Federal Reserve Guaranteeing $75 Trillion of Bank of America’s Derivatives Trades
iReport — According to “The Daily Bail”, Bank of America is shifting derivatives in its Merrill investment banking unit to its depository arm, which has access to the Fed discount window and is protected by the FDIC.
The investment bank’s European derivatives liability is now backed by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn’t get regulatory approval to do this; they did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are arguing whether this was sound. The Fed wants to “give relief” to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure.
This is a direct transfer of risk to the taxpayer by the bank without approval by regulators and without public input. JP Morgan is apparently doing the same thing with $79 trillion of notional derivatives guaranteed by the FDIC and Federal Reserve.
What this means is that when Europe finally implodes and banks fail, U.S. taxpayers will hold the bag for trillions in CDS insurance contracts sold by Bank of America and JP Morgan.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Protests Erupt Over Financial Crisis
Demonstrators call new cabinet ‘government of bankers’
(ANSA) — Palermo, November 17 — Crowds of young demonstrators took to the streets across Italy Thursday, some throwing stones and smoke bombs as they blamed banks and financial institutions for the ongoing economic crisis. In Milan, clashes erupted as protestors made their way to Bocconi University, the prestigious school of economics where newly appointed Premier Mario Monti was dean. Demonstrators called his technocratic cabinet a “government of bankers”, a reference to the fact that many ministers come from finance and economics backgrounds. Monti was to present the reform package his emergency government intends to implement to avert a financial calamity in the Senate before facing a confidence vote there on Thursday.
Similar demonstrations took place throughout other major cities, where participants ranged from students to the unemployed and were part of the “Block Everything Day” organized by student groups to coincide with International Students’ Day as well as a national transit strike.
In Palermo, demonstrators threw eggs and smoke bombs at various bank headquarters. Some attempted to occupy the headquarters of the Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, until now led by Industry and Infrastructure Minister Corrado Passera, but police intervened. One protestor suffered head injuries. Protestors wrote “thieves, give us back our money” on the walls outside the tax-collecting agency.
At one point police resorted to using tear gas against masked protesters who were throwing rocks, bricks and smoke bombs.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bond Yield Drops Below 7% After Monti Unveils Programme
Spread narrows to 502 as PM vows ‘rigour, growth and equity’
(ANSA) — Rome, November 17 — Italian bond yields fell below the critical 7% mark after new Premier Mario Monti presented his emergency reform agenda Thursday.
The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, a sign of Italy’s ability to service its whopping debt, dropped to 6.87% from 7.11% earlier in the day.
Ireland, Greece and Portugal were forced to seek bailouts when their yields hit 7% and the EU will have to beef up its rescue fund if it is forced to do the same for Italy.
The spread between Italian bonds and the benchmark German Bund narrowed from 532 to 502 points as investors appeared to be showing some confidence in Monti’s bid to get Italy out of the epicentre of the eurozone crisis.
But pundits said it was too early to tell whether Italy will soon be out of the woods, noting that the European Central Bank was heavily buying up Italian bonds to fight speculators.
Monti is expected to win wide approval for his package in confidence votes in the Senate late Thursday and the House late Friday. In his speech to the Senate, Monti vowed to reform pensions and free up the labour market to boost job creation, promising “rigour, growth and (social) equity”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Govt: Ministerial Team
New PM also economy minister,Passera ‘super-minister’ for growth
(ANSA) — Rome, November 17 — Here is Premier Mario Monti’s team of ministers (age, old jobs in brackets): — MINISTERS WITH PORTFOLIO — PREMIER — Mario Monti (68, economist and ex-EU commissioner) ECONOMY — Monti (interim) FOREIGN AFFAIRS — Giulio Terzi di Santa’Agata (65, ambassador to Washington) INTERIOR — Anna Maria Cancellieri (67, ex-prefect of Genoa and Catania and commissioner of Bologna, Parma) JUSTICE — Paola Severino (63, lawyer, deputy head of LUISS University in Rome) DEFENSE — Giampaolo Di Paola (67, admiral, head of NATO’s military committee) INDUSTRY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORT — Corrado Passera (56, CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s biggest retail bank) WELFARE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES — Elsa Fornero (63, head of CeRP pensions and welfare think tank) HEALTH — Renato Balduzzi (56, professor of constitutional law at Eastern Piedmont University) AGRICULTURE — Mario Catania (60, EU liaison chief at same ministry) ENVIRONMENT — Corrado Clini (64, doctor, director-general of same ministry) CULTURE — Lorenzo Ornaghi (63, dean of Milan’s Universita’ Cattolica university) EDUCATION — Francesco Profumo (58, head of National Research Council (CNR), ex-head of Turin University) — MINISTERS WITHOUT PORTFOLIO — RELATIONS WITH PARLIAMENT — Piero Giarda (75, economist at Milan’s Universita’ Cattolica university) EU AFFAIRS — Enzo Moavero Milanesi (57, specialist in antitrust law, judge at EU Court of First Instance) TOURISM AND SPORT — Piero Gnudi (73, head of energy group ENEL) TERRITORIAL COHESION — Fabrizio Barca (59, head of development policies at economy ministry) INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (AID) — Andrea Riccardi (61, founder and head of Catholic lay activist and conflict-mediation group Comunita di Sant’Egidio) CABINET SECRETARY — Antonio Catricala’ (59, anti-trust chief)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Borrowing Costs Soar
Eurozone woes deepened Thursday as Spain and France were forced to pay sharply higher interest rates than usual and anti-austerity protesters in Italy and Greece clashed with police. Spain was hoping to raise some €4 billion by selling 10-year government bonds but had to settle for little over €3.5 billion. It paid an interest rate of slightly less than 7 percent — the highest level since 1997 and 1.5 points above the average paid at similar tenders this year. It is a level of borrowing cost at which other eurozone countries like Ireland and Portugal had been forced to seek financial assistance from abroad.
Voters in Spain are set to oust the current socialist government in elections on Sunday and replace it with a centre-right leadership that has indicated it will push for sharp spending cuts. France, too, had to pay a relatively high price for government bonds as it raised some €7 billion at an interest rate of around 3.6 percent — a level still considered sustainable but significantly higher than the 3 percent earlier this month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
State of Emergency
The wheel continues to turn. Following elections on 20 November, Spain will become the third EU country to change government this month, and the sixth, in the wake of Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece and Italy, to have an administration that has either been ousted or voluntarily given up its mandate amid the ongoing crisis.
Democracy, technocracy, people, financial markets… These terms are increasingly a feature of press comment on the state of play in Europe. The manner in which George Papandreou and Silvio Berlusconi have been shown the door to be replaced by experts with remarkably similar profiles — Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti, two economists who have occupied highly ranked positions in the EU and worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs — has raised legitimate questions about governance and democratic responsibility.
Along with the all-powerful markets, the two main targets for criticism have been French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose role in the much reported Frankfurt Group that includes the presidents of EU institutions and the managing director of the IMF, has fuelled conspiracy theories about plans to place Europe under the autocratic control of a German influenced board of directors.
