Bond Yields Soar: Speculators Bet Against Spain, Belgium and France
With the situation already critical in Italy, investor doubts about France and Belgium are also increasing. Yields for new borrowing from the countries rose to record-high levels on Tuesday, with a sharp uptick on interest rates for Spanish government bonds too. Deutsche Bank is calling for the European Central Bank to take radical steps to reduce dangerously high bond yields.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Hahn: Cut in Regional Structure Funds a Last Resort
(ANSAmed) — STRASBURG, NOVEMBER 15 — The idea of cutting structural funds if member states fail to abide by the Stability Pact, which has provoked the opposition of all of Europe’s regions, “is only a last resort,” a last-ditch solution. This was the explanation offered to the Euro-Parliament today by the EU’s Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, in reply to questions from EuroMPs.
According to Mr Hahn, “it’s important to bear in mind that this is a measure of last resort”. “It is a matter of understanding which measures will be undertaken by the various member states, but for the moment every country is busy complying, so macroeconomic measures are unjustified”. In Hahn’s view, “it would be different if a country were to insist on not attempting,” to get back in line with the EU’s stability parameters. And so — the EU Commissioner concluded — “I think I can conjecture that the principle is a possible one, but it will never be enacted in practice”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti ‘Will Get Confidence by End of Week’ Says Fini
Parties will rally behind ex-EU commissioner, House Speaker says
(ANSA) — Rome, November 14 — Mario Monti will have garnered the confidence of enough political parties to launch a new national unity government to face Italy’s debt crisis by the end of the week, House Speaker Gianfranco Fini said Monday.
“I believe the Monti government will be born and by the end of Friday will have received (votes of confidence) in both houses of parliament,” Fini said after the ex-EU commissioner and Bocconi University economist started talks on his programme and ministerial line-up with Italian parties.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Faces Political Resistance Forming Government
15 Nov. (AKI/Bloomberg) — Mario Monti, Italy’s premier-in- waiting, faced political resistance on forming a Cabinet as his market honeymoon turned sour, with Italian yields surging amid concern he’ll struggle to tame Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.
As Monti began a final day of talks on forming a government, the yield on Italy’s 10-year bond jumped 18 basis points to 6.88 percent at 9:43 a.m. Rome time, approaching the 7 percent threshold that prompted Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek EU bailouts.
Monti, a former European Union competition commissioner, struggled yesterday to get political parties to agree to take part in his so-called technical Cabinet. A government lacking political representation may find it hard to muster support from parliament to pass unpopular laws. Monti said he’ll wrap up his talks today.
“My commitment is aimed at making sure that politics can transform this difficult moment in a real opportunity for the nation,” Monti told a news conference in Rome yesterday. “The key thing is” to have the support of the parties, “without which I wouldn’t even take on this task, regardless of the physical presence” of politicians in the Cabinet, he said.
Reassuring Investors
Europe’s inability to contain a regional debt crisis that started in Greece more than two years ago led to a surge in Italian borrowing costs as investors bet on which nation may need aid next. Monti, an economist and former adviser to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., will try to reassure investors that Italy can cut a 1.9 trillion-euro ($2.6 trillion) debt and spur economic growth that has lagged behind the euro-region average for more than a decade.
As support for a Monti government built last week, 10-year bond yields narrowed more than 100 basis points from the euro- era record of 7.48 percent on Nov. 9 and the yield difference with German bund fell to six-day low of 446 basis points. The rally was short-lived, with the spread returning to 510 basis points at 9:43 a.m. in Rome.
President Giorgio Napolitano offered Monti the post of premier on Nov. 13, a day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned. Berlusconi’s government had unraveled after defections ended his parliamentary majority and the country’s 10-year bond yield surged to euro-era records.
Cabinet Tomorrow
Monti is scheduled to hold talks today with the leaders of Italy’s biggest parties, Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party and the Democratic Party, following consultations with smaller groups yesterday. Antonio Di Pietro, head of the Italian Values party, told reporters after speaking with Monti that he was “unsure” whether the premier-in-waiting would agree to form a new government. Monti will likely announce his decision and possible Cabinet tomorrow, newspaper la Repubblica reported.
The People of Liberty party has said it will back Monti’s government, though it doesn’t want it to go beyond implementing the austerity measures already drawn up to balance the budget in 2013. Fabrizio Cicchitto, the PDL’s chief whip in the Chamber of Deputies, said yesterday that Monti couldn’t count on “blind” support from the party.
“A government without any parliamentarians in it will have problems,” Massimo D’Alema, a former premier and member of the opposition Democratic Party, said in an interview last night on state-run Rai3 television. ‘This will require that we give him some help in parliament.”
Senate Deputy Speaker Emma Bonino, a member of the Radical Party, told reporters in Rome that “the situation is so serious it requires a direct involvement of politicians.”
Bond Auction
Monti experienced his first market test yesterday when the Treasury sold 3 billion euros of five-year bonds, the top target for the auction, at the highest yield since 1997. Italy paid 6.29 percent, up from 5.32 percent at the last sale on Oct. 13. Italy faces 200 billion euros in maturing bonds next year.
“The economic and fiscal challenges facing Mr. Monti are daunting” as a country “expected to generate no growth next year is being asked to undertake one of the sharpest two-year fiscal adjustments in the euro zone,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London, said in an e- mail. “Politically speaking, things could get very rough for Mr. Monti’s government.”
The European Central Bank has been buying Italian debt since Aug. 8 after the nation unveiled 45.5 billion euros in austerity measures, though the effort hasn’t been sufficient to stem borrowing costs. The ECB said yesterday it bought almost half as many bonds last week as in the previous week, with German council member Jens Weidmann saying that the “co-option of monetary policy for fiscal needs must come to an end.”
