Press Slams Empty Italian Upper House
Il Giornale, a daily owned by the family of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi (R), has criticized legislators who have continued their holidays during the country’s hard days.
Only a handful of Italian politicians broke off their holidays to help process a multi-billion-euro austerity package the government says is vital to thwart a debt crisis, enraging the public and papers alike.
Newspapers ran pictures of an almost empty upper house, where on Wednesday night only 11 of its 315 senators turned up for the formal depositing of the 45.5 billion euro ($65 billion) package with screening committees.
While their presence was not strictly necessary, the irony of the deserted chamber was not lost on commentators. “While they are decreeing blood and tears for Italians, they don’t even have the courage to show their faces,” the Il Messaggero newspaper quoted one blogger as saying on Thursday.
The conservative Il Giornale newspaper, its criticism all the more pungent because it is owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said: “This clearly does not make for a pretty picture of the political class of this country.”
The mix of tax increases and spending cuts was announced last week to meet European Central Bank demands for action on shoring up Italy’s strained public finances.
“I don’t know whether I should consider myself an upstanding person or a total idiot,” Giacomo Santini, one of the 11 senators, told La Repubblica newspaper, which called the gathering a “senate in summer dress”.
Santini, who travelled some 600 km from his constituency near the border with Austria to attend the session, said: “It is scenes like this that sometimes make me regret having entering politics.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Vested Rights on Pensions Not to be Touched, Calderoli
(AGI) Colalzo di Cadore — Roberto Calderoli said that the government has already made “too many reforms” on pensions and it is important “not to put vested rights in jeopardy as far as the raising of retirement age for women in the private sector is concerned”. “There is a difference in treatment” between the public and the private sectors — the Minister for Simplification of Regulations explained, commenting on his colleague Renato Brunetta’s statements. Minister Brunetta had claimed that it is possible to raise the retirement age for women in the private sector, since it has already been done for public servants .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Fiat’s Maserati Planning to Build First Luxury Suv at US Plant
Modena, 18 August (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italian car giant Fiat’s Maserati, the maker of the 120,250 dollar Quattroporte driven by rock star Bono (photo), is betting that Italian luxury can also be a made-in-Detroit SUV.
The elite car brand, based in Modena, Italy, plans to build its first sport-utility vehicle at Chrysler Group LLC’s Jefferson North assembly plant, said a person familiar with the matter.
A concept version of the model, which will be based on the Jeep Grand Cherokee, is due to be unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show next month, said the person, who declined to be identified before the official announcement.
The American-made Maserati SUV is a product of the integration between Fiat and Chrysler. Sergio Marchionne, who runs both carmakers, aims to expand Maserati and sister brand Alfa Romeo by drawing on Fiat and Chrysler’s combined size to boost profit.
The strategy mimics Volkswagen AG’s blend of volume brands and high-margin luxury nameplates that’s helped Audi generate more than 40 percent of the group’s earnings from less than 20 percent of sales.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Verizon Workers Plan to End Walkout, Though Contract Remains Unsettled
Leaders of the unions that have been on strike against Verizon Communications announced on Saturday that they were ending the walkout even though the two sides had not reached an overall settlement for a new contract.
Beginning with the evening shift on Monday, the 45,000 striking workers will return to their jobs, posts that they left on Aug. 7 in the nation’s largest strike in four years, when General Motors workers held a two-day strike.
Union leaders are ending the walkout, they said, because Verizon management had finally agreed to engage in serious bargaining on the contentious issues after the company had originally insisted on negotiating more than 100 proposals for concessions.
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Germany: Arson in Berlin: Car Burnings Are a ‘Precursor to Terrorism’
The last three nights have seen an unprecedented wave of car torchings in Berlin, but police are not sure who to arrest. Politicians on the left and right warn the attacks could lead to more dangerous forms of protest. Meanwhile, the failure to stop them could sway September’s mayoral election.
Erhart Körting, in charge of security matters in Berlin, isn’t known as a careless man, but on Wednesday he uttered a sentence that may call his sanity into doubt. “I still park my car on the street in front of my house,” he said.
The center-left Social Democrat obviously wanted to make a point — that Berlin authorities won’t be cowed by a rash of seemingly random car burnings in the German capital. But the numbers are alarming. After the senator for interior policy spoke on Wednesday night, nine cars were torched around Berlin. Thirty were damaged or destroyed by flames on Monday and Tuesday, about 15 per night, and authorities have made no arrests.
“We need hard deterrent measures,” said Rainer Wendt, head of DPoIG, the country’s second-largest police union, according to the mass-circulation Bild on Thursday morning. A security expert for the Social Democrats, Dieter Wiefelspütz, told the paper that automobile arsons were “a precursor to terrorism.”
No one has been hurt so far, and no one has claimed responsibility. But burning upscale cars is a form of left-wing protest in some German cities, particularly Berlin and Hamburg. Authorities say 300 cars have been torched in Berlin since the start of 2011. The number of arsons over the last three days has been disproportionate, however, and authorities say the targets are not just luxury cars but also vans and delivery trucks.
Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, called the burnings “deranged vandalism” and said they amounted to “unacceptable crimes that must be prosecuted to the fullest extent.”
Berlin Election Approaches
They come at a very bad time for Wowereit’s left-wing coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and socialist Left Party members. Their campaign for a municipal election on September 18 has trundled along uneventfully, but the arsons may now threaten the incumbent government.
The two parties stand to gain nothing in a debate over burning cars: Wowereit’s cabinet has failed to create a policy over the last few years against the crimes, which admittedly may be hard to prevent along the city’s 5,400 kilometers (or 3,355 miles) of streets.
Investigators have also said in the meantime that the perpetrators may not be left-wing extremists alone. Because of the variety of targets, experts say, the arsons don’t resemble an organized political protest — they seem to be the work of random individual perpetrators.
Nevertheless, the latest car burnings have moved to districts such as Charlottenburg and Tiergarten. Until now, the most common settings for car arson had been the alternative eastern districts of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain — all of which have been undergoing steady gentrifiction in recent years.
The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — Germany’s main rival party to the SPD — smells a campaign issue. The party is planning a new series of posters on security in Berlin, and on Thursday Wolfgang Bosbach, a Christian Democrat who heads a committee for interior security in the federal parliament, criticized Mayor Wowereit’s performance.
“The terrorism of the Red Army Faction (or Baader-Meinhof gang, which bombed political targets in the 1970s) started with quote-unquote ‘just’ arson,” he told broadcaster N24. “For this reason there is a danger that the violence could one day target people.”
| — Hat tip: Rembrandt | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Christian Party Wants to Amend Child Benefit Plan
The fundamentalist Christian SGP party has found a way of softening the effects of new child benefit plans and is sending an amendment to parliament, reports the Telegraaf.
