsized.
But in Cologne and other cities, the left-wing has shown itself to be very pro-Mosque and sometimes demonstrates violently against mosque opponents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Blessed Are the Spongers? That’s Not What St Paul Said, Archbishop
Why is it so bad to draw a line between the deserving and the undeserving poor?
I have searched the Sermon on the Mount for the words ‘Blessed are the Spongers’ and I cannot find them — or anything remotely like them.
So why does the Archbishop of Canterbury speak as if it was obvious that we should treat people who can work, but won’t, in the same way as we treat those who are truly in need?
I don’t mind bishops intervening in our national life. That’s what they are for. I like having them in the House of Lords to remind us of the foundations on which our country stands. But they are not there to act as reinforcements for the Liberal Democrats. They are there to remind us that we are at heart a Christian nation and people.
They should stand up for lifelong marriage, denounce the lax treatment of wrongdoers and the neglect of their victims, condemn public drunkenness, defend unborn babies against those who wish to kill them, stand in the way of stupid and unjust wars, and of selfish cruelty of all kinds.
But they really have to get out of their heads the idea that the Welfare State must be unconditionally defended.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BMW Mini Car Worker Caught Selling Stolen Motor Parts Was Rumbled When Items Were Spotted on Ebay
A car worker at the BMW Mini factory who was caught selling stolen car parts on eBay when an investigator spotted the items on screen, a court heard.
Safouane Selatnia was found with 26 amplifiers and 10 air-conditioning pumps worth £24,876 and later admitted to two counts of handling stolen goods.
He was linked to the items after the investigator made test purchases of two items from Selatnia and traced the parts to the Cowley factory via their serial numbers.
Recorder Richard Hamlin told the father-of-two: ‘This was a commercial enterprise in which you played a very important part.’
Selatnia, 39, a former Algerian helicopter pilot, began working at the plant in 2002 through an agency and became a full-time BMW employee in April 2004.
He was arrested at work on December 2, 2010.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Christian Palestinian Justifies Suicide Bombings, To Speak at Methodist Conference
Have a look at this post by pro-Israel Methodist Preacher blogger, David Hallam. The 2011 UK Methodist Conference is allowing a terror apologist to appear at fringe event. Titled “A Mother’s Voice”, the invited speaker, Ms. Hind Khoury has described suicide bombers, including children as “martyrs, who are not criminals, nor presumably those who send them on their missions. Thier only mistake is to take a course of action that was ‘incorrect’ because it was not ‘strategic’“. For a graphic look at the damage caused by these murderers, see here for what a bomb packed with bolts and nails can do.
Some people refuse to see evil when it’s right smack in front of them:…
| — Hat tip: CS | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Disabled ‘Terrified’ To Travel on Public Transport’ Because of Rising Abuse From Commuters
Disabled people are facing increasing levels of hostility and abuse when using public transport, it was claimed today.
Some are so terrified of travelling that they are confined to their home, according to Alice Maynard, chairman of the leading disability charity Scope.
Ms Maynard, a wheelchair user with a neuromuscular impairment, said she regularly comes under attack when using trains.
Commuters shout and swear at her and a personal assistant once or twice a week because they have to give up their seats.
She said: ‘I think it is increasing because of the pressures on people, the overcrowding on trains and the general economic climate. If I reminded myself about everything that has been said, I would shut myself inside.’
New data from Scope reveals that almost 50 per cent of those with disabilities face discrimination on their way to and from work.
Thirty-one per cent of respondents claimed there was discrimination by bus drivers and one in four said the same about train staff.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslims Call for Action Against Hate Crimes
Britain’s largest mainstream Muslim organisation will today call for “robust action” to combat Islamophobic attacks amid fears of growing violence and under-reporting of hate crimes.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) will challenge the “ethnic profiling” of members of its community, claiming that minorities are 42 times more likely to be targeted under the Terrorism Act.
MCB secretary-general Farooq Murad will tell the council’s AGM in Birmingham that there must be more monitoring of anti-Muslim crimes in response to incidents including violent assaults, death threats and the desecration of graves. He will also complain that not enough is being done to encourage communities to report crimes to the police…
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police ‘Covered Up’ Violent Campaign to Turn London Area ‘Islamic’
Police have been accused of “covering up” a campaign of abuse, threats and violence aimed at “Islamicising” an area of London.
Victims say that officers in the borough of Tower Hamlets have ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they fear being accused of racism.
The claims come as four Tower Hamlets Muslims were jailed for at least 19 years for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls.
The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than a dozen other cases in Tower Hamlets where both Muslims and non-Muslims have been threatened or beaten for behaviour deemed to breach fundamentalist “Islamic norms.”
One victim, Mohammed Monzur Rahman, said he was left partially blind and with a dislocated shoulder after being attacked by a mob in Cannon Street Road, Shadwell, for smoking during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last year.
“Two guys stopped me in the street and asked me why I was smoking,” he said. “I just carried on, and before I knew another dozen guys came and jumped me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital.”
“He reported it to the police and they just said they couldn’t track anyone down and there were no witnesses,” said Ansar Ahmed Ullah, a local anti-extremism campaigner who has advised Mr Rahman. “But there is CCTV in that street and it is lined with shops and people.”
Teachers in several local schools have told The Sunday Telegraph that they feel “under pressure” from local Muslim extremists, who have mounted campaigns through both parents and pupils — and, in one case, through another teacher — to enforce the compulsory wearing of the veil for Muslim girls. “It was totally orchestrated,” said one teacher. “The atmosphere became extremely unpleasant for a while, with constant verbal aggression from both the children and some parents against the head over this issue.”
One teacher at the Bigland Green primary school, Nicholas Kafouris, last year took the council to an employment tribunal, saying he was forced out of his job for complaining that Muslim pupils were engaging in racist and anti-Semitic bullying and saying they supported terrorism. Mr Kafouris lost his case, though the school did admit that insufficient action had been taken against the behaviour of some pupils. The number of assaults on teachers in Tower Hamlets resulting in exclusions has more than doubled from 190 in 2007/8 to 383 in 2008/9, the latest available year, though not all are necessarily race-related.
Tower Hamlets’ gay community has become a particular target of extremists. Homophobic crimes in the borough have risen by 80 per cent since 2007/8, and by 21 per cent over the last year, a period when there was a slight drop in London as a whole.
Last year, a mob of 30 young Muslims stormed a local gay pub, the George and Dragon, beating and abusing patrons. Many customers of the pub told The Sunday Telegraph that they have been attacked and harassed by local Muslim youths. In 2008 a 20-year-old student, Oli Hemsley, was left permanently paralysed after an attack by a group of young Muslims outside the pub. Only one of his assailants has been caught and jailed.
Even during meetings of the local council, prominent supporters of Tower Hamlets’ controversial directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman — dropped by the Labour Party for his links to Islamic fundamentalism — have persistently targeted gay councillors with homophobic abuse and intimidation from the public gallery.
The Labour leader, Josh Peck, was attacked with animal noises and cries of “Unnatural acts! Unnatural acts!” when he rose to speak. The Conservative leader, Peter Golds, was repeatedly heckled as “Mrs Golds” and a “poofter”.
Mr Golds said: “If that happened in a football stadium, arrests would have taken place. I have complained, twice, to the police, and have heard nothing. A Labour colleague waited three hours at the police station before being told that nothing would be done. The police are afraid of being accused of Islamophobia. Another Labour councillor said that the Met is now the reverse of what it must have been like in the 1970s, with a complete lack of interest when white people make complaints of harassment and hatred.”
In February this year, dozens of stickers appeared across Tower Hamlets quoting the Koran, declaring the borough a “gay-free zone” and stating that “verily Allah is severe in punishment.”
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that during a routine stop-and-search at the time police found a young Muslim man with a number of the stickers in his possession. He was released without charge on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service. Police also had CCTV images of a second unidentified Muslim youth posting the stickers at a local railway station, but refused to release the pictures for several weeks.