Delaying Retirement
The EU has signaled it wants additional action by Italy to spur growth and trim debt as well as hasten implementation of the measures it’s already passed, which include raising the retirement age, opening up closed professions and selling real- estate assets. EU and ECB inspectors arrived in Italy last week to review progress and Berlusconi also agreed to International Monetary Fund monitoring of Italian finances.
“An attempt to restrict the government to implementing the economic commitments promised to the EU and IMF, or placing a strict time limit on its duration in office, would curtail any possibility of a strong government,” Eoin Ryan, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in London, said in an e-mailed note. “The markets are expecting a bigger response than this.”
Berlusconi was the fourth leader of a southern EU nation to be brought down by fallout from the debt crisis, after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou resigned last week, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero decided not to seek re-election this month and Portuguese Premier Jose Socrates stepped down in March after parliament nixed his austerity plan.
Monti has said he’ll focus on fixing public finances and boosting economic growth. Both houses of parliament must hold confidence votes to confirm the new government, which should be in place before Nov. 18, Chamber Speaker Gianfranco Fini said yesterday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Tax Revenues Increase, Trade Deficit Halved
Exports up 2% in September, imports down 1.3%
(ANSA) — Rome, November 15 — The flow of bad economic news about Italy was interrupted a little on Tuesday with official figures showing tax revenues were up and the country’s trade deficit had been halved.
The economy ministry said tax revenues for the first nine months of 2011 amounted to 281.9 billion euros, an increased of 4.4 billion, or 1.6%, on January-September 2010. National statistics agency ISTAT, meanwhile, said Italy’s trade deficit was 1.8 billion euros in September, around half of of 3.7 billion it stood at in the same month in 2010.
Italian exports increased by 2% in September compared with August, while imports fell by 1.3%, ISTAT said. The agency added that the year-on-year figures showed a 10.3% increase in exports and a 3.6% rise in imports. Former European commissioner Mario Monti is trying to form an emergency-reform government to steer Italy out of its debt crisis after Silvio Berlusconi resigned as premier at the weekend.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Indignados to March in Milan on Thursday
(AGI) Milan — The ‘indignados’ have posted online new slogans saying “Not with Monti and not with Tremonti. We will besiege the Bocconi” summoning students, indignados and the unemployed to a protest in Milan on Thursday for World Student Day. The idea is to march to the Bocconi University, of which Mario Monti is the Chancellor, to protest against the President of the Republic choosing him to lead the new governmen .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Dutch Discuss “Neuro Zone”
THE HAGUE, 15/11/11 — The Lower House is meeting with Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager tomorrow to discuss the European debt crisis. The standing committee on finance will discuss the current state of affairs with the minister. Today or Tomorrow morning, he will first send a letter to parliament describing the latest developments in Italy, in Greece and rumours that France and Germany are discussing a split-up of the eurozone. The House requested this letter at the initiative of Labour (PvdA).
The cabinet and the Dutch central bank have spoken out against suggestions to break up the euro zone. But the cabinet’s coalition partner, the Party for Freedom (PVV), wants the Dutch population to speak out on the euro’s future in a referendum if research the party is having carried out should show that the Netherlands should abandon it.
The UK research bureau Lombard Street Research has been commissioned by the PVV to research the consequences for the Netherlands of leaving the eurozone. The London bureau will also research the introduction of a neuro, a separate currency just for the countries of northern Europe. PVV leader Geert Wilders yesterday the study is to be completed by around 1 February.
Patrick van Schie, the director of the conservatives’ (VVD) think-tank, the Telders Stichting, has also cast doubt on the euro. He said Saturday the Netherlands should begin a serious discussion about introducing the ‘neuro’. Van Schie told Algemeen Dagblad newspaper he has difficulty with the ‘propaganda’ about the euro. It has “never been proved” that the euro has brought the Netherlands additional prosperity, he stated.
The Netherlands could think about an alternative currency zone which would not include weaker euro countries such as Italy and Greece, although France may also be ineligible to join a northern currency bloc, Van Schie said. Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager has said a return to the guilder “is not an option”. The euro has delivered many benefits, such as low inflation and modest unemployment, in his view. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday he was confident Wilders would discover that a return to the guilder would hurt the Dutch economy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The IMF Warns China Over Banks
The fear is that banks are not capable of supporting multiple crises: loans, housing bubble and currency values. For the Chinese Central Bank, the IMF report “is not sufficiently objective.” This year, Chinese financial shares were down 23%.
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned China about the possible “fragility” of its financial system. In a report published today, it states that China’s banks are strong enough to support isolated crises, but incapable of overcoming a crisis derived from overexposure to credit, housing bubbles, and the currency values.
The 126-page report is based on stress tests carried out on 17 Chinese banks, which cover 83% of the commercial banking system in the country. Prepared in June, it was released today with 29 recommendations to the Chinese authorities, fearing that reduced growth, and a housing bubble will lead to a credit crisis, similar to that afflicting the United States and which has caused the present global crisis.
The MSCI index of financial shares in China fell by 23% this year. Nevertheless, the Chinese Central Bank, says that “the report contains several points of view that are not sufficiently objective and complete.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Can Algae Feed the World and Fuel the Planet? A Q&A With Craig Venter
The geneticist and entrepreneur hopes to use synthetic biology to transform microscopic algae into cells that eat up carbon dioxide, spit out oil and provide meals
Microbes will be the (human) food- and fuel-makers of the future, if J. Craig Venter has his way. The man responsible for one of the original sequences of the human genome as well as the team that brought you the first living cell running on human-made DNA now hopes to harness algae to make everything humanity needs. All it takes is a little genomic engineering.
“Nothing new has to be invented. We just have to combine [genes] in a way that nature has not done before. We’re speeding up evolution by billions of years,” Venter told an energy conference on October 18 at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to imagine a part of humanity not substantially impacted.”