Under budget cuts, child benefit is due to be limited to the first two children in a family. The SGP has worked out that if benefit for the first child is cut by €41, there will still be enough to pay the benefit for more than two children per family.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Otters Are Back — in Every County in England
Return of otter shows English rivers are healthiest for 20 years, says Environment Agency
It has been a long and perilous journey, but otters have finally managed to swim back from the brink of extinction and into every county in England.
Two otters have been spotted building their holts on the banks of the rivers Medway and Eden in Kent, delighting conservationists who had previously predicted they would not return to the county for another 10 years.
“The fact that otters are now returning to Kent is the final piece in the jigsaw for otter recovery in England and is a symbol of great success for everybody involved in otter conservation,” said Alastair Driver, the national conservation manager for the Environment Agency.
Otters have reappeared in places where they have not been seen since the industrial revolution, including Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, and even on the Thames and the Lea in north London. A recent survey on the river Ribble, in Lancashire, showed a 44% increase in otter numbers since 2008.
The Kentish otters herald a remarkable — if slow — renaissance for the sleek, fish-devouring member of the mustelid family, which declined by 95% of its range in western Europe during the 20th century.
In England the otter disappeared dramatically between the 1950s and 1970s because of persecution and pesticides washing into waterways.
After otter hunting was belatedly banned in Britain in 1978, numbers began to increase — particularly following the withdrawal of organochlorine chemicals and a more general improvement in water quality, leading to more fish in rivers and lakes.
The resurgence of the otter, which is top of the food chain in river environments, is an indicator that English rivers are at their healthiest for more than 20 years, according to the Environment Agency.
Terry Nutkins, the naturalist and friend of Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water, said he was “absolutely overjoyed” by the return of the otter across England.
“They are such a beautiful species of the weasel family and part of our heritage,” he said. “It’s good news and shows that the rivers are clean and there are more people becoming involved with environmental issues.”
A spokesperson for The Wildlife Trusts said: “This is fantastic news. We will continue our work to improve habitats for these magnificent animals and to promote the otter as a flagship species of healthy wetland ecosystems. However, we must not be complacent. There is still a great deal of work to do before otters are widespread once more.”
The resurgence of the otter has not delighted everyone, however, and anglers have reported otters decimating stocks in fishing lakes. The angler John Wilson recently called the otter “a wanton killer” and some fishing groups have called for a cull. Many angling clubs have been forced to erect expensive fences around lakes to keep otters out.
Some conservationists warn that sightings of otters in new habitats may reflect otters roaming more widely in search of food rather than a big increase in numbers.
Grace Yoxon of the International Otter Survival Fund said evidence of a surge in otter numbers should be treated with caution. “We just don’t have the data [on population increases],” she said.
Otters are slow to reproduce and most mothers only bear two sets of cubs in their lifetime.
“It’s not physically possible for them to spread very quickly,” said Yoxon. “The biggest problem is human encroachment and the destruction of habitat, and increasingly many otters are hit on the roads.”
Otters are also sometimes caught in crayfish traps.
The Environment Agency, working with partners including wildlife and angling organisations, has this year been granted an additional £18m of funding by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help more English rivers meet new EU targets on the health of rivers.
Otters have also benefited from reductions in the volume of water extracted from rivers by water companies, farmers and industry. According to the Environment Agency, around 35m fewer litres a day are now being taken from the River Darent in Kent than 20 years ago, support larger populations of wildlife including brown trout and pike.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Road Keep on Truckin’… If You’re Belgian
De Morgen, 18 August 2011
In an investigative feature on “The harsh life of East European truckers,” De Morgen reports that drivers who hail from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Moldavia are often employed by Belgian logistics companies with offices in Eastern Europe, where employers can take advantage of lower wages and much more flexible labour laws. A practice that is “the bane of Belgians,” who worry that they may soon be out of work, is nonetheless “a solution for East European truckers” who take home larger salaries than their colleagues working for local businesses. That said, the Flemish daily notes that their life “is far from enviable.” In general, the East Europeans spend three weeks on the road, cooking, eating and sleeping on board their trucks. Only then do they benefit from a week off during which they can return home.
Although the companies concerned insist that there is “nothing illegal” in the way they manage their staff, the newspaper explains that the Belgian Transport Workers Union (UBOT) believes it has “sufficient grounds to go to court”. In a bid to prevent companies from employing foreign workers, UBOT is demanding that “East Europeans benefit from the same pay scales as their Belgian counterparts”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Riot Police Disperse Madrid Protest Over Pope’s Visit
Madrid, 19 August (AKI) — Police wielding batons dispersed around 150 people in Spain’s capital, Madrid on Friday protesting a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 2011 World Youth Day celebrations. The four-day visit began on Thursday and has been overshadowed by violent protests.
Some protesters were quoted as saying police had manhandled them and hit some with truncheons, although a spokeperson for Madrid emergency serviced they had had not attended to any injured.
Police earlier cordoned off the central Puerta del Sol square and used vans to hem in demonstrators furious at the cost of the papal visit at a time of austerity in Spain. The square was the birthplace of Spain’s widespread “indignant” protests earlier this year over the handling of the ailing Spanish economy and was the scene of clashes late Thursday between demonstrators and police.
The demonstrations against the visit — Benedict’s third one to Spain — have turned unusually aggressive, with protesters and pilgrims shouting at each other in Madrid city centre and police charges against demonstrators in which more than a dozen people were injured on Thursday and Friday and seven were arrested on Wednesday.
Eleven people were injured in the clashes late on Wednesday including two officers, and a Mexican chemistry student was detained for allegedly planning to attack an anti-Pope march with “asphyxiating gases and other substances”, police said.
More than 100 groups opposed the pontiff’s visit, including the 15-M movement — which opposes the government’s austerity measures — as well as gay right groups and other opposed to aspects of Catholic teaching.
The protesters including some priests, are especially critical of the cost of the papal visit — estimated at 50 million euros — when Spain is facing economic hardship. The unemployment rate is over 20 percent with youth joblessness at 45 percent and the government is cutting public spending to stave off a sovereign debt crisis.
Organisers say they believe the event — which has drawn about one million pilgrims fro nearly 200 countries — will generate about 100 million euros for the Spanish economy and claim that pilgrim registration fees have footed much of the bill.
But critics say the event will cost a similar sum, although the government has reportedly declined to give any cost figures.
Benedict on Friday urged young people to exercise “Gospel radicalism”in a world of “relativism and mediocrity”. He was speaking at a meeting with around 2,000 young nuns at the El Escorial near Madrid. He earlier visited King Juan Carlos and other members of the royal family at the Zarzuela palace.
