Absent in the Euro Crisis: Political Paralysis Prevails in Italy
Italy’s partners in Europe are angered by Rome’s apparent inability to bring its debt mess into order. Silvio Berlusconi’s failures and a state of political paralysis have allowed the country to slide to the center of the European financial crisis. The opposition appears to be powerless and many wonder if the Italians are still capable of solving their problems on their own.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brokerage MF Global Bankrupt Amid Euro Debt Losses
Struggling US brokerage firm MF Global has filed for bankruptcy after confidence in the company was shattered by a string of losses from European public debt holdings. The firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Manhattan bankruptcy court on Monday, making it the first major US casualty from the European debt crisis.
While MF Global is well-known on Wall Street, it is not thought to be so interconnected that its collapse could trigger a crash like that seen in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. But attention immediately turned to JPMorgan Chase and subsidiaries of Deutsche Bank, after MF’s bankruptcy filing showed those firms to be its two biggest creditors.
JPMorgan was said to have a claim of over $1.2 billion with MF linked to bond holdings, while Deutsche Bank had a claim of over $1.0 billion. Shares in JPMorgan fell 5.3 percent on the news while Deutsche Bank’s US-listed shares fell 11.5 percent. There were also signs that Washington was concerned.
Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Monday called for a confidence vote and a referendum on last week’s EU debt deal, taking a political gamble to silence growing opposition to his policies. “On this roadmap of political initiatives I ask for a confidence vote,” Papandreou told his Socialist party lawmakers in parliament, moments after he announced a referendum would also be held on the EU deal.
“An expression of confidence in the policy to be followed is more necessary than ever,” Papandreou said, adding that the referendum expected early next year would be a “cornerstone” to build a “new era” for Greece. Papandreou, who has 153 deputies in the 300-seat parliament, has faced increasing dissent within his own party over the tougher austerity policy monitored by the EU and the International Monetary Fund that has sparked general strikes and widespread protests, many of them violent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone Crisis: Chinese Saviour is in Debt Too
Die Presse, 31 October 2011
And what if China can’t help Europe? On the day Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting Austria Die Presse warns against “false hopes of a Chinese saviour.” The financial clout that China wields abroad can’t hide the problems the Beijing government is facing inside its own country, writes the Vienna daily.
China, it turns out, is at risk of an explosion of debt. In 2008 it initiated “a massive stimulus package equivalent to 440 billion euros that was meant to protect the country from the financial crisis triggered in the United States.” The catch: only 133 billion came from the state budget. The rest was loaned by banks, state enterprises and individuals. “Today, not just huge cities like Shanghai or Beijing but thousands of smaller cities and towns as well are deeply in debt to the state banks.”
China’s official newspaper China Daily affirms that “China cannot be Europe’s saviour, nor be a cure-all for its ills, but it will do what it can to extend a helping hand as a friend. But friendship is a two-way street. China has already invested significant sums in European bonds and would like guarantees that its investment is safe.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone Crisis: They Forget About Growth
Les Echos, Paris
The agreement reached by the seventeen states of the eurozone is leaving out one crucial issue: growth. Two problems therefore remain unresolved: the lack of a common macroeconomic policy and the divisions between the member countries.
Eric Le Boucher
The applause welcoming the agreement announced at four a.m. in Brussels is rapidly giving way to questions, notably about the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
This latter seems to have been cobbled together around the idea of guaranteeing some of the debts of indebted countries, but its effectiveness is doubtful. And its firepower, at 1 trillion euros, remains at the bottom of the range that was envisaged.
Furthermore, the other idea of creating a second fund, a “special vehicle” open to capital from China and emerging economies, has come under broad criticism, and not without reason. Should it be put directly into the hands of China? Would it not hamper any move against the yuan’s value or, more broadly, any move to denounce this or that Chinese policy?
But to get back to basics — and to what’s missing: growth. We still have to address the two root problems, which are the lack of a common macroeconomic policy and the divergences among the member countries of the union. The first topic is widely discussed in the Brussels agreement, but only in terms of monitoring.
The heads of state and government have taken two types of decisions. First, to strengthen governance in the eurozone at the risk — which they have accepted — of opening up a gap with the EU member states outside the eurozone, and at the risk — the consequences of which have not been calculated — of creating an extra level of bureaucracy.
A golden rule bill
To this end a “eurosummit” was called, chaired not by the Ministers of Finance but by the heads of state and government. The stakes are getting higher.
A permanent secretariat (under the opaque name ‘Eurogroup Working Group’), whose coordination with the Commission is unclear, has also been drawn up: the balance between the intergovernmental and the federal is wavering.
Second, and more engagingly, the monitoring of the budgets of the member states has been strengthened. Since the beginning of this year a coordination mechanism has been in place under the name (less opaque but still jargon all the same) “European semester”.
This requires each state to include its budget bill in a multi-year budget discussed beforehand in Brussels; Europe would then frame up the national budgets before they are voted on.
The agreement on Thursday morning goes further. It requires that before the end of 2012 a “golden rule” bill be introduced at the constitutional level (we might note in passing that the French Socialists have been forced into a corner on this).
Great disappointment of the euro
It indicates that the budgets should be based on “independent” growth forecasts, the first very important step towards an independent budget committee in the Anglo-Saxon fashion. And it states that any budget initiative that may affect the other countries should be subject to a consultation before the Commission.
For countries that are outside the control of Maastricht and that get placed “under review”, the discipline borders on guardianship. The Commission is required to manage (“monitor”) the execution of their budgets.
Nevertheless, monitoring is not coordination. Germany wins here, with its call to impose a compulsory discipline. This is not a bad thing. France, dreaming of an economic government, may end up getting nothing for its pains. And nothing, either, was said during the summit about economic policy for the overall zone.
Nothing about the risk to growth from imposing austerity on everyone at the same time. Nothing about the need for the countries in surplus (clearly Germany) to keep up strong demand at home, by way of compensation.
And very little was said about the other root of the problem: divergence. This is the great disappointment of the euro. Because instead of converging under the influence of the euro, economies have done the opposite, and the gaps in productivity, labour costs and foreign trade have all grown wider…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Fresh Trouble for Euro: EU Shocked and Furious at Greek Referendum Plan
Greece has stunned Europe by calling a referendum on the bailout plan agreed to by EU leaders last week. The move throws efforts to rescue the euro into doubt and heralds weeks of market turbulence ahead of the vote. A Finnish minister said Greece will in effect be voting on whether to remain in the euro.
The shock announcement by Greek Prime Minister Giorgios Papandreou of a referendum on the Greek bailout has thrown efforts to rescue the single currency into doubt, unsettled global markets and angered EU leaders just days after they agreed a wide-ranging package to contain the debt crisis. Global stock markets fell on the news. German and French stock indices were down more than 3 percent on Tuesday, with banking shares among the main losers. The UK FTSE index slid 2.5 percent. The euro was down over 1.3 percent from Monday at $1.3735 in late morning trading.
Shares in Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, slumped more than 10 percent and Deutsche Bank, the country’s top bank, fell almost 8 percent. One economist at Bremer Landesbank said a Greek rejection of the euro zone’s plan to provide Athens €130 billion ($178 billion) worth of aid and arrange a 50-percent write-down on its debt would be “suicide.”
Papandreou, whose Socialist party has been hit by defections as it defied waves of at-times violent public protests and strikes to impose austerity measures demanded by international lenders, said he needed broader political support for the measures. “We trust citizens, we believe in their judgment, we believe in their decision,” he told ruling Socialist party deputies. “In a few weeks the (EU) agreement will be a new loan contract … we must spell out if we are accepting it or if we are rejecting it.”
There are big doubts whether Greeks will back the bailout. A survey carried out on Saturday showed that nearly 60 percent viewed the agreement on the bailout package as negative or probably negative. A senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition said on Tuesday he was “irritated” by Papandreou’s announcement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Growth in 2-3 Years, Says Reichenbach
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 31 — Greece should need no more than two to three years to return to the path of growth, said Horst Reichenbach, the head of the European Union’s Task Force in Greece on Saturday as local media report. He also stated that the results of the structural reforms cannot become evident overnight, and recognized that society will not like many of the changes required. He went on to set as a priority the creation of a favourable business environment that will include an easier access to funding for small and medium-sized enterprises, so that the impact on the real economy can be seen as quickly as possible. He also appeared optimistic over the fact that a large number of people, countries and organisations are willing to help Greece for policies to be implemented that will lead to an exit from the crisis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Jobless Rate at 17.6%, Eurostat Reports
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 31 — Greece’s jobless rate rose to 17.6% in July, according to data published Monday by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office in Luxembourg.
That is more than one percent higher than the 16.5% figure given by the national statistics agency ELSTAT on October 18. Greece is second only to Spain. At 22.6%, Spain had the highest unemployment rate in the EU, Eurostat said. Austria and the Netherlands had the lowest rates, with 3.9% and 4.5%, respectively. About 16.2 million people — roughly the population of the Netherlands — were unemployed in September in the euro area, up 188,000 from the previous month, the report said. Meanwhile the inflation rate in the euro area held at 3% in October, the same as in the previous month, Eurostat said in an initial estimate Monday. That’s the highest rate since October 2008.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Defiant as Crisis Focuses on Italian Reform
Rome,. 31 Oct. (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he alone can deliver the country’s promised deficit cuts as European leaders ramp up demands that his government do its part to combat the region’s debt crisis.
Berlusconi ruled out early elections and said the current legislature in Rome will last until 2013, according to an interview published yesterday in Corriere della Sera. He said the European Central Bank’s support will only be maintained if his administration follows through on the pledged measures.
“Only I and my government can achieve this reform program for 18 months, which is why there is no way for me to stand aside,” the Italian leader told the newspaper.
The European Union’s latest package of measures failed to staunch a rise in Italian borrowing costs, with an Oct. 28 bond sale sending yields to a euro-era record and damping the euphoria unleashed after the summit that ended the day before. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker insisted that Italy should deliver “substantial structural reform.”
“We’re watching very closely,” Juncker said in an interview yesterday on Germany’s ARD. “Italy can’t simply do what suits it, but rather act as we’ve agreed together.”
Not ‘Conclusive’
Leaders from the Group of 20 largest economies will convene in Cannes, France, this week after European leaders agreed to bolster the region’s rescue fund to 1 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion), persuaded bondholders to incur 50 percent losses on Greek debt and agreed on a plan shore up banks.
Juncker said that European leaders hadn’t yet delivered a “conclusive answer” to the crisis last week, while German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned in Der Spiegel against inflated expectations.
Berlusconi will present commitments made to European leaders on Nov. 9 and 10, he told Corriere. He also said there was “no deal” with Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League party, to resign and hold early elections in return for an agreement to increase the retirement age, as reported on Oct. 26 in newspaper La Repubblica.
Crisis Response
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy wrote to the G-20 “to summarize and explain Europe’s comprehensive crisis response” ahead of their summit in Cannes this week.
“We will implement these measures rigorously and in a timely manner, and we are confident that they will contribute to the swift resolution of the crisis,” according to their letter, issued yesterday. “Whilst we in Europe will play our part, this cannot alone ensure global recovery and rebalanced growth. There is a continued need for joint action by all G-20 partners in a spirit of common responsibility and common purpose.”
European officials began to seek contributions to a prospective fund from countries with bulging reserves such as China, Brazil and Japan. Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said Oct. 28 that his government wants more details about the “technicalities” before making any decision on investing in the European Financial Stability Facility.
China as ‘Savior’
China can’t play the role of “savior” to Europe, nor provide a “cure” for the region’s malaise, the official Xinhua news agency said in an English-language commentary. The rescue package announced Oct. 27 is just the start of a long and difficult process to solve Europe’s debt crisis for good and more concerted efforts are needed, the commentary said.
Juncker said the euro area would still be able to resolve the crisis even without investments from countries such as China, even if Chinese participation “makes sense.”
“If China and other investors were not to invest in the end, the decisions that we’ve made are substantial enough alone to master the debt crisis,” Juncker told ARD.
The success of European measures also depends on the Greek debt writedown. Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance and chief negotiator for the lenders, said he’s “very optimistic that more than 90 percent will participate,” he told Welt am Sonntag newspaper yesterday.
Germany’s Schaeuble issued a warning to the banks, saying in Der Spiegel that while the EU prefers a “voluntary” agreement on Greek debt, a “less consensual path is also possible.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Markets Fall on as Greece Announces Referendum on Euro Bail-Out
Global stock markets dropped sharply as investors sold off shares after Greece’s shock decision to hold a referendum on its eurozone bail-out package thratened to intensify the region’s debt crisis.
London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares dropped more that 2pc, with markets in Germany falling, France, Spain and Italy sliding between 2.7pc and 4pc.
Andrew Lim, banking analyst at Espirito Santo in London, said: “If Greek voters reject the unpopular bailout plan it could result in a “hard default”, which could force banks to take losses of about 75pc on their Greek sovereign bonds, trigger payouts on credit default swap insurance contracts, and raise the threat of a systemic risk.
“If we get a hard default in Greece, it will exacerbate the situation with Italy and Spain. It just increases the problem of Italy going down the same route, and that’s the real risk.
The fall in Europe followed big falls on Wall Street overnight and in Asia, with surveys showing China’s manufacturing remained sluggish also weighing on sentiment.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.7pc to 8,835.52, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 2.5pc, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.5pc, despite the country’s first rate cut — a quarter-point to 4.5pc — since 2009. The Dow Jones fell 2.3pc to close at 11,955.01. The S&P 500 fell 2.5pc to 1,253.30, and the Nasdaq composite fell 1.9pc to 2,684.41…
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Obama to Focus on Euro Woes at G20 Summit
(WASHINGTON) — President Barack Obama, drained by a long showdown with domestic foes and the sluggish US recovery, heads to Europe on Wednesday to urge leaders to stay steadfast amid their own economic woes. At the G20 summit beginning in the swish surroundings of Cannes, southern France on Thursday, Obama will test whether his own diminished political heft at home will weaken his economic leverage abroad as he girds for reelection.
Obama has pressed behind the scenes for a strong European response to a regional debt crisis which threatens to spiral into global financial contagion, and despite some market doubts, welcomed a EU debt accord last week. Lael Brainard, Treasury Department undersecretary for International Affairs, said Obama still believed Europe had the capacity and resources to overcome its economic woes. “The challenges facing Europe have significant implications for the US economy and for the global economy,” said Brainard. “The EU is a critical anchor of global stability and our single largest trading partner.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Raising Money for the Euro Zone
Warnings Mount against Concessions to China
The euro zone is looking for outside investors, but some fear that Brussels could offer China political concessions in return for cash. The head of Germany’s powerful industrial federation has warned against such a course. But Europe, in the end, may have little choice.
In the run-up to last week’s European Union summit, the consensus was clear. Europe’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, was simply too small. The fund’s lending capacity of €440 billion would never be enough, it was said, to stop the spread of contagion to larger euro-zone economies like Italy and Spain. Now that euro-zone leaders, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have agreed to leverage the EFSF, however, they are realizing that finding investors to back an increase in the fund’s lending capacity to €1 trillion might not be as straightforward as they first thought. Indeed, European fundraising is likely to play a major role at this weekend’s G-20 summit in Cannes, France.
So too, though, are warnings that the euro zone should steer clear of acceding to possible Chinese demands for concessions should it invest in the EFSF. “If we in Europe organize the stabilization of the euro in such a way that we allow states to exert political influence from outside, then we are making a tremendous mistake,” Hans-Peter Keitel, president of the Federation of German Industry, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a Monday interview.
Keitel was referring to hints voiced by Li Daokui, a member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, that China might ask Europe to cease criticizing its policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi, artificially undervalued in return for investment in the EFSF. “The last thing China wants to do is throw away the country’s wealth and be seen as just a source of dumb money,” Li told the Financial Times last week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: 1 in 2 Families in Debt, In Italy Fewer Than 1 in 3
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 31 — One in two families in Spain has debts pending as a result of first-time house purchases, other property assets, home renovation, car purchases and other goods and services.