But if we momentarily adopt the point of view of devil’s advocate, there is no denying the devastating impact that the announcement of a referendum in Greece had on the meager progress towards a solution in the wake of the 26 October agreement on the country’s debt, or the damage wrought by this announcement to George Papandreou’s standing, who in spite of his many qualities, completely discredited himself in the eyes of his political friends…
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Why Europe Needs Enemies
Nothing better than an enemy to forge a common identity. But the adage of the nineteenth century doesn’t quite fit the current crisis. Only by changing their relationship to power can Europeans unite and overcome the crisis, says a Czech editorialist.
Martin Ehl
He who understands the past can shape the future. That paraphrase from George Orwell’s Animal Farm offers a way of looking at the current state of the European Union. At the recent annual conference in Passau of the Czech-German Discussion Forum on European Identity, a refreshing viewpoint from historian Milos ŘeznÃk offered up a key to Europe’s survival as a group of economically, politically and culturally thriving states.
In our collective identity it’s not just what we are that’s important; what we’re not has even more resonance. That was the basic thesis of Professor ŘeznÃk, which he illustrated by the development of modern nationalism in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the system of states disintegrated and new elites offered people a chance to identify with the ‘nation’ through the concept of civil equality. As it evolved, national identity turned into a source of potential conflict.
And now we’re asking the question: what role does European identity play? It arises as a notion, moulds itself, and the question is whether it will take root. What is it missing, for it to take root, to unite those who would — in theory — accept this identity because they live in the common area, share common values? For Europe to be more united, what’s missing is a strong sense of a threat. Europeans are missing a common enemy.
Shared prosperity
Greece in collapse, Italy crumbling, and France threatened with slashed credit ratings, all bound up in a looming collapse of the eurozone: that’s not enough to glue together the inhabitants of the Old Continent. Even in the deepest crisis of the historically unique process of European unification, Europeans are unable and perhaps unwilling to admit that what brings them together is greater than what divides them.
The argument that the European Union must either integrate more deeply or fall apart is being heard more often. But deeper union cannot be decreed by a change in the Lisbon Treaty. What we need is a crisis. Real and deep…
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Launch Civil Rights Probe Into Rejection of Lomita Mosque Expansion
The Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into whether Lomita officials violated federal law when they rejected a proposed mosque expansion almost two years ago. Federal investigators are interviewing 13 past and present members of the Planning Commission, City Council and other officials this week, said City Attorney Christ Hogin.
The city has elected to cooperate, the interviews are all completely voluntary,” she said. “The city has nothing to hide. Everything was done in public. “It’s a little alarming the federal government would come in and second-guess a land-use decision like this,” she added.
On a 4-0 vote, the City Council in March 2010 rejected an expansion of the Islamic Center of the South Bay, which sits on largely residential Walnut Street off Pacific Coast Highway. The panel believed the project would cause traffic and parking problems. But both municipal staff and the Planning Commission had recommended approval of the plan to build a two-story, 14,320-square-foot main building on the site. It was to replace eight, aging buildings on the 1-acre lot. A study concluded there would be no additional traffic impact because the new prayer area would be comparable in size to an existing one and, thus, it wouldn’t attract more people. However, opponents, led by neighborhood resident Henry Sanchez, who will be sworn in as a City Council member Monday, contended the traffic study was flawed. He maintained it undercounted the number of people who would arrive alone in a car. Moreover, they believed, the expanded facility would accommodate more people than just worshippers because others would use classroom facilities at the same time. Sanchez did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Ameena Qazi, an attorney affiliated with Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing the mosque, said the investigation was triggered when Justice Department officials read news reports about the denial of the proposal. She appeared to be referring to a Los Angeles Times blog post that quoted Iraj Ershaghi, a founding member of the mosque and the project manager for the expansion proposal, in the wake of the council meeting. He charged that “some of the comments made by neighbors opposed to the project had an anti-Muslim undertone,” the newspaper reported. “The tone was that, ‘You don’t even exist,”‘ the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Officials are investigating whether Lomita violated a federal law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Provisions of the law “prohibit state and local governments from imposing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person,” according to the Justice Department website. While that often applies to people confined to an institution such as a prison, it also can apply to land-use decisions that place a substantial burden on the ability of a group to practice its religion. Qazi said publications by anti-Muslim groups have specifically cited using land-use restrictions to prevent the construction or expansion of mosques. In the Lomita case, the council in part balked at rezoning necessary to allow the mosque to expand, noting that such action would reduce the size of the city’s limited commercial zones and potentially decrease sales tax revenues.
Qazi said she didn’t believe that was a compelling enough issue to justify the panel’s decision. “I believe the city’s denial of the rezoning has constituted a substantial burden on the mosque community to practice their religion,” she said. “We’re hoping the (Justice) Department will find out whether this action had any sort of discriminatory intent behind it. “I am not saying that there is evidence of anti-Muslim sentiment sufficient to prove discriminatory intent under (federal law) at this point,” she added. However, Ershaghi said Thursday he believes the city discriminated against the project on the basis of religion and has violated the law.
The mosque will hold a meeting Sunday to inform those who worship there about the investigation. Federal officials did not respond to a request seeking information about the investigation, which Hogin said had been ongoing since July. The city has provided the federal government with extensive documentation regarding its land use policies. Hogin said Lomita is a diverse community that is, for example, also home to an Armenian center and that the mosque has been in Lomita for nearly 30 years. That, she said, will make it difficult to prove the city has infringed upon the exercise of religion at the mosque in a substantial way.
Councilman Don Suminaga, who was mayor at the time the project was rejected, described the hourlong interviews being conducted as “cordial.” The issue has surfaced in the past locally. Rolling Hills Covenant Church officials had threatened to use the law to sue the city of Rolling Hills Estates several years ago when the city blocked an expansion of its church, citing traffic among other issues. The lawsuit was never filed.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Judge: FBI Must Pay Penalty to Calif. Muslims
SANTA ANA, Calif.-The FBI must pay the legal fees of Muslim activist groups that sued the federal agency for access to its files, according to a U.S. District Court ruling filed Thursday.
Judge Cormac Carney made clear that the financial sanction was not based on the merits of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California’s Freedom of Information Act case, but it was to punish a government that chose to lie to its own judicial system. “The Court must impose monetary sanctions to deter the Government from deceiving the Court again,” Carney wrote. He gave the Islamic Shura Council 14 days to provide an affidavit detailing its costs. After a nearly five-year court battle, Carney ruled in April that the council could not review additional records of FBI inquiries into its activities, but he berated the government for misleading the court about the existence of the files. “Parties cannot choose when to tell the Court the truth. They must be truthful with the Court at all stages of the proceedings if judicial review is to have any real meaning,” Carney wrote.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Newly Developed Metallic “Micro-Lattice” Material is World’s Lightest
Earlier this year we looked at a “multiwalled carbon nanotube (MCNT) aerogel” —also dubbed “frozen smoke” — that, with a density of 4 mg/cm3, became the world’s lightest solid material. Now frozen smoke has been knocked off its perch by a new metallic material with a density of just 0.9 mg/cm3, making it around 100 times lighter than Styrofoam. Despite being 99.99 percent open volume, the new material boasts impressive strength and energy absorption, making it potentially useful for a range of applications.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
World’s ‘Lightest Material’ Unveiled by US Engineers
A team of engineers claims to have created the world’s lightest material. The substance is made out of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice — a criss-crossing diagonal pattern with small open spaces between the tubes. The researchers say the material is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and has “extraordinarily high energy absorption” properties.