He was slated later Friday to meet prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who is seen as favouring greater separation between church and state. Zapatero’s Socialist government has enacted reforms such as gay marriage, stem-cell research and easier access to abortion, making Spain one of Europe’s most socially liberal countries.
The 84-year-old pontiff received an ecstatic welcome on his arrival in Madrid Thursday from hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at a gathering in Cibeles square, where he indirectly criticised abortion in a reference to those who “creating their own gods take it upon themselves to decide who should live and who can be sacrificed in the interests of other preferences.”
Large crowds continued to turn out on Friday, cheering and waving flags as the popemobile drove by. During his visit, Benedict has voiced concern over unemployment and Europe’s share of responsibility for the economic crisis while harshly criticising “superficial and consumeristic” modern culture.
The World Youth Day 2011 festivities began on Tuesday with a giant-open-air Mass where around 800 bishops, archbishops and cardinals from around the world and 8,000 priests tended to the congregation. They end on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Riots: It’s Not About Criminality and Cuts, It’s About Culture … and This is Only the Beginning
Condemned as a racist for his comments on ‘Newsnight’ following the riots, the historian David Starkey speaks out against those who tried to silence him for confronting the gangster culture that has ruptured our society.
What a week! It’s not every day that you’re the subject of direct personal attack from the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. On Tuesday, after he had spoken at his old school, Haverstock Comprehensive, about the riots, Ed Miliband was invited by a member of the audience to “stamp out” the now-infamous opinions I had expressed on the same subject on last Friday’s Newsnight.
Mr Miliband might have replied that he disagreed with what I said, but in a liberal democracy defended my right to say it since it broke no laws. Not a bit of it, I fear. Instead, Miliband — the son of a refugee who fled from Nazi Europe to preserve his life and freedom of thought — agreed enthusiastically with the questioner. Mine were “racist comments”, he said, “[and] there should be condemnation from every politician, from every political party of those sorts of comments.” Strong words. But what do they mean? Well, the following statements are verbatim quotations of some of the principal points I made on Newsnight: “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion.” “This sort of black male [gang] culture militates against education.” “It’s not skin colour, it’s cultural.”
“Disgusting and outrageous”, are they? In which case, those who agree with Miliband must believe the opposite of all these. They are therefore convinced that gang culture is personally wholesome and socially beneficial. But how, then, to explain the black educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh defending the substance of my comments on “gangsta” culture, as well as Tony Parsons, who wrote in the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror that, “without the gang culture of black London, none of the riots would have happened — including the riots in other cities like Manchester and Birmingham where most of rioters were white”.
Even stranger is Miliband’s apparent notion that, far from militating against educational achievement as I suggested, “the gang culture of black London” must therefore be a seedbed for scholarship and sound learning.. Odd, isn’t it, that Waterstone’s bookshop was the only business unlooted in the Ealing riots? And odder still that Lindsay Johns, the Oxford-educated mixed-race writer who mentors young people in Peckham, argues passionately against “this insulting and demeaning acceptance” of a fake Jamaican — or “Jafaican” — patois. “Language is power”, Johns writes, and to use “ghetto grammar” renders the young powerless.
“So why,” some of my friends have asked, “didn’t you stop there?” “Why did you have to talk about David Lammy MP sounding ‘white’? Or white chavs becoming ‘black’?” The answer is that I thought my appearance on Newsnight was supposed to be part of a wide-ranging discussion about the state of the nation. Central to any such discussion, it seems to me, are the successes and failures of integration in Britain in the past 50 years. And it was these that I was trying to address.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that my remarks on this subject produced especial outrage. I was accused of condemning all black culture; of using white and black culture interchangeably to denote “good and bad”, and of saying that blacks could only get on by rejecting black culture. Actually, I said none of those things and nothing that I did say could have been construed as such by any fair-minded person.
Instead, I was trying to point out the very different patterns of integration at the top and bottom of the social scale. At the top, successful blacks, like David Lammy and Diane Abbot, have merged effortlessly into what continues to be a largely white elite: they have studied at Oxbridge and gone on to Oxbridge-style careers, such as that of an MP. But they have done so at the cost of losing much of their credibility with blacks on the street and in the ghettos. And here, at the bottom of the heap, the story of integration is the opposite: it is the white lumpen proletariat, cruelly known as the “chavs”, who have integrated into the pervasive black “gangsta” culture: they wear the same clothes; they talk and text in the same Jafaican patois; and, as their participation in recent events shows, they have become as disaffected and riotous.
Trying to explain why, led me to what all my friends agree was my greatest error: to mention Enoch Powell. Tactically, of course, they are right, as the “Rivers of Blood” speech remains, even 40-odd years after its delivery, an unhealed wound. Unfortunately, the speech and still more the reaction to it, are also central to any proper understanding of our present discontents. For Powell’s views were popular at the time and the London dockers marched in his support. The reaction of the liberal elites in both the Labour and Tory parties, who had just driven Powell into the wilderness, was unanimous: the white working class could never be trusted on race again. The result was a systematic attack over several decades: on their perceived xenophobic patriotism, on symbols like the flag of St George, even — and increasingly — on the very idea of England itself.
The attack was astonishingly successful. But it left a void where a sense of common identity should be. And, for too many, the void has been filled with the values of “gangsta” culture.
Consider the converse. One of the most striking things about the England riots is where they did not happen: Yorkshire, the North East, Wales and Scotland. These areas contain some of the worst pockets of unemployment in the country. But they are also characterised by a powerful sense of regional or national identity and difference that cuts across all classes and binds them together. And it is this, I am sure, which has inoculated them against the disease of “gangsta” culture and its attendant, indiscriminate violence.
Scotland, Alex Salmond says smugly, is a “different culture”. It is indeed, since the Scots are allowed — and even encouraged — to be as racist as they please and hate the English with glad abandon. I do not want a similar licensed xenophobia here. But an English nationalism we must have. And it must be one that includes all our people: white and black and mixed race alike. Fortunately, there is a powerful narrative of freedom that runs like a golden thread through our history. “The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in,” counsel declared repeatedly in Somersett’s Case, about the legality of slavery in England, in 1772.
We must focus on the righting of the wrong rather than the original wrong itself. The former heals; the latter divides. And we have had enough of division. There is a final point. If all the people of this country, black and white alike, are to enter fully into our national story, as I desperately hope they will, they must do so on terms of reciprocity. In other words, I must be as free to comment on problems in the black community as blacks are to point the finger at whites, which they do frequently, often with justice, and with impunity. For the other pernicious legacy of the reaction to Powell has been an enforced silence on the matter of race. The subject has become unmentionable, by whites at any rate. And any breach has been punished by ostracism and worse. As the hysterical reaction to my remarks shows, the witch-finders already have their sights on me, led by that pillar of probity and public rectitude, Piers Morgan, who called on Twitter for the ending of my television career within moments of the Newsnight broadcast.