This is according to the latest economic bulletin from the Bank of Spain, which analyses the asset situation of families in Spain, Italy and the United States. Some 50% of Spanish families has debts pending, 37.5% for house purchases and 23.3% for cars, while in the United States the level of families in debt rises to 77%, 50% linked to home buying, 63% for cars and 18.3% for education. In Italy, the level of families in debt stands at 27.8%, with home purchases the reason in 12.6% of cases, and car purchases for 18.5%.
The percentage of families in debt in the United States is well above the proportion in Spain and Italy for all income categories. The figure varies between 52% for low-income families and 90% for mid to high-income families. In Spain and Italy, meanwhile, the figures vary between 17% and 68% and between 18% and 37% respectively.
Debts taken on by Spanish families represent 10% of the value of their revenue, compared to 5% in Italy and 15% in the United States. The most significant contribution to debt comes from financing of property investments, with the figure at 90% in Spain, 84% in the United States and 74% in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Film Screening to Addresses [Sic] Misconceptions About Islam, Muslims
Ten years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is dead. But the misconception that Islam is just a group of suicide bombers lives on in many Americans. The regional debut of “Mooz-lum” will screen Tuesday evening in Worsham theater to help address some of the common misconceptions of Islam and Muslims, said Chester Grundy, director of the Martin Luther King Cultural Center, which is sponsoring the event along with the Muslim Student Association and the Arabic and Islamic Studies Program.
“Mooz-lum” chronicles the struggles of Tariq Mahdi, a fictional character in the film that must balance a very traditional, Islamic father who wants him to be “hafiz” — to completely memorize the Qur’an — and assimilation into a new culture and new high school. “This film brings a face to all this controversy around Islam,” Grundy said. “This all happens in the backdrop of 9/11, which changes everything for the status of Muslims in Tariq’s school.”
Grundy said the independently produced film, which is written and directed by Qasim “Q” Basir, is “a high caliber film.” “It’s a film that exposes a minority group of people, and opens the minds of people that are completely guarded toward a topic they aren’t really familiar with,” Muslim Student Association President Ratul Ahmed said about the film. Grundy said this film is relevant today because the tensions generated by 9/11 are more critical than ever before.
“The tensions around the Muslim world and the West go back thousands of years … 9/11 just exacerbated it,” Grundy said. “So much of it is based on ignorance.” Grundy said when asking Americans what Islam is about, or to tell him the major tenets of Islam, he has gotten some “frighteningly ignorant answers,” like “terrorists” and “suicide bombing.” Ahmed said watching “Mooz-lum” — a title he describes as a purposeful misspelling to reflect the common person’s inability to accept other cultures he or she is not comfortable with — will encourage people to be open-minded and possess a broader world view.
“The screening of this film definitely falls in line with MSA’s purpose and mission to unite and inform the Muslim and non-Muslim community on UK’s campus,” Ahmed said. “We feel this is a great opportunity and something that’s really worth promoting.” Ahmed said attending this screening is important for every UK student. “It promotes virtually every student organization’s mission in terms of serving a well-rounded college experience,” Ahmed said. Grundy said while the film may not be everyone’s story, it’s a very human story. “If we’re going to be truly enlightened … truly global citizens, than we need to take advantage of every opportunity available to us here to be exposed to something that may just alter our perception, to see the world and its peoples a little differently,” Grundy said. “This is one of those opportunities and you can only gain from it.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Injured US Marines to Get ‘Lollipop’ Instead of Morphine
US Marines badly wounded in Afghanistan may get a “lollipop” with a powerful pain killer from now on instead of the traditional shot of morphine, according to the Marine Corps.
The new treatment offers an alternative to the morphine needle “you see in the World War II movies,” with medics jabbing a syrette into a soldier’s leg or arm, Captain Brian Block said.
The Fentanyl lollipop offers medics a faster way to ease the pain of a battlefield injury as the drug can be absorbed more rapidly through a lozenge in the mouth than from a needle injected into a muscle, Captain Block said.
“The absorption is actually faster through the blood vessels in the mouth. You don’t have to worry about shock which will constrict the blood vessels in a major muscle in a leg or an arm,” Captain Block added.
After US Marine special operations forces used the new sucker successfully, commanders ordered the lollipop to be distributed to medics throughout the Marine Corps, he said.
The marines started delivering the lollipop to medical corpsmen about two months ago, he said.
“Some medics have it now. And it will continue to be fielded until it’s out there for everybody,” he said.
The lollipop also gives medics more control over the dosage, as the lozenge can be withdrawn at any moment, unlike a shot of morphine, he said.
“If the patient goes into shock or if there’s a reason that you need to limit the dosage that you’re giving to them, you can just pop it out of the mouth in a way that you couldn’t (with the syrette).
“Once the morphine’s in, the morphine’s in.”
Like other medicine distributed to military medics, the lollipops are subject to strict controls and will not be handed out directly to troops on the battlefield, he said.
“We’ll take the appropriate steps to maintain accountability and maintain that they’re being used appropriately,” he said.
Medics in Afghanistan will still have the option of employing the morphine syrette, a small needle on a collapsible tube.
And for the moment, the painkilling sucker will come in only one flavour — “berry,” he said.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims to Celebrate Major Holiday on Sunday
At least 1,500 Frankfort-area Muslims are expected to celebrate their second annual holiday with prayers at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6 at the American Islamic Association mosque on St. Francis Road in Frankfort. Eid Al-Adha, or “Festival of the Sacrifice,” commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son, a story that appears in the Torah, Old Testament and the Qur’an, the holy books of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, respectively. Abraham, through his willingness to follow God’s command, passed the test of faith. God spared his son and sent a ram to be sacrificed in his place. To commemorate this sacrifice, Muslims distribute meat and food to needy families.
Eid Al-Adha takes place at the end of Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligation on all Muslims. It is also called the Greater Eid because of its significance to Muslims around the world. The festival is celebrated first with prayers at the mosque, followed by family visits, dinners and gifts for the children. This year, several members from the AIA mosque are making their Hajj, so they will be remembered during this celebration as well.
“This Eid is so significant because we reflect upon the faith and obedience of Abraham, his son and also his wife, Hajar. And it is with this same faith and obedience that we gather together to pray, rejoice and remember those less fortunate than ourselves,” said Dr. Afzal Ahmed, AIA president. “We also look forward to welcoming home our members who made their Hajj this year. We are so happy for them and look forward to hearing about their transformative experiences.”
For more information, please contact Khalid Mozaffar at 312-656-3306 or khalidmozaffar@aiamasjid.org
To learn more about American Islamic Association, go to www.aiamasjid.org.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Reach Out to Community
Did you know that Jesus Christ is mentioned by name more often than the prophet Mohammed in the Koran, the Islamic holy book? Or that Christianity, Islam and Judaism all place their religious origins in the Middle East? These are the kind of facts one can learn by attending the South Valley Islamic Community’s open house event in San Martin next Sunday, Nov. 13. Keynote speaker Rod Cordoza of the Abrahamic Alliance will talk about some of the similarities among the Islamic, Christian and Jewish religions, according to SVIC board member Hamdy Abbass.
The event is part of the SVIC’s ongoing efforts to reach out to the South County community at large, where Islam is practiced by the minority and is often misunderstood. And the open house at the San Martin Lions Club takes place months before construction of a Muslim mosque and community center are expected to begin on a 16-acre plot in San Martin. The project is currently in the pre-approval, information-gathering phase in Santa Clara County’s planning division. The SVIC has conducted such open house events in the past.
“It’s just to let people know about us, and let people know who we are,” Abbass said. “We are in the area, and we have been the last 11 years. We practice (our religion), and we are not new to the area.” The last open house took place when the SVIC, which consists of Muslim families from San Benito and South Santa Clara counties, initially intended to start the project, which is known as the Cordoba Center. That was in 2006, and about a year later the project stalled due to lack of funds until about 11 months ago.
SVIC members hope that opponents of their mosque project attend the open house, Abbass added. That includes members of the People’s Coalition for Government Accountability, a group of residents that formed earlier this year in order to organize opposition to the Cordoba Center. Someone associated with the PCGA dropped off a packet of information illustrating its opposition at the Times office several weeks ago. The packet contained about 50 pages of letters written by its members, as well as correspondence between county planning staff and SVIC developers dating back to 2006. It also contains a petition that recipients were asked to sign in order to reflect their concerns.
None of the pages contained a name of any individuals associated with the PCGA, and the only contact information was a Gilroy P.O. box. The PCGA’s primary concern is that the SVIC’s plans will detract from San Martin’s rural character. A letter to the editor published in the Times earlier this year, written by Janis Jud, expressed similar concerns. “The residents of San Martin have not been notified, let alone the immediate residents of this proposed project by county officials. The county has not complied by its own rules,” read the letter from Jud, who could not be contacted by press time.
The SVIC said they will comply with all county land use guidelines in their construction plans, and the bulk of opposition they are aware of comes from residents who “have made no effort to understand the project,” SVIC board member Sal Akhter said. The developer has already conducted soil, geologic, archeological, and other studies required by the county. They have conducted a traffic study of the site that will be visited by up to 70 people most days, and up to 200 at annual open house events, according to Akhter, who lives in the unincorporated Gilroy area.
The county will also require an environmental study of how the SVIC’s plans would affect the site, which is near the intersection of Monterey Road and California Avenue. That is expected to be complete by December. Some time after that, the county will post a 30-day notice for a planning commission hearing. The SVIC hopes to begin construction by late spring 2012. Initial plans for the project were submitted to county offices as part of the pre-approval process at the beginning of this year. The county subsequently asked for more information which the SVIC provided. The developer also scaled back some of the plans after the county identified certain specs would be subject to more rigid land use requirements.
The SVIC now plans to build two structures — a 5,000-square-foot mosque and prayer center, and a 2,800-square-foot multi-purpose banquet hall and community center. The two structures are both single-story “ranch style” buildings that will occupy “less than 1 percent of the total area” of the project, Akhter said. The buildings are planned to be set back from the main road, with landscaping to mitigate the visual impact. The mosque will not display any minarets or domes. Plans also call for a cemetery to occupy four acres of the site, and open space for trails and recreational areas for children, Akhter said. The facility will serve the SVIC’s 75 families.
The SVIC board members don’t think the county has placed tighter regulations on the project than they would others, but the planning office has gone through the plans with a “fine tooth comb,” possibly because of the determined opposition from some community members. “We have done more legwork than we have in the past, so we don’t anticipate any problems” meeting county approval, Akhter said. “If there are any issues, that will become part of the conditions for approval. We want to bring in a project that meets the approval of other (community) members.”
The information provided anonymously to the Times by the PCGA illustrates that the SVIC’s plans were initially incomplete, and some concerns such as soil percolation tests will require additional mitigation efforts by the developer. Follow-up communications from the county further show the SVIC’s efforts to comply with state, county and water district guidelines. “This development would have a devastating impact on our small rural community,” reads a letter from the PCGA. “It violates basic land use codes sanctioned for non-residential use in rural communities.” Another, more specific concern voiced by a resident on the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance message board earlier this summer, has to do with the cemetery plans and their possible effect on the community’s groundwater — the primary source of drinking water for San Martinians. County planner Colleen Oda referred media inquiries to her supervisor Rob Eastwood, who did not return a phone call before press time.
[JP note: Beware of outreach centers containing the word ‘Cordoba’ — you may get more than you bargained for.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US Pulls UNESCO Funding After Palestine Admitted as Member
The United States has announced it will withhold funding for UNESCO after the UN’s cultural body admitted Palestine as a member. The US sees UNESCO’s decision as counterproductive to the Middle East peace process.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why Islam is Not a Religion
by Rebecca Bynum
Speech delivered October 18th to ACT! for America Chapter in Memphis Tennessee
So to reiterate — Islam is not a religion because:
It is an amalgam of social, political and judicial systems as well as a belief system. It is neither one thing nor the other — Islam is unique
Philosophically it is as far from other religions as it is possible to be. It lies beyond nihilism and its morality is inverted.
In society Islam functions in the opposite manner from all other religions. Rather than producing peace and social harmony, it sows violence and social disruption.
Therefore, I believe it would be wise to reconsider Islam’s inclusion as a religion at least as far as the First Amendment is concerned. I understand the difficulties with this approach, and I know many have and will reject it, but I also think it is necessary to raise the question about what Islam really is and what it isn’t.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Strong Support for Shariah in Canada
OTTAWA — A newly released survey suggests a large number of Muslims living in Canada will not disown Al-Qaida.
The study, conducted by the MacDonald Laurier Institute, found 65% of Muslims questioned said they would “repudiate absolutely” the terrorist organization, while 35% would not do so.
“From a security perspective, it is difficult to know if a 65% rate of repudiation (of Al-Qaida) is re-assuring or a 35% failure to repudiate troubling,” wrote study authors Christian Leuprecht, associate professor of the Royal Military College of Canada and Conrad Winn, Carleton University professor and president of COMPAS, a public opinion research firm.
“The most radical political views tended to be expressed by relatively secular people, often equipped with higher education in the social sciences, while devout Muslims were sometimes the most articulate advocates for Canada and democracy.” According to the Ottawa based think tank, only a small minority of Muslim newcomers to Canada reject Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Iranian regime.
The survey, which was released Tuesday, found 62% wanted some form of Shariah law in Canada, 15% of them saying it should be mandatory for all Muslims.
The report also states support for extremism is just as high among Muslims born in Canada, or other Western countries, as it is among those hailing from oppressive dictatorships.
The survey involved phone interviews with 455 Muslims in Ottawa, between May and July 2008, with a margin of error of five percentage points. The study was funded by the University of Maryland for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. The institute could not find funding for the study in Canada.
| — Hat tip: Van Grungy | [Return to headlines] |
Acoustical Archeology Reveals Sounds of Renaissance Venice
An international team of researchers has examined how music and church architecture were combined to create the first “stereo effect” during the Renaissance in Venice, Italy. The presence of large congregations and tapestries on the walls would have dramatically improved the clarity of the sound.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Amsterdam: Police Looking for Youth Who Threatened to Kill a Man for Not Fasting on Ramadan
The Amsterdam police published photos of a group of youth who threatened to kill a man in Amsterdam-West last August because he did not fast on Ramadan. The group shouted at the man that they’ll shoot him in the head, the police reported Monday. The man was called a ‘filthy homo who doesn’t comply with the Ramadan’. The youth also told him that they’ve been very clear and that next time they’ll catch him and kill him ‘after which you’ll go to hell’.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bossi Voices Doubt That Italy Can Endure
(AGI) Pecorara — Umberto Bossi voiced his doubts on whether Italy can endure. “Millions of people live on the shoulders of the North. Tell me if this is a country which can endure? I have my doubts, it’s not enough to hang out the flag.” Bossi made the comments during a meeting at the Pecorara Pumpkin Festival, near Piacenza. Also on stage, flanking the “Senatur”, was Treasury Minister Giulio Tremonti.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bruce Bawer: Veracity: Mendacity — and Islam
The recent arrival in my mail of a book entitled Islam: Critical Essays about a Political Religion has prompted a number of thoughts. Edited by Sam and Wim van Rooy and published late last year, it is a massive compendium, just under 800 pages long. It is in Dutch. (The title is actually De Islam: Kritische Essays over een Politieke Religie.) And it is richly comprehensive, with thirty-four essays on such subjects as the Islamization of Europe, Islam in India, the term “Islamophobia,” jihad in Africa, dhimmitude, apostasy, the myth of Andalusia, taqiyya, Islam and the West, sharia law, Islam’s “fellow travelers,” Jews under Islam, Christians under Islam, Islam and women, Islam and slavery, Islam and fascism, and Islam vs. democracy.