Venter turned his attention to the genetic manipulation of algae after a two-year cruise to sample DNA in the ocean. The goal was to harvest the building blocks of the future for a biology that has been converted from the bases A, C, G and T into 1’s and 0’s—a digitized biology. He found that most of the millions of genes collected came from algae, one of the tinier organisms on the planet but one that already has an outsized planetary impact, providing more than a third of the oxygen we breathe.
Venter is looking to boost that impact further. His reengineered photosynthetic cells would take in carbon dioxide and sunlight and spew out hydrocarbons ready for the ExxonMobil refinery (the oil giant that has provided Venter’s company Synthetic Genomics with $300 million in funding to date). In the process, the algae will turn a problem—CO2 causing climate change—and transform it into a solution—renewable fuels and slowed global warming. “Trying to capture CO2 and bury it is just dumb; it’s going to be the renewable feedstock for the future,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Columbia Association to Hold Women-Only Swim Times
Need grew from county’s Muslim community
When Shehlla Khan’s husband became ill, it fell on her to take their three children to the pool. But for Khan, who is Muslim, the task was difficult. The Columbia resident said she was concerned about people watching her swim in the conservative, cover-all dress required by Islamic dress codes, and thinking: “What’s wrong? Why can’t you take it off?” So Khan, 39, brought the issue up with members of her Dar Al-Taqwa mosque in Ellicott City. The mosque, along with members of a faith-based county group, People Acting Together in Howard, met with the Columbia Association to create a twice-weekly, women-only swim time, a trial that is scheduled to be announced Tuesday.
The Columbia Association, which operates 23 pools in Howard, will join other communities that have made similar accommodations to create a more welcoming atmosphere for Muslims and other female swimmers. New York City’s recreation and parks department offers a women-only swim time at the Metropolitan Recreation Center. Pools around Toronto and other cities have also offered similar options, according to news reports. And at a swimming pool in Seattle, Muslim woman have used brown paper to cover glass windows, providing privacy from the lobby.
Several private universities, including Harvard and George Washington, also have provided female-only swim times, with several hours a week set aside. But occasionally, such programs have run into opponents who suggest they unfairly cater to one group. At George Washington some complained, citing concerns over the program infringing on American liberties. “It’s a positive thing,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Not everyone has the same needs. It’s just expanding the level of interaction with the local community and recognizing that people are different. You’re bringing people into your system who would otherwise be uncomfortable.” Hooper said such programs are beneficial to communities attempting to reach out to an otherwise isolated minority. The reserved times usually are scheduled when facilities might be under-utilized, he said. He said he’s heard of many instances where the issue grows from women in the Muslim community, but turns out to be a need felt by others.
That has been true in Columbia, as well. For Katlin Lampke, 18, it was not a matter of religion, but of personal comfort. “During puberty, my body was changing. I was getting made fun of or hit on,” she said. “It was very embarrassing.” She stopped going. “She was really uncomfortable,” said her mother, Amy Lampke, 46. “We both love the water, but the experience changed. When this came up …, I thought, ‘What a great idea.’“ “Just for serenity, to have mother-daughter experience,” she said, adding, “a pool isn’t a bar. It isn’t for singles.”
Anne Gould, a 59-year-old Columbia resident who also supports the women-only swimming times, said, “There are times you want to be with just women.” But she added that the new policy will help include her Muslim neighbors. “This is just the right thing to do.” Raghid Shourbaji, president of the Howard County Muslim Council, said the need is growing because the county’s Muslim population is growing. He said another indoor pool in Jessup has a similar program, but he hopes the one in Columbia will be more convenient. His organization, which has been in existence for about 10 years, and the county’s only mosque, Dar Al-Taqwa, are the only Muslim outlets in the county. They serve about 1,800 residents, based on mailing lists. Safiyah Blake, a Columbia resident who is Muslim, has some practical reasons for using the women-only swim times.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Occupy’ Protesters Allowed Back Into Zuccotti Park Without Sleeping Bags, Tents
Occupy Wall Street protesters continue to line the streets surrounding Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park following a judge’s ruling that they may not enter with camping equipment, and police remain stationed in the area wearing full riot gear. | Share your thoughts. | Watch the mayor’s full press conference. | See video of the clearing of Zuccotti Park.
Occupy Wall Street protesters are allowed back inside Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park but they are being patted down by police and security, following a judge’s ruling that demonstrators may not enter with camping equipment.
A New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled that Occupy Wall Street protesters cannot be allowed to bring their tents or sleeping bags into the park, hours after the demonstrators were removed from the space by members of the New York City Police Department.
In a ruling praised by both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Law Department, the Honorable Michael Stallman turned down protesters’ application for a temporary restraining order, saying their First Amendment rights do not restrict the city’s “enforcement of law so as to promote public health and safety.”
The judge also said the protesters can return to the park, but must respect “reasonable rules” established by Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zuccotti Park.
Protesters who spoke this evening with NY1 said they will continue their demonstrations against economic inequality, regardless of where they are allowed to camp.
“We’re going to have to find another option now. Even if they try to do this, it’s not going to stop the movement. It’s only going to make it stronger,” said one protester. “So whether or not we occupy Zuccotti Park, or as we like to call it, ‘Liberty Plaza’ now, we’re going to occupy somewhere else.”
“Some people here are working people and they occupy, showing their support by their bodies being here, and then there’s homeless people and they were getting their needs met here. They were getting food, clothes, doctors, and they threw all that away. So I think that’s going to make them look horrible and add fuel to the fire,” said another protester.
At least 200 protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting officers’ orders after police moved in shortly after 1 a.m. to clear an estimated 200 inhabitants who have been camped out in the park for the past two months (see video below).