But the times have changed. Powell had to prophesy his “Tiber foaming with blood”. We, on the other hand, have already experienced the fires of Tottenham and Croydon. Moreover, the public mood is different from the acquiescent and deferential electorate of the Sixties. We are undeceived. We are tired of being cheated and lied to by bankers and MPs and some sections of the press. We will not continue, I think, to tolerate being lied to and cheated in the matter of race. Instead of “not in front of the children”, we want honesty.
But this is only the beginning. The riots are the symptom of a profound rupture in our body politic and sense of national identity. If the rupture is not healed and a sense of common purpose recovered, they will recur — bigger, nastier and more frequently. Can we stop bickering and address this task of recovery and reconstruction — all together?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 70 Tory MPs Set to Join New Group to Fight EU Integration
Up to 70 Conservative MPs are to join a new group dedicated to “reversing the process” of closer European Union integration in a move likely to place fresh strain on the coalition.
Dozens will attend a Commons meeting next month to discuss the formation of the Eurosceptic group which aims to provide “helpful advice” to the government.
The move carries echoes of the formation — more than 20 years ago — of the Bruges Group, which took its name from one of Margaret Thatcher’s speeches in which she attacked the formation of a European superstate and which became a focus for Eurosceptic Tories in the 1990s.
The new grouping is being put together by three MPs who were all elected for the first time in last year’s general election: 3, who was David Cameron’s former media chief, Chris Heaton-Harris and Andrea Leadsom.
The trio wrote to fellow Tory MPs last month to invite them to a meeting in the Thatcher Room at the Commons on 12 September. Mr Eustice last night said the letter had so far attracted 71 positive replies — around a quarter of the party’s MPs.
The letter states: “It has … become clear that events in the European Union are going to dominate British politics in the coming years across a wide range of policies.
“We think it might be helpful if we set up an informal group of like-minded MPs who could come together to talk, receive regular quality topical briefings, exchange ideas and, indeed, provide support and helpful advice to the government.
“The political objective of the group would be to reverse the process of ever-closer union.”
The move risks incurring the wrath, however, of the Tories’ Liberal Democrat coalition partners, whose party continues to maintain broad support for Brussels.
Mr Eustice said: “There is a lot of interest in such a group. It aims to be constructive and the ensure that we make the most of the opportunity presented by a Eurosceptic PM and a changing context in Europe.”
The new breed of younger Eurosceptic MPs takes a much more pragmatic view of the EU than the veterans of the old ideological battles over the Maastricht treaty that hamstrung John Major’s government in the 1990s, some of whom, such as Bill Cash, are still in parliament.
Nevertheless it is estimated that up to half of the 148 Conservatives elected for the first time in 2010 think Britain should quit the EU altogether, with scores more believing the UK’s relationship with the EU is ripe for a fundamental overhaul.
As well as the financial crisis gripping the eurozone and the lead-up to the future funding of the EU from 2014, several flashpoints are mentioned by MPs, including moves due to take effect in 2014 that would see the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice have greater say over policing policy in the UK.
“As the fundamental nature of our relationship with the EU changes over the next couple of years, there will be greater pressure for referendums on key issues,” one Tory MP predicted.
Plans to do away with all or part of the Human Rights Act will also carry on being a major issue. “David [Cameron] promised a British Bill of Rights before the election,” a Tory MP said. “But he can’t deliver it — the Lib Dems won’t let him. In extremis that could be a coalition breaker and the PM won’t risk it.”
Away from Europe, taxation is a thorny issue. Many of the new intake support moves to scrap the 50p top rate of tax on incomes above £150,000 in a bid to boost business — as Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, advocated this weekend.
Like Mr Pickles, and unlike among Lib Dems, there is little or no appetite for replacing it with another form of imposition on the wealthiest.
“I don’t want to scrap the 50p tax band and bring in a mansion tax,” one Conservative elected last year said. “In any case our main efforts should be focused on helping business and promoting growth.”
Even moves to repeal the ban on hunting with dogs, brought in under Labour, and a touchstone for many rural Tory supporters, is likely to be a big problem for Mr Cameron.
Some new Tory MPs, many of them women with urban or suburban seats, favour keeping the ban in place — as do the overwhelming majority of Lib Dem and Labour MPs.
One backbencher confidently predicts there is no way the ban will overturned. “The numbers don’t exist. The PM should just get on with it — lose the vote and move on.”
An indication of the strength of feeling about the direction of travel the party should take can be seen from the fact that no fewer than three books are scheduled for publication around the time of the forthcoming party conference season in which Conservative MPs will attempt to seize the agenda.
One of them, provisionally entitled After the Coalition, features contributions from Kwasi Kwarteng, Dominic Raab, Elizabeth Truss, Priti Patel and Chris Skidmore, all members of the 2010 intake.
David Davis, Mr Cameron’s main opponent in 2005 for the party’s leadership and the former shadow home secretary, is also overseeing a book with contributions from mainly right-leaning MPs — including new members Steve Baker, Therese Coffey and Richard Drax.
A third tome, snappily-titled Masters of Nothing: The Crash and How It Will Happen Again Unless We Understand Human Nature, is being written by another pair of up-and-coming MPs, Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi.
Younger MPs are careful to couch their desire for change in terms of support for Mr Cameron and the coalition.
Mr Raab, a former business lawyer who is MP for Esher and Walton, said: “The mood is positive because the coalition is delivering — whether its deficit reduction, welfare reform or raising teaching standards.
“The challenge for us comes from the unforeseen and the unpredictable. The riots inevitably feel like a vindication of David Cameron’s diagnosis of the broken society and the importance of family, while the Eurozone crisis has created a crossroads for the EU as a whole.”
Tracey Crouch, a former head of public affairs for the insurance company Aviva who is now MP for Chatham and Aylesford, said: “Constituents understand that we’ve had to prioritise reducing the deficit in our first year of Government, but now they want to see us deliver on the key manifesto promises that they voted me and others into parliament on the back of.
“Every time there is a story in the paper about some ridiculous human rights claim, or outrageous EU spending commitment, I get reminded by constituents of not only what was on my leaflets but what was in the coalition agreement too.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: EDL Score Massive Success Due to SWP Stupidity
Last night the SWP held a meeting entitled ‘What To Do About The EDL’..or rather they would have done, if they weren’t forced to leave the Golden Star pub on Duke Street because EDL members were already there waiting to join in the debate.