The authors are mostly Dutch and Flemish writers with considerable expertise in their subjects, plus a sprinkling of well-known international figures as Ibn Warraq and Bat Ye’or. I have not yet read every word of the book — and given my spotty Dutch I may never do so — but one thing is absolutely clear: this is most definitely not a product of the Islamic Studies propaganda factory. It is not the sort of book, in other words, in which you would be likely to find the work of John Esposito, the king of Islamic Studies in the U.S., who is a reliable apologist for Islam and whose Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University is, in fact, funded by (and named for) his good friend and benefactor, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. Nor is this book the sort of soft-focus feel-good material churned out by popular writers like Karen Armstrong, who (it must be admitted) does a truly brilliant job of soft-pedaling the darker sides of Islam and emphasizing its warmly spiritual aspects, so that when you think of the religion you don’t picture a jihadist lopping off somebody’s head but a beautiful woman in a sensuously loose veil meditating at sundown under an olive tree while sipping coffee and nibbling on delicious figs.
No, the writers of this book are not propagandists for Islam. Instead, they are mostly generalists, journalists, independent scholars, or professors in non-Islamic disciplines who have developed an expertise in certain aspects of Islam. And they tell the truth about it. No, women are not equal under Islam. Yes, apostasy from Islam is a capital crime. No, Jews and Christians in medieval Andalusia did not live in perfect harmony with their Muslim overlords, but were systematically treated as inferiors, afforded limited rights, and subjected to a special tax. As Sam van Rooy writes in his introduction, the overarching purpose of this book is to dispel myths, dissolve naïveté, and challenge the absurd and historyless notion of Islam as a religion of peace. In short, this book is the real thing — a substantial education in the hard facts of Islam written by people who are free of the kind of institutional and ideological restraints that keep many a certified “expert” in the subject from telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Islam…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgaria’s Conservative Leader Plevneliev is President
(AGI) Sofia — Rosen Plevneliev, the candidate of the Center-Right party Gerb, was elected President of Bulgaria in the 2nd ballot. After obtaining 52.6% of the vote, the former Minister of the Borisov Cabinet defeated his Socialist contender Ivailo Kalfin, who only obtained 47.4% of the votes.
The Central Electoral Commission will have to finalize the second tally before disclosing the final official results tomorrow.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dad Seeks Video Game Ban After Norway Attacks
The father of a near-victim of July’s Utøya island massacre has reported video game Call of Duty to police, saying its simulated lethal violence poses a public threat. In his internet “manifesto”, confessed bomber and mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik said he used games like Call of Duty to hone the skills he needed to gun down defenceless teenage members of the Labour Party’s youth wing. Breivik aimed automatic rifle fire at the “moving targets” he saw when the ferry he commandeered while wearing police garb pulled in to Utøya’s pier.
Leaving Utøya that day on the same ferry was Jannike, daughter of Svein Olaf Olsen, the man filing the complaint against the distributors of the US-made game in an attempt to block its sale in Norway. He singled out Call of Duty because of one its “adventure figures” — a killer in disguise — and a scene in which “the terrorist goes undercover to kill as many people as possible as they stand in line at an airport,” Olsen told The Local. Olsen has crusaded against violent films and games since the 1980s, when he travelled abroad to stem the tide of such products before they reached Norway. He said Call of Duty isn’t the bloodiest but it is “perceived and presented as merely an adventure”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Earthquakes: Canaries: Alarm Over Underwater Volcano Eruption
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 1 — Further tremors in the last few hours, the largest at 3.9 on the Richter scale, have put the Canaries island of El Hierro, in a state of alarm.
Spain’s National Geographic Institute says that the latest tremor has an epicentre with a depth of 26 kilometres and was recorded at around 22:00 local time yesterday. It is said to be the latest in a series of tremors provoked by an underwater volcanic eruption off the coast of La Restinga. Since July 17, some 10,708 tremors have been registered in El Hierro. Underwater volcanic activity resumed yesterday with the surfacing of large pieces of molten magma, which widened the vast dark patchy generated by the volcanic process and has caused concern among inhabitants of the coastal town. The magma reaching the surface of the sea was white-hot and steaming, as was the case during the first eruption of October 15.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Bank of Italy Chief Sentenced to 3 1/2 Years
Fazio convicted for second time on market-rigging charges
(ANSA) — Milan, October 31 — Former Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Monday for his alleged role in a 2005 scandal-hit bank takeover bid. The ex-central bank was found guilty of market-rigging in connection with insurer Unipol’s failed attempt to gain control of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), which had been set to be sold to Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and was later taken over by the French bank BNP Paribas. Earlier this year the 75-year-old banker was sentenced to a four-year prison term in a similar 2005 case in which he was accused of attempting to thwart another foreign bank takeover. The first case involved Fazio’s alleged behind-the-scenes attempts to favor a bid from Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI) for Banca Antonveneta, which was about to be acquired by the Dutch Bank ABN Amro. In the end an Italian court cleared the way for the sale to the Dutch but the bank returned to Italian ownership in 2007 after ABN Amro was itself bought by a group of European banks and broken up. Antonveneta initially went to Spanish bank Santander which then flipped it to Monte Paschi di Siena. In Monday’s sentence, Fazio was also slapped with a fine of one million euros. Twelve others were on trial along with Fazio with former Unipol chairman Giovanni Consorte sentenced to three years, 10 months and a 1.3-million-euro fine, while the insurer’s ex-deputy chairman Ivano Sacchetti and then chief financial officer Carlo Cimbri each received sentences of three years seven months and fines of one million euros each. According to the prosecution, in both the BNL and Antonveneto cases Fazio acted above the law in his attempt to derail the foreign bids. By the end of 2005 Fazio was forced to resign from the post he had held since 1993 and he was replaced by Mario Draghi, who on Tuesday will become the new head of the European Central Bank. Lawyers for Fazio said they will appeal and that their client was “evermore dismayed” by what he considered an “unjustified” sentence. Consorte’s lawyers also said they would appeal and added that the former Unipol chief was “disappointed, bitter, unhappy and frustrated” by Monday’s ruling. Unipol itself was ordered to pay a fine of 720,00 euros. Sentences of over three years and fines in the neighborhood of one million euros were given to other key players in the BNL operation including real estate wheeler-dealers Danilo Coppola, Stefano Riucci and Giuseppe Statuto, businessman Emilio Gnutti, banker Guido Leoni and publisher and construction baron Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone. Acquitted in the case was Fazio’s former right hand Francesco Frasca, who had headed the mergers and acquisitions watchdog office at the central bank.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France, Islam and the Banlieues: A Debate on the Place of Islam and Class in the Suburbs
For France’s Institut Montaigne, a team of researchers led by political scientist Gilles Kepel have completed a detailed study of Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, two towns east of Paris that were pivotal in the 2005 riots. Their findings highlight the growing influence of Islam. Two commentators react …
Michèle Tribalat
In an effort to allay concerns about Islam in France, policymakers and analysts have either tried to play down its importance or sought to blend it into the landscape. Islam is often portrayed as an integral part of French history: its presence simply follows on from ancient history. The basis for this argument is shaky, for it refers to an era when Christendom — not yet referred to as the west — was in retreat, driven back by the force of Islamic arms.
In fact Europe gained the upper hand several centuries ago, and until recently Islam was almost completely absent from western countries. Almost all the Muslims in France are immigrants or the children of immigrants. The rise of Islam is linked to immigration. The same applies to most other countries in western Europe. Analysis of the number of Muslims in France remains ambiguous and oscillates between two extremes, either highlighting their minority status or stressing their importance. But what are the facts?
In 2008 there were some 4 million Muslims in France, representing 6.4% of the population (based on the Trajectories and Origins study published by Ined and the Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies [Insee] in 2008). Common sense suggests that 4 million people are not going to upset our way of life, our relationship with religion and our social advances, some still very recent.
Among young adults, just over one in 10 of the population is a Muslim. In the 18-50 age group in France there is one Muslim for every four Roman Catholics. Focusing attention on the most fervent believers in this age group, those who attach great importance to their faith, Muslims outnumber Catholics by about 150,000. Among those born in France in the 1980s, the ratio is three to one. Islam is gaining ground in France where Christianity has already substantially declined. Succeeding generations of French origin are getting more secular in their outlook. In 2008 about 60% of youths said they had no religious belief.
The pattern among the children of immigrants from north Africa, Sahel and Turkey is the opposite, with religion gaining in importance, particularly among the young: in 2008 only 13% acknowledged that they had no religious belief. In 1992, a third of people aged between 20 and 29 and born of two Algerian-immigrant parents admitted having no faith. In 2008, in the same age group, only 14% of those surveyed had no faith.
Islam is riding on a more favourable population dynamic than Catholicism: a large proportion of young people adopt their parents’ religion, few marry outside their religious community; the birthrate is high and immigration will certainly continue. Furthermore, Muslims are highly concentrated in large cities, increasing their visibility and their ability to mobilise: in 2008 more than two-thirds of France’s Muslims were living in urban areas with 200,000 residents or more, compared with 40% of members of other religious groups or non-believers. In the Seine-Saint-Denis département, north-east of Paris, Muslims now constitute the largest religious community.
Although there is little chance the French will all convert to Islam, its influence is already visible in religious affairs and in certain districts. France thought it had done with religious matters; Islam has put them back on the agenda. We tend to think that secularism is spreading, like some irresistible historical trend, so we see any contrary movement as an aberration that can only be explained by alienation and despair. We consider the growing influence of Islam as a sickness: to cure it we must treat not its symptoms but the social misery at its root.
This attitude offers three advantages: it sustains an illusion about the nature of the problem, it offers a familiar solution, and it leaves intact our belief in the inexorable progress of secularisation. Strong in this conviction, it seems inconceivable that Islam might change our way of life. The perception of Islam as a victim is narcissistic — we are the cause of the Other’s misfortune — and condescending, the Other being deprived of the willpower and capacity to choose. Such an attitude is part of a relativistic era that prevents us from passing judgment on practices we might once have condemned, and that encourages us to open up to outside influences. The same process leads us to disregard moderate Muslims, who are rather too much like ourselves, and prefer those whose only form of moderation is to reject the use of violence in defence of their cause.
Islam is still a minority religion, but it has already changed our freedom of expression, an essential part of democracy. The fear of being catalogued as xenophobic or Islamophobic — despite being one of the favourite weapons of radicals in their fight against freedom of expression, this concept has enjoyed considerable success in the west — has been reinforced by intimidation, especially over school syllabuses. Since the Salman Rushdie affair, the idea of stirring up racial hatred has been turned upside down, and our key concern now seems to be to avoid provoking a violent outburst by the advocates of Islamic norms each time they take offence, as happened over the Danish cartoons.
• Michèle Tribalat is a French demographics expert who specialises on immigration issues
Gérard Mauger
A spectre haunts policymakers, journalists, sociologists, and experts in thinktanks: “the social question”, in its contemporary form of mass vulnerability and increasingly widespread zones of disaffiliation. For the past 30 years France’s banlieues — underprivileged housing estates plagued by poverty, and emblematic of the crisis in the working classes — have been in the headlines, high on the political agenda and in invitations to tender addressed to social scientists.
Relocation of whole branches of industry and the transformation of working practices have ruined traditional working trades and brought unemployment, poverty and casual labour to the margins of the working classes, depriving the workforce of its economic value and devaluing more symbolic concepts such as virility, which played a central role in defining traditional working-class male identity. But the lower classes have not disappeared, as some would have us believe: the decline in the number of workers — almost a quarter of the active population — is partly compensated by the spread of manufacturing jobs now classified as services.
The ever more precarious predicament, the determination to guard against unemployment and loss of social status, and the aspiration towards better conditions, all explain the quest for social improvement through higher education, at the same time as the declining appeal of vocational training in favour of more academic studies. Failure at school condemns people to stay working class. Carrying on with education maintains the illusion of possible advancement. But despite their efforts, most students at vocational secondary schools achieve little long-term job security.
How are we to understand the transformation of former red suburbs into sink estates? The massive rehousing programmes of the 1960 and 1970s hardened the divide between semi-skilled workers and immigrant labourers, and their highly skilled counterparts, for whom getting a new home symbolised collective advancement. During the late 1970s, housing policies made it easier for working-class families to buy their own homes, leading to a mass exodus from social housing by better-off households. No longer synonymous with success, the large housing estates lost their appeal.
The place of those who left was soon taken by immigrant families, further accentuating the division between home-owning and housing-estate workers. Towards the end of the 1970s, the downturn in the economy affected the least well qualified workers and the most recent immigrants. For working-class households, staying in low-income housing reflected the precarious nature of their employment. It was also the physical manifestation of their equality with the newcomers.
With no way out of their estates, these workers often became the advocates of stricter law and order, particularly for local youths. When immigrant families first arrived on the estates, it seemed an improvement on their previous temporary housing, but later they came to fear that their sons might stray outside the law. Public perception of these problem estates is coloured by recurrent social ills: breakdown of law and order, and difficulties with integration. In both cases the problems are explicitly connected to immigration.
In this way the social question, which caused such estates in the first place, has turned into an immigration problem. The efforts of France’s far-right National Front (FN) party and the right wing of the governing centre-right UMP party have ensured that the “immigration question” stays near the top of the political agenda. The transformation is all the more successful because there is a real basis for these problems: in the estates there is plenty of scope for delinquency to flourish.
As for the problem of integration and the ongoing controversy about the (republican) French model and its (multicultural) Anglo-Saxon counterpart, it finds much of its justification in the Islamic revival in underprivileged neighbourhoods. Traditional forms of working-class organisation in the red suburbs east of Paris have been replaced by new forms of collective or religious action, ranging from big brothers to imams. Imported from the black ghettos of the US, hip-hop is now the dominant culture among young people on the estates for at least three reasons: it brings into play forms of language and gesture that are purportedly theirs to own; the rappers have, to varying degrees, succeeded in voicing the woes of underprivileged youth; last, and perhaps most important, having been taken on board by the dominant culture, hip-hop seems to offer the means of achieving symbolic rehabilitation, and maybe even the promise of riches.
Confronted with the discrepancy between the social status to which they aspire and the empty promise of their degrees, with discrimination in the market for jobs and housing, and with everyday xenophobia, a few young Muslim graduates have decided to act. They reject the image of poor wretches, constantly in trouble with the police, who know neither how to behave properly nor how to control their children. They also reject the idea of “secondhand Arabs” who hold down executive jobs, no longer speak Arabic and have native-French partners. Instead they are reconstructing their identity, a process that gives additional importance to the community, to campaigns to restore the use of Arabic, and of course to religion.
Islam’s message may strike a chord with some youths living on underprivileged estates, but the reasons for this are to be found in its symbolic value, its power to transform the stigma associated with being an Arab into a value of choice, synonymous with the pride of being a Muslim. Importing the multicultural model has transformed a social question into a racial issue, substituting a perception of society with class divisions with a mosaic of ethnically differentiated communities, and in so doing strengthening divisions among the working classes.
• Gérard Mauger is a French sociologist and director of research at the CNRS
These articles originally appeared in Le Monde
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Satirical French Magazine Names ‘Muhammad’ As Editor
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has named the Prophet Muhammad as “editor-in-chief” for its next issue to mark the electoral victory of Islamist party Ennahda in Tunisia.
It will be renamed Sharia Hebdo, the weekly said in a statement on Monday. The publication’s editor-in-chief and cartoonist Charb said they were not trying to be especially provocative. Ennahda won the most seats in Tunisia’s October elections and is now trying to form a coalition caretaker government. “To fittingly celebrate the victory of the Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisia… Charlie Hebdo has asked Muhammad to be the special editor-in-chief of its next issue”, the magazine said in a statement. “The prophet of Islam didn’t have to be asked twice and we thank him for it,” the statement said.
The cover of the next issue, which comes out on Wednesday, shows Muhammad saying “100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter”. It will also include an editorial piece by the Prophet entitled Halal Aperitif and a women’s supplement called Madam Sharia. Charb told the AFP news agency: “We don’t feel like causing further provocation. We simply feel like doing our job as usual. The only difference this week is that Muhammad is on the cover and it’s pretty rare to put him on the cover.” Ennahda has vowed to work with Tunisia’s more liberal parties, and respect the country’s progressive approach to gender equality.