Throngs of sanitation workers then moved in to clear the park of debris, collect protesters’ possessions and steam clean its grounds.
Many protesters later returned to a gated-off Zuccotti Park and were greeted by a large presence of police officers in riot gear.
Demonstrators were told to come to the 57th Street Sanitation garage at noon to pick up their property, but when they got there, the pick-up time was switched to 8 a.m. Wednesday.
Sanitation Department police said they pushed the time back in order to make the pick-up as orderly as possible.
Another group of protesters briefly gathered at a park located on Sixth Avenue and Canal Street near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The park, owned by Trinity Church, is blocked off by fences, which the protesters jumped over…
| [Return to headlines] |
Perv Coach’s Lawyer Knocked Up Teen
The lawyer for accused pedophile and former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky reportedly impregnated a teenage girl more than a decade ago.
Joe Amendola, 63, was the attorney on Mary Iavasile’s emancipation petition filed Sept. 3, 1996, just weeks before her 17th birthday, according to Centre County Courthouse documents obtained by The Daily.
That’s approximately when Iavasile became pregnant with Amendola’s child, her mother, Janet Iavasile, told the iPad newspaper.
“At the time, I didn’t know the extent of the relationship,” the mom said of her first thoughts of her teen daughter spending time with a man in his late 40s.
The court documents do not make any mention of Amendola’s personal relationship with his client, The Daily said. The age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16.
Amendola had seemed more like Mary’s “mentor,” Janet Iavasile said.
“She met him through the school district,” the mother said. “She was interested in the law.”
Amendola and Mary, who is now 32, married in February 2003.
| — Hat tip: Van Grungy | [Return to headlines] |
Video Shows Man Being Punched at Red Line Stop Amid Laughs and Taunts
Police have launched an investigation after a man was caught on video knocking out an older man at the Chicago Avenue Red Line stop while others laughed and mimicked the attack. The assault occurred in April, but the video has only recently surfaced on the Internet.
The video, posted at worldstarhiphop.com, shows a man in a tan coat moving among people on the southbound subway platform as a group of youths joke and laugh. One of the youths starts following the man, turning around and smiling as his friends whoop and laugh. The youth, dressed in a black vest jacket, then appears to tap the man to get his attention. When the man turns around, the two appear to exchange a few words before the youth suddenly strikes him on the side of the head.
The older man falls on his back so hard his hat flies off, according to the video. The youth and his friends board a waiting train as a woman kneels down and touches the man and makes a phone call. As the train pulls out, one of the youths can be heard saying, “Who just did that?” Another responds, “He laid the (expletive) out,” and “He knocked his ass out.” One of the youths then mimicks the punch.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Scots Attacked in Metro
Yesterday, flandersnews.be reported that there were a total of four violent incidents on the Brussels metro on Saturday evening. One of the incidents quoted was a fight involving a group of British tourists and North African youths. Having read yesterday’s article, Mr Calum Sellars of Glasgow, Scotland has given us his account of Saturday evening’s incident on the platform of the Clemenceau metro station in Anderlecht.
Mr Sellars gives a very different account of events that those given in the media on Monday. Having been involved in Saturday’s incident, he searched the internet for reports of it. He came across our report on flandersnews.be. The report was based on information from several sources including the press agency Belga and the Brussels regional news site brusselnieuws.be.
Nevertheless, Mr Sellars says that a number of key facts were missing. “Firstly, the majority of our group were actually females (there were only 7-8 males in the group). Secondly, four of these females were seriously assaulted. One was hit with a glass bottle, the other with a brick and another was punched in the face. The fourth girl was rushed to hospital because a piece of glass had cut her eye and it was thought at one point that she would have to have surgery.”
Mr Sellars goes on to write that there were far more than ten North Africans involved and that he believes that the attack was planned.
“It was completely unprovoked and CCTV images will certainly confirm this. While our group tried to defend ourselves we were constantly bombarded with bricks and glass bottles.”
He also criticises the attitude of the police. “When the police arrived they were very unhelpful. They were disinterested in anything we had to say and failed to catch any of the attackers who stayed within the vicinity for some time after the incident.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finland Drops Veto Against Schengen Enlargement
Finland has dropped its veto against Bulgaria and Romania’s accession to the border-free Schengen area next year, leaving the Netherlands as the only blocking country, Romanian foreign minister Teodor Baconschi said Monday (14 November). “The government in Helsinki on Friday decided to support a two-phased entry of Romania and Bulgaria next year — first the air and sea borders in March and then a decision about the land borders in July,” Baconschi told journalists after a two-hour meeting with the Finnish minister.
Meanwhile, in Helsinki, EU affairs minster Alexander Stubb confirmed that his government has changed course and adopted the two-phase approach agreed by most other Schengen countries. While admitting he has “no illusions” the Netherlands — the only country still opposing Schengen enlargement — will change its position by the end of this year, Baconschi said that the Finnish move was “an important step forward in getting an absolute majority in the council [of ministers].”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Stop Funding ‘Anti-Integration Activities’, VVD Urges Minister
The ruling VVD is calling on home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner to stop councils giving grants to organisations which offer separate swimming lessons for women or other matters ‘which get in the way of integration’, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.
VVD parliamentarian Cora van Nieuwenhuizen will urge Donner this week to stop the subsidies for single-sex activities as well as end funding for organisations which oppose homosexual rights or whose activities conflict with democracy.
For example, a refugee centre with a separate computer room for women is sending out conflicting messages about Dutch society, she said.
The MP also wants the minister to scrap funding for the ethnic minorities discussion platform LOM. LOM is involved in talks with the government and advises on policy.