Clearly the Socialist Workers Party’s internal communications department is not fit for purpose as someone obviously forgot to tell the Norwich branch that holding and advertising these kind of meetings encourages the EDL to attend which has been happening to the SWP across the country. Either that or the Norwich branch are just idiots. We think we’ll go with the latter.
30 or more members of the EDL turned out, more than the whole membership of the SWP in Norfolk and Suffolk.
And SWP numbers were only slightly swelled last night because begging posts had gone out on Facebook for ‘solidarity attendance’ once they’d found out the EDL were definitely going to be making an appearance.
By calling this meeting publicly without a thought for peoples security, without a thought for the safety of members of the public or the bar staff of the two pubs the SWP were thrown out of, they have exposed themselves once again to be the most clueless, manipulative and amateur organisation that exists on the left today.
Not only have their actions narrowly avoided serious harm to individuals, they compromised at least two anti-fascists from NCAG who found themselves having to engage in debate with EDL members in order to try and get people away safely from a situation that was growing more dangerous by the minute. The term ‘lambs to the slaughter’ springs to mind. Having said that, it was apparent that the older EDL members wanted to do nothing other than discuss and on several occasions prevented younger members from ‘piling in’.
A word of advice to less experienced folks..next time the SWP send you ‘messages of solidarity’ in other words ‘help us out’, reply with ‘f*** off’ and steer well clear…
Because if a group organises a meeting called ‘What To Do About The EDL’ and the EDL turn up and rout the meeting, clearly the organisers of said meeting don’t have a f***ing clue what THEY’RE doing never mind what the EDL are up to!
Perhaps if the SWP gained the slightest understanding of the ‘white working-class’ instead of spending all their time giving platforms to ‘mad mullahs’ and marching alongside idiots dressed up as suicide bombers things would be a lot clearer?
And then again pigs might fly…
One thing is clear. Due to the SWP’s idiocy and amateur behavior, the EDL in this part of East Anglia will be buoyed up by last nights events, and unlikely to be disappearing from view anytime soon…
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rampage a Doubt for Carnival
Sound system to make decision next week
ONE OF the staples of Notting Hill Carnival, Rampage sound system, is to announce on Monday (August 22) whether it will be participating in this year’s event which takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. There were earlier reports indicating that Rampage would not be on board for this year’s staging of Europe’s biggest street party but a spokesperson told The Voice earlier today (August 19) that a decision will be made on Monday.
The carnival, which attracts more than a million regular visitors each year and puts more than £97 million into the economy, has been given the green light to go ahead this year. Its staging was in doubt after safety concerns were raised following recent riots in London and other UK cities. Yesterday (August 18), Notting Hill Carnival organisers said the carnival would go ahead but would have an earlier start time of 9am and would finish at 7pm. They said parades and bands will be on the march at 9am and come to a halt at 6pm, with sound systems being permitted to continue playing until the close. There will also be more police officers and more stewards on duty, said Ancil Barclay, co-director of the Notting Hill Carnival.
Barclay told The Voice that the changes to this year’s celebrations will enhance the experience for both participants and spectators. “I’m quite confident that it’s going to be safe and on a positive note we have had a considerable increase in performing unit applications. The changes to carnival will enhance everything for our masquerades, participants and spectators,” he said. “I think this carnival is going to be the safest carnival ever. I encourage everyone to come out early and have a good time.”
Another co-director, Christopher Boothman, said in a statement that organisers have “received a lot support from the public, who feel that carnival is an uplifting event for the thousands who attend and it must not suffer because of the unlawful actions of a small minority.” He said the carnival would “be a fantastic example of all Londoners being together, respecting each other” and warned troublemakers to stay away. “Trouble-makers or those who seek to cast a shadow over this vibrant event are not welcome and shouldn’t be allowed to spoil it for thousands of others. We want everyone to come early, enjoy carnival and get home safely
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tackling the Far Right
The English Defence League marches are heinous, but tolerated by the English authorities. Not so in my homeland, where the Scottish Defence League have been told by Edinburgh council that they cannot hold a march where they’d hoped to be joined by 200. Part of me welcomes this news: Scotland has its social ills (mainly sectarianism) but racial tension has never really flared. As Alex Salmond says, there are many colours in the tartan.
Then again, banning the march may serve to give credibility and a cause to the crackpots who call themselves the Scottish Defence League. Their march would probably have been a tragicomic affair, and they’d have disappeared into the black hole of public ridicule. But a ban is just what these agitators want. The BNP thrives on the idea of being the voice of the people, gagged by the politically-correct elite. The biggest blow ever made against the BNP was putting Nick Griffin on Question Time: the oxygen of publicity proved to be toxic.
Every so often, extremist groups start up in Scotland and they are always a joke. They try to blow up letter boxes with E II R on them, on the grounds that Scotland has only had one Queen Elizabeth. I suspect the Scottish Defence League is made up of the same type of fantasists and incompetents, and is unworthy of the attention of the 47 MSPs who campaigned to stop it. It is unworthy of the attention even of Aamer Anwer, who ran the Glasgow Uni Socialist Workers Party when I was a student. He’s popped up as a human rights lawyer now, natch, and the head of something called ‘Scotland United’.
For a long time, I was persuaded by the “don’t give them the oxygen” line.. But the experience with the waning BNP suggests the best way to deal with such groups is not to keep them in the dark, but let them perish in the sunlight. It’s a shame that they have been spared this fate
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: This Isn’t a Carnival, It’s a Police State
Next weekend, I shall be living in a police state. There will be policemen at either end of my little street, policemen on duty outside my local pub, policemen guarding the entrance to the supermarket. If I go to the shops and plan to return to my flat by anything other than the circuitous “official” route, I’ll have to show my local residents’ ID to one of the 5,000 police officers patrolling the neighbourhood. You see, I live in Notting Hill and it’s Carnival time again. And what a special Carnival it promises to be, coming less than a month after street gangs attacked shops and restaurants bang in the middle of the parade route. Members of those gangs will be back for “Europe’s largest fun-filled event”, as the BBC wants us to think of it. That’s why this year the cost of policing it will approach £10 million for the first time.
I don’t want to sound like a killjoy. There’s plenty of fun to be had at the Carnival, as revellers glug their way through 25,000 bottles of rum to the accompaniment of dozens of screaming sound systems. But that fun comes at a price, believe me. You should read the surveyor’s report on our house. I’ve just forked out 12 grand to fortify walls loosened by the pulsating throb of the Carnival. Or “Carnivaaal”, as right-on folk pronounce it. It’s not the event I hate so much as the multi-culti fantasy that’s been constructed around it. Here’s the biggest lie: that the Carnival “brings together” 500,000 young white and black people. Nonsense: they’re only really brought together by the unofficial kettling produced when five streams of partygoers barge into each other at the junction of Westbourne Grove and Chepstow Road.