Peter Tatchell, the gay human rights campaigner, said: “The police said no-one was allowed to talk publicly about this because they didn’t want to upset the Muslim community. We’ve made very clear the difference between the Muslim community as a whole and these particular fundamentalists, and the fact that the police wouldn’t publicly say what they knew was an absolute disgrace.”
When the CCTV footage was finally released, in early April, the culprit was quickly identified as 18-year-old Mohammed Hasnath, who last week pleaded guilty to a public order offence and was fined £100. Jack Gilbert, of the Rainbow Hamlets gay group, said a more serious charge should have been brought. “The vast majority of the community saw the material as threatening, but the police were not willing to accept it as threatening,” he said.
Hasnath’s “interests” on his Facebook page include Khalid Yasin, a hate preacher who describes Jews as “filth” and teaches that homosexuals must be killed. Yasin has spoken at least four times since 2007 at the East London Mosque, Tower Hamlets’ most prominent Muslim institution. Although the mosque claims to be against extremism, discrimination, and violence, it has hosted dozens of hate, extremist or terrorist preachers and also hosted a “Spot The Fag” contest.
In the same week that it issued a press release condemning the anti-gay stickers, the mosque was also due to host a “gala dinner” with Uthman Lateef, a homophobic hate preacher.
The mosque is controlled by a fundamentalist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe, which says that it is dedicated to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.”
The IFE’s community affairs co-ordinator, Azad Ali, is chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum, an organisation officially recognised by the Met as its “principal [liaison] body in relation to Muslim community safety.” Mr Golds said: “This relationship may explain the police’s feebleness.” The IFE also has close links to the Tower Hamlets mayor, Mr Rahman.
There is no suggestion that any mosque official has been personally involved in any act of violence or intimidation. However, in an email obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, one IFE activist, Abu Talha, used the name of the group to threaten a local Muslim woman who ran a dating agency.
“I am asking you kindly to stop these activities as it goes against the teachings of Islam,” he wrote. “Let me remind you that I have a huge network of brothers and sisters who would be willing to help me take this further…If by tomorrow you haven’t changed your mind … then the campaign will begin.” The dating agency has now closed and the woman has left the area.
Mr Ahmed Ullah said: “There has been a gradual increase in these kinds of attacks, that’s for sure.” A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “When any allegation of crime is made to us, we investigate appropriately. We will always take action against hate crime in accordance with, and within the confines of, the law.”
| — Hat tip: DT | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pictured Together for the First Time, Mother and Five-Year-Old Daughter Found Dead at Home
This is the first picture of Clare White and her five-year-old daughter Ayesha White-Mukumbira who were discovered dead at their home on Friday morning.
Clare White was found hanged by a friend who had just discovered the woman’s five-year-old daughter dead.
A post mortem examination carried out yesterday showed the 28-year-old mother died of hanging.
But the post mortem on Ayesha was inconclusive — forcing officers to awaiting the results of toxicology tests.
Warwickshire Police are still investigating the deaths of the pair after their bodies were discovered in their terraced home in Christie Way, in the Bridgetown area.
They confirmed they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.
Officers were called to the scene shortly before 10am on Friday after a friend visiting the house found the bodies.
Police were looking at the possibility of money and relationship troubles triggering the unexplained deaths — with officers seen emerging from the home on Saturday with bundles of paperwork, believed to be utility bills.
And the pairs’ grief stricken relatives have spoken for the first time after the horror discovery, saying: ‘The family is heartbroken and shocked at the tragic loss of our beloved daughter and granddaughter.
‘We don’t know, at this stage, what has happened other than we won’t see either of them ever again.’ .
Clare, who worked part-time at the town’s H&M retail store, recently split from her boyfriend, Aisha’s father.
Neighbour Ken Mitchell said he had heard the young mother was found in the wardrobe upstairs after a friend found the child dead in another room.
Frank Batchelor, who lives just across the road from new build end terrace house, said: ‘I’ve seen her about with her child, they were always over the park on the swings and slides at the end of the road.
‘It’s tragic, I found out while I was at work.’ Another neighbour — who did not wish to be named — said: ‘I heard that Clare had killed herself and her daughter.’
Detectives investigating the circumstances continued to say the deaths remain unexplained.
Det Supt Noel McMenamin said after the tragic incident: ‘This is an isolated and tragic incident and we are conducting a thorough investigation to find out how these deaths occurred.
‘Officers have been conducting local enquiries and patrolling the area to provide reassurance to local residents.’
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
UK: RAF Pilots Have Language Lessons So They Can Use French Aircraft Carrier
Royal Navy top-gun pilots are being forced to learn French so that they can fly from France’s flagship aircraft carrier.
The Navy pilots are training with the French, whose jets they may have to use while they await the delivery of the new Joint Strike Fighters, which are unlikely to be ready until 2020.
They will use French to communicate with their Gallic counterparts in the air and in the officers’ quarters on board France’s carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Restore Your Home? Only if You Give Three Bats Their Own Room, £3,000 of ‘Furniture’ And Absolute Quiet for Six Months.
We always dreamed one day of bringing the property back to life. Two-thirds of it would make a splendid office and the rest, if we could afford it, would be a small guest annexe.
We knew there would be planning restrictions because the building is Grade II listed, but they were as nothing to the regulations protecting a colony of flying mammals we never even knew we had.
It is more than 18 months since I first asked a building conservation officer what she thought about our plans.
She summarised the position beautifully: ‘It looks absolutely fine as far as I’m concerned. It’s a wonderful building, and if you don’t restore it, it will eventually fall down. But you can’t do anything until you speak to the ecologists.’
[…]
The conclusion of the report was that we would need to ‘mitigate’ against the disturbance of the bats which ‘might’ be roosting in the would-be office.
We must provide a bat loft, ideally up to 30ft long and 6ft high, which would be sealed off from the rest of the building for ever, as well as £3,000 worth of bat ‘furniture’ — roosting boxes, chutes and crevices.
And we would need to apply for the dreaded bat licence.
We could apply for the licence only after we’d got our planning permission. The licence would take at least six weeks to process.
And any work that might disturb bats, such as repairing the roof, could be done only during the winter or spring, regardless of bad weather.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The ‘Coconut’ Hate Crime Investigation That Shows Nobody Can Escape Britain’s Thought Police
Shirley Brown was so lost in thought that, at first, she did not notice the figure approaching her on the street near her home in Bristol.
She heard her name and, looking up, recognised an Asian woman she’d met through her voluntary work in the local community.
‘I saw you across the road and I had to come over,’ said the woman, touching Shirley’s hand.
‘I wanted to say how sorry I am about what’s happened to you. You of all people don’t deserve it.’
It was a small act of kindness which has stayed with Shirley, whose eyes fill with tears at the memory.
It came during her lowest ebb last year, a time of such great stress for the 49-year-old mother of three that she collapsed and was admitted to hospital with a suspected stroke, subsequently diagnosed as exhaustion.
‘Knowing that some people supported me, that not everybody believed I was what I’d been branded, meant so much,’ she says.
That period of her life may be over, but its legacy is an epithet which continues to cling to her and makes moving on impossible. To her deep shame, Shirley is a convicted racist.
Last July, magistrates in Bristol found her guilty of racially aggravated harassment under the Public Order Act for using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words, with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress’. In March, she lost her appeal against the conviction.
The court case followed a heated city council debate that Shirley, who was then a Liberal Democrat councillor, had with an Asian Conservative opponent. The public row culminated in Shirley calling the other councillor, Jay Jethwa, a ‘coconut’.
The word is used as slang to describe someone who is believed to be betraying their ethnic roots by pandering to white opinion — referring to a coconut being brown on the outside but white on the inside.
It is, without doubt, a crude term that many would find offensive, and one Shirley regrets using. Although she insists the remark was not intended to be taken in the way it was, she now realises it was unacceptable.
But what she still cannot comprehend is the lengths to which the legal system was prepared to go to ensure that she was punished.
The police investigation involved no fewer than four officers from the specialist hate crime unit. Her trial lasted three days. It came after a council inquiry and another by an independent appeals panel that took 15 months and cost tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Vicar Dragged Along Path and Viciously Mugged in the Grounds of Her Own Church
A female vicar was dragged to the floor and robbed in the grounds of her own church — minutes before she was due to take a service.