LOM should be able to find its own private sector funding by doing research on demand, Van Nieuwenhuizen is quoted as saying.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Trial Opens for Mohammed Cartoonist Attack Plot
Three men accused of plotting to bomb the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, for printing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed pleaded not guilty in a Norwegian court on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Trio Plead Not Guilty to Muhammad Cartoon Plot
Three men suspected of planning an attack on the Danish newspaper that printed controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in 2005 pleaded not guilty as their trial opened in Oslo on Tuesday. Mikael Davud, a member of the Chinese Uighur minority and Norwegian national believed to have ties to Al-Qaeda; Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd residing in Norway; and David Jakobsen, an Uzbek also living in Norway, denied the charges of “conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack” and “possession of materials used to make explosives”.
According to the prosecution, the trio first planned and prepared an attack against the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and then the target switched to caricaturist Kurt Westergaard whom they planned to kill. Westergaard, 76, drew the most controversial of the 12 cartoons, featuring the prophet Muhammad with a lit fuse in his turban, which touched off a wave of violent and sometimes deadly protests around the Muslim world.
The three were arrested in July 2010 after procuring chemicals used to make explosives. Police found hydrogen peroxide and acetone stored in a cellar belonging to Bujak. According to Norway’s intelligence agency PST, 40-year-old Davud, presented as the mastermind, had ties to Al-Qaeda which trained him in explosives handling at a camp in Pakistan between November 2008 and July 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Elections: Polls Confirm PP Absolute Majority
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 14 NOV — Less than a week before the elections, all polls confirm absolute majority for the PP and predict total defeat for PSOE. According to the “Pulsometer” broadcast by private national radio Cadena Ser, the party led by Mariano Rajoy will gain a 13-point advantage over Socialist candidate Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, with a 45%-suffrage in the voting intention poll, that is, 5 points more than in the 2008 elections, while PSOE will not win more than 30% of votes. Those who will most benefit from the Socialist defeat are Izquierda Unida (IU) and Union Progreso y Democracia (UpyD), who are expected to win 6 and 3% of votes respectively (during the latest elections, they only won 3.7% and 1% respectively). The Nationalist Basque Party (Pnv) is expected to win 1% of votes, while Amaiur, the independent Basque radical left coalition, is expected to gain access to the national Parliament with 1% of votes. According to the Metroscopia polls published by El Pais yesterday, consensus for the Socialist is plummeting, passing from 169 to 112 seats, while the PP is expected to gain the absolute majority with 192/196 seats , the best result ever in the party’s history. The Socialist are expected to face a disastrous defeat in even in former “Socialist feuds” such as Andalusia, Catalonia and the Basque Countries. Izquierda Unida is expected to gain 11 seats (in 2008, it only gained 2 seats); UpyD is expected to gain 2 seats and Amaiur 4 or 5. Sigma Dos polls for El Mundo predicts that the PP will gain 198 seats (170 seats are necessary for absolute majority); Psoe is expected to gain 112 seats, IU 7 seats and UpyD 3 seats.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The European Project is Now Sustained by Coup
What we have witnessed is a coup d’état: bloodless and genteel, but a coup d’état none the less. In Athens and in Rome, elected prime ministers have been toppled in favour of Eurocrats — respectively a former Vice-President of the European Central Bank and a former European Commissioner. Both countries now have what are called ‘national governments’, though they have been put together for the sole purpose of implementing policies that would be rejected in a general election. Italy and Greece are satrapies of Brussels, just as surely as Bosnia or Kosovo. In its Balkan protectorates, the EU overtly favours technocracy as the antidote to ‘populism’ (ie, democracy). Left to themselves, the locals have a tendency to vote for parties that want ethnographic frontiers. The EU’s solution is to rule through a series of appointed governors — diplomats (and the odd retired politician) in Bosnia, generals in Kosovo.
Now, like many previous empires, the EU is applying lessons learned through colonial administration to its metropolitan core. Politicians who lean too closely to what their voters want are removed. I don’t mean, of course, that the EU sent in agents provocateurs on a secret mission to destabilise the Italian and Greek regimes. Nor am I suggesting that Brussels was the sole factor in their downfall. Like Margaret Thatcher in 1990, Silvio Berlusconi and George Papandreou already faced strong domestic opposition; in all three cases, the EU simply gave the final shove. If this sounds like fanciful, read Fraser Nelson in the current Spectator. Fraser reveals the meetings between bankers and federalist leaders who identified the Italian premier as an obstacle to holding the euro together, and quotes oficials boasting that ‘we’re on our way to moving out Berlusconi’. If this is a conspiracy, it’s what HG Wells called an ‘open conspiracy’.
The putsch is the logical culmination of the European scheme — though many Euro-idealists remain blind to that logic. The EU has always been an anti-democratic project. Lacking popular support, rejected in referendum after referendum, it depends on a tight-knit group of functionaries in the Commission and in the member states. Now, in a crisis, the democratic appurtenances and fripperies are discarded. Technocrats in Brussels deal directly with technocrats in Rome and Athens. The people are cut out altogether. What’s terrifying is that these ‘technocrats’ caused the disaster in the first place. They decided that the survival of the euro mattered more than the prosperity of its constituent members; they presided over the rise in spending and debt; they deliberately overlooked the debt criteria when the euro was launched so as to admit Italy and Greece. Indeed the new Greek prime minister, Lucas Papademos, was running his country’s central bank at the time. In appointing these two Euro-apparatchiks, our masters are signalling in the clearest possible way that nothing will change. Closer integration matters more to them than freedom, more than prosperity, more than the rule of law, more than representative government itself.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘The Bailiffs Have Gone — So We’Re Moving Back on to Dale Farm!’ Just Hours After £18m Eviction is Complete, The Travellers Return
Travellers threatened to move back on to Dale Farm today, just hours after work to clear the site was officially completed.
Basildon Council has announced that all 51 plots on the infamous former scrapyard near the village of Crays Hill, Essex have now been cleared and bailiffs have left.