Two groups stand out. There are the kids whose families live locally and have actually been to the Caribbean. All of them are white: the so-called “OK-Yahdies” who go to Antigua at Christmas and grow dreadlocks during their gap year. Then there are the black kids, most of whom live a long Tube ride away from Notting Hill and can’t afford to visit the West Indies. There’s not much inter-racial banter, unless you count public schoolboys bargaining over the price of a spliff or elderly white diversity officers forcing their “outreach” on black youths. People may drift around but, my goodness, you know when you’re crossing from one sector into another: think late-Forties Berlin. The atmosphere is certainly tense enough — though for some visitors, the edginess is part of the appeal. And 2011 promises to be particularly edgy.
The truth is that the damn thing should have been moved to Hyde Park years ago: it was the only sensible plan Ken Livingstone ever came up with. Perhaps it might have been, if it hadn’t been for the cheerleading of the BBC, which refuses to deviate from its script for the Carnival. I’ve just watched an item on its website which rounds up local shopkeepers to say how bloody marvellous the festival is, and of course there won’t be any trouble etc. Only in the last few seconds of the report do we hear that “some traders do have reservations and didn’t even appear confident enough to appear on camera for fear of prompting trouble”. An interesting choice of words, don’t you think? If you’re a scared shopkeeper who speaks out, then you’re guilty of “prompting” rioters to smash in your windows, or worse. That’s rich coming from the BBC, several of whose senior executives live in Notting Hill. But then again, something tells me that very few of them will be at home on Bank Holiday Monday to enjoy the multicultural fun.
[JP note: The carnival has been given the go-ahead, for even if common sense had dictated otherwise, the metropolitan elite running the show could not admit that its multiculti project has failed miserably, and consequently will go to ridiculous lengths to maintain a fiction.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Karadzic Denies He Had Control Over Paramilitaries Who Committed Wartime Atrocities
The Hague, 18 Aug. (AKI) — Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Thursday he had no control over paramilitary groups which committed crimes in Bosnia’s bloody1992-1995 war.
Karadzic cross-examined a protected prosecution witness, listed as KDZZ-555, who claimed paramilitary groups, especially the ‘Tigers’ headed by renowned underground figure Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, expelled all Muslims from eastern town of Zvornik in the spring of 1992.
The witness said paramilitaries even beat up local Serb officials and members of Karadzic’s Democratic Party of Serbia before they were arrested by special police in July 1992 to which Karadzic agreed.
Karadzic said Arkan was wecolmed in Zvornik “as a hero” after fighting in the northeastern city of Bijeljina where “Muslims took him in their homes and blessed him because he resolved the crisis there in 24 hours”.
“Yes, he did come as a hero,” the witness replied, but didn’t elaborate. Before he was murdrered in a gangland-style killing in January 2000, Arkan was indicted by the UN tribunal for atrocities committed in Zvornik and in the eastern town of Bijeljina.
Karadzic and his wartime military commander Ratko Mladic have been charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by forces under their command.
Mladic was arrested in the village of Lazarevo, north of Belgrade on 26 May, after sixteen years on the run, and is awaiting trial in the Hague. His Belgrade lawyer said on Thursday Mladic had serious health problems and underwent a hernia operation on Wednesday.
But tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said in a written statement she couldn’t confirm the report. She said the health of the Hague inmates is treated as confidential, unless their lives were in danger.
“Nothing similar has been reported relating to Mladic,” she said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Re-Trial of Former Prime Minister Haradinaj Gets Underway
The Hague, 18 August (AKI) — The re-trial of former Kosovo premier Ramus Haradinaj began Thursday at the UN’s Hague-based crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for the second time for crimes allegedly committed against civilians during 1998/99 Kosovo conflict.
Haradinaj, 43, was a regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army which began a rebellion against Serbian rule in 1998. Her briefly served as prime minister after Kosovo was put under UN control in 1999.
He and his two accomplices, Lah Brahimaj and Idriz Balaj, have been accused by the tribunal on 37 counts for crimes against Serb, Roma and Albanian civilians who they considered disloyal to the KLA cause.
Several prosecution witnesses had been killed or died mysterious deaths during the first trial and Haradinaj and Balaj were acquitted for “lack of evidence” in April 2008, while Brahimaj was sentenced to six years in jail.
But the tribunal’s appeals panel in 2010 ordered a retrial on six counts and Haradinaj was arrested and transferred back to the Hague. The appeals panel said the first trial was conducted in an atmosphere of “intimidation of witnesses” and some key witnesses refused to testify fearing reprisals.
In his opening statement on Thursday, prosecutor Paul Rodgers described in detail the torture, beating and killing of at least ten civilians in Jablanica detention camp in western Kosovo under Haradinaj’s command.
He said Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj were a part of a “joint criminal enterprise” whose victims were civilians who they saw as “collaborators, spies or accused of treason”.
‘The victims were beaten, tortured and in some cases killed, regardless of nationality, whether they were Serb, Albanians or Roma,” Rodgers said.
The prosecution was expected to present six witnesses, including a key witness, Sefcet Kabashi, who had refused to testify on several occasions and fled to the United States. But he has been arrested and brought to the Hague,” the tribunal said in a statement.
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade opposes. But Kosovo has in the meantime been recognised by 80 countries, including the US and 22 out of 27 European Union members.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: NATO Raids on Tripoli ‘Destroy Home of Secret Service Chief’
Tripoli, 19 August (AKI) — Nato air raids in the Libyan capital Tripoli destroyed the home of Libyan general Abdullah al-Sanussi, secret service chief and brother-in-law of embattled leader Muammar Gaddaf, Al-Jazeera reported Friday.
The overnight Nato raid targeted Sanussi’s compound, razing it to the ground, the Arabic satellite TV channel said.
The United Nations International Criminal Court in June issued warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Sanussi for alleged crimes against for humanity.
The Al-Jazeera report did not state if it is know whether al-Sanussi was at home at the time of the Nato strike and if he survived.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt to Withdraw Envoy to Israel
Egypt has decided to withdraw its ambassador to Israel to protest the deaths of five policemen killed on the border during retaliatory attacks on Palestinian militants, state television said Saturday.
“Egypt has decided to withdraw its ambassador to Israel until there is an official apology,” it said. Egypt’s military chief of staff, Sami Enan, headed to the Sinai on Friday to probe the deaths of the policemen killed a day earlier.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Middle East Peace Talks in a London Kitchen
by Martin Bright
Abbas and Peres held secret talks in Hampstead home of Anglo-Israeli billionaire
Secret peace talks between Israeli President Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, took place in London, the JC can reveal. The encounter was hosted over dinner by UK businessman Poju Zabludowicz at his north London home. It was modelled on the secret negotiations arranged by the late lawyer Lord Mishcon between Mr Peres and King Hussein, in advance of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994.