The Rev Christine Leech, 60, was approaching Rhyddings Methodist Church in Oswaldtwistle, near Accrington, Lancashire, when she was attacked.
A man wearing a hood approached her and asked for her bag but Ms Leech, who was in her religious robes, refused and carried on walking.
The man followed her and grabbed the bag but Rev Leech refused to let go and in the ensuing struggle she was dragged along a path, sustaining a bloody nose and other facial injuries.
The man eventually ran off with the bag, which contained personal belongings and cash.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Retrial of Former PM Ramus Haradinaj to Start at Hague in August
The Hague 9 June (AKI) — The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said on Thursday a retrial of former Kosovo prime minister Ramus Haradinaj will start on 18 August.
Haradinaj, a wartime military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that started a rebellion against Serbian rule in 1988, has been charged with crimes against Serb civilians and non-loyal Albanians.
He was acquitted by the tribunal in April 2008 owing to a lack of evidence, but seven potential witnesses in his trial have been killed or died mysterious deaths. After Serbian forces were driven out of Kosovo by NATO air strikes in 1999, Haradinaj was briefly prime minister of Kosovo, until he was indicted and surrendered to the tribunal for trial.
The UN tribunal’s appeals panel ordered a retrial on six of 37 original counts and Haradinaj was arrested in Pristina in July last year and transferred to the Hague detention unit awaiting a retrial.
Kosovo majority Albanians declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, which has been recognised buy 76 countries.
Serbia continues to wage a diplomatic battle to try and retain control over its former province.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Islamic Front: Govt is Against Arab Uprisings
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 8 — The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria has accused the regime in its country of taking a hostile stance against the popular uprisings in the Arab world and especially the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. In a statement issued in Qatar and cited on Al Jazeera’s website, the FIS explained that the Algerian regime intends to cause the Tunisian revolution to fail and to rescue Gaddafi, as they hope to prevent the revolution from spreading to their country and from popular anger in Algeria from igniting. Speaking with Algerian daily Asshourok, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, the Vice President of National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya, said that he has proof of the involvement of the Algerian regime in supplying mercenaries to Colonel Gaddafi. Proof of these accusations, according to Ghoga, is that Algerian military planes have made flights towards four Libyan airports on a daily basis. Ghoga says that he possess the names of many Algerians who have fought alongside pro-Gaddafi forces.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Row Over New Law on Construction Places of Worship
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 9 — The approval of a new law on the construction of mosques and churches in Egypt has been heavily criticised by lawyers who say that the implementation of the law will threaten social peace and will strike in the heart of national unity. The website of Al Jazeera specifies that many lawyers have asked the attorney-general to open an inquiry into the Prime Minister, Isam Sharaf, who has approved the law.
The new law states that the distance between two places of worship must be at least one square kilometer. The global standard of human rights is based on population density. Applying this distance in densely populated rural areas, according to opponents of the law, means that Muslims will have to cover long distances every day for their prayers. The opponents also want churches to be subjected to the same State control on financing and donations as mosques are.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lega Nord Leader Says Italy Must Withdraw From Libya
(AGI) Lesa — Echoing a statement by US President Obama, Lega Nord leader Bossi said Italy should withdraw its troops from Libya. “The President of the United States said he was ‘slipping out of the operation in Libya’. We should do the same to avoid facing all the consequences, including immigration” Umberto Bossi said during today’s inauguration of a new Lega Nord office in Lesa.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Gaddafi Daughter Accuses NATO of War Crimes
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 7 — Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of the Libyan leader, has reported NATO to the European Court in Brussels and the Belgian Federal Court, accusing the organisation of war crimes.
The charge concerns the air raid carried out by allied forces over Tripoli on April 30, in which Aisha Gaddafi claims that her 29-year old brother Seif al-Arab was killed, along with three of the Libyan leader’s grandchildren: Seif and Carthage, both aged 2, and 4-month old Mastoura.
Family friends and neighbours are also said to have been killed in the attack. The accusation would provide confirmation of the death of Seif al-Arab, over which doubts still remain. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, expressed his scepticism over the death of Gaddafi’s son a few days ago.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Death Toll in Tribal Clashes Rising
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JUNE 6 — The death toll of the bloody tribal clashes that have been going on for some time in the Tunisian city of Meltaoui and that have seen a recrudescence in the past days has gone up to 11. Military sources told the TAP news agency that more than a hundred people have been injured. So far the police have arrested 65 people who were carrying fire weapons — mainly rifles — and knives. A curfew is imposed in the city (from 4 pm to 6 am), which is helping to bring the situation back to normal, according to the police.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Almost 500,000 Refugees, It’s an Emergency
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — The estimate figure of 471,000 refugees that arrived from Libya mentined on Wednesday by Tunisian premier Beji Caid Essebsi to call the Country to unity of action and intent with the Government in face of an emergency that has major consequences for the economy was a low one. With a daily average of 50,000 refugees (mostly Libyans, thus meant to stay in the camps or hosted by Tunisian families until the war across the border is over), Tunisia is almost if not completely exhausted. And there are may facets to this crisis. The first and most obvious one is that given by the humanitarian crisis, because offering assistance to tens and tens of thousands of people often comes close to achieving a miracle, when international assistance is what it is (in other words, insufficient) and the solidarity of the Tunisian people is starting to weaken, though still remarkable.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Uprisings: Blogger: Revolution Still Continuing in Egypt
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 8 — “The revolution has not stopped in Egypt. There is much work taking place in the streets, activists continue to fight against torture, the mouvement is getting organised on all levels and is trying to raise political awareness in the local communities,” said Manal Hassan, co-founder of Egyptian blog ‘manalaa.net’. The blogger was responding to those who believe that a neo-authoritarian state is gaining the upper hand over the push for change in Egypt. Together with another young blogger, Nermeen Edrees (globalvoicesonline.org), Hassan is a guest at the international conference on the Arab Spring, scheduled to take place on June 9-11 in Rome, organised by Il Manifesto daily newspaper and Oil magazine in collaboration with Sky TV network. This three-day event will bring together scholars such as Tariq Ramadan, Tariq Ali and Samir Amin, as well as activists, feminists, journalists and film directors who have been players in the events that have taken place recently in North Africa. When asked if the young activists from Tahrir Square fear that in September’s legislative elections the forces of the old regime or the highly organised Muslim Brotherhood Party will gain the upper hand, Manal responded optimistically. “In the past the old regime won through fraud,” she underlined. “As for the Muslim Brotherhood, it is true that Egyptian society is conservative and that many will vote for them. In any case, this is democracy,” she observed. “But it is also true that other alternatives are being prepared for the people.” In particular, said her colleague Nermeen, “there are new political parties that are making alliances to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from getting more than 25% of the vote”. Among the new political forces that she mentioned are El Adl, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and El Dyabla. Moreover, Tahrir Square, she continued, was filled on the last Friday of protests, despite an atmosphere of intimidation beforehand “similar to the climate on January 28” and even if the Muslim Brotherhood had officially distanced themselves from the event. But too little has changed in Egypt thus far, said Manal. For example, in the press, “which was used to praising Mubarak, now they are praising the Army. Until now the highest-ranking officials from the old system have been removed, but the lower levels are still in place”. Tunisian director Mohamed Challof was also present today during the presentation for the conference. He criticised the media coverage in Italy on the revolution in his country (“some of the big media outlets talked about it much less compared to the coverage given to the immigrants on Lampedusa,” he declared), but he also showed concern over the strengthening of the Islamic party El Nahda: “they have great organisational power”, he said, speaking on the day during which the vote was postponed until October. Algerian feminist and psychologist Charifa Bouatta was also among the speakers. “It is not true that everything is calm in Algeria,” she said. “In 2010 there were over 1,000 uprisings and popular protests, mostly involving economic and social issues. And a National Coordination for Change and Democracy has been established to represent movements from the entire country.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Uprisings: Ramadan: In Egypt & Tunisia Unfinished Revolutions
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 10 — “I do not see completed revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia: if I listen to the White House, I see that these two countries are as controllable as before.” Controversial Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan has been addressing an international congress on the Arab Spring organised in Rome by Italian daily “il Manifesto”. Mr Ramadan continued: “the future of these countries is to be found in South/South relations,” which means, for example, relations held by “Tunisia with Algeria, Latin America and also with Turkey. It is a question of shifting the economic centre of gravity”.