The six acres of land, which have been described by locals as an ‘£18m bombsite’, in a reference to the cost of clearing it, now stand largely empty, although dozens of touring caravans are lined up around the edge of the land on the remaining hard ground.
New photos taken today have revealed the shocking state of Dale Farm which is now littered with craters where bailiffs have removed the concrete bases where the caravans stood.
One traveller, who gave his name only as Billy, said: ‘We are going to be going back on there and it is going to be just like it was before.
‘The eviction was one big waste of money — we are tough people and we are hardy people, so we will be back on that land and starting all over again.’
His comments came as some travellers returned from a trip to Ireland and parked in nearby Oak Road before announcing they were preparing to move back onto the land.
The eviction cost has previously been estimated at £18 million, after Basildon Council officials last month said council costs could rise to £8 million and police costs to nearly £10 million.
Council leader Tony Ball today warned that the authority would be applying for injunctions to move the caravans on.
He said: ‘I am pleased that the work to clear Dale Farm has been completed so quickly and in a dignified and safe manner.
‘However, I would urge caution and remind residents that there are still issues to be resolved.This is not the end of the project for the council, and we have a number of outstanding issues to work through, including seeking recovery of costs for the delay caused by the injunction and the overall costs of the operation.
‘This is a complicated and lengthy process, but one that we are committed to.’
Residents have spoken out about the state that the land has been left in following the £8m clearance operation by the council.
Len Gridley, 52, whose garden borders Dale Farm branded it a ‘bombsite’ and is trying to take legal action for the state of the land.
Speaking last week he said: ‘I hold the council responsible — there is no need for these ugly earth mounds around each pitch because they have been granted an injunction stopping the travellers’ coming back.’
But the council has moved to assure locals that their work is not yet complete.
Mr Ball added: ‘We are also committed to restoring Dale Farm to a site in keeping with its green belt status, and would remind people that the bunding in place is only a temporary measure.
‘Now that the site clearance has been completed we will turn our attention to any remaining breaches of planning regulations on the site and also any new breaches at the authorised Oak Lane site.
‘I would now urge travelling communities to engage with local their authorities across the country.
‘They must seek planning permission before any more development of sites take place and this is regardless to the fact that they may own the land.
‘Travellers must comply with the law in the same way as everyone else. Nobody wants to see another Dale Farm.’
The 10-year bitter legal dispute between hundreds of travellers and Basildon Council came to a swift end last month as police and bailiffs moved onto the former scrapyard.
Activists and travellers who had pledged to ‘fight to the death’ held out for less than 48 hours before walking off the land to allow the full clearance operation to begin.
Many of the travellers are thought to be living just a few hundred yards away from where they were evicted on the legal part of Dale Farm.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Little Bit of High Culture That Has Right on Its Side
You don’t have to be a Lefty to be literary — just look at the new owners of the London Magazine.
That Patrick Mercer business is murky, isn’t it — the MP apparently recorded saying rude things about David Cameron. But what caught my eye was the location of the alleged remarks: a party for The London Magazine. What does a Right-wing Tory have to do with this venerable “little magazine”, which has provided literature to a highbrow audience since 1732? You don’t necessarily associate the Right with contemporary poetry or, for that matter, high culture generally. But that is unfair: I suspect it’s more that Right-wingers have a horror of appearing pretentious, and if they do like high art, they hate to make a fuss about it. Left-wingers don’t usually have such reservations.
The London Magazine has published everyone you can think of — from Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley in the 1800s to Auden, Laurie Lee and Sylvia Plath in the 20th century. When Alan Ross, its legendary editor, died in 2001, after running it for 40 years, subscribers feared that was the end. But literary journals have always survived on the generosity of patrons — eccentric aesthetes with deep pockets, like Peter Watson, the philanthropist who bankrolled Cyril Connolly’s Horizon in the 1940s.
The London Magazine’s latest saviour is an Iraqi-born businessman named Burhan Al-Chalabi. He took over in 2009. He is a Conservative, and so, not surprisingly, he invited some Conservative friends. This is where Patrick Mercer comes in — he’s a special adviser to the editorial board, and recently contributed an essay on the history of riots. Bruce Anderson, the great political commentator and a man of the Right, is an adviser too. He’s an Italophile, and has written on Venetian art and Florentine architecture. Grey Gowrie, minister for the arts under Margaret Thatcher, is also on the editorial board. (I remember Lord Gowrie for promoting the crime writer George V Higgins as a serious author: he thought Higgins was “perhaps the exceptional post-war American political novelist”.)
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: West Drayton Mosque Plan Scrapped as ‘Act of Goodwill’
A MUSLIM Association has abandoned plans to convert a former opticians building into a mosque ‘as an act of goodwill’. Residents had expressed concern and worry at the proposals after they were highlighted in the Gazette last week. The main anguish centred around the volume of traffic which would arrive if the mosque was built at the constrained site at Colham Mill Road, West Drayton. The association said they would begin searching for a new site in the area which would be more suitable for their needs.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Over 20,000 Ethnic Serbs Demand Russian Citizenship
Belgrade, 15 Nov. (AKI) — Worried about their conditions and survival in Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, more than 20,000 Kosovo Serbs have asked for Russian citizenship, Serbian media reported on Tuesday.
A Kosovo Serb activist Zlatibor Djordjevic told media he expected the number of requests would reach a few hundred thousand. Djordjevic said 21,000 petitions for citizenship have been sent to the Russian embassy in Belgrade, addressed to Russian parliament, president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin.
Belgrade doesn’t recognize Kosovo independence, declared by majority Albanian population. An estimated 200,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo since it was put under United Nations control in 1999 and at least one thousand were killed according to Serbian sources.