Potential uses include next-generation batteries and shock absorbers. The research was carried out at the University of California, Irvine and HRL Laboratories and is published in the latest edition of Science. “The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” said lead author Dr Tobias Schaedler. The resulting material has a density of 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre.
By comparison the density of silica aerogels — the world’s lightest solid materials — is only as low as 1.0mg per cubic cm. The metallic micro-lattices have the edge because they consist of 99.99% air and of 0.01% solids. The engineers say the material’s strength derives from the ordered nature of its lattice design.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ottawa: Canada’s Human Rights Commissions Could Soon be De-Fanged.
New legislation would repeal Section 13, the hate speech portion of Human Rights Act.
“Our government believes Section 13 is not an appropriate or effective means for combating hate propaganda. We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told the House of Commons during question period.
“I say to the opposition: get onside with the media, MacLean’s magazine, National Post, and even the Toronto Star says this section should go.”
Quebecor and its media properties, including Sun News Network and QMI Agency, also want the section scrapped.
Tory backbencher Brian Storseth drafted the private member’s bill, C-304.
“This is a great first step,” Storseth told The Source host Ezra Levant on Sun News Network. “Free speech is something we all hold very dear to our hearts and something we all have a necessity for.”
Levant, a lawyer, put the boots to the Alberta Human Rights Commission after they accused him of spreading hate speech in 2006 for reprinting a cartoon of Mohammed wearing a turban bomb in his Western Standard magazine.
The same Danish cartoon had sparked Islamist riots that killed more than 200 people in one month. The artist lives under constant threat.
“The entire Canadian Human Rights Act ought to be repealed. It’s worse than just useless,” said Levant. “You don’t even have to cause hurt feelings — just to have published something likely to cause hurt feelings. What an insane law, so un-Canadian, so contrary to our traditions of liberty that go back centuries, inherited from the United Kingdom,.”
With a Conservative majority in the House and the Senate, the bill will likely become law quickly, after 32 years accusations and convictions over allegations of hate speech.
“No more witch hunts by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, no more persecuting their political enemies, said Levant.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Arabic: A European Language Like Any Other
Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm
A Swedish journalist of Palestinian origin embarks on a tour of Europe to take an inventory of the use of Arabic across the continent with surprising results.
Lina Kalmteg
Although she had worked in the press for ten years, Nadia Jebril, a Swedish journalist of Palestinian origin, never had the opportunity to use her Arabic in the context of her job. But then she had the idea for Rena rama arabiskan [Pure Arabic]: a series which aimed to provide a survey of places where Arabic is spoken in Europe, taking in Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Italy, Malta, Spain and Bosnia,before moving on to Lebanon.
“We wanted to do something about the Arabic language,” she explains. “But everyone was only talking about Islam and the Middle East, as though they were obliged to stick to well-established subjects”. Then she thought: “A lot of us are Muslims, and most of us speak Arabic. But here is where we live! And we don’t speak the same Arabic they speak in the Middle East, it’s a kind of a mix”.
“My generation is a group apart. We have grown up in an environment that is radically different to the one experienced by our parents. When you look around Europe, there is a whole range of different mixed backgrounds that overlap. It is a new phenomenon and no one pays any attention to it!
Stormy debates
This frustration that ultimately resulted in the series Rena rama arabiskan [“Pure Arabic”], which asks the question: to what extent does Arabic enable you to get by in Europe? Nadia Jebril had already discovered that Arabic helped her to be understood in Berlin.
In the first episode, she travels around Sweden with a sign that says, “Do you speak Arabic?” As the series continues, she moves on to other countries where she encounters people in the street, and interviews writers, humourists and artists. And it is at this point that the programme takes on the air of a mischievous guide to Europe — a portrait that goes beyond the simple framework of the Arabic language.
For Nadia Jebril, her tour of Sweden, where she met with people who interested in Arabic and other issues, came as a pleasant surprise. However in Denmark, a country where the question of multilingualism is the subject of stormy debates and where Arabic-speaking children are often told they should not be speaking Arabic, the challenge was a lot tougher. “They bundle a lot of stuff into the debate about language, because their goal is to get onto the subject of immigration”, she explains.
In France, she meets people who speak Arabic but who refuse to give her directions to a record shop. Then they insult her and yell at her to turn off the camera. Even when she tries to approach people with her sign, she ends up empty-handed. Having concluded that this behaviour has been prompted by the way Arabic speakers have been portrayed in the French media, she manages nonetheless to obtain a rendez-vous with raï-music king Khaled…
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Faster-Than-Light Result Confirmed, European Physicists Say
Scientists say new experiments have replicated their initial superluminal result. However, the skeptical scientific community appears reluctant to overturn Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former Turkish Ambassador: ‘EU Dream is Dead’
Turkey’s former ambassador to the EU, Volkan Bozkir, has described the Union as a spent force in world affairs amid general acceptance that EU-Turkey accession talks are going nowhere. Bozkir told delegates at a business congress in Istanbul on Friday (18 November): “The EU dream has come to an end for the world. There is a paradigm shift. The EU is no longer the same Union that provided comfort, prosperity and wealth to its citizens as in the past. It no longer generates visionary ideas such as Schengen [the EU’s passport free zone], or the Common Agricultural Policy.”
“With Greece, Portugal, Spain — the EU has a hard time supporting these countries in the economic crisis. It is not able any more to help its members recover from the crisis.”
Bozkir, who was Turkey’s ambassador to the EU between 2005 and 2009 and is now the chief of the foreign affairs committee in the Turkish parliament, blamed the situation on problems in the EU architecture — fiscal union between unequal economies and its consensus-based decision-making process.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Police Under Fire in New Book
A sociologist’s investigation into a French anti-crime squad operating in the suburbs of Paris has raised questions about current police conduct in France. Sociologist Didier Fassin spent a year and a half inside the Brigade anticriminalité (BAC), newspaper Libération reports. His findings, published in a new book, are strongly critical of police behaviour and conduct in the field. Fassin, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, points to several underlying problems including inefficiency, a propensity for violence and widespread racist attitudes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ISTAT Report Points to Rising Number of Only Children
(AGI) Rome — Italian statistic office ISTAT publishes its latest ‘Youngsters and Daily Life’ report. The report points to growing numbers of only children, with single parents, tech-savvy, with less pocket money, more mobiles, an active extracurricular life, fond of cinema, theatre and reading (with conspicuous differences, however, north to south). Between 1998 and 2011 only children went from 23.8 to 25.7pc; minors with 2 or more kin fell from 23.1pc to 21.2pc; minors with 1 kin were stable at 53.1pc. Minors living in single parent households doubled from 6pc to 12pc. Minors in households with a single breadwinner and a full time mother fell from 40.5pc to 28.7pc; minors with both parents employed account for 41.5pc.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Takes Office, Berlusconi Bitter
Corriere della Sera, 18 November 2011
“Pensions, property tax and labour: Monti’s plan”, leads Corriere della Sera, summarising the new PM’s Novermber 17 speech to the Senate. Mario Monti’s team of technocratic ministers won confidence from both houses of parliament, with only the secessionist Northern League voting against.