Swiss citizen, an Oxford lecturer and theorist of European Islam, always careful to mark out his intellectual independence of his roots as grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ramadan was addressing a round table on Women and Citizenship. On the subject of respect for political rights, Mr Ramadan pointed out how those rights that have been achieved on paper in Tunisia and in Morocco do not always correspond to reality. “It is always necessary to fight for one’s own rights,” he averred, noting, for example, how “you can’t have equality without education”. “If the West has a problem with Islam,” Mr Ramadan queried, “why does it have nothing against the Saudi Arabian Salaphites? The West has no problem with Islam when it’s a question of defending its own interests”.
But Islam, he reaffirmed, is not a monolithic entity and even among the Muslim Brotherhood there is open debate. “The true problem is not democracy, as much as the secular nature of the state. But the regimes of Mubarak, Ben Ali, Saddam Hussein as well as those of Syria’s Assad were all lay states, where by non-religious is meant state control over the Mosque. But a secular state without democracy is a dictatorship”. As for the Moslem Brotherhood, “why is it they are so popular?” he asked “it is because they have paid the prices of repression and torture,” under regimes “where the dictators turned the tensions between Christians and Muslims to their own advantage”. But now “we need to challenge them to speak out” about the more controversial issues of human rights and democracy. “There are various and different currents within them and I don’t know which will come out on top, but the more they are repressed, the less they will be able to open themselves up”. Always bearing in mind the fact, he concluded, that their base is often more conservative than their leadership, even on economic matters”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Summer Camps Train Next Generation Terrorists
Hamas is reporting record turnouts for its summer camps for children in 2011.
The ‘summer camps,’ combining Islamic indoctrination, paramilitary training, and social activities are set to begin again this year as United Nation’s summer camps, considered competition by Hamas, are being openly denigrated by jihadists.
Children and adolescents are an important target demographic for Hamas, from which its future army of terrorists will be recruited. Summer camps are an important means for indoctrinating Gaza’s youth with Hamas’ jihadist ideology.
In 2010 Hamas ran camps for an estimated 100,000 campers, a number similar to 2009. The Islamic Jihad terror group ran 51 camps with 10,000 participating boys and girls.
Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan reported the objectives of the camps were to raise a generation of children with ‘genuine Islamic values.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amman: Workshop on Response Plan to Museums Thefts
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 8 — In light of the recent civil unrest across the arab world, museum directors and museum security experts from the region have been invited to take part in a two-day workshop dedicated to a ‘Museum Theft Response Plan’, organised in the framework of the EU-funded Culture Programme.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Emirates Looking to World Market With ‘Desert Caviar’
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 8 — The Caspian Sea and the Black Sea will soon lose their monopoly on production of one of the world’s most luxurious foods: caviar. The first Middle Eastern variety, “desert caviar”, is to begin competition with the version from the two seas and will soon be exported from the United Arab Emirates to markets around the world. Yesterday saw the opening in Abu Dhabi of “Royal Caviar”, the largest and most technologically advanced cultivation and production plant in the world. The UAE-based Bin Salem Holding Company as already invested 420 million Emirati dirhams in the site, the equivalent of around 78 million euros.
Caviar production will begin next year, Ahmed Al Dhahiri, the vice-chairman of the company, told the Emirati daily Al Ittihad.
The return on capital invested in the project is around 50%, according to feasibility studies carried out in collaboration with the German group United Food Technologies. The Abu Dhabi plant will begin by treating 18 tonnes of sturgeon, with the breeding of the first group of fish set to increase to 124 tonnes by the end of this year.
The eggs of the sturgeon, a fish dying out in the Black Sea and the Caspian, will be distributed normally on international markets. Commercially, “desert caviar” will be available in markets in the United Arab Emirates from the middle of next year.
Al Dhahiri says that Abu Dhabi enjoys a position of strategic importance, close to some of the most rapidly-growing markets in the Middle East and Asia, allowing it to become one of the world’s major caviar producers.
Royal Caviar, he added, aims to cover 10% of demand worldwide and to become the first site in the world capable of supplying caviar on a monthly rather than an annual basis. Mishal Mansur, the financial director of Bin Salem Holding, says that the company owns 76% of the new project, with the remainder divided up among various investors, including the commercial bank of Abu Dhabi and United Food Technologies.
The UAE alone covers 14% of world caviar demand, Mishal Mansur says.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Erdogan to Seek Consensus to Change Constitution
(AGI) Ankara — Prime minister Erdogan said Turkey wants a new constitution to be built through consensus and negotiation.
Recep Taiyyip Erdogan’s AKP party won the country’s general elections for the third straight time, but failed to secure enough seats in the Parliament to change the constitution unilaterally. Addressing his supporters from the balcony of the AKP headquarters in Ankara, the prime minister said: “The people gave us a message to build a new constitution through consensus and negotiation. We will discuss the new constitution with opposition parties”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hopes for Democracy Fade as Civil Wars Grip the Arab World
The Arab awakening is turning into the Arab nightmare. Instead of ushering in democracy, the uprisings in at least three Arab states are fast becoming vicious civil wars. In the past 10 days, crucial developments in Syria, Libya and Yemen have set these countries spiralling into violent and intractable struggles for power.
In Syria, thousands of troops are assaulting the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour where the government claims 120 of its soldiers and police were killed last week. Leaving aside exactly how they died, the government in Damascus is making it lethally clear that in future its opponents, peaceful opponents or not, will be treated as if they were armed gunmen. An extraordinary aspect of the Syrian uprisings is that people go on demonstrating in their tens of thousands despite so many being shot down. But some are evidently coming to believe that their only alternative is to fight back.
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New Evidence About Amina, The “Gay Girl in Damascus” Hoax
Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty write:
We have gathered compelling new evidence regarding the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blogger hoax.
Those responsible for this hoax have caused a great deal of concern and anguish by posting information alleging that “Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari” the supposed “Gay Girl” blogger had been kidnapped from the streets of Damascus, possibly by Syrian authorities, and was likely in grave danger.
A measure of the concern that this story has caused is the formation of a Facebook group calling to “Free Amina Arraf” with more than 15,000 members, as well as numerous action alerts and stories in international media.
We believe the story of Amina to be totally baseless and the doubts expressed by other observers, such as Liz Henry and Andy Carvin, to be entirely founded.
We also believe that whoever is responsible for the hoax is attempting to conceal their responsibility and continues to disseminate false information. They have previously engaged in such behavior as taking photographs from the Facebook page of a totally uninvolved individual and deceptively presenting them as being images of Amina and members of her family.
We believe that the person or persons responsible should end this deception which has been harmful to individuals who trusted and believed in “Amina” and more broadly has sown confusion, distraction and absorbed energy and attention at a time when real people are in danger in Syria and in other countries in the region.
We are sharing the information we have gathered here not in order to level accusations, but so that others might pursue these leads to conclusive ends. The best outcome would be if the person or persons behind the hoax would take responsibility themselves to bring the matter to a close and provide all doubters with reassurance that “Amina” is not in danger because she is a fictitious character.
While we believe that the information gathered here is compelling in its own right, we have managed to corroborate additional information from several independent sources that we are not publishing and that significantly increases our confidence in the information we have. We do not know the motives of the person or persons behind this hoax.
The information presented below connects the “Amina” blogger to two people in real life: Thomas (Tom) J MacMaster and Britta Froelicher who are married to each other…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Revolutionary Guard Praises Idea of Nuke Testing
An article praising the idea of Iran testing a nuclear bomb on a Revolutionary Guard website is raising alarms in western intelligence circles, which interpret it as evidence of strong backing in the Islamic Republic for such a move.