The remaining 100,000 Kosovo Serbs feel they have been deserted by pro-European government of president Boris Tadic and not offered adequate protection for the sake of Serbia’s joining the European Union, which Tadic has proclaimed as his main goal.
Kosovo has been recognized by more than 80 countries, including the United States and 22 out of 27 EU members. Brussels has tied Serbia’s bid for membership to establishing “good neighborly relations” with the state of Kosovo.
Russia is a traditional ally of Serbia and has blocked a resolution on Kosovo independence in the UN Security Council.
Djordjevic said Serbs were seeking “protection and freedom which Serbia can’t provide them. We have tried everything for our state to protect us, but it has failed and is pushing us into a state which Serbs don’t recognize,” he said.
Russian embassy official Oleg Buldakov said the request was passed on to competent authorities in Moscow, but pointed out it was a “very complex issue and many conditions have to be fulfilled in order to obtain Russian citizenship”.
Russian media, however, speculated Moscow was unlikely to answer positively the to Serb requests because it would put it in confrontation with NATO, whose peacekeepers are stationed in Kosovo, and with Belgrade which may see it as interference in internal affairs.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Final Results of the 23 October Election
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, NOVEMBER 14 — The final results of the election of 217 members of the Constituent Assembly, which will meet on 22 November, were announced today by the Independent Electoral Commission. The seats won are as follows: Ennahdha (Islamist) 89; CPR (left nationalist) 29; Petition Populaire (centre-right) 26; Ettakatol (left) 20, PDP (centre-left) 16, PDM (left) 5; The Initiative 5, Aphek Tounes (liberal) 4; PCOT (communist) 3; Ahab (Arab nationalist) 2; MDS (socialist) 2. The remaining sixteen seats went, one each, to small parties and independents. The turnout in the elections was 54.1%, or 4.094 million voters out of a total of 7.569 million people eligible to vote.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Visa-Free Travel for Russia?
France and Germany have said the EU should quickly open talks with Russia on visa-free travel despite fears it might send the wrong signal to other post-Soviet states. EUobserver understands the foreign ministers of the two countries outlined their position at an informal dinner in Brussels on Sunday (13 November) with foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton and fellow EU ministers.
A senior Polish diplomat on Tuesday noted that Warsaw is happy to go along with the plan: “We believe in dismantling obstacles to freedom of tourists and businessmen to travel … If some of our member states want to move on visa liberalisation with Russia, good, Poland is at the spearhead [of the process] with the local border traffic agreement for Kaliningrad.”
The contact was referring to an agreement by EU interior ministers earlier this month to free up travel for cross-border traders in the Russian exclave in a move which could enter into force by the end of the year.
The Polish diplomat added that if Russia is to take steps toward visa-free travel, then the EU should help other post-Soviet countries, such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to make progress on the same path.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan Gears Up for Loya Jirga on Strategic Partnership With US
Over 2,000 delegates are expected in Kabul to discuss whether Afghanistan and the US should enter a strategic partnership. There are plenty of misgivings on the part of Afghanistan’s regional neighbors.
The Loya Jirga that is planned for this week is the tenth in Afghanistan’s history. The “traditional assembly” is usually called ahead of major events such as choosing a new king, adopting a constitution, or discussing important national political or emergency matters, as well as settling disputes.
At the last Loya Jirga, that took place after the Taliban regime had been toppled, the decision was made to take the path of democracy. This year, says Helaludin Helal from the Loya Jirga Commission in Kabul, the 2,300 delegates will decide on one point only: “Whether Afghanistan should enter a strategic partnership with the US?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Diabetes Threatens India’s Economic Development
There are over 50 million diabetics in India and this figure is expected to rise by 150 percent over the next 20 years. Experts fear this could be catastrophic for the emerging country’s economic development.
Long working hours and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and India’s many other metropolises are causing alarming health problems. Over and over again, doctors hear the same stories from their diabetes patients: They have no time to do sport, to go shopping and cook and eat healthy food. They have taken to ordering fast food at their desks. More often than not, they chase down the burgers and pizzas that have become so popular among India’s increasingly Westernized middle classes with Coke.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Islamic Group Calls for Death for Corruption
Jakarta, 15 Nov. (AKI/Jakarta Post) — The hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) patron Habib M. Riziq says that he would fully support the death penalty for corruption convicts.
“Corruption convicts must be sentenced to death, or at the minimum have their hands cut off,” he said during the FPI’s assembly in Bandung on Tuesday.
He said that it was ridiculous that Indonesia was debating whether or not to award corruption convicts with sentence cuts for good behavior in prison.
“In Saudi Arabia corruption convicts’ hands are cut off; In China their heads are cut off; in Indonesia corruption convicts have their prison terms cut. I don’t understand,” he said.
The FPI has conducted raids targeting night clubs, bars and other various venues. There have been calls for the group to be banned.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China’s Energy Investments on a Global Roll, Now Include Brazil
By John Daly
China, flush with cash, is on a global search to acquire any and all overseas energy assets.
China Petrochemical Corp., known more familiarly as the Sinopec Group, Asia’s biggest refiner, will pay $3.54 billion for a 30 percent share in Portugal’s Galp Energia SGPS SA’s Brazilian unit, in what is China’s 2011 largest overseas energy acquisition.
Portugal’s Galp Energia is Portugal’s biggest oil company, but affected by the European Union’s fiscal crisis and currently in need of additional immediate cash, incoming revenue is apparently preferable to long term benefits.
So, why should this elicit anything other than a yawn?
Easy — BRICs are beginning to acquire assets in one another. The feeding frenzy has begun.
BRIC?
In 2001 Goldman Sachs Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym in his study, “Building Better Global Economic BRICs” postulating the imminent and inevitable rise of four economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China.