In his 17 November speech Monti admitted the need for another austerity budget that could be worth around 11 billion euros. “As a free-marketist and advocate of open society, Monti chose to dedicate his government to young and women — whose marginality constitutes a huge waste of resources and an obstacle to growth — and to reduce inequities in the labor market”, reads Corriere’s editorial.
“But he cannot ignore the former majority”, whose parliamentary support he needs and which is refusing to consider the reintroduction of property tax abolished in 2008. The broad consensus behind the former EU commissioner must not be taken for granted, adds Corriere, noting that after his surprisingly compliant withdrawal from power, Silvio Berlusconi betrayed anger in an address to his party’s senators in which he spoke of a “suspension of democracy” and warned that the new government will last “as long as we want it to last”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
New Results Show Neutrinos Still Faster Than Light
One of the most staggering results in physics — that neutrinos may go faster than light — has not gone away with two further weeks of observations. The researchers behind the jaw-dropping finding are now confident enough in the result that they are submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal.
“The measurement seems robust,” says Luca Stanco of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Padua, Italy. “We have received many criticisms, and most of them have been washed out.” Stanco is a member of the OPERA collaboration, which shocked the world in September with the announcement that the ghostly subatomic particles had arrived at the Gran Sasso mine in Italy about 60 nanoseconds faster than light speed from the CERN particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland, 730 kilometres away.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Muslim Students Denied High School Prayer Slot
High school student Ibrahim El Kadi asked if he could pray while at school. “No,” said his principal.
He asked for a quiet prayer area “for all religions” and was quoted the Education Ministry’s official line.
“No one has the legal right to religious practice during working hours, neither employees nor students.”
The denial compelled El Kadi and some 40 other students in “multicultural” Ulsrud High School to protest in mock prayer outside the school’s library. Now they pray in the bitter cold of a nearby parking lot.
The principal, for his part, said he had received complaints from students who felt “excluded” by the prayer. So, he told the Muslim students to leave and stop praying, although recess provided just enough time for prayer.
City schools committee councillor, Torger Ødegaard, told broadcaster NRK that quiet rooms for prayer are not a good idea.
“School is not a religious institution. School is a knowledge institution,” Ødegaard told NRK.
Meanwhile, El Kadi and the Oslo school’s Muslim students said they won’t relent until they have a prayer space.
“We’ll pray out here even if it snows,” said fellow student protester Aslihan Bozkurt.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik’s Island Massacre Was Plan B: Lawyer
Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik went on his killing spree on Utøya island on July 22nd because a bomb he set off failed to demolish the prime minister’s offices, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Friday. “It was clearly the result of the explosion that led to his decision to go to Utøya,” where hundreds of young people were gathered for a summer camp hosted by the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing, defence attorney Geir Lippestad told the VG daily.
On July 22nd, Behring Breivik, who has claimed to have been on a crusade against multiculturalism and the “Muslim invasion” of Europe, first set off a car bomb outside the government buildings in Oslo that house the offices of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, killing eight people. After that, he went to Utøya, some 40 kilometres northwest of Oslo, where, disguised as a police officer, he spent nearly an hour and a half methodically killing another 69 people, most of them teens.
According to VG, which gained access to transcripts of police interrogations of the confessed killer, Behring Breivik only decided to carry out the island massacre when he heard on the radio that the 17-floor government tower had not collapsed in the blast. Police on Friday said it was “unfortunate” that the information had leaked out, and they were investigating to find the source of the leaks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Particles Still Faster Than Light in Experiment Re-Run
A fiercely contested experiment that appears to show the accepted speed limit of the Universe can be broken has yielded the same results in a re-run, European physicists said on Friday. But counterparts in the United States said the experiment still did not resolve doubts and the Europeans themselves acknowledged this was not the end of the story.
On September 23rd, the European team issued a massive challenge to fundamental physics by saying they had measured particles called neutrinos which travelled around six kilometres (3.75 miles) per second faster than the velocity of light, determined by Einstein to be the highest speed possible.
The neutrinos had been measured along a 732-kilometre trajectory between the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and a laboratory in Italy. The scientists at CERN and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy scrutinised the results of the so-called OPERA experiment for nearly six months before cautiously making the announcement.
In October, responding to criticism that they had been tricked by a statistical quirk, the team decided they would carry out a second series of experiments. This time, the scientists altered the structure of the proton beam, a factor that critics said could have affected the outome.
The modification helped the team identify individual particles when they were fired out and when they arrived at their destination. The new tests “confirm so far the previous results,” the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) said in a press release.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Reframing the Debate on Islam in France
Why does the public expression of Islam pose a problem — not just in France, but all over Europe? Yesterday, it was the construction of minarets in Switzerland; the day before, it was the headscarf. Today, it is the demand for halal (permissible according to Islamic law) meat in canteens and banned street prayers that have fuelled a sense of exclusion and led to tensions within French society. It’s in this context that a new report on Islam in the Arab majority French suburbs was published in October. Titled “Suburbs of the Republic”, this report by Gilles Kepel, a French political analyst specialising in Islam and the contemporary Arab world, comes a few months before the French presidential election, and confronts both politicians and Muslims with reciprocal responsibilities.
“Suburbs of the Republic”, which addresses some of the issues regarding Muslim integration in France since the 1980s, notes that there has been a strengthening of religious feeling in poorer districts. This increased religiosity in the suburbs is partly due to insensitivity and negligence on the part of political and public authorities. Because of the isolating social housing policy upheld by both leftist and rightist governments for decades, for example, Muslims immigrants have often had to live in homogenous communities, rather than in diverse ones. When it comes to the failure of education in these parts of the country (more than 50 per cent of students in these suburbs do not obtain an advanced degree), who is responsible? For obvious reasons, Kepel highlights education as a major challenge in his main conclusion, which is directed at the government.
These socio-economic issues are bound to have a negative impact on Muslims dealing with their identity, leading them to feel that being Muslim might equal exclusion from French society. But this phenomenon is not unique to matters of religious identity; it is also an issue of being part of an underprivileged social class. Kepel explains that “this assertion of identity should not be understood too literally; it is also another way of asking to integrate in society, not necessarily to reject it.” In no way does this absolve French Muslims of their responsibility. In fact, addressing the other side of the problem falls to religious, intellectual or cultural Muslim leaders themselves. This recent eruption of the public expression of Muslim faith has been sudden, often chaotic, identity-based and at times reactive. The majority of Muslim leaders have yet to realise the level of concern this has triggered in secular societies, such as France’s.
One thing is certain: everyone agrees on the values of the French republic. The issues under question are strictly of a technical and ethical nature. I propose two principles that might help us, within existing laws, to find viable ethical-technical solutions. Discourse ethics is a concept coined by German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, for whom mutual understanding is the product of debate and discussion. Additionally, reasonable accommodation, a legal concept invented by Canadians to allow accommodations when possible in order to avoid discriminating against minorities, could also offer a general framework for the resolution of this major social issue of integration.
Take the example of Muslims praying on the street. The street prayer ban in September made media headlines. The solution to this problem involving the perceived takeover of public space is incredibly simple and can be addressed through the Canadian principle of reasonable accommodation. Namely, since Friday prayers are fairly short a mayor could, for example, rent out a room to those observing it for a few hours, pending the purchase of their own facility. In the absence of any other solution, and to accommodate the needs of the faithful, a Muslim congregation could also conduct two or three prayer services every Friday, instead of just one in which people spill over onto the street. This canonical option is indeed possible. With a modicum of goodwill and common sense, a solution can always be found, provided ideology, politics and fanaticism don’t mix. The key is a desire to live together in respect and fraternity — the national motto of France.