Entitled “The Day After the First Iranian Nuclear Test — a Normal Day,” the article coincides with other public or suspected activities that the United States and its allies see as indications that Tehran wants to possess atomic arms.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Prince Talal: A Minority Blocks All Reforms
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 9 — A small but very influential group in the Saudi monarchy refuses any form of change and is unwilling to learn from history. Currently the Saudi kingdom uses “financial resources to buy peace”. This statement was made to the New York Times by prince Talal ben Abdulaziz, brother of the Saudi monarch and father of billionaire Al Waleed ben Talal.
While the Arab countries are dealing with uprisings one after the other, Saudi Arabia, the richest of all Arab countries, is still far from the disorder seen in the other countries, the newspaper specifies. Saudi Arabia has allocated 130 billion USD to keep the peace, implementing measures like an increase of the minimum wage, the construction of cheap houses and funding of religious organisations. After the fall of two Presidents, Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the Saudi monarch Abdullah Ben Abdulaziz, the newspaper explains, has started to finance religious institutions hoping for their loyalty. The United States has asked other Arab countries for democratic changes but has remained silent towards Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. The efforts made by the Saudis have apparently been effective so far, but many observers believe that the strategy to “buy” the public opinion cannot last, because it does not solve the real hidden problems. “Some leaders”, said prince Talal Ben Abdulaziz, 79 years old, “do not understand what is happening and don’t want to learn a lesson from history. They want to stay in power and want things to continue as they are. They fear the word change and this is a problem, because they are short-sighted and I don’t know how to change their way of thinking”. The Saudi royal family, the New York Times stresses, has been asked several times recently to carry out changes and to organise the election of a consultative committee.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Still Waiting for That New Middle East
Arab World: Saudi Arabia remains an island of stability, while Iran is stirring up most of the trouble.
The so-called Arab Spring has yet to bring democracy to the Arab world. The situation so far: Egypt and Tunisia, the most moderate and pro-Western countries in the region, have seen their governments toppled. In Libya and in Yemen, there is a bloody civil war. In Syria, Bashar Assad is killing civilians by the hundreds in vain efforts to stifle protests — but the international community remains on the sidelines, not wanting to repeat its (so far unsuccessful) intervention in Libya. Saudi Arabia, the country with perhaps the most oppressive regime, remains an island of stability.
Iran is making the most of the trouble and deepening its penetration efforts in the region. Its agents continue to incite the Shi’ite in Bahrain and Kuwait against the ruling Sunni families, ratcheting up the tension in the Gulf area and making the Saudis uneasy.
Last week saw a highly embarrassing incident in which a prisoner, an Iranian diplomat accused of spying, was freed and expelled to his native country, making a mockery of Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil el-Arabi’s policy to turn over a new leaf with Iran and renew relations.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Cancels ‘3 Religions’ Concert, Israel Dismayed
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JUNE 10 — Israel has reacted with disappointment to the last-minute cancellation of a concert dedicated to inter-religious tolerance to be held in Istanbul following threats received from extremist Islamic groups. These groups included — according to local mass media reports — the Turkish NGO IHH which has organised the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza due to set sail at the end of this month. Organised by such bodies as Istanbul’s city council and the Israeli consulate, the concert planned to include performances by an Israeli cantor, a Turkish imam and a soloist from the Armenian Church in Istanbul. But just as rehearsals were coming to an end yesterday, the Israeli cantor, Lior Almaliach, learned that the concert had been cancelled and that he would be well advised to leave Turkey on that same day.
A hard condemnation ensued from Israel’s foreign ministry, which accused the IHH itself of being behind the pressure to have the event cancelled. “It comes as no surprise that this organisation should attack a cultural event trying to spread tolerance between religions,” — the ministry’s spokesperson, Igal Palmor, is reported by military radio to have said, “Those with a terrorist mentality reach for their pistols every time they hear the word ‘culture”‘.
Last week the Israeli press gave great prominence to the fact that Israeli cyclists who had been invited to take part in an international race in Turkey had been forced by the organisers to return home ahead of schedule due to the unwillingness of Arab competitors to race against them.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s Last Free Election
As someone who has been sounding the alarm ever since the AKP won its first election in 2002, I now warn: Elections taking place today are likely to be the last fair and free ones in Turkey.
With Turkey’s leading Islamist party controlling all three branches of the government and the military sidelined, little will stop it from changing the rules to keep power into the indefinite future. And should the AKP manage to gain a 2/3s parliamentary majority, either on its own or in alliance with others, it will change the constitution, speeding up this process.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
14-Yr Old Indian Girl Raped & Hanged at Police Station
(AGI) Lakhimpur — Horror in India. A 14-year old girl has been raped and then murdered by hanging in a police station in Nighasan, state of Uttar-Pradesh. According to the Times of India “all of the eleven agents present had been suspended”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladeshi Premier to Keep Islam as State Religion
Sheikh Hasina wants to keep the 2007 amendment to the original secular constitution, deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. The Islamic parties most concerned about a return to the Charter of 1972, which bans parties based on religion.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina wants to keep Islam the state religion, thus preserving the illegal changes to the Constitution, made in 2007 by the provisional government. In a statement yesterday the prime minister responded to those calls for the restoration of the original secular constitution, as established by the Supreme Court in July 2010. But the most radical Muslims support the Hasina’s position: If the decision of the Court were to prevail, the parties based on religion — which are all Islamic — would have to quit government.
Under the old Constitution it was forbidden for any party to refer to religious principles. With the 2007 amendment, however, several Islamic parties, including the United Islamic Front — currently in opposition, but of significant political — were created. Sheikh Hasina does not want shari’a (instead the United Islamic Front would, ed), but still wants to retain those elements brought into the Constitution following the assassination of her father.
The original Constitution of Bangladesh was written in 1972, the year of the country split from Pakistan, and was based on four fundamental principles: secularism, nationalism, democracy and socialism. The first great champion of the Charter was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League (the majority coalition), the first premier of the State and the Hasina’s father. With the formation of a caretaker government backed by the military, the Constitution changes were made: in the preamble it reads “Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim” (In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, most Compassionate “), Islam is declared the State religion and political parties of a religious foundation can be voted to parliament.
Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country. With a population of 150 million people, it is one of the poorest nations in the world, but the third largest Islamic state in the world. Hindus are about 9% of the population, Buddhists and Christians, a tiny minority.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CIA Head Confronts Pakistan Over Al Qaeda Tip Off
C.I.A. director Leon E. Panetta took an unannounced trip to Pakistan on Friday to confront the leader of the Pakistani intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, over accusations that Pakistani government had tipped of militants staging an attack in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports.
This was the evidence of collusion presented: the C.I.A. had alerted the Pakistanis about the existence of two bomb-making facilities several weeks ago and asked them to raid the locations. One of the locations, according to the Telegraph, was operated by al-Qaeda. But when the Pakistani Army showed up, the militants were gone, which made the C.I.A. suspicious that the militants had warning from someone on the Pakistani side. “The targets seem to have been tipped off,” an American official told the Times. “There are indications that some senior Pakistani officials aren’t happy about it, and neither are we, of course.”
A senior Pakistani official said on Saturday that Pakistan was not suspicious that the bomb makers had disappeared, because “extremist groups often move locations.” But then he added that “now that the U.S. side has drawn our attention to the possibility of the Taliban being tipped off between the day the intelligence was shared and the day of our military action, we will work on finding out what happened.”
But these accusations only increase tensions in an already tense situation. The U.S. remains suspicious of Pakistani intelligence after the discovery of bin Laden. Departing defense secretary Robert Gates said recently that he thought “somebody” in Pakistan knew. Pakistan, in turn, saw U.S. attacks as a breach of its sovereignty. A security source in Islamabad told the Telegraph that Panetta had used the collusion accusation to underscore why the U.S. distrusted Pakistan and needed its own independent operations inside the country. In the meeting, Panetta also asked for Islamabad to reverse a decision to scale back the number of American military officers in the country.