In 2007, the French magazine’s then editor was acquitted of insulting Muslims by reprinting cartoons of Muhammad which had originally appeared in a Danish newspaper two years previously. Reaction in the Muslim world built up in January and February of 2006 culminating in sometimes violent protests. Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who in 2005 drew 12 images of the Prophet that appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, has been targeted by Islamists groups, who deemed the images offensive.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Talks With Swiss on Deposit Tax
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 31 — Greek authorities are in talks with their Swiss counterparts on a deal — expected to be ready by the end of the year — aimed at taxing around 200 billions of euros’ worth of bank deposits believed to be held by Greek tax evaders in Swiss accounts. The deal, as daily Kathimerini reports, would be modeled on similar agreements Switzerland signed recently with Britain and Germany, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said in a statement Sunday, three days after ministry officials traveled to Bern to agree on a framework for a bilateral pact. According to that framework, Greeks with deposits in Swiss banks would have two choices: Either they reveal to Greek authorities the balance of their accounts or they will be forced to pay a tax at a rate that would apply had the amount been declared as income in Greece. Venizelos expressed optimism that the pact would help Greece crack the major problem of high-level tax evasion and raise revenues to curb the country’s gaping budget deficit.
“Greece will be able to collect a significant amount of taxes evaded over many years, and be able to access information that will allow us to locate blatant cases of tax evasion,” he said. “It is a very significant development that the negotiations with Switzerland are entering the final phase,” he added. Greeks hold an estimated 200 billion euros in Swiss bank accounts, a sum believed to include some of the widespread tax evasion indulged in by affluent Greeks.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
No Warships Left Guarding Britain
SWINGEING cutbacks have left the UK without a single warship specifically tasked with protecting the country’s shores for the past month, the Ministry of Defence confirmed today.
The Royal Navy normally provides a minimum coverage of a frigate or destroyer fulfilling the role of Fleet Ready Escort (FRE).
This task is for the ship to be at high readiness for an emergency, including a terrorist attack, in UK waters or abroad.
However pressures on the Navy caused by cuts to its fleet in last year’s strategic defence and strategy review (SDSR) as well as its commitments to the Nato mission to Libya, has left it unable to fill the role.
Former First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord Alan West said: “If there was a terrorism incident in UK waters, this would historically be the ship sent in to deal with it.
“It’s a big problem. If we haven’t got a ship ready to do this role then it’s worrying. It’s a very unsatisfactory position to be in.”
In the SDSR, the Government cut the number of frigates and destroyers in the navy’s surface fleet from 24 to 19.
The last ship to undertake the FRE role was the frigate HMS Portland which left the position on October 3 to take part in the Joint Warrior Nato exercise off Scotland.
A Royal Navy spokesman said: “Due to the successful deployment of Royal Navy units to the Libya campaign, it has been necessary to reprofile the commitments of some ships.
“Should a FRE activation be required, a Royal Navy ship would be allocated.”
The spokesman explained that although there had not been a ship specifically tasked as an FRE, one of the vessels taking part in the Joint Warrior exercise could have been allocated within 24 hours’ notice.
He added that the FRE would not necessarily be on patrol during its tasking but could be at high readiness to sail.
The spokesman said that as well as the FRE, the navy normally has a frigate escorting the continuous at sea deterrent (nuclear submarine) as well as fishery protection vessels. He added the next FRE would be formally notified on November 7 but if one was required prior to that they would be nominated immediately.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Police Want Breivik to Appear by Video Link
Oslo police requested on Monday that the gunman behind the July 22nd twin attacks make his next court appearance via a video link in the presence of the media instead of in person behind closed doors, a police spokesman said. Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who is currently being held at the high-security Ila prison near Oslo, is scheduled to appear before a judge at the Oslo district court on November 14th for a hearing on the extension of his custody. All of his hearings have until now been held in his presence behind closed doors.
But police now want to make use of new regulations in effect since September 1st that allow police to ask for a person to appear via a video link between a courthouse and prison. “It’s advantageous in terms of efficiency,” Oslo police spokesman Roar Hanssen told AFP. “It makes it possible to ease up on security,” he added. Police have also agreed to make the hearing “partially” public for the first time, allowing the presence of the media and representatives of the victims, though they would not be allowed to report on anything said during the hearing.
Meanwhile, the defence, which has from the beginning sought maximum publicity for the hearings, said it was “sceptical” about a video link. “It has to do with my client’s legal rights,” lawyer Geir Lippestad told local media.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Satirical French Weekly Names ‘Muhammad’ As Top Editor
A French satirical weekly said on Monday it has named the Muslim prophet Muhammad as “editor-in-chief” for its next issue to celebrate the election win of Tunisia’s Islamist party. The publication Charlie Hedbo also said the issue that comes out on Wednesday will be re-named “Sharia Hedbo” after senior transitional Libyan leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said that Islamic sharia law will be the basis of legislation under the country’s new regime.
“To fittingly celebrate the victory of the Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisia … Charlie Hedbo has asked Muhammad to be the special editor-in-chief of its next issue”, the magazine said in a statement. “The prophet of Islam didn’t have to be asked twice and we thank him for it,” the statement said. The publication’s editor in chief and cartoonist Charb told AFP that “We don’t feel like causing further provocation. We simply feel like doing our job as usual. The only difference this week is that Muhammad is on the cover and it’s pretty rare to put him on the cover.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Wealth Gap Wider Than Ever
El País, 31 October 2011
“The gap between rich and poor is widening in Spain”, reports El País, which points out that economic inequality has reached “a record high” since 1995, when it began to be measured by European statistics. Adding that the “change has led to Spain lagging behind the European Union”, the daily notes that the most recent data compiled by Eurostat in 2009 show that only Latvia, Romania and Lithuania are worse off in this regard. “Economic blight” in Spain, which has close to 5 million unemployed (21.5% of the working population), wage reductions and an end to a number of state benefits have caused the gap to grow in the course of the crisis, continues the daily, which highlights an “abrupt worsening of the situation in 2010”.
The inequality of income distribution, as measured by the s80/s20 ratio which takes into account the richest 20% and the poorest 20% of the population, now stands at 6.9 in Spain, as opposed to 4.5 in Germany. In 2009, the EU average for this figure was 4.9.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Taxation: Cyprus to the Court of Justice Over Car Rules
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 31 — The Commission decided to refer Cyprus to the EU’s Court of Justice because its car taxation rules discriminate against non-Cypriot EU citizens who transfer a car into Cyprus.
Under Cypriot legislation, EU nationals who set up a permanent residence in Cyprus are only exempted from paying excise duty on a new imported car if they do not practice a profession in Cyprus. Such a condition does not apply to Cypriot citizens, nationals and descendants who return to live permanently in Cyprus.
This regime discriminates against non-Cypriot EU citizens and is contrary to EU rules which guarantee the free movement of workers and freedom of establishment.The Commission requested Cyprus to amend its legislation within a two-months in January 2011. However, Cyprus has still not taken the necessary measures to amend its rules.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
This is the Guy Who Wants to Regulate Our Speech?
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation) issued a statement on Islamophobia to the recent OSCE event in Vienna. As well as its audacity in demanding restrictions on free speech in civilised countries, you have to marvel at the stunning illiteracy of it. The entire statement is written in broken English, apparently without even basic proof-reading having been done. The Istanbul Ministerial Meeting held on 15th July 2011 that was co-chaired by the US Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Clinton and myself and participated by Foreign Minister of a large number of OIC Member States and Western countries, government representatives as well as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Baroness Catherine Ashton, lent strong support to the need for implementation of Resolution of 16/18 to combat religious and belief bases intolerance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Asian Bride ‘Drugged and Held Prisoner by Her Family After Breaking Off Arranged Marriage and Secretly Marrying Another Man’
Naila Afsar, 23, was also threatened with death, assaulted and abused by angry close relatives after they discovered she had wed Afsar Saddiq without telling them, it was alleged.
She was given a milky drink laced with a prescription-only sedative in a bid to put her to sleep while they took her back to the family home — and away from her new husband, it was said.
Mr Saddiq, meanwhile, was visited by Naila Afsar’s family, who told him his new wife would not be returning before stealing his mobile phone to stop the couple keeping in contact, a jury heard.
Naila Afsar’s mother Shamim Akhtar, 58, father Mohammed Khan, 57, her elder brother Shamrez Khan, 34, all from Bradford, West Yorkshire, and her sister Saima Mahmood, 30, and her brother-in-law Zahid Mahmood, 36, both of Accrington, face a string of charges.
They all deny false imprisonment, kidnap and two charges of administering the drug lorazepam with intent, in January last year, after claiming in a police interview they were trying to help Naila ‘resolve a domestic situation’.
Mr Jonathan Dickinson, prosecuting, told Burnley Crown Court Naila Afsar’s family wanted her to marry her first cousin, who lived in Denmark.
Naila became engaged to him in May 2009, but she realised they were not suited to one another and in July 2009, called it off.
‘Her family was upset with her and that was, perhaps, putting it mildly,’ said Mr Dickinson.
‘The complainant ran away from the family home and went to live with a friend in Newcastle, thinking the defendants could not reach her.’
Mr Dickinson said that while in Newcastle, she met Mr Saddiq, they got on well and were wed in November 2009 at a local mosque, without her family knowing.
‘The family found out soon after and towards the end of November, Naila Afsar visited the family home in Bradford with her new husband to introduce him to her family, in the hope of resolving their differences,’ added the prosecutor.
‘It wasn’t an overwhelming success, but Naila Afsar said she would return to Bradford at the end of November, for Eid.
‘She did so and was put under a lot of pressure from her family, who were not happy about her having broken off the engagement and married a man they did not know or approve of.
The prosecutor said when the alleged victim went to Bradford for Eid, she was threatened and abused by her relatives, who wanted her to separate from Mr Saddiq or divorce him and start a relationship on a different footing, in accordance with their wishes…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Birmingham Researchers Call for Reform of UK Counter-Terrorism Strategy
Researchers will call for the urgent reform the UK’s counter-terrorism strategies when they present their findings in Birmingham. According to the research carried out in London and Birmingham, the way politicians, policymakers and the media discuss who might be responsible for bombings was similar to those in the period when there were IRA bombings in Britain. The report found that similarities emerged in the experiences that the Irish and Muslim communities had during times of increased terrorist activity, but 30 years apart.
Prof Mary Hickman, Director of the research at London Metropolitan University, said: “The research reveals the extent to which the Irish in Britain lived with the fear of association with the IRA and the impact it had on their lives.
“While the focus of contemporary counter-terrorism policy remains fixed on rooting out extreme ideas it encourages the public to treat Muslims as potential ‘suspects’ or legitimate objects of abuse. Future policies must ensure they do not undermine the trust Muslim communities have in state institutions nor their sense of belonging in Britain.” The findings will be presented at an event at Carrs Lane Community Centre, Birmingham city centre, from 6.30pm to 8pm tomorrow. Attendance is free but places are limited. To book ring 0207 133 2927 or email suspectcommunities@londonmet.ac.uk
Birmingham Mail, 31 October 2011
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Heritage Angels: Heroes Who Make the Past Fit for the Future
by Charles Moore
The English Heritage Angel awards celebrate great British buildings and the people who have worked tirelessly to save them.
Angels, of course, have wings, but Heritage Angels, I have discovered, stay put. We judges of the Heritage Angel Awards, which were presented for the first time yesterday — thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber, at his Palace Theatre in London — were asked to assess according to many criteria, but I have concluded that the most important of all is persistence.
Millions of people look at a familiar but neglected building and say, “Wouldn’t it be nice to save it?” But only a few understand that “saving” a building is so very much more than keeping the roof on (or even putting it back). It requires not only — obviously — money, but also careful thought about use. A building from the past will be insecure in the future, however well-restored it may be, if people are not quite sure what to do with it. The Heritage Angel is the person who loves the building unconditionally, and can see what needs to be done.
Then he or she will express that vision so persuasively and so tenaciously that others will come to share it. Every sort of planner will tell him it can’t be done. Every sort of accountant will tell him that the sums won’t add up. Quite a lot of local politicians will tell him that they prefer money to be spent on “people”, as if people and buildings were unrelated. But he won’t stop until his vision is completed. Probably he will never stop, because, in all remarkable buildings, the vision never is complete.
I have been to lots of awards ceremonies. Without wishing to denigrate my own proud trade of journalism, I would say that awards within any group are mainly self-congratulatory. I find the Oscars a total bore. The emotions of the outsider are not engaged. But yesterday’s proceedings were moving. People came from a colliery in Nottinghamshire, a massive, run-down church in Leeds, a Tudor barn in Kent, a high-Victorian former church in Hampstead, a cemetery in Bristol and an orangery in Gloucestershire (and those were just the winners). Films a minute long displayed what, in many cases, had been almost a life’s work. The Angels had put unimaginably large amounts of time into something local, and now they could see that, by doing so, they had achieved something national. For years, they had been buried in dust and grant application forms and builders’ estimates, and now their vision had succeeded in a shape which the rest of us could recognise and applaud.
I talked, for example, to Robert Metcalfe, from Pleasley Colliery in Nottinghamshire. He is a mining surveyor. He told me that when a mining surveyor goes down a mine someone with him will say, “Where are we?” If he can’t answer, he will be thought a fool. Mr Metcalfe made it his business, therefore, to understand the entire surrounding landscape of a mine, relating what is below ground to what is above. One day in the mid-Nineties, exploring the surface a few miles from Bolsover colliery where he was working, he came across the forgotten ruin of Pleasley, a lost ark of our industrial past. He and colleagues have spent the past 15 years getting its two great winding engines, one from 1875 and one from 1924, powered by what Mr Metcalfe calls “big steam”, working again.
For generations for whom coal mines mean little more than blackened faces and endless strikes, to discover how well men built and worked once upon a time is a revelation. The 1924 engine is the last ever made by the Markham Company, which was the best in the world. This is the industrial equivalent of finding and restoring a late Titian. Similarly, Joyce Smith loved Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol where her father — and now her husband — is buried. The greatness of that commercial city was expressed in the way it memorialised its citizens. A developer wanted to tear the place up and build houses all over it, but she and her friends understood how a city of the dead could, if that is not a contradiction, live again; and now it does, all 45 acres of it, backed by the council and enjoyed by 20,000 visitors a year.
“Heritage” is a more controversial concept than it sometimes appears. When it involves too much regulation, it feels as if it is stifling what is new. In poorer, more backward countries, and even in some poorer communities in Britain, getting rid of the past can seem like a blessed release. There are people who think that too great an interest in the past is “holding Britain back”. But, as W H Auden once put it about the Book of Common Prayer, “Why spit on your luck?” Britain arguably has more physical, artistic, industrial, political and literary heritage intact than any other country in the world. We have been around longer than most, and we have only rarely destroyed ourselves by war or revolution or totalitarianism. If it is rightly understood, our heritage is a common resource. It tells us huge amounts about who we are and what we can do. If these awards are anything to go by, we remain a remarkable people, who can do a very great deal.
These Heritage Angels understand what sense of place is. They are hefted to a particular spot. They obsess, no doubt, about the tiny details of the building. But they are not smallminded. They see how the love of the one small thing they know so intimately is part of a very big thing. And they have found the way to communicate that love to the rest of us. They preach new sermons in old stones.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslims Face Many Problems on UK Campuses, Says Student Leader
LONDON, 5 Dhul Hijja/1 Nov (IINA)-Muslim students in Britain suffer as victims of many issues on university campuses associated with Islamophobia, according to Alaa’ al-Samarrai of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS). Samarrai, FOSIS vice president for student affairs, is particularly critical of the Conservative-led coalition government for adopting right-wing policies but believes that Muslims should individually and collectively work together to combat the issues. “One of the biggest challenges faced by Muslim students on campuses today is the implications of the Prevent (extremism) agenda and the impact that is having on universities and the pressure on them to act and scrutinise their students,” she said. In particular, a by-product of the pressure on lecturers to spy on Muslims students and Islamic societies is that “by de fault they (students) are assumed to be the cause of the problem,” she told IRNA.