(Tareq Oubrou is Director of the Bordeaux Mosque and President of the Imams of France Association. This article was distributed by Common Ground News Service).
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: An Election for Nothing
El País, Madrid
Mariano Rajoy’s right-wing Popular Party is set to win the Spanish general election this 20 November and apply more austerity. But as long as Germany fails to assume its responsibilities at a European level, the new government will be powerless to solve the country’s crisis.
José Ignacio Torreblanca
Pure coincidence or faithful reflection of the world we live in, the two most recent election reversals in Spain, that of 2004 and, predictably, this Sunday the 20th of November, have proceeded in parallel with events (the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the worsening eurozone crisis) that reveal in stark fashion the utter impossibility of separating the national from the international. Today, as in 2004, the security challenges facing the public — of course, at different magnitudes: physical security then, economic security today — are as much beyond as they are within our own borders.
To restore the credibility of Spain internationally and place the country at the forefront of European leadership will, inevitably, mean returning to the path of growth, creating good quality jobs and boosting our productivity: in short, rectifying our past mistakes. But the truth is that the sacrifices resulting from budget cuts and structural reforms can turn out to be useless if they’re not accompanied by far-reaching European decisions.
Markets have discounted reforms at national level
If the polls aren’t mistaken, Spain is about to complete the changes in government in the four countries in the south of Europe that until now have suffered the greatest financial difficulties. The trajectories of each differ greatly: from the intervention in relatively stable Portugal to the constant intervention in permanently unstable Greece, passing through Italy on probation, under a government of technocrats and obliged to show up at the bailiff’s regularly; and finally to a Spain that, despite having undertaken major reforms, has found these were insufficient or ignored by the markets.
The governments of southern Europe have already revealed, or are about to reveal, all their cards: cuts, austerity, government by technocrats — whatever it takes, though there isn’t much left in the repertoire. In addition, the icy reception by the markets of the technocrats moving into office in Greece and Italy, plus the hike in the risk premium that Spain is getting hit by, are the best proof that solutions to the crisis are much more to be found beyond our borders than inside them.
It lends the impression that the markets have discounted the reforms at the national level; that is to say, the markets assume there will be reforms, and they’ll be hard ones, but seem to have arrived in advance at a conclusion that has so far evaded Europe’s leaders: the crisis will still be here so long as the markets continue to doubt whether Germany and the European Central Bank are willing to act as lenders of last resort. That is, ultimately, what’s being clarified these last few days…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Scientists Create Light From Almost Nothing
Scientists at Chalmers University in Sweden have proved that a vacuum is not, in fact, empty, by capturing light in it. It is an experiment confirming a theory of quantum mechanics first proposed over 40 years ago.
Physicists at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, have managed to turn “virtual” light particles, flickering in and out of existence in a vacuum, into measurable, material particles.
The experiment was based on one of the more confusing, yet important principles in quantum mechanics: that a vacuum is by no means empty. In fact, empty space is a seething ocean of infinitesimal particles that fluctuate in and out of existence, defying the laws of classical physics because they only exist for the briefest of moments.
The Chalmers team succeeded in getting photons to leave their virtual state and become real photons, e.g. measurable light. They did this by effectively tricking the photons into thinking they were bouncing off a mirror spinning at close to the speed of light.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Big Banks Underwhelm With Strategy “Changes”
Switzerland’s big banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, have failed to convince markets that they have fully turned their backs on risky trading despite restructuring plans.
Both banks have recently signalled their intention to scale back investment banking operations under the guise of putting wealthy clients first. But the changes have not gone far enough for some observers.
In a note to investors, Bank Sarasin described UBS’s restructuring — announced on Thursday — as “evolution not revolution”.
The note expressed disappointment that UBS had not cut back investment banking further to meet the strategy of an operation just large enough to service wealthy clients and institutions.
“We are not fully convinced that UBS really needs an investment bank of that size and diversity. The list of businesses to be exited remains small. UBS’s strategy mirrors that of many peers struggling to adjust to more challenging market conditions,” Sarasin commented.
Herd mentality
Sarasin had also been lukewarm on Credit Suisse’s restructuring plans announced at the start of this month.
“While we think that this points in the right direction, overall however, we would like to see more pronounced action in Credit Suisse’s investment banking alignment process,” Sarasin said in another note.
Zurich Cantonal Bank analyst Andreas Venditti also believes that both banks could have gone further — but conceded that the larger size of Credit Suisse’s investment banking operations within the group made it harder for that bank to scale back significantly.
“I am disappointed that there is no significant shift in strategy,” Venditti told swissinfo.ch. “This will not really change the structure of either bank.”
Venditti is also convinced that both banks are merely following the herd with the same tinkering as their global rivals…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four Charged With Terrorism Offences
Four men from Birmingham have been charged with terrorism offences, West Midlands Police said.
Khobaib Hussain, Ishaaq Hussain and Shahid Kasam Khan, all aged 19, along with 24-year-old Naweed Mahmood Ali will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court this morning.
They were arrested at their homes in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham on November 15.
Police said the men were charged in connection with Operation Pitsford, a major counter terrorism investigation.
The four are accused of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, including collecting money for terrorism and travelling to Pakistan for terrorism training.
Operation Pitsford has already seen eight people charged and appear in court.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Makespace Architects Gets Approval for Converting Camberwell Pub Into Mosque
Bethnal Green-based practice Makespace Architects has received a green light for execution of the last phase of a £400,000 ($631,204) project involving transformation of a 1960s public house in Camberwell, London, UK to a mosque.
Work involves creation of a third storey in the building, a circulation staircase serving as a liaison between all levels, and a front extension covering three floors. The revamped structure will refrain from creation of motifs which usually form a part of traditional Islamic structures including arches, domes as well as minarets. Instead, the building will sport an abstract conventional Islamic style through use of unique materials. The exterior of the facility will be reclad in panels made of concrete. The look will be complemented by a patternwork in ceramic tile and metal mesh screening. The project is expected to commence by the end of 2012.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stockton Community Gathers for Mosque Dome’s Arrival
A ONE-AND-A-HALF tonne dome was lowered on to an imposing new mosque yesterday, altering a North-East town’s skyline. The £2.2m mosque has been built in Bowefield Lane, Stockton, with money raised from the local community and the Muslim community across the UK. The structure, the largest of three domes on the mosque, was built in Leeds and was transported to the North-East in sections and reassembled. A 28-tonne crane was used to lower it into place, in a process that took more than an hour.
Local councillor Mohammed Jarved has been involved in the fundraising campaign and said the mosque had been welcomed by all the community, not just Muslims. He said: “At the planning stage there were some objections, with people worried about noise and traffic and so on, and we had some meetings with residents from time to time about it. But, once we started building, we got really nice comments and messages from people saying it’s a lovely building. Just the other day, as I was picking up my newspaper, a woman came up to me with a pound coin saying, ‘Hello councillor, this is for the new mosque,’ which was really nice, so it all seems quite positive.”