The tensions in Pakistan seem to be manifesting in further violence in the region. On Sunday, while Panetta was in Islamabad, two bombs exploded minutes apart in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 34 people and wounding nearly 100. According to IslamOnline, the Pakistani Taliban, despite vowing to carry out attacks to avenge bin Laden, denied any role in the bombing and said they target only the government and military.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
China Aircraft Carrier Confirmed by General
The head of China’s General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has confirmed that China’s first aircraft carrier is under construction. Gen Chen Bingde refused to say when the carrier — a remodelled Soviet-era vessel, the Varyag — would be ready.
A member of his staff said the carrier would pose no threat to other nations. The 300m (990ft) carrier, which is being built in the north-east port of Dalian, has been one of China’s worst-kept secrets, analysts say.
Gen Chen made his comments to the Chinese-language Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspaper. Symbol of power. The PLA — the largest army in the world — is hugely secretive about its defence programme.
The carrier was constructed in the 1980s for the Soviet navy but was never completed. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the rusting hull of the Varyag sat in dockyards in Ukraine. A Chinese company with links to the PLA bought the Varyag claiming it wanted to turn it into a floating casino in Macau.
The carrier is thought to be nearly finished, and is expected to begin sea trials later this year. But the BBC’s Michael Bristow in Beijing says that does not mean it will then be ready to undertake operational duties.
Learning how to operate it — and fly planes off it — will take a few more years to master, our correspondent says. Lt Gen Qi Jianguo, assistant chief of the general staff, told the Hong Kong Commercial Daily that even after the aircraft carrier was deployed, it would “definitely not sail to other countries’ territorial waters”.
“All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers — they are symbols of a great nation,” he was quoted as saying.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Fukushima Already Ten Times Worse Than Chernobyl in Ocean Waters
Recent readings taken roughly 19 miles out to sea from the Fukushima nuclear power facility in Japan have revealed radioisotope levels ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas after the massive Chernobyl disaster. Because Fukushima is much closer to water than the Chernobyl plant is, the ongoing fallout there is shaping up to be far worse than Chernobyl, at least as far as the world’s oceans are concerned, and time will tell just how devastating this massive disaster will be on the entire world as radiation continues to circulate around the globe.
“Given that the Fukushima nuclear power plant is on the ocean, and with leaks and runoff directly to the ocean, the impacts on the ocean will exceed those of Chernobyl, which was hundreds of miles from any sea,” said Ken Buessler, Senior Scientist in Marine Chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, several months back. Since that time, it has been revealed that Fukushima reactors 1, 2, and 3 have all experienced “melt-throughs,” which are considered to be the worst possible outcome in a nuclear disaster [url].
Various atomic experts are now in agreement that the unfolding situation in Japan truly is “as serious as it gets in a nuclear disaster.” Even the Japanese government itself is now admitting the grave reality of the situation, having recently announced it will submit a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) explaining the details of the melt-throughs, which basically mean that radioactive fuel appears to have burned through the outer containment vessels of the reactors and have gone directly into bare earth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Was This the Week That China’s Rise to World Dominance Finally Became Unstoppable?
The Ikea superstore in the port city of Dalian, China, is a blue-and-yellow monument to the global reach of Western commerce, but any shopper stumbling out through the back door would be confronted by a jaw-dropping symbol of rapidly changing times. In the docks behind the store sits a 60,000-ton aircraft carrier.
This huge ship — nearly three times the size of Britain’s sole remaining carrier, HMS Illustrious — was originally built in the Soviet Union.
Still under construction when communism collapsed, it was bought by a Hong Kong company, which claimed it was going to tow the ship to Macau and turn it into a floating hotel and casino.
China had already converted two former Soviet aircraft carriers into gambling dens, so this was not as far-fetched as it sounded, but the third ship never reached Macau. It was taken to Dalian, painted in the colours of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and fitted with a flight deck and new guns and missiles.
For years, China’s spokesmen kept insisting that the ship was still going to be a casino, but last Wednesday the Chief of the General Staff came clean on the world’s worst-kept military secret.
In plain view, behind Ikea, is the first unambiguous sign that China intends to project its military power far beyond its own shores.
Senior officers in Beijing insist that they would never use the aircraft carrier for such a task, even though that is the only thing aircraft carriers are good for.
Five years ago, I started writing my book Why The West Rules — For Now. In it I argued that geography has been the ultimate force behind Western success, but I calculated that if levels of development increase across the 21st Century at the same pace as they did in the 20th, East Asian wealth and power will catch up with the West’s around the year 2100.
It is only seven months since my book came out, but last week’s events suggest strongly that the East is, in fact, gaining ground even faster than I predicted. The next few years may be the most important since the end of the Cold War.
For 300 years, the West has enjoyed an enormous military lead over the rest, but this is now being eroded — because the West is going broke.
[…]
In China, where the economy has grown by ten per cent each year, military spending has quadrupled since 1996 and seems set to grow even faster across the present decade.
And rather than competing with the USA in conventional warfare, China plans to vault ahead in cyber war and space war, where big investments promise the power to take down the digital spine that holds the American military together.
In the West, by contrast, economic recovery after the 2008 collapse is faltering, and military spending is actually falling.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Protestors Clash at Anti-Muslim Rally in Melbourne
MUSLIM groups are worried by a new nationalist organisation that claims Australia is in danger of being Islamicised.
Australian Defence League supporters clashed with Left-wing protesters in the city yesterday as the group held its first local rally, sparking a warning from the Baillieu Government that bigotry would not be tolerated.
A small team of police initially kept the groups apart, but ADL supporters were forced to end their protest early when activists encircled them and tore up placards.
The ADL is an offshoot of the English Defence League, which has staged demonstrations in areas of high Muslim concentration in the UK.
About 40 ADL members, including women dressed in mock hijabs, protested in Federation Square yesterday over issues such as the certification of halal meat and concern sharia law would be introduced.
Protest organiser Martin Brennan claimed the group had 1400 members but denied it was anti-Muslim.
“We are not racist whatsoever, we are against radical Islam infiltrating Australia,” he said.
Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said the group was provocative and wrong to believe that most Australian Muslims wanted to bring in sharia law.
“It’s of great concern that anyone is out there trying to disrupt the peaceful social fabric of Australia,” he said.
Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Nazeem Hussein said the ADL’s views were uninformed and saddening.
State Multicultural Affairs Minister Nick Kotsiras said the Government did not tolerate racism, bigotry or the incitement of hatred.
“Activities which undermine the multicultural harmony of Victoria will be dealt with swiftly,” he said.
The ADL protest was swamped by the much bigger group of activists and unionists who shouted anti-racism slogans.
Anti-racism protester Mick Armstrong, from Socialist Alternative, said the ADL was trying to copy the tactics of its British counterpart.
“They have had their protest and we have ended it,” he said.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Warns Africa of ‘New Colonialism’
[This is truly priceless. An arrogant Liberal warning Africa’s totally incompetent and corrupt leadership about the dangers of “colonialism”. As if re-colonization of Africa is not one of the few ways possible of rehabilitating that basket case of a continent.
While China’s predatory economic incursions certainly need to be scrutinized with a thoroughly jaundiced eye, equating Chinese rapacity with earlier European colonial efforts is completely out of line. It’s just another backhanded criticism of the West couched in drooling Nanny State anxiety. — Z]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned Africa of a creeping “new colonialism” from foreign investors and governments interested only in extracting the continent’s natural resources to enrich themselves and not the African people.
Clinton said that African leaders must ensure that foreign projects are sustainable and benefit all their citizens, not only elites. A day earlier, she cautioned that China’s massive investments and business interests in Africa need to be closely watched so that the African people are not taken advantage of.
“It is easy, and we saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave,” Clinton said. “And when you leave, you don’t leave much behind for the people who are there. We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa.”
[Try telling the population of India such unmitigated rubbish — Z]
Clinton said the United States didn’t want foreign governments and investors to fail in Africa, but they should also give back to the local communities.
“We want them to do well, but also we want them to do good,” she said.
“We don’t want them to undermine good governance, we don’t want them to basically deal with just the top elites, and frankly too often pay for their concessions or their opportunities to invest.”
Clinton said that American development aid and infrastructure projects come with good governance conditions and that the Obama administration is interested in Africa and the African people. Their success, she said, is in the long-term interest of both the African people and the U.S.