Last week, Samarrai was among the main speakers at conference at London University focusing on Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim hatred on UK campuses organised by the Enough Coalition. In an interview with IRNA, she spoke about the extent of the issues suffered by the estimated 250,000 Muslim students in Britain. “Muslims in general, face problems to practice their religion openly on campus with the type of speakers they bring into campuses and generally just the overarching news stories about students being spied upon on campus,” FOSIS vice president said. She also cited some of the numerous examples of Islamophobic attacks, both physical and verbal, including the recent case of three Muslim male students being stabbed on campus when leaving their rooms.
“Others include sisters wearing hijabs, who are attacked either physically or verbally because they are visibly Muslim,” she said but admitted that the scale of the problem could be much larger as many cases of hate crimes were under reported. There was also the issue where niqab was banned at a college when she said there was “no logical reason to it” and added to concerns about prohibitive legislation being passed in Britain against Islamic symbols as has happened in other European countries. “It is really shocking and upsetting and does create a fear that it may spread and become more prevalent in our society,” Samarrai said.
“All feed into what is acceptable and not acceptable. The challenges to the notion what is comfortable to be Muslim, like women who wish to wear the niqab,” she said. The student leader believed that it was first up to Muslims to speak out and exercise their democratic rights by becoming involved with their universities and student union. “There is definitely an element to be involved, to speak out, be empowered, take action yourself and don’t expect others to do it for you,” she said.
There was also incidents of institutional racism which she said is really harder to spot but needed to be addressed by collectively working together to combat. The extent of the problem, Samarrai said, was that there were different forms of hatred towards Muslims in Britain, including being an ethnic minority, the colour of your skin, looking a bit different.
“They may not know your faith, but there are issues associated with you being Muslim, they think you must be an idiot, you must prescribe to these views,” she said.
There were also “irrational fears” about the Islamification of Europe, those linked with racism and also to do with immigration blamed for causing economic problems. “The establishment needs to take a long hard look at itself, especially the new Tory government has done a lot already to anger Muslims,” Samarrai told IRNA. She suggested the coalition needed to revise the Prevent agenda and the way they have approached relations with the Muslim community, including not engaging with many groups and leaders that causes a “very negative impact and sends the wrong messages.” One of the reasons, Samarrai suggested, was the way the government had surrounded itself with advisers and was “worryingly saying things that right-wing groups are propagating. It was very disappointing to see the government adopting such policies without the need to see who the representatives really are of the Muslim community,” she said.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mohammad Amir, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif All Guilty in Pakistani Spot-Fixing Trial
Three former Pakistani cricketers — Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir — could face jail sentences after being found guilty of spot-fixing during last summer’s Lord’s Test against England.
The cricketers have become the first sportsmen to be convicted of on-field corruption in a UK court since the 1960s, after being found guilty at Southwark Crown Court following a four-week trial.
After nearly 17 hours deliberation the jury found Butt guilty of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments, which carries a maximum jail term of seven years, by a majority verdict of 10 to 2. He was also found guilty of conspiracy to cheat at gambling, which has a maximum tariff of two years, by unanimous verdict.
Asif was found guilty of guilty of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments by a majority verdict of 10 to 2. He was found guilty of conspiracy to cheat at gambling by unanimous verdict.
Fast-bowler Mohammad Amir pleaded guilty to the same charges at a pre-trial hearing on September 16, claiming that he was put under “extreme pressure” by senior members of the Pakistan camp.
“This vulnerable 18-year-old boy, as he was then, was subjected to extreme pressure from those upon whom he should have been able to rely. He recognised the damage he has caused Pakistan cricket and he wants to do his best to put this right.”
As a result of the plea Amir did not stand trial alongside his former team-mates, a fact that was not disclosed to the jury and could not be reported until today.
Neither Asif nor Butt man showed any discernible reaction as the verdicts were read out, staring straight ahead as the jury foreman announced their fate. They will be sentenced on Wednesday or Thursday this week following further hearings.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: St Paul’s U-Turn: Tent City Protesters Told They Can Carry on Camping
The St Paul’s tent city could stay in place during next year’s Olympics, Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and Lord Mayor’s show after the cathedral backed protesters this afternoon.In a dramatic U-turn, the “chapter” of clerics who run the cathedral voted unanimously to suspend legal action aimed at removing the anti-capitalist camp. The City of London Corporation also suspended legal action against demonstrators until the morning, when the situation will be reviewed.
A spokesman said: “Legal action has been suspended until tomorrow morning when the situation will be revisited. We have not handed them (the protesters) a letter this afternoon.”
Announcing the Cathedral’s decision, the Bishop of London Dr Richard Chartres said: “The alarm bells are ringing all over the world. St Paul’s has now heard that call.
“Today’s decision means that the doors are most emphatically open to engage with matters concerning not only those encamped around the Cathedral but millions of others in this country and around the globe.”
When asked if the protesters would be allowed to stay if the chapter voted against legal action to evict them, the cathedral source said: “Yes.” He added: “If the cathedral entrance is blocked indefinitely, it will raise questions about the future of St Paul’s. There is a lot of pageantry planned for next year. The Queen is not going to come to the Lord Mayor’s show if she has to push through protesters camped on the doorstep.”
The announcement was welcomed by protesters. Spokesman Ronan McNern said: “It is really positive and we are very excited about hopefully great new beginnings.” Sandra Quayle, 48, said: “It feels really special because it is from St Paul’s and we are on holy ground.” The Bishop of London also announced that senior investment banker Ken Costa would lead a group that would seek to “reconnect the financial with the ethical”.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Seselj Gets Up to 18 Months Jail for Revealing Names in Book
The Hague, 31 Oct. (AKI) — The United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Monday convicted Serbian ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj for contempt of court and sentenced him to up to 18 months in jail for “disclosing confidential information” about “protected witnesses in a book he authored.
Seselj, the leader of ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party had been indicted by the tribunal for crimes against Croats and Muslims committed by the volunteers recruited by his party during 1991-1995 war.
He surrendered to the court in February 2003 and while the main trial was dragging on he had already been sentenced to 15 months for revealing the names of protected witness. He was indicted for contempt of court for the third time in May this year and he has said he would provoke “at least ten new indictments”.
Seselj told the court on Monday ha was “the greatest enemy of the tribunal” and didn’t care about the length of sentence. He said the tribunal was resorting to contempt of court trials, because it had no case against him in the main trial.
The prosecution ended its presentation of evidence against Seselj earlier this year and Seselj has said he would not present his evidence because the prosecution hasn’t proven any charges against him.
The trial was expected to end in coming months with closing statements of Seselj and the prosecution.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Christians Arrested for Proselytism During Mass
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, NOVEMBER 1 — Five men were arrested by Algerian police for proselytism during a mass in a village in the wilaya of El Tarf, according to the website of the Liberté newspaper. The men were arrested in line with measures issued by the general state prosecutor at the court of El Tarf.
The incident occurred on Sunday in the village of Myriama, close to the Tunisian border. In Algeria, worship, Muslim or otherwise, is regulated by a law of February 2006, which stipulates that both the site in which worship is celebrated and the cleric presiding over the ceremony must be authorised.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Cornerstone Laid for $1.3-Billion Grand Mosque of Algiers; Will be Among World’s Largest
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Monday laid the cornerstone for the Grand Mosque of Algiers, a $1.3-billion project that should become the world’s third largest mosque.
China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) was last month awarded the contract to build the huge monument, facing the sea in the east of Algiers, over four years.
The mosque will sit on 20 hectares in the Mohammadia area of the capital. Its minaret soaring 270 meters (886 feet) into the sky, it will hold 120,000 worshippers and feature a library of 1 million works and seating for 2,000. It will also house a museum and a research center and become the world’s third largest mosque after those in Mecca and Saudi Arabia in Medina. Algiers currently has three grand mosques: Djamaa el-Kebir, built in the 11th century; Djamaa el-Djedid, built in 1660; and the Ketchaoua, at the foot of the Casbah, also built during the Ottoman rule in the 17th century.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Massacre of Christians: What the Media Does Not Want You to Know
by Raymond Ibrahim
A massacre at this level never occurred during the thirty-year reign of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, and yet Mubarak is being charged with “crimes against Egyptians.” What about the Military Council? It has committed greater crimes-even though it has been in charge for less than a year. Saddam Hussein was condemned by the international community for using chemicals on his own people; where are the international community, the media, and the so-called human rights groups when it comes to a government running over its own civilians with armored vehicles and having “death squads” of snipers shooting at them?
Finally, if this report testifies to crimes against humanity, consider what it says about diplomacy: If Egyptian leadership lies and deceives to suppress its internal “infidel” citizens-whose “crime” was to object to the continual destruction of their churches-how credible can it be to external “infidels,” Israel and the U.S.?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Gaddafi’s Nuclear Weapons Are a Canard
Sources tell AsiaNews that the nuclear weapons rebels claim to have found are only nuclear material and waste from Gaddafi’s nuclear programme. Despite their potential danger, the old regime did not have the means to build nuclear weapons. NATO announces the end of its mission in Libya.
Tripoli (AsiaNews) — “The discovery of nuclear weapons is a canard. Radioactive material does exist but it is part of the uranium enrichment programme dismantled in 2003. Everyone knew that Gaddafi had handed over only 55 per cent of the material needed to build weapons of mass destruction,” anonymous sources told AsiaNews.
Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of the National Transitional Council, announced today that nuclear weapons were found in the country and that a nuclear conflict had been averted. He also said that the Agency for International Atomic Energy (AIAE) had been investigate the matter, Al Arabiya TV network reported on Monday.
However, the material that was found is dangerous only if it can be delivered by the right technology.
In 2003, Gaddafi had agreed to Western demands to dismantle his nuclear programme. This enabled Libya to rejoin the international community. The agreement also called for financial help, which the Bush administration provided for.
Experts and eyewitnesses said that Libya had developed a nuclear weapon capability, building some 4,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. Gaddafi had paid US$ 100 to 200 million to a proliferation network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, for the technology.
Because of a squabble with the United States, which the Libyan leader had accused of not delivering on its financial promises, Gaddafi delayed handing over the stockpiled material until 2009.
“What the rebels found correspond to what had not yet been handed over,” sources told AsiaNews. Radioactive waste from the Tajura nuclear plant (near Tripoli) built in 1983 must also be taken into account, they added “That’s a far cry from the claim of nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, NATO has announced the end of Operation Unified Protector, its official mission in Libya. It will continue however to assist the NTC in maintaining security in the country, still in pray of domestic divisions.
A small team of military advisers will stay to provide assistance to new government and start the process of weapons collection from rebel fighters.
Since the start of its mission in the North African country on 19 March, NATO planes carried out 26,00o missions, including nearly 10,000 strike missions. More than 1000 tanks, vehicles and guns were destroyed, along with Colonel Gaddafi’s command and control network in Tripoli, Bani Walid and Sirte.
The total number of dead and injured from the military actions of NATO and Gaddafi forces remains unknown. Some estimate the figure to be around 10,000 dead. (S.C.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Harsh Criticisms to Jalil From Libya’s Women
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 31 — Mr Jalil was not up to the occasion and the dictatorial tone of his speech cancelled out the rights already won by Libya’s women. This is the content of a memo issued by the Grouping of Women in Free Libya, which has come in reaction to the speech announcing the liberation of the country by the Chair of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, delivered in Bengazi on October 23. According to the daily paper Al Quds, Al Arabi, the communiqué from the women’s group expresses harsh criticisms of Mr Jalil, especially with regard to the cancellation of the law which limited marriage to one wife only as it was in conflict with Islamic Sharia law. As the communiqué points out, by refusing polygamy, women had claimed their right to marry “any Muslim male, even a foreign one” (which would give full rights of citizenship to the children of foreign husbands — the same rights enjoyed by that children of a Libyan man married to a foreign woman). At the same time, the women refused to be treated according to the old custom of kidnapping women or keeping them as prisoners of war.
“Neither Jalil nor his NTC, nor the Grand Mufti of Libya have any right or power at this particular moment to issue new laws — or worse still, to cancel those already in existence,” the association claims. The slogans chanted by the opposition during the rebellion were “we want liberty “ and “the people want to overthrow the regime” and no Libyan, the communiqué stresses, was chanting “we want to revolutionise the state of marriage”.
Libya’s youth, male and female, were protesting to have a civil and dignified life and marriage was not one of the areas addressed”.
“Everything regarding the future of Libyans has to be discussed and regulated on the basis of the new constitution and not improvised from some platform. The time for individual decisions and Fatwas is over,” the document continues.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Media Whitewashes Tunisian Leader Ghannouchi’s Islamic Supremacist, Pro-Jihad, Pro-Sharia Views
A recurring media theme in recent days is that Rachid al-Ghannouchi and his Ennahda Party, which won last week’s Tunisian elections, are “moderate” Islamists despite considerable evidence to the contrary.
A few notable voices in the conservative blogosphere like Martin Kramer, Melanie Phillips and Raymond Ibrahim pointed out problems with this argument, including Ghannouchi’s endorsement of jihad in Gaza, stating that “Gaza, like Hanoi in the ‘60s and Cuba and Algeria, is the model of freedom today.” Ghannouchi has expressed support for suicide bombings and welcomes the destruction of Israel, which he predicts could “disappear” by 2027.
“There is no such thing as ‘moderate Islamism,’“ Phillips wrote. “It’s as absurd as saying there were moderate and extreme Stalinists, or moderate and extreme Nazis, or moderate and extreme proponents of the Spanish Inquisition. You cannot have moderate fanatics.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top Muslim Declares All Christians ‘Infidels’
by Raymond Ibrahim
To what extent was Egypt’s Maspero massacre, wherein the military literally mowed down Christian Copts protesting the ongoing destruction of their churches, a product of anti-Christian sentiment? A video of Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa (or Gom’a), which began circulating weeks before the massacre, helps elucidate. While holding that Muslims may coexist with Christians (who, as dhimmis, have rights), Gomaa categorized Christians as kuffar — “infidels” — a word that connotes “enemies,” “evil-doers,” and every bad thing to Muslim ears.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Security Council Concern Over Libya Arms Stockpile
[8:16:10 AM | Edited 8:16:40 AM] Jan van Eyck: The United Nations Security Council has expressed “concern” over the fate of the massive weapons stockpile built up in Libya under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The council called on Libya and its neighbours to stamp out the proliferation of looted arms. It was worried they could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda and other militant groups. Many weapons were destroyed in Nato operations, which ended at midnight on Monday.
However, officials said it was not clear how many were still in circulation. The resolution, drafted by Russia and adopted unanimously, said that a huge stockpile of shoulder-fired missiles, which had been accumulated by Col Gaddafi, could still pose a threat to passenger aircraft. It emphasised that the “proliferation of all arms… in particular, man-portable surface-to-air missiles, in the region, could fuel terrorist activities, including those of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Hackers’ Cut Palestinian Phone and Internet Systemsby Jon Donnison
The main phone network in the West Bank and Gaza has suffered a sustained attack by computer hackers, the Palestinian Authority (PA) says.
It says most of the Palestinian territory has lost internet service.
PA spokesman Ghassan Ghattib said the attacks started in the morning and came from multiple sources around the world.
He said he did not know if the hacking was linked to the Palestinian leadership’s successful bid to get membership of Unesco on Monday.
The move by the UN’s cultural and scientific organisation was strongly criticised by Israel and the United States.
The US immediately announced it was cutting off all of its funding to UN body.
Prolonged lack of access to the internet would prove costly to many Palestinian businesses.
The PA says the crash has been caused by computer hackers sabotaging the Paltel telephone network. Engineers are working to resolve the problem.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Whose Racism? Reactions in Israel, Palestine and Elsewhere to Gilad Shalit Prisoner Exchange
A remarkable set of responses to the Israel-Hamas hostage-prisoner exchange has emerged in the media. On the one hand, some (like myself), have emphasised the remarkable difference in the value each side puts on its own people, and protested vigorously the media’s treatment, based on a moral equivalence that blurred the lines between a firefighter and hundreds of murderous pyromaniacs. On the other, journalists like the Guardian’s Deborah Orr and Laura Pawlson, Ha’Aretz’s Alon Idan, as well as a host of Arab commentators, were indignant at the suggestion that a “terrorist soldier” should be favored over “freedom fighters,” and accuses Israel of “arrogant racism.” These responses are worth considering closely.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan’s Foreign Aid Reaches 2.1 Billion
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, NOVEMBER 1 — Aid dependent Jordan pocketed USD 2.1 billion this year in foreign assistance from key allies including USD 1.4 billion from Saudi Arabia, senior officials said today. The funds were channelled into economic, political and social programmes and included cash plus loan guarantees to the private sector and long-term, low-interest concessional loans, said Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Jafar Hassan.