It is the first purpose-built mosque created on Teesside, but another £1m is needed for the interior work. It is hoped the mosque will open next year. The regular congregation at the mosque is about 700 to 800 people. A service to thank local people and everyone who has helped is planned for next month.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Accord With France Over Belgrade Tube
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 18 — Serbia and France have today signed an accord for the construction of the underground in the Serb capital city, whose first line is to come into service during 2017. The overall cost of the project has been put at one billion euros and the Belgrade underground system is to be constructed by Alstom, a company with a great deal of experience in the sector, which has built over forty underground systems across the world in the past seventy years.
The accord was sealed by the Serb Deputy Premier, with responsibility for European integration, Bozidar Djelic, and by the French Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade, Pierre Lellouche, as well as by the Mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Djilas. The first line of the new metropolitan will be 15 km in length and have 25 stations, crossing the city on a north-west to south-west axis. Work is to commence in 2013.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brahma Chellaney: America Must Not Fuel the Fires of Fundamentalism
FOLLOWING the death of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, Libya’s interim government announced the “liberation” of the country. It also declared that a system based on sharia law, including polygamy, would replace the secular dictatorship Gaddafi ran for 42 years. Swapping one form of authoritarianism for another seems a cruel let-down after seven months of Nato airstrikes in the name of democracy. The western powers that brought about regime change have made little effort to prevent its new rulers from establishing a theocracy. But this is the price the west willingly pays in exchange for choosing the new leadership. Indeed, the cloak of Islam helps protect the credibility of leaders who might be seen as foreign puppets.
For the same reason, the west has condoned the rulers of the oil sheikhdoms for their long-standing alliance with radical clerics. For example, the decadent House of Saud, backed by the United States, not only practices Wahhabi Islam — the source of modern Islamic fundamentalism — but also exports this fringe form of the faith, gradually snuffing out more liberal Islamic traditions. Yet, when the Saudi Crown Prince died recently, the US stood by silently as the ruling family appointed its most reactionary Islamist as the new heir to the throne.
So intrinsic have the Arab monarchs become to US interests that America has failed to stop these royals funding Muslim extremist groups and madrasas in other countries. Arab petrodollars have played a key role in fomenting militant Islamic fundamentalism that targets the west, Israel and India as its enemies. The US interest in maintaining pliant regimes in oil-rich countries trumps all other considerations.
With western support, the oil monarchies, even the most tyrannical, have been able to ride out the Arab Spring, emerging virtually unscathed. For the US, the sheikhdoms that make up the Gulf Co-operation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — are critical for geostrategic reasons as. After withdrawing from Iraq, the US is considering using Kuwait as a new military hub to expand its military presence in the region and foster a US-led “security architecture,” under which its air and naval patrols would be regionally integrated.
Nato-led regime change in Libya — which holds the world’s largest reserves of the light sweet crude oil that American and European refineries prefer — was not really about ushering in liberal democracy. The new Libya faces uncertain times. The only certain element is its new rulers will remain beholden to those who helped install them. America’s ties with Islamist rulers and groups were cemented in the 1980’s, when the Reagan administration used Islam to spur armed resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In 1985, at a White House ceremony attended by several Afghan mujahideen — who became the Taleban and al-Qaeda — Reagan gestured toward his guests and declared, “These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of America’s Founding Fathers.”
Yet the lessons of the anti-Soviet struggle in Afghanistan have already been forgotten. The Obama administration’s current effort to strike a Faustian bargain with the Taleban, for example, ignores America’s own experience of the consequences of following the path of expediency. Another lesson that has been ignored is the need for caution in training Islamic insurgents and funnelling arms to them. In Libya, bringing the rebel militias under government control could prove difficult, potentially creating a jihadist citadel at Europe’s southern doorstep. Exponents of US policy argue that it is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils. Unsavoury allies — from Islamist militias to regimes that bankroll them — may be an unavoidable price to be paid in the service of larger interests. Paradoxically, the US practice of propping up Islamist rulers in the Middle East often results in strong anti-US sentiment, as well as support for more independent and “authentically” Islamist forces. The fight against Islamist terrorism can succeed only by ensuring states do not strengthen those who extol violence as a religious tool. Unfortunately, with the US wilfully ignoring lessons of the recent past, the extremists are once again waiting in the wings.
• Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi Centre for Policy Research, is the author of Asian Juggernaut and Water: Asia’s New Battleground
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Dozens Hurt as Christian March Attacked in Cairo
Hundreds of Coptic Christians marching in Cairo on Thursday came under attack by assailants throwing stones and bottles and 25 people were lightly injured in subsequent clashes, a security official said. They were marching to demand justice for the Christian victims of a clash with soldiers in October that left at least 25 people dead, most of them Christians.
The official said the Copts were attacked in the northern Shoubra neighbourhood with stones and bottles, and that some among them responded in kind. He said supporters of an Islamist candidate for upcoming parliamentary election joined in the attack on the Copts. An AFP correspondent on the scene said hundreds of riot police were deployed to the area and that the clashes had eventually subsided. Copts, who make up roughly 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people, complain of discrimination in the Muslim-majority country. There has been a spike in sectarian clashes since a popular uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February. The deadliest took place on October 9, when thousands of Christians protesting an attack on a church clashed with soldiers. Witnesses said the soldiers fired on the demonstrators and ran them over with military vehicles, which the military denies.
The military said a number its soldiers were killed in the clash.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Cairo: Muslim Brotherhood to Protest Army’s Power
US officials meet with group’s representatives; Brotherhood official: Those who oppose Shari’a are “drunks, druggies or adulterers.”
The Muslim Brotherhood will join other Islamist and youth groups in staging a mass protest in Cairo on Friday against a constitutional proposal that would shield Egypt’s powerful military from parliamentary oversight. The Brotherhood said the demonstration would be the first in a series of rallies intended to pressure the cabinet to withdraw plans that could allow the army to defy the will of the country’s soon-to-be elected government. Most polls show the Brotherhood taking at least a plurality of votes in parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28. “We negotiated with the cabinet, which insisted on clinging to non-democratic principles, leaving us with no alternative but to join the mass protest to protect democracy,” the Brotherhood said in a statement, Reuters reported. Egypt’s BikyaMasr website predicted that hundreds of thousands of people could answer the call to hit the streets.
The protest would mark an escalation in tension between the military and the longbanned Brotherhood, Egypt’s two most influential institutions in the aftermath of February’s ouster of longtime president Hosni Mubarak. Meanwhile, US officials have held their first meeting with Brotherhood representatives at the movement’s new main office, the Islamist group’s IkhwanWeb website reported. US officials held their first meeting with Brotherhood representatives last month, but Monday marked their first visit to the movement’s gleaming new multistory headquarters in southeastern Cairo.
The website said Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, met with Jacob Wells, a representative from the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and Peter Chi, undersecretary for economic and political affairs at the American Embassy in Cairo. “The Arab people wish to establish democratic states inspired by the Arab and Islamic cultures advocating religious values, and adding a new example to democratic systems in the world,” Erian told the officials, according to IkhanWeb. “For his part, Jacob Wells stated that the US administration was reviewing its former stances. The US respects the Arab people’s desire to build a democratic system, he said, and it is significant that the rights and freedoms of all including women and minorities be protected,” the website reported.