She spoke in a pan-African television interview in the Zambian capital. Her interview followed the handover of a U.S. built pediatric hospital in Lusaka to the Zambian government.
Earlier, at the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-Zambia Chamber of Commerce, Clinton laid out the U.S. strategy for helping Africa.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Battisti Walks as Brazil Rejects Italy’s Appeal
Supreme court turns down attempt to overturn Lula’s decision not to extradite former terrorist
MILAN — Cesare Battisti is a free man. Italy has taken a double whammy but there is also embarrassment in Brazil. The supreme federal court in Brasilia first of all rejected out of hand the Italian government’s appeal against the decision of former president Lula that blocked Battisti’s extradition. The ruling did not, however, definitively compromise the former terrorist’s transfer to Italy. However, the court went on to discuss whether Lula had complied with the existing bilateral extradition treaty. This decision is thought to have been crucial to the defence request for Battisti’s release after four years in jail. The supreme court ruled that there had been no failure to comply, Battisti was not extraditable and he could therefore walk free. There were angry reactions in Italy, where the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed “deep regret” at the Brazilian ruling.
FREE — Shortly afterwards, Battisti emerged from Papuda prison. His lawyer, Luis Roberto Barroso, said: “He told me he will be living in Brazil, probably working as a writer. He has a lot of friends here”. When the former terrorist said he wanted to speak to his daughters, Mr Barroso tried unsuccessfully to contact them on his mobile phone. “He was happy”, said the lawyer.
POWERS — According to the Sao Paolo-based Folha newspaper, the judges who voted against granting the Italian appeal were: Luiz Fux, Carmen Lucia, Ricardo Lewandowski, Joaquim Barbosa, Carlos Ayres Britto and Marco Aurelio Mello. In their opinion, Lula’s decision to keep Battisti in Brazil is an issue of national sovereignty and therefore falls within the remit of the executive, not the judiciary.
“CASE CLOSED” — The decision to free Battisti was relatively unexpected after the rejection of the appeal. When he invited the court to go further and deal with the situation of “someone who has been in prison for four years”, judge Barbosa stressed that the case was “closed. There is nothing in which the foreign country can involve itself”. Judge Mello commented: “I have been a member of the supreme court for twenty years and I have never had to face a situation in which the executive” having expressed itself on a foreign policy issue has subsequently been “challenged by a foreign government”…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Backlash Begins for Judges Who Backed Illegal Entry
Lawmakers want court to fix ruling, plan state-statute changes for remedy
A backlash has begun against an Indiana Supreme Court ruling that homeowners have no right to resist a police officer’s illegal entry but can argue it later in court.
State lawmakers are seeking a change in the state statutes and asking the court to make the judges fix the problem themselves.
A constitutional expert contends the moves are needed, because the court’s arguments essentially are the same as the idea that “someone can’t use a firearm to protect himself from someone who is threatening to kill him.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Marine Intercepts Migrants Off Crete
ATHENS — An EU marine patrol on Saturday intercepted around 100 migrants near the Greek island of Crete as they attempted to sail from Egypt to Italy, the Greek coastguard said.
“A distress signal was initially sent to the Italian authorities in Rome,” a coastguard spokeswoman told AFP.
“There was an initial search near Malta until an Icelandic patrol vessel from (EU border agency) Frontex found them near Crete,” she said.
The sailboat was located some 85 nautical miles (100 miles) from the town of Paleohora in southern Crete.
The migrants claim there are 95 people on board but the cause of the distress call was not immediately clear, and their nationalities are also unknown at this point, the spokeswoman said.
“We know the group includes mostly men but that there are also women and children,” she added.
“They are now in the process of transfering onto the Frontex vessel, and authorities have not yet decided where they will be taken for health tests,” the officer said.
Local weather conditions are reported to be mild.
Greece last year secured the assistance of Frontex to thwart an overwhelming surge of arrivals from Africa and Asia.
Though not an EU member, Iceland is contributing to the EU patrol force.
Frontex patrols have made a major impact on smuggling networks which until now had extensively taken advantage of Greece’s porous marine frontier.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ghanaian Confesses to Killing Castelvolturno Girl
(AGI) Caserta — The Ghanaian accused of striking a 7 year old girl before throwing her into the canal at Regi Lagni has confessed. Previous reports gave the girl’s age as 5. The incident happened following a row with the child’s mother this morning in Castelvolturno. The man, identified by several eye-witnesses as the girl’s kidnapper, has admitted hitting her and then throwing her into the canal from the bridge near the Scalzone Hotel.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Refugee Island Left in Crisis
Silvio Berlusconi came, promised a golf course and casino, and left. African migrants still arrive from Libya aboard leaky fishing boats. And the islanders of Lampedusa are left feeling more desperate than ever.
Italy’s southernmost speck of land, closer to Tunisia than Sicily, should be packed at this time of year with tourists and nesting turtles enjoying its pristine beaches. Instead the island and its hotels are virtually deserted — except for coastguards, police and aid workers awaiting the next break in the weather that will bring in a fresh influx of fugitives from north Africa.
“Tourism is zero,” complains Maria Sanguedolce, surveying the empty tables of her seafront restaurant next to a graveyard of crippled Libyan and Tunisian vessels waiting to be scrapped. Stray dogs wander by. “I am fed up with Berlusconi’s promises. And damn the media,” she adds. Accusations of broken promises are a sore point with the prime minister’s centre-right government, still reeling from disastrous losses in local elections last month.
As if Ms Sanguedolce’s words were heard in Rome, the cabinet issued a terse statement on Thursday, promising to maintain its “commitments” to Lampedusa and handing the file to Stefania Prestigiacomo, the environment minister.
Lampedusa, 20 sq km of mostly barren rock and maquis, became a gateway to Europe this year, drawing more than 23,000 job-seeking Tunisians in the space of six weeks. This was followed by an outpouring of African migrants from Libya, their departure organised by the Tripoli regime. Hundreds have perished on the way.
Aid agencies and Lampedusa’s few thousand inhabitants — who depend on tourism for 80 per cent of the island’s economy — blame the government for the disastrous handling of a sudden crisis.
For nearly two months more than 6,000 Tunisians were in effect abandoned on the island, left to roam its villages and cliffs, scavenging and sleeping in the open. Rome’s intention was to send images back to Tunisia to deter further arrivals and to impress upon Brussels the need for collective European Union intervention.
The plan backfired, forcing Mr Berlusconi to fly there in late March, when he said he would buy a villa. He also pledged a golf course and casino and to move the migrants to processing centres on Sicily and the mainland.
The authorities and the UN refugee agency have streamlined the process of moving out most migrants by ship within a day or so of arrival. But media images of the chaos are now so ingrained that most Italian and foreign tourists remain convinced that Lampedusa is a place to be avoided.
With no source of fresh water, the island is barely able to support a few trees, let alone a thirsty golf course. Bernadino de Rubeis, Lampedusa mayor, hails from Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Liberty party but he is fuming at the inadequacy of the government’s response, calling the golf course idea “not serious”.
“He should keep faith in his promises of economic help. We live on tourism. A lot of places are closing. The season is lost,” he told the Financial Times. He singled out the promotions organised by Michela Brambilla, the tourism minister who worked in Mr Berlusconi’s media empire, as “totally useless”.
“We are tired. We need answers, not television commercials and speeches,” he said.
For the mayor, the answer is to make Lampedusa a real entry point for Europe by setting up a free-trade zone.
“We are the frontier,” he points out. But for the moment there is almost no trade at all.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Activist: Italy Should Think Over Immigration Policy
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 10 — “We hope that our revolution will make you reflect on the expensive security measures you are demanding from us. For you, an influx of twenty thousand people is too many; but we in Tunisia on the other hand, despite all of our hardships, continue to take in tens of thousands of refugees and our people welcome them into their homes”.