The poor kingdom relies on aid from major powers to keep its books in balance including the US, the EU and its members individually. Officials have been concerned that dwindling resources have pushed the state budget into unprecedented levels of deficit that could jeoprodise the kingdom’s economic stability. Hassad said the government is set to receive USD1.7 billion, including $1.4 billion from Saudi Arabia and additional USD300 million from the US and EU.
He said authorities continue to seek foreign grants to alleviate pressure on the budget and have recently held talks with the International Monitory Fund for a USD250 million Development Policy Loan (DPL). The government is also in discussions with France and Japan on additional soft loans.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Kurdish- Armenian Tensions Due to Syria Crisis
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, 31 OCT — Tension is rising on the edge of Beirut, in the Armenian majority district of Burj Hammud, where in recent days many Kurdish-Syrian immigrant workers have been evicted from homes due to pressure from the main Armenian party, an ally of the Shiite pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement.
Lebanese political and security sources, quoted today by the pan-Arab television station, Al Arabiya and the Lebanese English language newspaper, The Daily Star, said that dozens of Kurds been expelled by their Armenian landlords, at the request of Tashnag, the Armenian party that is a member of the majority coalition led by Hezbollah, which is close to the Syrian Assad regime.
In a growing climate of intimidation for anyone in Beirut expressing disagreement with the repression in underway in neighbouring Syria, Kurdish-Syrian activists in recent weeks have been the most tenacious in challenging, the deployment of forces security and pro-Damascus regime loyalists outside the Syrian embassy in Beirut.
Hagop Pakradounian, a member of the Tashnag approached by the Daily Star, denied any link between the political situation and the tension in Burj Hammud, saying that the evictions were due to the recent increase in incidents of crime involving foreign workers who crowd the many apartments of the east Beirut neighborhood.
For his part, Mahmoud Siyala, president of a Kurdish-Lebanese charity, said he did not want to “talk about politics “, saying only that “many Kurdish families are in danger of being evicted due to a few common criminals.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: King Abdullah Tells Preachers to Reach Out to Other Communities
MAKKAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah urged Islamic scholars and preachers on Monday to reach out to non-Muslim communities and said the message of Islam came addressing the whole humanity, not a particular community.
“We have to open up to other communities because the message of Islam does not address a particular community excluding others. In fact, it is a message for the whole humanity,” the king said in his opening speech at the 12th Makkah conference. The king’s speech was read out by Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal. The three-day conference is organized by the Muslim World League.
King Abdullah emphasized the duty of Muslims to spread the message of Islam all over the world. “Despite the material progress achieved by man, he is still suffering from a lack of spirituality,” he said while emphasizing the importance of dawa work. In his keynote speech, King Abdullah said Islam is a comprehensive religion of peace and mercy. “The message of Islam explains how man and woman on this earth should live, with all its details.”
The king continued: “Islam alone presents a complete way of life based on divine values and presents a balanced approach toward life. It can save them from the present dilemma while protecting their material achievements.” King Abdullah called for reforms in dawa work, keeping pace with modern developments. “We have to carry on dawa work with the intent of spreading our religion among other nations in the right form, highlighting its moderate teachings,” he said. He said preachers should be able to address modern issues in the light of Islamic teachings and make use of modern information technology.
King Abdullah emphasized the fact that Muslims should change their lifestyle and behavior in accordance with the teachings of Islam to remove the existing poor impression about them from the minds of other communities. “Setting a good example is the best way to defend Islam and encourage others to embrace our religion,” the king said while noting the Kingdom’s efforts in the service of Islam and Muslims all over the world. Saudi Arabia builds mosques, Islamic centers, institutes and schools in different parts of the world. It also finances a number of Islamic research chairs in leading international universities.
King Abdullah took the initiative to promote dialogue between followers of different faiths and cultures and establish an international counterterrorism center in New York. “There is a single entity derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Islam cannot be classified as political and nonpolitical or extremist and moderate.” King Abdullah commended the efforts being made by MWL to introduce Islam and confront the smear campaigns against Islam and Muslims. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, grand mufti, Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of MWL, and Yousuf Salama, imam and khateeb of Al-Aqsa Mosque, also addressed the opening session. “Islamic preaching is a duty imposed on Muslims by the Shariah,” said Al-Turki.
The grand mufti denounced the move by enemies to tarnish the image of Islam. “Islamic preachers are not terrorists. If any individual has made any mistake it should not be generalized,” he said and stressed the need to do dawa with wisdom.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Loyalists in Streets of Deir Ez-Zor, Protesters Shot
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, NOVEMBER 1 — Thousands of Syrians gathered today in the central square of Deir ez-Zor, in the east of the country, to show their support for the regime of President Bashar Al Assad and their rejection of all foreign intervention in internal affairs. So reports Syrian state television, which showed live footage of the loyalist rally.
Meanwhile, Syria’s National Observatory for Human Rights (ONDUS), which for years has been a platform for monitoring violations by the Damascus authorities, has reported that security forces in the city opened fire on an anti-regime march that was not authorised by the regime.
The eastern city close to the border with Iraq has been the setting for widespread protests in recent months, but authorities have managed to stifle most protests with a heavy presence of armoured vehicles and security forces, who have arrested hundreds of activists. Local coordination committees set up by anti-regime activists say that 141 people have been killed in Deir ez-Zor alone since March in the crackdown by the authorities. A further 393 are currently detained in the city.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Many Paths Toward an Islamic Aesthetic
After almost 81/2 years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has reopened its galleries of Islamic art in a display as appealing to the senses as it is exciting to the mind. Having enlarged the existing Islamic-art section by almost a third, to 19,000 square feet, the museum has created a suite of 15 galleries that can showcase some 1,200 pieces, or about 10% of its massive collection.
For sheer dazzle nothing can beat the wide-ranging collection of textiles, from deep red Ottoman velvets and delicate Mughal weavings to a vast collection of carpets starring the 16th-century Persian “Emperor’s Carpet.” Twenty-four feet long and 111/2 feet wide, it is a masterpiece of tightly woven and densely knotted silk and wool in whose decorations animals leap, flowers entwine, vines scroll. But the ceramics are not far behind, a feast of shimmering lusterware, deep turquoise stonepaste, and a plethora of blue-and-white works that include the 14th-century prayer niche-or mihrab-that visitors to the old galleries will remember. Here bands of calligraphy play against complex geometric patterns and vegetal designs to create a sense of both majesty and sacredness. On a more intimate scale, the new galleries offer some 130 selections from the Met’s collection of ninth- to early-20th-century Islamic manuscripts, folios and paintings.
In both quantity and quality, the Met’s Islamic holdings are the most encyclopedic in the U.S. and have few rivals world-wide. But what makes the new galleries so successful is that the museum uses its treasures to tell a powerful story. Conceived post-9/11, this reinstallation comes across as a concerted effort to foster greater understanding of the Islamic world. The galleries are arranged by time and place, and as you make your way through them, the development of a distinct “Islamic” aesthetic unfolds as an organic, human process. Artists of the Islamic world, just like artists everywhere else, adapt and refine earlier forms, study foreign models, experiment with technique and form, occasionally develop something new and run with it.
And it all takes time. The revelations to the Prophet Muhammad in the early 600s may have brought forth a new religion, but they did not immediately trigger a new mode of artistic expression. The first genres to feel the impact of Islam were calligraphy and the related art of the book. As the language in which Allah revealed himself, Arabic took on a special status, with the Quran the most sacred text of all. This comes through in lavishly illuminated Qurans, as well as in the palpable passion with which calligraphers developed and refined writing styles, sometimes sober and elegant, other times bursting with exuberance, as in an 11th-century “Leaf from a Qur’an Manuscript in Floriated Script.”
Other art forms changed more gradually. A Syrian bronze ewer from the eighth to early ninth century, for example, combines the shape of an earlier Byzantine glass bottle with vegetal designs inherited from third- to seventh-century Iran. On its spout it sports a rooster, a popular motif since late antiquity. Geometric patterns were also popular in Byzantium and Rome, and as time went on they became a hallmark of Islamic art-for an impressive example of this, look skyward in the carpet gallery at the 16th-century Spanish ceiling of interlocking stars and polygons. This keenness for geometry grows out of a fascination with mathematics-initiated by Muslim Abbasid rulers (750-1258) and exemplified by a case with astrolabes as well as astronomical and astrological illustrations-and a rejection of figural imagery in religious settings.
This said, the installation seems bent on fighting two stereotypes at once by making human imagery as prominent as armor is scarce. Contrary to the persistent belief that Islamic art forbids the depictions of people, amorous couples and battling armies, rulers and beautiful youths, saints and grooms variously appear in miniatures as well as on ceramics, glassware and inlaid metalwork. Helmets, shields and one mail coat, on the other hand, make discreet albeit dazzling appearances.
Given that the story is about the development of art, this is probably not obfuscation. While wall texts make no bones about conquering armies, the displays show that trade is an equally powerful cultural force. Well before the Mongols swept down from the steppes of Central Asia, 10th- and 11th-century potters used various glazing techniques to imitate Chinese Tang porcelains. Later, imported porcelains caught the eye of 13th- through 17th-century potters who not only imitated the colors-blue and white, celadon and white-but riffed on such motifs as rising phoenixes, swimming fish and writhing dragons.
One strong point of the installation is the recurring motif of interaction and cultural diffusion. It comes through the shared propensity of various regions for geometric patterning and floral motifs, along with the inclusion of foreign works and the occasional Hindu and Christian subject-an amazing piece is the Mughal “Goa Stone and Container,” a talismanic object associated with the Jesuits in India. The architecture of the galleries also reflects this theme by opening walls with pierced window screens, using white marble to unify distinct spaces, and exploiting the location within the museum: Glance to your right from the Egyptian and Syrian gallery and into the 19th-century galleries, and you’ll spot how Orientalist artists in Europe saw the Islamic world you’re walking through.
All this comes at a cost. The Met invested $40 million in construction alone. And when it announced that it was dropping the term “Islamic” from the galleries’ name, it took flak. That and reports that it might not exhibit works that portray the Prophet Muhammad had critics in a lather. The criticism, however, seems unjustified. A 16th-century miniature depicting the Prophet with his face veiled is on display. As for the galleries’ name, scholars have been grumbling for a while now about the term “Islamic art,” which seems too limiting. Add a trend in recent scholarship that favors categorizing artworks by time and place rather than style, and “Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia,” unwieldy as it is, starts to make some sense (though it ignores Spanish and Mediterranean works-the weakest area in the museum’s collection, here supplemented by loans from the Hispanic Society of America). Two near-life-size figures from the mid-11th to mid-12th century, for example, illustrate a revival in Iran of imagery popular before the advent of Islam. And the very last gallery, tacked on like an appendix to a book, shows that even while Muslim Mughal emperors ruled in South Asia, there were artists outside the courts who painted in purely regional styles, untouched by “Islamic” predilections or conventions.
By consistently mixing mediums within galleries, the installation submerges you into the overall sense of design of a given court. Your eye at once takes in, say, the lush beauty of a Turkish rug and the dazzle of Iznik stoneware or the presence, to one side, of miniature paintings in a desk-high case and vessels in another. The museum also offers up immersive installations, chief among them the Damascus Room, a 1707 period room with gilded, carved and painted wood paneling, and the Moroccan Court. Inspired by courtyards in North Africa’s Maghreb and Moorish Spain, the Moroccan Court was built on site, its decorations executed by craftsmen from Fez. For more than three months, they cut and assembled tiles into starburst mosaics for the wall and incised into the buff-colored arches and window frames a succession of arabesques, palmettes and other floral and geometric designs-bringing the beauty and mastery of Islamic art into the present.
Ms. Lawrence is a writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Davutoglu to Iraq: Either With us or Against on PKK
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, 31 OCT — Rather in the style of Mussolini’s “ you are either with us or against us”, last weekend Turkey warned Iraq above all, but also other countries not to be too indulgent to the Kurdish PKK terrorists who hide in the mountains of northern Iraq near the Turkish border.
Although Turkish websites report that the general warning from Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, was directed mainly at Iraq, “everyone should clarify their position. You cannot be neutral in the fight against terrorism,” Davutoglu said in a TV interview on Saturday. “The regional administration of northern Iraq should either block the terrorist structure or cooperate with us, otherwise we will enter and stop it ourselves. This is based on international law,” said the Foreign Minister a few days after the ending, announced without fanfare, of the so-called 26/a ground operation in Iraq that mainly concentrated in south-eastern Turkey and closed with a cautious semi-official estimate of about 270 terrorists killed.
The minister said he had informed the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan, about this option and today learned that the head of the autonomous region, Massoud Barzani, will be in Turkey on Thursday 3 November. “No one can restrict the scope or timing of Turkey’s struggle against terrorism as long as the terrorist threat continues,” said Davutoglu on the day of the suicide bombing Saturday in Bingol, in the east of the country, which killed two and wounded 20: a toll that could have been heavier if a mother had not pursued the terrorist, shielding her three children with her body and in so doing also saving other people On a conservative but credible estimate, the PKK’s struggle for independence of the ethnic Kurdish south-east of the country since 1984 has led to over 40,000 deaths..
The “area” to which Davutoglu refers also includes Syria, the neighbouring country to the south where — according to a report in the Turkish newspaper Sabah today — the PKK hope to control a slice of territory in northeastern Syria if the regime of President Bashar Al Assad were to fall.
Then the website of a newspaper closely allied to the government, Zaman, reports a list of countries, led by Germany, where the PKK continues to operate even though it was banned by the EU as a terrorist organisation. Germany is followed by Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the UK, France, and Italy too even though there is close cooperation with Turkey in its fight against terrorism as demonstrated by among other things, an operation in February of last year by Venice prosecutors and by specific bilateral consultations.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Italian Exports Up 29% at September 2011
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, OCTOBER 31 — Italy’s trade with Turkey is continuing its positive trend despite an exchange rate acting against Eurozone countries. In the first nine months of 2011, Italy confirmed its position in fourth place, behind Germany, the Russian Federation and China, in the league table of Turkey’s trading partners. The total value of trade touched on 16,269,000,000 dollars, with a percentage increase of 36.48% compared to the same period last year. According to figures released by Turkey’s Statistical Institute TurkStat, and reprocessed by the Italian Foreign Trade Commission (ICE) in Istanbul, Turkey’s principal trading partner was Germany, with 27,964,819,000 dollars (with a percentage variation of 37.98%), followed by Russia with 21,030,401,000 (+13.92%) and China, with 18,332,169,000 (+31.53%).
Italian exports had a value of 6,084,362,000 dollars, up by 29.06% on the same period last year, while imports stood at 10,184,759,000 (up 41.34%).
Among the trends highlighted by the ICE by the figures for the period, are the percentage increase of Turkey’s trade with Qatar (112.78%), Iran (64.90%), Greece (56.72%), Kirghizstan (53.56%) and Kazakhstan (42.97%).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Atambaiev: “Another Putin, “ New President of Kyrgyzstan
The Social Democratic prime minister won the first elections after the riots and violence last year. With him, the country is close to Moscow, to the detriment of the United States.
Bishkek (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The first presidential elections since the revolution that ousted the then President Kurmanbek Bakiev last year has seen Prime Minister Almazbek Atambaiev elected the new Kyrgyz head of state. The election results are not yet definitive but votes counted so far point to his victory. Called “the other Putin” at home, Atambaiev has close links to Russia, to the detriment of the U.S., which both have military interests there.