How right O’Neill was, especially as both the European Union and the U.S. moribund economies are cautiously developing a cap in hand supplicant approach to the nations for loans to bail out their moribund, state of the art capitalist economies.
While this development has attracted attention from Wall Street, the City of London and China, an equally interesting sub-current has passed largely below the radar, which is the BRIC nations attempting to develop inroads into their nations’ colleagues and inevitable competitors.
(SEE MORE AT URL, ABOVE)
| [Return to headlines] |
New Approach to Integration in Germany: “We Should Learn Turkish”
Your thesis provokes objections because normally it’s expected of immigrants that they will adapt a bit. So is learning German not a necessity?
This demand is part of the old model, which is: go to school, learn German, be good, then all problems are solved. This fails to take into account the fact that the migration of Turkish people to Germany is a historical movement that is nowhere near complete. So sometime there will be Turkish schools and universities. The process can no longer be reversed; on the contrary, in Europe we are just at its beginning. We must consent to this development. Until that happens, understanding will not work. And only when we consent can we shape the process. I am certain it will generate something completely new..
Are we Germans then required to make room and accept parallel societies?
Migration was never discussed in terms of the migration of peoples, only in terms of immigration and adjustment. But we must engage with those who do not want to immigrate. Perhaps we need to start learning Turkish. The migration of peoples demands a lot of everyone involved. It’s about co-existence on the basis of equality. And accepting other people as equals, leaving them as they are, and granting them the same rights, that is a real challenge. For example, that a muezzin should be able to call in the mornings in the same way that church bells ring.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Starkey: ‘Britain is a White Mono-Culture and Schools Should Focus on Our Own History’
David Starkey has provoked more controversy by claiming that most of Britain is a ‘mono-culture’ and that immigrants should assimilate.
The TV historian rejected claims by other academics that it is a diverse country, describing it as ‘absolutely and unmitigatingly white’ outside of London.
His outburst comes three months after he blamed ‘black culture’ for the summer riots and claimed that parts of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech had been right.
He made his latest comments during a historians conference discussing Education Secretary Michael Gove’s announcement that he wanted to put ‘our island story’ at the heart of Britain’s national curriculum.
Dr Starkey told the meeting that the National Curriculum should involve ‘a serious focus on your own culture’.
Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji asked him to explain what he meant, arguing that contemporary Britain was ‘rather diverse’.
But Dr Starkey cut in, telling her: ‘No it’s not. Most of Britain is a mono-culture. You think London is Britain. It isn’t.
‘Where I’ve come from in Yorkshire, where I’ve come from in Westmorland [in Cumbria], where I largely live in Kent, where I holiday much in the South West, it is absolutely and unmitigatingly white.
‘You have such a series of assumptions. It is a kind of Ken Livingstone-esque view of rainbow Britain.
‘Bits of Britain are rainbow and jolly interesting but to read out from those to everything else is profoundly misleading.’
Dr Starkey added: ‘Successful immigrants assimilate or become bi-cultural.’
Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said he did not believe Dr Starkey was racist but was saddened that he ‘feels that he must occasionally utter nonsense that may give comfort to racists.’
Lee Jasper, Chairman of the London Race and Criminal Justice Consortium, tweeted: ‘Starkey the racist academic strikes again.’
Former prison chaplain the Reverend Pam Smith jokingly questioned on Twitter whether Dr Starkey ‘can’t see people who aren’t white’ given the racial diversity of many towns outside the capital.
Richard Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, criticised Mr Gove and Dr Starkey for advocating ‘myth and memory rote-learning’ to feed children ‘self-congratulatory narrow myths of history’.
Dr Evans said school history teachers were right to reflect Britain’s multi-ethnic make up in lessons.
Dr Starkey had been accused of racism by more than 100 viewers of Newsnight in August when he claimed that ‘whites have become black’.
He added: ‘A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.’
But Ofcom ruled that the Newsnight discussion had been balanced by other speakers who did not share the outspoken historian’s views.
Acid-tongued Dr Starkey has been dubbed the ‘rudest man in Britain’.
He once described the Queen as a housewife who ‘lacks a serious education’ and called Scotland, Wales and Ireland ‘feeble little countries’.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Energy of the Future: Spaced Based Solar Stations
By James Burgess
A solar power station in space measuring several kilometres in length may sound like something from a science fiction film, but the reality is that this idea could well be operational and supplying much of the worlds energy requirements within less than 20 years.
Space based solar power stations are not a new idea, in fact they have been researched since the 1970’s.
Back in 2009 the Californian state regulators granted approval to the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Solaren Corp. to start creating a solar based power plant in space. Solaren, founded by veterans of Hughes Aircraft, Boeing and Lockheed, plans to deploy a free-floating inflatable Mylar mirror one kilometre (0.62 miles) in diameter in 2016. This will collect and concentrate sunlight on a smaller mirror that in turn will focus the rays on photovoltaic modules, according to the company’s patent.
The Japanese government is also planning a space based solar power station, scheduled to be operational in 2030. Not to be outdone, Europe’s largest space company EADS Astrium, hopes to develop infrared lasers capable of transmitting the energy from these space stations to earth based receiver stations by 2020.
There are many attractions to creating spaced based power stations;
• Higher collection rate: In space the radiation of solar energy is unaffected by the filtering effects of the ozone. Consequently, the level of solar radiation, and therefore energy, available is approximately 144% of that attainable on the Earth’s surface.
(SEE MORE AT URL, ABOVE)
| [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Starkey is right of course.The british media and education system make you feel that everywhere is like london.If less than 10% of the population is Ethnic ,then why are we continously made to feel like it is one blond haired kid,one brown haired kid,one ginger kid, one asian kid ,one black kid and one chinese kid, that make up our culture.At my childrens school in scotland,each class may have one child in 30 that is non-white.Why are we made to feel like there is something wrong with that?
Post a Comment