There has been considerable speculation about the secret negotiations, but the JC can now confirm that the meeting took place in March during Mr Abbas’s official visit to the UK.
No representatives of the UK government or the Israeli embassy were present during the meeting, which was conducted under the highest levels of security, although the JC understands the Foreign Office was aware it took place and gave it its blessing. The UK government’s line is that peace in the Middle East will ultimately come through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, and that such “freelance” initiatives should be encouraged from a distance.
Mr Abbas arrived in London on March 7 and held meetings with David Cameron the next day. The visit coincided with the upgrading of the Palestinian delegation in London to a “diplomatic mission”. Mr Peres flew in secret to London for the talks. Mr Zabludowicz is chairman of BICOM, the British-based Israel advocacy organisation, but the dinner was hosted in his personal capacity. His ownership of the private investment group, Tamares, makes him one of Britain’s richest men and he and his wife are renowned art collectors. Various sources close to Mr Zabludowicz confirmed his involvement at the heart of the process. Mr Zabludowicz has also acted as an intermediary in negotiations between Israel and President Bashar Assad before events in Syria escalated. Only the closest advisers to Mr Peres and Mr Abbas were present during the negotiations. Israeli sources suggest the meeting was part of a series of four between the two men. Mr Zabludowicz was unavailable for comment.
The 1990s secret meetings held at Victor Mishcon’s home were considered vital to hammering out the peace deal between Israel and Jordan and provided the model for the latest negotiations. At a crucial point in the talks the two principal players were left alone to talk in total confidence: “The way it worked was that one was given the tea towel, and the other did the washing-up, so to speak,” said one source close to the process.
The degree of secrecy surrounding the four meetings between the two leaders was such that not even some of Mr Peres’ most senior aides were aware that they had met at Mr Zabludowicz’s home in London. Senior government sources confirmed the meeting and three others at different locations and that all had taken place with the knowledge and authorisation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Peres and Netanyahu were completely co-ordinated between them,” said one of the sources.
However, at the weekend, reports in the Israeli press suggested that Mr Netanyahu had intervened to close off the channel in recent weeks. No government official has openly confirmed the meetings. Mr Peres celebrated his 88th birthday on Tuesday and in an interview with IDF Radio he would only say: “I will continue to work in every permissible way for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement”. The highly confidential nature of the meetings is a demonstration of just how stalled the official peace process has become in recent months. The situation is particularly sensitive for Mahmoud Abbas, who has publicly stated that negotiations can not begin until settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is halted.
At the Palestinian mission in London, an official noted that the Palestinian president had never said that negotiations should definitively stop. Yossi Alpher, former director of Israel’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies said: “That a secret meeting had to be held between men who have met publicly many times in the past, reflects the current bankruptcy of the process.”
Anshel Pfeffer contributed to this report
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Two Irish Women Murdered in Western Turkey
A 17-year-old waiter in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir has been detained for allegedly stabbing to death two women from Northern Ireland, agencies reported Friday.
The bodies of the two women, identified only as E.G. and C.D., have been recovered from a wooded area outside central Izmir.
The suspect, identified only as R.Ç., was said to be the boyfriend of E.G.’s 15-year-old daughter S.G.
R.Ç. first denied any connection to the women but upon detailed investigation by the local police, confessed to murdering them, saying he murdered E.G. because she would not approve of his wish to marry her daughter.
R.Ç. said he met S.G. in Kusadasi, a tourist destination close to Izmir, when she and her family came to the restaurant he was working at as a waiter and they started dating.
On the day of the murder, S.G. was on a boat tour in Kusadasi and R.Ç. offered to take E.G. and C.D. to Izmir for a tour of the city’s sights. They went to the city by taxi, and once in Izmir R.Ç. picked up his father’s car and took the two women to the woods, where he stabbed them to death. R.Ç. left the bodies in the woods and returned to Kusadasi.
S.G., suspicious of the disappearance of her mother, contacted local authorities, which led to the opening of an investigation and R.Ç.’s apprehension.
R.Ç.’s father E.Ç. and taxi driver M.K. have also been detained as suspects in the investigation.
Reports did not mention whether the two women were residents or tourists, though reports have said that E.G.’s family does own property in the Kusadasi area.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Catholic Church Attacked in Pune
St. Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church was desecrated on Monday. It is the first attack against a Syro-Malankar community in Pune, Maharashtra. A ceremony to purify the building was held yesterday. Anti-Christian violence is also recorded in Kerala.
Pune (AsiaNews/Agencies) — St Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church in Pune’s Warje Malwadi neighbourhood was attacked on Monday. Overnight, someone entered the building and desecrated it: insulting graffiti were scribbled on the walls, religious paintings were defaced and part of the tabernacle was set on fire. Copies of the Bible and prayer books were ripped, pages strewn across the floor.
This is the first incident of its kind involving Pune’s Syro-Malankar community. Traditionally, the community has lived in peace with other religious groups, providing education, social and medical services to all.
Mgr Thomas Dabre, bishop of Pune and Mgr Jacob Mar Barnabas, as well as the Pune Catholic Association and the broader Catholic community have condemned the act. They also appealed to the state of Maharashtra to bring the culprits to justice.
Yesterday, Fr Varghese Valikodath, the priest in charge of St Mary’s Parish church, celebrated a Mass to purify the building. The faithful and local priests participated in great number to the service.
More than 3,000 attacks have been recorded against Indian Catholic churches in the past few years. Last Saturday, the glass protecting an image of Christ in St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Vashicherry, Alapuzhka, in Kerala, was also smashed, the second attack this month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Islamabad: No Civil Award for “Martyr” Shahbaz Bhatti
President Zardari releases a list of 185 officials recipient of civil awards but the name of the slain Catholic minister is not on it, that of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer is. For the bishop of Islamabad, the omission is “surprising” given the fact that Bhatti “gave his life” for the country’s minorities.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — For the Pakistani government, “martyr” Shahbaz Bhatti, who was murdered on 2 March by Muslim fundamentalists, does not deserve an official civil award. The name of the Catholic minister in fact is not on the list of 185 government officials issued by President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday. The award ceremony is scheduled for 23 March 2012.
Punjab Governor Salman Taseer will be among the people honoured that day. He too was slain, in January, for his opposition to the blasphemy rules and for his defence of Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother of five, who was sentenced to death on the basis of rules also known as the ‘black law’. But unlike Bhatti, Taseer was Muslim. Thus, in Pakistan, even after death religious minorities do not have the same rights as the followers of Islam.