Fifty-five years old, the Social Democratic Prime Minister has against won about 63% of the vote on 95% of polling stations counted in the first round. The announcement came from the chairman of the election of the former Soviet republic in Central Asia, Touigounaly Abdraimov.
Before joining the uprising against Bakiyev, Atambaiev he had experience as his prime minister and tried to push the former leader to make reforms, thus giving the incumbant the image of a pragmatic leader and lover of stability. His candidacy was backed by outgoing president, Roza Otunbayeva, the woman who led the Kyrgyzistan parliamentary system, the only example of its kind in Central Asia.
Minority Uzbeks in the South also voted for Atambaiev, convinced that his leadership could prevent a repeat of the violence of 2010. Then, between June10 to 14, clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz communities in the areas of Osh and Jalal-Abad left at least 470 dead and caused hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, three months after the uprising that had ousted Bakiev. According to local observers, 74% of the victims Uzbek were 25% Kyrgyz.
Atambaiev, “Another Putin”
Kyrgyzstan plays a strategic role on the Central Asian chessboard and is host to U.S. and Russian military bases. But with the new president the influence of the Kremlin could increase.
Atambaiev is close to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the likely next president. He has visited him several times, building strong ties with Moscow. In the past he has warned the U.S. that the license for their air base may not be renewed after the deadline in 2014 and recently Bishkek signed a free trade agreement between the nations of the former Soviet space under the aegis of Russia. His government has even dedicated a mountain, the Tien Shan, to Vladimir Putin.
The new Kyrgyz president will take office in early 2012 with a six-year term and appoint the Minister of Defense and national security chief.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Controversy in Jakarta After Muslim Terrorist’s Sentence Reduced
High Court cuts Abu Bakar Baasyr’s 15-year prison sentence down to nine. Wiretapped phone conversations that show his responsibility could not be entered as evidence during the trial.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — The decision to reduce the prison sentence of a notorious religious fundamentalist, Abu Bakar Baasyr, has caused a heated debate in Indonesia. The Jakarta High Court cut the 15-year sentence he received from the South Jakarta Court in June down to nine on humanitarian grounds. He had been convicted of indirectly providing financial aid to terrorists who carried out violence in Aceh.
Baasyr was convicted in 2005 of conspiracy for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly tourists. For that, he spent 26 of his 30-month sentence in jail. Before that, he was found guilty of breaking immigration laws and given a three-year sentence, which was also reduced to 20 months.
The decision to reduce his sentence again has provoked the ire of Wahyu Ardianto, president of Asosiasi Korban Bom Indonesia” (Askobi), a national association representing terror victims.
Ardianto himself was seriously injured along with dozens more in the Marriot Hotel bombing in Jakarta in 2003 in which the bomber died.
“The man who carried out the fatal terrorist attack and those who funded terror plan are responsible for their inhuman violence,” Ardianto said. “Reducing the sentence strongly offends our feelings.”
According to Ahmad Sobari, a spokesman for the Jakarta High Court, the decision to reduce the sentence was based on the lack of evidence in the main charge. Other charges were proven in court but “Baasyr is not the mastermind of the project”.
Still the “firebrand cleric is a terror suspect,” said Mardigu Wowiek Prasantyo, a Jakarta-based intelligence analyst. “This kind of case cannot be properly addressed within the ‘ordinary’ legal system. “Something more particular —let’s say anti-terror laws—should be put into place in this matter,” he explained.
One of the major obstacles investigators have encountered in trying to demonstrate Baasyr’s responsibility is a law that bans the use in court of wiretapping to show criminal behaviour.
Phone conversations indicate in fact that Baasyr did fund the Aceh terror group. But the impossibility of producing the evidence meant that the court could not demonstrate his guilt.
A new anti-terrorism law giving investigators more powers should be adopted, the expert said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Crackdown Targets Foreigners in Holiday Destination Bali
Denpasar, 31 Oct. (AKI/Jakarta Post) — Ester Samsonova was surprised when she opened the door of her room and saw officials and reporters waiting outside.
The Czech woman then showed her passport, visa and other supporting documents showing that she is a university student at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Denpasar.
She rented a room in a boarding house at Jl. Nusa Indah, Kesiman, which is only a short distance from the ISI main campus.
The other four rooms in the house were also rented by foreign students enrolled at ISI. But on that day, she was the only person still at home.
“Here is my passport, visa and other documents. I am a student here, at ISI Denpasar,” she told the officers.
In another house in Kebun Kori, Dan Paul Dawn, a UK citizen, also showed his documents and explained his occupancy to the officers.
“I’ve been living here for a long time as a retiree. But I always renew my documents in accordance with existing law,” said Dawn.
A day before, Philipe Escane from America and Aaron Thomas Reddy from Europe were suspected of misusing their visas for business operations. They had visas for social and cultural visits only.
The two foreigners were warned by the officers and would be summoned for further questioning.
Since early this week, the Denpasar administration has launched an operation targeting foreigners living in the city, checking their visas and permits, in an effort to prevent transnational crimes.
“We know where the foreigners live from regular reports from the district heads. We are targeting these locations,” said Denpasar public protection agency’s senior ranking official Anak Agung Made Sumarjaya.
He said the operation was conducted to ensure the foreigners had proper documents, as well as to anticipate crime committed by international syndicates.
According to Sumarjaya, many foreigners in Bali were involved in various crimes, such as drug trafficking and pedophilia.
“As one of the foreigners’ main entrances to Indonesia, Bali should be more aware. Therefore, we are conducting this operation.”
This operation is also being carried out in connection with the upcoming ASEAN Summit in November, as well as many other international events, such as the APEC conference.
“We check whether their documents are genuine and up-to-date. They should also report to the district head in their neighborhood, especially those who have been living in one place for a long time,” Sumarjaya said.
Based on the recent operation, his office had only found two foreigners misusing their visas.
Haerun from the Denpasar Immigration Office said that the monitoring operation was more difficult as there were many foreigners who chose to live in mixed housing complexes where local people resided.
“The Denpasar administration has actively and regularly carried out operations to monitor foreigners. We hope other regency administrations will actively conduct similar monitoring operations. We also need the public, especially district heads, to help us in completing the data about foreigners in their neighborhoods.”
He said foreigners misusing their visas would be questioned intensively, and if they were found to be misusing the documents, they would be deported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Thailand: Bangkok Evacuates as Floodwaters Rise
Historically severe floods in the heart of Thailand have crept into Bangkok. A third of the nation stands underwater and the last decade of development has left the capital without natural defenses such as forests and grasslands. The country’s new prime minister is struggling to show a brave face.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Asian Ancestors Had Sex With Mysterious Human Cousins
Neanderthals weren’t the only ancient cousins that humans frequently mated with, according to a new study that finds that East Asian populations share genes with a mysterious archaic hominin species that lived in Siberia 40,000 years ago.
This group, the Denisovans, is known only by a few bone fragments: A finger bone, a tooth and possibly a toe bone, which is still undergoing analysis. The Denisovans likely split off from the Neanderthal branch of the hominin family tree about 300,000 years ago, but little else is known about their appearance, behavior or dress. But just as researchers have learned that ancient humans and Neanderthals mated, they’ve also found genetic echoes of the Denisovans in modern residents of Pacific islands, including New Guinea and the Philippines.
Jakobsson and his colleagues are working on further studies on early human genetics and the steps that led to the modern human genome. The more digging scientists do, the more complex the genetic picture becomes, he said. Notably, bits of genes are almost all that are left behind of some ancient populations, including the Denisovans, he said. “We don’t really know what they looked like, how they behaved or anything like that,” Jakobsson said. “It’s really genetics that gives us an edge here.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nepali Police Arrest Tibetans Rallying Against Chinese Oppression
More than 50 Tibetan refugees have been arrested in Nepal during a demonstration in support of Tibetan monks who self-immolated to protest Chinese rule.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Siberians Share DNA With Extinct Human Species
Man’s ancestors mated with Neanderthals and other related hominids during human evolution, according to a new study.
Researchers have found that people in East Asia share genetic material with Denisovans, who got the name from the cave in Siberia where they were first found. The new study covers a larger part of the world than earlier research, and it is clear that it is not as simple as previously thought. Professor Mattias Jakobsson, of Uppsala University in Sweden who conducted the study together with graduate student Pontus Skoglund, said hybridisation took place at several points in evolution and the genetic traces of this can be found in several places in the world.
He said: “We’ll probably be uncovering more events like these. “Previous studies have found two separate hybridisation events between so-called archaic humans — different from modern humans in both genetics and morphology — and the ancestors of modern humans after their emergence from Africa.
“There was hybridisation between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans outside of Africa and hybridisation between Denisovans and the ancestors of indigenous Oceanians. “The genetic difference between Neanderthals and Denisovans is roughly as great as the maximal level of variation among us modern humans.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Congo Fatigue? EU Funding in the Heart of Africa
KINSHASA — Pastor Jean Tshibuabua stares bleakly into his coffee and considers the future of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is early morning but already the cacophony of battered minibuses plying Kinshasa’s clogged and potholed streets can be heard above the religious compound’s tall protective walls. “We will end up with a state that is run completely by international institutions,” says the middle-aged clergyman in frustration with his country’s political elite. “The government is totally absent in DRC.”
Outside, the capital’s 10-million-plus inhabitants are commencing their daily struggle for existence. In the main market, women squat behind tiny stalls selling cups of washing powder at 100 francs a piece (€0.08), flies buzz furiously around small offerings of chopped-up meat and everywhere a thick, dusty layer of rubbish covers the ground.
Patsho, a newspaper vendor in his early 20s, enters the religious centre hoping to find customers. A recent graduate in engineering studies, he has found it impossible to find work in the sector. “You need to know someone in power to give a recommendation for you,” he says, aware that things could be different. “Three percent of Congolese are rich, the other 97 percent live in misery.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya/Somalia: Al-Shabaab is ‘Common Threat’ To be Fought Jointly
Nairobi, 31 Oct. (AKI) — The Kenyan and Somali governments on Monday reached an accord to fight the Al-Shabaab rebels, dubbing the Al-Qaeda-linked rebels a “common enemy.”
“The Al-Shabaab threat constitutes a common enemy between Kenya and Somalia and it must be fought jointly with the help of the international community,” the countries said in a joint statement following a Nairobi meeting between Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga and his Somali counterpart Abdiweli Mohammed Ali.
They said they want Al-Shabaab’s attacks constitute crimes against humanity and wants it to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) based at The Hague.
Kenya’s foreign affairs assistant minister Richard Onyonka read the statement that said that Somalia’s government “will seek ICC assistance in beginning immediate probe into crimes against humanity committed by members of Al- Shabaab movement with the aim of seeking indictment as soon as possible.”
Al-Shabaab has used terrorist tactics in its war to overthrow the Somali government and create a country governed by Sharia, or Islamic law.
The group claimed responsibility for two bomb blasts in July 2010 that killed at around 75 people in capital Ugandan Kampala where where soccer fans gathered to watched the World Cup final between Spain and Holland.
The attack was in response to Uganda decision supply the bulk of troops in a pan-African military force to fight Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
The Somali and Kenyan goverments early this month already said they would work together to fight Al-Shabaab.
The Somali government has been battling Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda militants backed by the coalition of African troops. Al-Shabaab pulled the bulk of their soldiers out of Mogadishu in August.
Kenyan troops crossed into neighbouring Somalia on 16 Oct. following several abductions of foreigners it suspects were carried out by Al-Shabaab, which has links with Al-Qaeda.
Kenya also has blamed the militant group for a series of grenade attacks in Nairobi.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mozambique: Chinese Accused of Worker Abuse
Mozambique has revoked the visas of three Chinese men accused of beating construction workers with a hammer and scalding them with boiling oil, private newspaper O Pais reported on Friday. “These Chinese are accused of inhumane acts against local employees of Nantong construction company,” the Ministry of Labour said in a statement, cited by the paper.
One of the accused, Lin Cheng, allegedly “flung boiling cooking oil on Mozambican workers,” it said. Another, Cai Bingjun, “attacked his associates in several ways, using a hammer, a wooden plank and other work tools,” the ministry said. The third, Wei Hongfeng, is accused of “having fired a Mozambican for discussing mistakes on his paycheque”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Cost of Rams Jumps, Worries Muslims Faithful
Abuja — Muslims across the country are complaining about the high cost of rams, cows and goats a few days to the celebration of Eid-il-Kabir. The Muslim faithful expressed the worry about the rising cost in a nationwide survey conducted on Tuesday. A check in Auchi and its environs showed that the prices of the animals increased by more than 80 per cent compared with the range in the same period in 2010. A small size ram which sold for N20,000 last year now goes N35,000.
The buyers of the animals, mostly Muslims who are preparing for the Eid-il-Kabir celebration, said the sharp price hike might affect their ability to slaughter an animal for the Sallah sacrifice. Commenting on the situation, an adherent, Mrs Faith Agbeadokhai, complained that she had been roaming the market for hours hoping to buy a ram at a reasonable amount but had no option than to buy it the way it was. “Although it is not obligatory for every Muslim to slaughter an animal, we just try to do it to fulfil all righteousness.”
Another Muslim buyer, Mr Raheem Garuba, also said that animal slaughtering was not obligatory but added that “slaughtering of ram to celebrate Sallah is kind of a must for those who can afford it. I have no alternative than to wait until the last minute before the Sallah to see if the price will come down.” Mr Lucky Ajayi, who was also in the market to buy a ram, complained that “I really do not know what is happening; the prices are just too high. What are our leaders doing to see to it that the poor masses have a place in this country?”
On the other hand, sellers have attributed the high prices of the animals to transportation costs and the prevailing market situation. They complained that it cost them more to transport the animals and other goods down to the market than it cost in 2010. A ram seller, Alhaji Buba Ibrahim, said that transporting a trailer-load of the animals from Gibia in Katsina State to Auchi had increased from N150,000 to N250,000. Ibrahim said “it is not as if we are just interested in increasing prices; we sell according to the landing cost. Do you know that we go as far as Chad and Niger Republic to buy these animals? We bring in animals from neighbouring countries because we know that what we have in the country will not be enough to meet our local demand.”
Mr Garuba Key, a cow seller, who could not attribute the high prices of the animals to transportation costs, said that the smallest cow which sold for N50,000 last year was now going between N68,000 and N75,000. On his part, Malam Zakiri Kano, a goat seller, agreed that the prices were on the high side and attributed the trend to the prevailing economic situation in the country. He put the price of the smallest goat at N12,000.
However, the story is different in Katsina State, as the prices of rams have crashed five days to the Eid-il-Kabir celebration. A survey conducted by NAN at the markets in Katsina, Dankama, Mai’adua, Jibia, Charanchi, Kafur and Dandume showed that the prices were down, compared with the levels in the same period in 2010. A ram which went for N30,000 last year now cost about N25,000 in all the markets visited. The sellers said they had to lower the prices because of the general poor economy and the non-payment of October salaries to workers in the state. One of the ram sellers at Yar’kutungu market in Katsina, Malam Marwana Lawal, complained that he hardly sold two rams a day this year, compared to the 10 to 15 rams he usually sold a day last year. “The poor sales are caused by poverty among the generality of the people in the state,” he said. (NAN)
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sierra Leone: Muslim Aid Observes 26th Anniversary
Muslims in Tonkolili through Islamic Dawah Training Center in Mile 91 celebrated the 26th Anniversary of the Muslim Aid’s humanitarian organization on the theme, “Universal Primary Education: Delivering the second Millennium Development Goal.” The occasion drew the attention of stakeholders within and outside the district including Muslims and Christian at the center Head office in Mile 91 on Friday October 28th 2011.
The chairman of the ceremony, who doubled also as head of Children Learning Service, thanked Muslim Aid for been very supportive to Islamic Dawah especially in the area of education, feeding of destitute, among other. Mohamed Yamba Bangura said Dawah is not only helping people in Mile 91 but they also help needy people in other chiefdoms as well.