“Erian emphasized that the US administration should support the Palestinian rights, and respect the will of the Palestinian people to secure a free and independent state,” IkhwanWeb reported. “The US should do what’s morally correct and condemn the repeated attacks and arrests of the Palestinians, by the Israeli occupation forces,” it quoted the Brotherhood leader as saying. Earlier this week, Erian told a conference in Cairo, “No one in Egypt — not a Copt, a liberal, a leftist, no one — dares say they are against Islam and the application of Shari’a: all say they want the Islamic Shari’a. And when referendum time comes, whoever says ‘We do not want Shari’a’ will expose their hidden intentions.”
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, an online intelligence newsletter, said Erian threatened Egypt’s military council with “massacres” if it interfered in politics and Islam’s role in the constitution. Addressing Coptic Christians, he said, “You will never find a strong fortress for your faith and rights except in Islam and Shari’a… Our Lord has commanded us to be just, and we have learned it from Islam. We do not wish to hurt anyone.” Another Brotherhood leader, Sheikh Sayyid Abdul Karim, told the 5,000 conference attendees: “Those who do not wish to see Islam [i.e. Shari’a law] applied are drunks, druggies, adulterers and brothel-owners.”
Raymond Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American writer on Islam at the California-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, wrote that the Brotherhood’s more candid rhetoric reflects its growing comfort in the media spotlight. Blogging on the Jihad Watch website on Tuesday, Ibrahim wrote, “While such talk is commonplace from Egypt’s self-styled Salafists, it is significant that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has mastered the art of stealth, the art of appearing ‘moderate’ — to the point that President Obama’s intelligence chief described them as ‘largely secular’ — is beginning to feel comfortable enough to let snippets of the truth come out.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Islamist Parties Take to the Street Against the Military, Threaten Violence
Led by the Muslim Brotherhood, thousands protested today in Tahrir Square, hurling slogans against the military, which they accuse of claiming too much power. Pro-democracy parties boycott the event because of its confrontational nature. For the spokesman of the Egyptian Catholic Church, Islamists are using demonstrations as “a show of force”. Salafis disrupt memorial procession for massacred Copts, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Thirty-two people are injured.
Cairo (AsiaNews) — Thousands of supporters of Islamist parties rallied today in Tahrir Square to protest against excessive power wielded by the military. Led by the Muslim Brotherhood, the demonstration saw pro-democracy parties stay away. Although they too are against the military, they also oppose Islamist parties’ strong-arm tactics. The latter object to plans that would make the military the guardian of ‘constitutional legitimacy’, and thus give them a final say on the 28 November elections. Unless the proposed constitutional change is not shelved, Islamists say they would escalate their campaign.
“The Muslim Brotherhood are provocateurs,” said Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman of the Egyptian catholic Church. “They are using these demonstrations to flex their muscle vis-à-vis the military and the nation. However, they are also showing their truer, most intransigent face, which they have cloaked so far under a veneer of moderate Islamic political activism. This could play in favour of pro-democracy parties who have Egypt’s interests at heart, and are not just vying for power.”
Public opinion polls indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood is leading among voters, especially in country’s poorest region, with about 30 per cent. Their camp includes some of the most intransigent and radical Islamic groups like Salafis who are the main instigators of anti-Christian violence.
For example, dozens of Salafis, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails, yesterday disrupted the memorial service for the victims of the massacre of Christians of 9 October, traditionally held 40 days after death.
For four hours, the procession of 500 people was blocked on a road that leads from a Coptic neighbourhood to the square where Egyptian state TV is located. Eventually, mourners were able to leave but could not make it to site of the memorial service. The attack left 32 people injured, Copts but also police agents brought in to stop the violence.
“Unfortunately, it is too early to know what will happen over the next few months or if, as some analysts predict, the Muslim Brotherhood will win the elections,” Fr Greiche said.
Egypt, the clergyman added, is very different from Tunisia, Algeria or Libya where Muslim represent more than 90 per cent of the population, and Christians are few and usually foreign-born.
“In our country, the Christian community is ancient and represents more than 10 per cent of the population, which is more than 8,000,000 people. Despite their divisions, Liberal parties are winning people over, especially the better educated,” the clergyman explained.
Nevertheless, “The situation remains very critical. We must be ready for any scenario and support those who are willing to take a stand for their country.” (S.C.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Woman to Get 80 Lashes for Blogging Without Clothes
Twenty-year-old Alia el-Mahdy and a male companion are accused of defaming Islam and contributing to indecency in Egypt.
A coalition of graduates of Islamic Law in Egypt have denounced a 20-year-old Egyptian Muslim woman Alia el-Mahdy and her companion, Karim Amer, for publishing nude photographs of themselves on their blog. The coalition contends that the pair have ‘violated morality,’ as well as inciting ‘indecency’ besides insulting Islam, according to the Bikya Masr website. The complaint was filed by the coalition with the attorney general’s office of the north African country and claims that Mahdy’s goal is to “broadcast her obscene ideology with nude photographs.”
The group of lawyers is demanding that the pair be chastised according to sharia — Muslim religious law. “The former Constitution and the new articles in the new Constitution say that Islamic law is the basis of legislation, we therefore request that the two bloggers be punished according to Islamic sanctions,” said Ahmed Yehia of the coalition to Bikya Masr. “It is an insult to the Revolution since these two people wish to present themselves as revolutionaries demanding sexual freedom and are giving a bad name to the Revolution,” continued Yehia. “Our duty is to fight against corruption and this is a case of corruption. We are fighting against people who are trying to corrupt society with foreign and unacceptable customs such as the sexual liberty they are demanding.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Live Updates: Egypt’s ‘Friday of One Demand’ As it Unfolds
A blow-by-blow account of the largest Tahrir protest since July, as Islamists dominate a rally by forces from across Egypt’s political and ideological spectrum, demanding a swift transfer of power
13:10 Alexandria’s rally from the iconic Qaed Ibrahim Mosque swells with numbers reaching 40,000.
12:55 Supporters of the Salafist Nour Party chant, demanding “a civil state with an Islamic reference” and declaring, “We do not want a military state.”
12:50 According to an Ahram Online reporter around 20,000 demonstrators are gathered at Alexandria’s Qaed Ibrahim Mosque, adjacent to the city’s main plaza, Saad Zaghloul Square. Though the press of protesters represent a wide spectrum of political and ideological beliefs, Salafist groups dominate. Demonstrators are chanting “Down with military rule” and “Down with the field marshal.” The vast majority of banners and mottos are calling for a swift transfer of power. Two marches are planned in the Mediterranean port city: one will set off from the Qaed Ibrahim Mosque while another from the district of Abu Qir. Both marches will converge on the Northern Military Zone, the army’s headquarters near Sidi Gaber.
12:45 A banner belonging to one of the participating Salafist groups reads: “Sit-in until the regime is reconstructed. Our one demand is the handover of power by April 2012. To the military council: keep your promise; the 6 months have passed.” The Muslim Brotherhood’s presence is highly visible in the square, as scores of members can be seen in their token green caps while others bear green flags and banners.
12:35 Following Friday prayers, the tens of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square repeat the chants echoing from the main stage near the Mohamed Mahmoud entrance: “Allah Akbar” (God is Great) and “Down with the document,” referring to El-Selmi’s proposed supra-constitutional principles. Many of the demonstrators are carrying Egyptian flags.