The government’s decision to exclude the Catholic minister from its list has been met by criticism within Pakistan’s Christian community and civil society leaders.
Shahbaz Bhatti and Sherry Rehman, a lawmaker who had suggest changes to the blasphemy law, put their lives on the line to defend the country’s minorities, change unfair laws and protect those, like Asia Bibi, who are in danger.
For Mgr Rufin Anthony, bishop of Islamabad/Rawalpindi, “it is surprising that just a few days ago, on Minorities Day, the president stressed the principle of equal rights and highlighted the role minorities played in the growth of Pakistan. Today, when it was time to honour an individual who fought for minority rights” and “gave his life for the cause, he ignored Shahbaz Bhatti.”
The government’s action was “unworthy”, the prelate said. In his view, the authorities should “include Bhatti and Rehman in the list.”
Meanwhile, Pervez Rafique, a member of the Punjab provincial assembly, called for a change to the preamble of the Pakistani constitution to ensure the full implementation of the ideals laid down by Ali Jinnah, the founder of the nation, in his famous address to the country’s constituent assembly in which he insisted on the principles of “equality of rights” for non-Muslims and religious freedom in a secular state (Pakistan is today an Islamic Republic)
For Fr John Maxwell, from the Diocese of Lahore, the Punjabi lawmaker’s proposal is an “encouraging” step.
“In the situation now prevailing in the country, the debate [on the proposal] will begin in the next session,” he said. “We will support minority representatives in the Punjab Assembly” in backing that proposal, which “should be presented in the national assembly as well.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Two Italian Soldiers Injured in Afghanistan
(AGI) Herat — Two Italian soldiers hospitalised for injuries sustained following an RPG attack in Afghanistan, were discharged. The soldiers were injured when their armoured vehicle was involved in a rocket-propelled grenade attack during a joint operation conducted by ISAF and Afghan troops in Bala Murghab. They were rushed to the field hospital of the Bala Murghab military base from where they called their own families.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Makes Debut Jet Carrier, Thanks to Turkey
Turkey played a major role 10 years ago to help China take Ukraine’s Varyag, a giant ship that was recently turned into an aircraft carrier, to the homeland despite global reaction. The Asian country’s promises to convince Turkey to open up its straits include sending one million additional tourists to the latter
As China became the latest super power to launch its first aircraft carrier in early August, its officials most probably privately thanked Turkey for letting it obtain this large naval capability.
The extraordinary story of the ex-Soviet, Kuznetsov-class Varyag and how it ended up in the hands of the Chinese started in 1992 when the ship was put to sea in structurally complete form but without an engine or any electronics. Since the time was just after the former Soviet Union’s dissolution, the Varyag’s ownership was transferred to Ukraine.
The Varyag then was put up for auction and in 1998. Next year Ukraine’s trade minister announced that a small Hong Kong-based tourism company, Chong Lot Travel Agency, had won the bid for only $20 million. The company was quick to announce that it planned to transform the Varyag into a popular amusement park, so it urged the ship’s passage through the Turkish Straits. In the meantime U.S. intelligence was already aware that the Chinese were planning to use the Varyag as an aircraft carrier in the future. Washington as a result was against the ship’s passage through the straits.
Thousands of tourists
Turkey initially objected to the ship’s passage into the Aegean. In the meantime, high-level Chinese ministers visited Ankara on behalf of Chong Lot, and offered thousands of Chinese tourists to Turkey. Turkey relented from its position and allowed the transit on Nov. 1, 2001.
The next day, the 67,000-ton Varyag was towed through the Bosphorus in a record-high time of six hours. Then it passed through the Dardanelles without an incident. China paid only a few hundred thousand dollars to the Turkish government as a passage fee. The Varyag then reached the northern Chinese shipyard city of Dalian on March 3, the next year. The rest is more obvious, the Chinese military took over the ship and started its transformation. On July 27, this year, the Chinese Defense Ministry officially announced that it was refitting the vessel for “scientific research, experiment and training.”
On Aug. 14, the Varyag returned to port after completing a set of sea trials designed to test its capabilities, the state news agency Xinhua reported Monday. The 300-meter ship docked again at Dalian.
Presently there are 22 active aircraft carriers in the navies of 10 countries, with the United States having 11 of them. These countries also include Britain, Brazil, France, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Thailand.
The United States has the world’s largest aircraft carriers, the 10 Nimitz-class ships. The Varyag is among the larger ships. The British, Indian, Italian Spanish and Thai aircraft carriers are the smallest.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Terrorists Put Chokehold on Food to Christians
‘There are those who do not allow aid to come in’
Members of Somalia’s jihadi group al-Shabaab are on a campaign to starve the country’s Christians by preventing food from being delivered to them, according to ministry groups working in the chaotic region.
While reports from a number of analysts say Mogadishu’s population is swelling daily with people coming to the city to escape the famine-ravaged countryside, Christian human rights groups offer additional details.
According to the Barnabas Fund, it is the al-Qaida-affiliated group al-Shabaab whose members are putting a chokehold on international food aid that is being dispatched to Somalia but is not reaching the people.
International Christian Concern analyst Jonathan Racho says no aid gets through without al-Shabaab’s consent.
“There are different kinds of people in al-Shabaab. There are those who came from other countries, Islamic citizens who joined al-Shabaab. There are also those Somalis who are in al-Shabaab,” Racho said.
Al-Shabaab is reported to exercise strict control over large parts of the country. Racho said that in areas controlled by al-Shabaab, terror group members simply decide who gets food.
“Al-Shabaab is the government in those areas. So when the food is distributed, they have a lot of influence over who should get the food aid. That’s how they discriminate against people that they suspect are members of the underground church in that country,” Racho said.
Racho said the group uses control of certain areas of the country to deliberately prevent aid from reaching Christians.
“For aid to get to an area, the aid workers have to get permission from al-Shabaab. So once they get permission, there are people in al-Shabaab who allow the aid to come in. There are those who do not allow the aid to come in,” Racho said.
Racho said the al-Shabaab militia groups that control certain areas ensure that the food goes only to Somali Muslims.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Boat With 100 Migrants on Board Rescued Off Lampedusa
(AGI) Palermo — A boat carrying 100 migrants was rescued this morning by the Coast Guard, 20 miles off Lampedusa. The boat, rescued near the small island of Lampione, was detected upon an alert sent by Tunisian authorities, who in turn had been notified by a Tunisian fishermen’s boat. There are 2 women among the refugees, suffering from a strong dehydration condition. The refugees were transferred on the patrol vessel and taken to Lampedusa. This is the first landing in the past two days.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
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