Mr. Mohamed Yamba Bangura called on the beneficiaries to make good and effective use of the opportunity been provided by Muslim Aid through Dawah Islamic Training Center. The chairman went on that, the organization is not only supporting Muslims but needy, deprived, destitute and oppressed people in respective of their colour, tribe, or religious background.
The Chairman applauded the efforts of parents, teachers, government and staff of the center for making the event a successful one and urged parents to educate their children for a better nation. Giving an overview of Muslim Aid program the National Director of the center stated that the organization is a UKbased relief and development agency that was registered by the Charity Commission of England and Waleson 28th October 1986. This day according to him was set aside as the Muslim Aid’s Day to be celebrated every year in over 70 counties. Mr. Mohamed Konto Koroma said the objective of the Muslim Aid’s Day celebration is to focus on a specific aspect of Muslim Aid’s work and raise awareness about it to their beneficiaries and the public.
The National Director said Muslim Aid work with all in need regardless of their race, religion, gender, nationality or political opinion. The Director said they are partner to 100 organizations all over the world. Mr. Mohamed Konto Koroma stated that their work ran from emergency relief, capacity building through water, sanitation and health education, skills training, micro finance and income generating and orphanage. Delivering his keynote statement the deputy Minister of Education on behalf of the government thanked Muslim Aid for answering to the call of the President for improving quality and standards of education in the country. Dr. Alhaji Algassimu Jar pledged the ministry’s total support and commitment to the organization throughDawahCenterin Mile 91 and other parts in the country.
The deputy Education Minister said as a Ministry they are fully aware of strife taken by the organization in elevating education in their operational areas. He therefore used the forum to advise both beneficiaries and participants to make good use of the opportunity. Dr. Alhaji Algassimu Jar said government is presently making strides to implement the White Paper of the Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry as modalities have been worked out to start the process. The Minister however registered his Ministry’s sincere thanks and appreciation to Muslim Aid through Islamic Dawah Training Center for their giant steps in developing education in their operations areas. Statements from Lecturer Dr. Ibrahim Salieu Kamara on quality, nature and kind of education, skits and live testimony and quaranic recitations from children in the center climaxed the celebration.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Fifty Years of Turkish Immigration: ‘Guest Workers’ Relive Their Journey to Germany
Some 50 years after Germany and Turkey signed a labor agreement, a group of 35 so-called Turkish ‘guest workers’ embarked on an anniversary train trip to relive their original journey. Following her father’s path, writer Yasemin Ergin rode along last week, recording their memories in the first two parts of her series.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Deportation Order Prompts Prompts CDA Political Crisis
De Volkskrant, 31 October 2011
“CDA will have to save face”, headlines De Volkskrant. The Christian-democratic party, a member of the Netherlands liberal-led coalition, has been destabilised by the fate of an 18-year-old Angolan, who has been refused asylum. The CDA’s Minister for Immigration and Asylum Affairs, Gerd Leers, has decided that the young man will have to leave the Netherlands — a country where he has lived with a Dutch foster family since the age of nine — arguing that his situation “is not sufficiently moving” to justify the exceptional granting of a residency permit.
The affair has divided the CDA to the point where, on 30 October, close to 85% of the party voted to back a resolution stipulating that “the deportation of unaccompanied minors is not desirable, and does not correspond to the principles of the CDA”. The text, which contradicts government policy and the party’s programme, has highlighted a rift in the ranks of the CDA.
The left-wing daily remarks that “a year after the political leap without a safety net” represented by participation in a government supported by populist Geert Wilders, the CDA “has found itself in a bottomless pit”, which is reflected by its position in the polls. For a Trouw columnist, the affair has demonstrated a “political powerlessness that will be disastrous for confidence in the state”. The CDA will have to “take charge of the situation […] but it will not succeed in its current cooperation with PVV”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Cantons Deporting Foreigners on Welfare
Increased information sharing between social services and immigration authorities in some Swiss cantons is leading to an increase in deportations, even in cases where no crime has been committed. Cantons like Sankt Gallen, in the northwest of Switzerland, and Schwyz, in the centre of the country, have implemented cross-checks in their immigration services to catch foreigners on long-term social benefits and deport them, newspaper Tages Anzeiger reports.
In Sankt Gallen, there are around 90 such cases per year. Other cantons, like Zurich, do not keep statistics on the individual reasons for deportation and cannot offer any numbers. However, in both Zurich and in Schwyz, the Immigration Office has recruited additional staff in recent months specifically to deal with cases of this kind. Since the Immigration Act was passed in 2008, social services are obliged to share with immigration authorities the names of foreign nationals who are receiving benefits.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Petition is Launched Against Mass Immigration — This ‘Democracy’ Thing Must be Catching
Without wishing to plumb the depths of Arab Spring hyperbole (as pioneered by the protestors in “Tahrir Square”, central London), the Greek referendum could be heralded as the start of a European spring. (A bit late in the year, of course.) Britain, too, is cottoning on to this amazing new thing called “democracy”. Following the first petition about Britain’s place in Europe, and the second, MigrationWatch have launched a petition on that related area of post-national universalism — mass immigration. Their petition states:
Over the past ten years the government has permitted mass immigration despite very strong public opposition reflected in numerous opinion polls. We express our deep concern that, according to official figures, the population of the UK is now expected to reach 70 million within 20 years with two thirds of the increase due to immigration. While we recognise the benefits that properly controlled immigration could bring to our economy and society, this population increase, which is the equivalent of building seven cities the size of Birmingham, will have a huge impact both on our quality of life and on our public services yet the public has never been consulted. So we call on the government to take all necessary steps to get immigration down to a level that will stabilise our population as close to the present level as possible and, certainly, well below 70 million.
I have enormous respect for MigrationWatch, for the simple reason that as a political campaign opposing the last government’s mass immigration policy carries no social reward whatsoever. No one at a dinner party is going to congratulate you, no one is going to fictionalise your life as a romantic lead in a Richard Curtis-style comedy. In a world where so much political posturing is based on whether one’s views make the holder seem more high-status and more attractive to the opposite sex, few people dare express any opposition to the wonderful, but mysterious and unproven, benefits of diversity.
And no government department, quango, taxpayer-funded charity is going to give you money either: compare MigrationWatch to the pro-immigration IPPR, which today criticises government proposals to reduce the number of newcomers (admittedly a flawed scheme). I have some respect for IPPR. Much less so for former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who now has the nerve to write that “we are moving into an era when it is almost fashionable on the Left to be xenophobic”. This is the Home Secretary whose government conspired with the tabloids to hype up the asylum seeker issue under his watch. At the same time he was presiding over the most intense demographic change in British history, a social change that MigrationWatch later revealed the Government was well aware of.
In an illustration of what MigrationWatch is up against in the asymmetrical debate over immigration, Blunkett was recently at a debate organised by the Migration Museum Project, which was set up — with Government help — to promote the “nation of immigrants” theory of British history. The debate was chaired by a former Fabian leader, and organised by Barbara Roche, the immigration minister at the time of the notorious 2001 paper.
Anyone who’s attended such an event will be familiar with this sort of do, where the great and good go to celebrate Britain’s rich diversity and (pseudo-)history of immigration. They are warm, good-natured events, full of warm, good-natured people (the pro-diversity people I meet are usually very kind and pleasant), espousing warm, good-natured sentiments about mankind — yet always lacking is any sense that the people outside are to be included, consulted or in any way cared about, except as an abstract. They rather remind me of the end of the Animal Farm adaptation, and that is because mass immigration, like Europe, has always been an elite obsession in which the people were to be given no say, a reversion to the age where great white queens would dine with the maharajas and nawabs of diversity. In that, and many other ways, it mirrors the European delusion.
Now perhaps it is time that we might ask, in that shy, English way of ours, whether we might possibly be allowed a say in the running of our country, if it’s not too much to ask.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thousand People an Hour Sign Up to E-Petitions Website Calling for Debate on Migration
The huge response to the campaign by MigrationWatch UK means it is already one of the most popular ‘e-petitions’ on the Downing Street website.
By 6pm this evening — 18 hours after its official launch — there were 18,000 signatures. It passed 20,000 around 7.30.
It means the campaign to secure a Parliamentary debate on the need for stricter border controls to bring population growth under control is already a fifth of the way to its target of 100,000 names.
Sir Andrew Green, the MigrationWatch chairman, said: ‘This is a very remarkable start with more than 1,000 signatures being added an hour.
‘It shows the strength of public feeling — but we now need to maintain the momentum if politicians are to get the message that serious action is required.’
The ‘e-petition’ calls on David Cameron to clamp down on immigration, which is seen as the major factor behind the rising population.
National statisticians predict the UK will be home to 70million people within just 16 years.
Some two thirds of the increase will be the result of future immigration.
The Home Office has announced a string of policies to reduce net migration — which currently stands at 240,000 a year. These include a crackdown on student visas and non-EU economic migrants.
But the Liberal Democrats, who are in favour of mass immigration, have repeatedly tried to water down the proposals.
If a debate can be secured, a motion subsequently passed by a large number of MPs would significantly strengthen the hand of the Prime Minister in negotiations with his coalition partners.
The prediction that the population will reach 70million within 16 years is based on the assumption that net immigration will continue at 200,000 a year. It was published by the office for National Statistics last month.
Yesterday, Home Secretary Theresa May said this ‘pace of change’ showed why the government must take action to cut immigration.
The MigrationWatch petition is already among the most popular on the Number Ten website. Any petition which reaches 100,000 must be considered by a committee of MPs for a full debate.
The petition calling for a referendum on Britain’s relations with the EU led to the largest ever revolt of backbench Tory MPs.
The e-petition on Hillsborough led to the Government taking the historic decision to give the victims’ families access to the Cabinet papers relating to the tragedy.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Hollywood Cannot Understand Anyone on the Right
Why does culture always caricature the Right? In Britain they are toffs, bankers and EDL thugs. Meanwhile in the US they are wasps, rednecks and evangelical Christians. Either way, our plays, films and TV series only portray people on the Right as cartoons, motivated by little more than greed and fear. Moral ambiguity is reserved for those on the Left. Hollywood has always made this assumption. And nowhere is it better demonstrated that George Clooney’s The Ides of March. The film is a brilliant study in corruption. Ryan Gosling plays the hotshot press aide to a a potential Democratic candidate for President. Forced to cover up a damaging scandal involving his boss, Gosling’s character is transformed from a naïve idealist to a ruthless Machiavelli.
However, one of the most revealing points in the film comes from Paul Giametti, who plays a spin doctor to the rival candidate for the Democratic nomination. Giametti tries to tempt Gosling’s character to work for the other side, and justifies himself by arguing that this kind of skulduggery is what the Right excels at. Until the Democrats start getting their hands dirty as well, they will keep losing.
It is the essential political conundrum: what happens when you have to compromise your integrity in order to win? It is a conundrum that the film explores with skill and the right amount of cynicism. But at the same time the film assumes that this conundrum does not trouble Republicans. It assumes — as much of Hollywood assumes — that those on the Right have made up their mind a long time ago. That winning is always more important.
However, The Ides of March is not the only production to make this assumption. In fact, almost the entire cultural establishment has bought into the idea. Just look at The West Wing. The series is too sophisticated for its characters not to make mistakes. But they only ever make them for the right reasons. If they lie and cheat, it is in the service of a greater cause. If they do something wrong, it is because the alternative would have done much more damage. And what is more, they are nauseatingly nice to one another while doing it. Contrast this with Oliver Stone’s W., where the characters only occupy that narrow space between arrogance and hubris, where ethical debates come down to asking if self-interest and national-interest are the same thing, before deciding with a cackle that they must be.
Why do films and TV series find it so hard to make humans out of those on the Right? It is not because the Right is populated only by the ambitious and amoral. It is not even because actors and writers are almost always on the Left — though they are. It is because Hollywood, like the rest of the entertainment industry, is utterly removed from everyday life. They have as little understanding of mainstream opinion and public concerns as any other set of spoilt, isolated millionaires. Politics is therefore a place to project their fantasies, and realise their most cherished dreams.
Such dreams are not going to be found on the Right. Likewise pragmatism and modesty are not qualities you associate with the bohemian classes. It means that Hollywood will never really understand the values of the Republicans, in the same way that the cultural establishment in this country set themselves at war with the Conservatives. But as a result, the Left turns anybody Right-wing into a two-dimensional parody. And deep down this is an artistic failure — it is a failure of imagination.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Brussels Group Slams ‘Slave Auction’ Ruling
A Brussels human rights group has “strongly condemned” a ruling by the Swedish prosecution authorities who deemed a “slave auction” held by a Lund student group in April to be a “costume party” meaning no charges will be filed. The European Network Against Racism (ENAR), based in Brussels, argued that the “slave auction” constituted racism and urged for the incident to be taken seriously. “ENAR expresses its utter outrage that such actions remain unpunished and are not being condemned. Such proliferation of crude racism and incitement to hatred is totally unacceptable and needs to be treated with all the seriousness it deserves,” the group wrote in a statement.
ENAR, who previously has expressed their disgust at the incident in an open letter to democracy minster Birgitta Ohlsson, has now slammed Sweden for not meeting its obligations in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. “In Sweden, the legislation that is meant to protect the human rights of every individual only exists in theory but not in practice when it comes to protecting minority rights,” the group argued.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Women Still Prefer Taking Husband’s Last Name
As a girl, Andrea Grimes assumed that she would take her husband’s last name when she grew up and got married. But at 27 and newly engaged, the Dallas journalist and feminist blogger now has no interest in switching her surname.
But not everyone has caught up: Both Grimes’ mother and her fiancé’s stepmother have already referred to her with her fiancé’s last name. Those assumptions aren’t surprising, given that decades after the feminist revolution, most women still take their husband’s last name upon marriage. While no national statistics exist, some recent studies suggest that women keeping their own name is actually becoming less popular. And a recent nationally representative survey found that half of Americans support women being legally required to take their husband’s name upon marriage. These traditional attitudes persist even as divorce, remarriage, gay marriage and blended families make naming more complex.
“It’s not unlike other sorts of signals of traditionalism,” said study researcher Brian Powell, who along with his colleagues reported the results of that survey in the journal Gender and Society in April 2011.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Internet Crusaders Target All Muslims Not Just Extremists
Over at his Middle Class Dub blog Colm Ó Broin has a good analysis of Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs and their demonisation of Muslims, which as he points out has clear parallels with 20th century antisemitism. A shorter version of the article has been published in the Irish language paper Gaelscéal. The only quibble I would have is that the author is being too charitable when he states that Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller should be “presumed innocent” of inspiring Anders Breivik. The “documentary” Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which prominently features contributions from Spencer, so impressed Breivik that he reproduced a 20-page transcript of the film in his manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. Indeed Breivik’s manifesto contains over fifty approving references to Spencer.
Ó Broin himself demolishes Spencer’s laughable attempt to dissociate himself from the Norwegian mass murderer:
“Reacting to claims his writings inspired Anders Breivik, Spencer said that this was like blaming the Beatles for the Tate/La Bianca murders because Charles Manson said he was inspired to commit them by their song Helter Skelter. This comparison would only be apt however, if Helter Skelter contained lyrics which said Sharon Tate, Leno La Bianca and their friends were involved in an evil conspiracy to take over the US, that the media was helping them and that the US government, police and FBI knew of the plan to enslave the American people but refused to prevent it.”
Pursuing the parallel between Islamophobia and antisemitism, Ó Broin also presents a revealing comparison of statements, on Muslims and Jews respectively, by Robert Spencer and Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher. The accompanying video has been posted on Youtube.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
NASA Planet-Hunting Telescope Could Get Mission Extension
NASA’s prolific Kepler Space Telescope may get to extend its search for alien planets by a few years. Funding for Kepler — which has identified 1,235 candidate alien planets to date and recently discovered the first exoplanet with two suns in its sky — is due to run out in November 2012. But mission managers are writing up a proposal for a mission extension, and they should know by next spring whether it’s approved. “I think the discoveries we’re making are showing what could be done if we continue to extend it,” said Charlie Sobeck, Kepler deputy project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “So we’re hopeful, but there’s no guarantee.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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