This lecture to Italy has been delivered by Sihem Bensedrine, a human-rights activist and a leading figure in the historic opposition to Ben Ali as co-founder of the Conseil National pour les Libertes en Tunisie. Ms Bensedrine is a guest at the “manifesto” congress on the Arab Spring being held in Rome and his contribution yesterday evening addressed the question of immigration full on. “These 20,000 who have arrived here are educated young people who our country paid to train. We call on you to be a little patient and to keep them on here for a while, because when they return home, they will be useful to us too”. The founder of the periodical Kalima, which was an independent voice under the old regime, also talked about the “challenge of transition, which is a harder one than the revolution”. But one result we feel proud of, she added, is having achieved lists of election candidates for the constitutional assembly “composed 50% of women,” each of which has been included alongside a male candidate. “Because building a democracy without the women is a risk for that democracy itself”. “What we fear are not the Islamists, but the counter-revolutionary forces”, Ms Bensedrine continued. By which she means the men and apparatus of the old regime, who have been the inspiration behind “28 out of the 80 new parties” born in the country, and who have “infiltrated everything,” including other political groupings, encouraging the Salaphites and acting in secret “to spread the idea that only Ben Ali protected religious minorities”. In the Islamist Ennahda party “there are moderates who want to see a democratic state, accept that the separation between religion and state and want to play the democratic game. They will not get more than 20% of the vote, even veiled women prefer other parties that guarantee fundamental freedoms, the fight against corruption and the end of Ben Ali’s secret police”.
The reform of the police force, which has to be done by government acting hand in hand with civil society will be one of the great challenges of the transition.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 102 Foreign Criminals We Can’t Deport… Because of THEIR ‘Right to a Family Life’
Over 100 foreign criminals and illegal immigrants have used the European ‘right to a family life’ to avoid deportation from the UK in the past year.
Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights — guaranteeing the ‘right to a family life’ — has helped a total of 102 people frustrate the deportation process.
These include a number of violent criminals and illegal immigrants who had no other right to remain in the country.
In one case, a foreign criminal who used Article Eight was a violent thug and drug dealer who beat his girlfriend and failed to pay child maintenance.
None claimed they would be in danger of torture or abuse if they were sent back to their home countries.
Conservative MP Dominic Raab, who got hold of the figures, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Before the Human Rights Act, no criminal had ever claimed a right to family life to frustrate a deportation order in this country.
‘It is high time we changed to law, to restore some common sense and retain public confidence in out border controls.’
In 2010, 233 appeals against deportation were made. Of these, 149 were successful on human rights grounds — 102 of them citing Article Eight alone.
Just 35 were under Article Three, which protects people from being killed or tortured if returned to an unsafe country. The rest used a mix of Articles.
The figures from HM Courts Service show Article Eight is the number one reason foreign criminals or illegal immigrants managed to defeat deportation.
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, had ordered the North London-based violent drug dealer — who can only be named as AP because judges kept his identity a secret — sent back to Trinidad.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, he has a five-year-old daughter, from whom he provided no care nor any maintenance payments, but he still won his fight against deportation thanks to his ‘right to a family life’.
His is just the latest case of Article Eight being used to halt the deportation process. Others include:
A Sri Lankan robber allowed to remain here because he has a girlfriend in Britain.
An Iraqi killer who, judges ruled, should not be sent back becauuse he would pose a risk to people in his home country.
A Bolivian man who was able to stay partly because he owned a pet cat.
AP — the violent drug dealer who has just been given leave to stay — was jailed for 18 months by Ipswich Crown Court in May 2008 for possession of cocaine with intent to supply.
His criminal record also included battery of his partner in 2007.
Home Office officials told him they intended to deport him back to the Caribbean after he had served his sentence.
But he appealed and after his release from jail at the beginning of 2009 he told a tribunal he was remorseful and getting his life back on track.
Two days later he was caught in possession of cocaine and fined £75.
But a tribunal ruled AP should not be deported in March 2009. The judges said: ‘We are satisfied that the effect of his proposed removal on all members of his family unit in the UK would result in removal being disproportionate, especially since he has a child who has a strong bond with him and he with her and we have heard credible evidence that he is a good and caring father.’
Despite an appeal by the Home Secretary, AP’s right to stay was upheld for Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Carwath and Lord Justice Rimer at the Court of Appeal last month.
The European Convention on Human Rights was made UK law by the passing of the Human Rights Act by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1998.
Controversy has raged around it ever since as its provisions take precedence over other British law.
| — Hat tip: RE | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ban Homophobic Clerics From Mosques, Gay Rights Campaigners Urge
Activists call upon London mosque leaders to stop allowing their premises to be used to ‘promote gay-hate campaigns’
Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area.
Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had “created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do”.
Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up “Gay-Free Zone” stickers in the area; the case of Oliver Hemsley, who was paralysed from the neck down in August 2008 following a vicious attack; and Metropolitan police figures showing that gay hate crime had risen in the borough of Tower Hamlets — where the mosque and adjoining centre are located — from 67 attacks to 81 in a year.
In a statement, the campaigners said that while the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had distanced themselves from the sticker campaign, they had “hosted numerous hate preachers who have promoted the most vicious homophobia imaginable over the years”.
“The East London Mosque claims to have no responsibility over those who speak there. The East London Mosque also claims to be opposed to the ‘gay-free zone’ campaign and homophobia. We demand that the East London Mosque live up to its stated word, take ownership of its platform and stop allowing its premises to be used to promote gay-hate campaigns.”
Salman Farsi, from the mosque, said booking procedures had been tightened since last year.
“Any speaker who is believed to have said something homophobic will not be allowed to use our premises, whether that is us organising an event or someone else. As for the condemnation of homophobia, our director has gone on the record on this.
“I can see where the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is coming from. That £100 fine was a slap on the wrist. One of the things that needs to be noted is that there are a small number of extremists in our community that are stirring things up. We have done as much as we possibly can. The LGBT community need to take that in good faith.”
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient Wheat Plague Threatens World Crops Anew
Diseases that ravage wheat fields are as old as time itself. The ancient Romans even had a legend to explain the terrible plagues.
According to the myth, a mischievous young boy tied a flaming wheat straw to a fox’s tail, torturing the animal. This single act angered the Roman god Robigus so much that he unleashed a rust-colored plague on the fields that turned all the crops to black.
“Stem rust, when it goes epidemic, destroys a crop,” said Ronnie Coffman, a leading expert on wheat disease and chair of the department of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University.
“There is nothing left but black stems, zero grain. It is just an absolute devastation,” said Coffman.
The last major epidemic of the fungal disease known as stem rust broke out in 1953 but was quelled with the introduction of a resistant strain of plants in the 1970s, an initiative spearheaded by the late Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner widely known as the father of the Green Revolution.
In 1998, a new wave of the fungus known as Ug99 turned up in Uganda, overcoming crops that were once resistant and wielding the potential to kill as much as 90 percent of the world’s wheat.
The disease is now widespread in eastern Africa and threatens to move deep into the Middle East and Asia, where it could devastate farms, cause rising bread prices and unleash political and economic unrest, experts say.
Already, the strain has shown up in Iran and in Yemen, Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland which has plunged into political turmoil in the past five months amid deadly fighting over the future of the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Expert Warns NATO of Cyber Arms Race
The world is entering an era of a cyber arms race where ever-more sophisticated versions of malware are the weapons of choice of actors often impossible to trace, a top IT expert told NATO Friday. “We are entering the era of a cyber arms race, but the problem in this arms race is we don’t know what kind of new arms the others have, so we don’t have a quick, effective means to counter them,” Mikko Hypponen said at a meeting on global cyber conflict organised by the Tallinn-based NATO Cyber Centre. “And we often don’t know also who is in charge, who has these weapons,” said the Finn, who works for a top global IT security firm.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Wealthy Nations Asked to Pay for AIDS Care
A UN AIDS summit has set a target of more than doubling the number of sufferers receiving life-saving treatment to 15 million by 2015.
Health groups said the summit accord, to be officially unveiled today, was a “critical” step in achieving universal access to drugs, but that rich countries must now commit to paying the bill.
In the final statement, obtained Thursday by Agence France-Presse, countries at the summit marking the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS “commit to accelerate efforts to achieve the goal of universal access to antiretroviral treatment.”
It sets the “target” of getting 15 million HIV sufferers in the poorest countries on antiretroviral treatment by 2015.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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