12:20 Demonstrators gathered at the Mostafa Mahmoud Mosque begin their march toward Tahrir Square.
12:10 Protesters begin Friday prayers.
11:55 Demonstrators in the square are getting ready for Friday prayers which will be led by Sheikh Mazhar Shahin of the Omar Makram Mosque located on the square’s periphery. Shahin has consistently been the go-to preacher for Tahrir’s noon sermon since the 18-day uprising.
11:50 Dozens are gathered at the Mostafa Mahmoud Mosque about to march to Tahrir Square. Ahead of today’s protests, the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page called for a march from the abovementioned mosque to the square under, calling for presidential elections soon after the upcoming parliamentary polls.
11:45 Protesters circumambulate the square: some wearing the MB’s green cap while others raise Qurans and chant “the Quran is our constitution” and “Oh field marshal, the men are in the square.”
11:35 The Ministry of Health declares that it will place 18 ambulances as well as 3 mobile clinics in Tahrir Square. The ministry’s official spokesperson, Mohamed El-Sherbini, added that hospitals have been placed on high alert in Cairo, Giza, Alexandria and Suez.
11:25 Buses transporting Salafist and Brotherhood members from Egypt’s different governorates continue to arrive near Tahrir Square.
10:40 Tens of Syrians join Tahrir’s protests, chanting against Syria’s president, Bashar Al-Assad.
10:30 Tens of thousands of protestors have gathered in Tahrir Square well before Friday’s noon prayer, chanting against the “El-Selmi Document” which contains government-proposed supra-constitutional principles. Several stages have been erected. Two main stages have been put up near the Mohamed Mahmoud entrance, another opposite the Mogamma government building and yet another near the Talaat Harb Street entrance. In all six stages have erected around the Cairo’s largest square. The entrances to Tahrir have all been closed off, as demonstrators created committees to search those entering the square. In the square’s metro stop, Anwar Sadat station, dozens are queuing at each of the six or so entrances.
Most of the gathered protestors thus far belong either to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and it’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, or to one of the participating Salafist groups.
Several tents were erected in the square Thursday night in anticipation of the largest Friday demonstration since July. Banners, reading “Down with military rule” could be seen early Friday morning all around the protest’s venue.
A number of groups including the MB, several factions of the Salafist movement, the Adl Party, the Revolutionary Socialists, the Democratic Workers Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, April 6 Youth Movement, Revolution Youth Coalition and others have declared their plan to participate. Others, however, have decided to boycott. They include the Free Egyptians Party, Tagammu Party, Wafd, and the Egyptian Communist Party. While some of those planning to join the Friday of One Demand are calling for a quick handover of power, others are also protesting the Selmi Document which contains the highly controversial supra-constitutional principles.
2:00am Hundreds of protesters began preparations for Egypt’s ‘Friday of One Demand’ in Tahrir Square on Thursday night, with indications some are preparing for a sit-in. Around two hundred protesters gathered at the epicentre of Egypt’s revolution last night, setting up tents and podiums on the central island area. Others were busy hanging banners and placards on street and traffic lights.
One of the banners read: “The Friday of One Demand — the handover of power.” Other placards had slogans against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), such as “down with the military council.” Many political parties have been calling on the ruling SCAF to come up with a timeline to end its interim rule in the near future. As usual ahead of mass demos, street vendors were numerous in Tahrir, trying to make the most of the occasion. They, along with demonstrators, caused some minor traffic disruption.Popular committee members wearing yellow vests were trying to organise traffic and the iconic square bustled with people and vehicles. Some of the protesters had blankets and were already preparing to sleep on the central island, an indication they were eyeing an open-ended sit-in. Some tried to evoke memories of the popular uprising by playing famous patriotic songs.
Should protesters stage a sit-in, it would be the third in Tahrir Square. The first historic sit-in started during the revolt in January. It lasted for 18 days and resulted in the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak on 11 February.
The second one started on 8 July and was forcibly dispersed on 1 August. It was held to demand the fulfilment of the revolution’s demands. For a while afterwards, joint military and police forces were keen to prevent protesters from gathering on the central island in Tahrir Square. Later, however, it hosted other million-man marches.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bahrain Sells $750m Islamic Bond
Manama will use money to finance budget deficit of about 5% of gross domestic product
Manama: Bahrain sold $750 million in seven-year Islamic bonds, becoming the first Arab country affected by the Arab Spring this year to tap global bond markets. The sale was the first in more than a year for Bahrain. Bahrain sold the sukuk at a yield of 6.273 per cent. Scarce sovereign sales in the region helped investors overlook Bahrain’s slowing economic growth, said Sergey Dergachev, at Union Investment Privatfonds. Islamic bonds yielded 75 basis points, or 0.75 of a percentage point, less than the average yield on non-Sharia compliant bonds in the region yesterday, according to HSBC/Nasdaq Dubai bond indexes. “It’s like a pearl, such an issue, since it’s very unlikely to see the issuer very frequently on the market,” Dergachev said in an e-mailed response to questions, adding that he bought the sukuk. “It can be expected that Saudi Arabia will be there to help Bahrain should it face some financing pressures.”
While Bahrain’s economic growth may slow to 1.5 per cent in 2011 from 4 per cent a year earlier, that’s still faster than Tunisia and Egypt, International Monetary Fund data show. The price Bahrain paid was “generous,” Malek Khodr Temsah, assistant vice-president of treasury and investment at Manama-based Albaraka Banking Group BSC, said in an e-mailed answer to questions. “We felt the issuer had left some cash on the table for investors.” BNP Paribas, Citigroup and Standard Chartered Bank were hired to manage the sale. Bahrain will use the money to finance a budget deficit of about 5 per cent of gross domestic product, Central Bank Governor Rashid Al Maraj said in a September interview in Washington.
Bahrain may become the first GCC member to require oil prices above $100 a barrel to balance its budget, HSBC Holdings said in a quarterly regional report on October 6. “Their fiscal position is on a knife’s edge,” Gabriel Sterne, London-based senior economist at Exotix Holdings, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The fiscal outlook is more important than Saudi support, which itself can only go up to a point.” Brent crude prices, a benchmark for many Middle Eastern crudes, was trading at about $112 a barrel in London.
Sovereign Issuers
Bahrain is among three Arab sovereign issuers that have Islamic bonds, along with Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah. The extra yield investors demand to hold Dubai’s 6.396 per cent sukuk maturing in November 2014 over Bahrain’s 6.247 per cent Sharia-compliant security due June 2014 widened 46 basis points so far this month to 255 yesterday, according to Bloomberg prices. The island kingdom, which is rated three levels above junk grade at Moody’s Investors Service, saw its default risk more than double this year to 379, according to data provider CMA.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Fears Syria’s Descent Into Civil War
(AGI) Washington — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sees the armed resistance by Syrian Army deserters as a precursor to civil war. “I think there could be a civil war with a very determined opposition,” said Clinton, “well-armed and ultimately, well-financed, if not led and influenced by army deserters” from Bashar el Assad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt and Syria Protests: Live Updates
11.05am: Syria’s apparent acceptance of Arab League observers (see 10.53am) comes as the French foreign minister, Alain Juppe (pictured left), has bemoaned the failure of the UN security council to act against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He said:
We must continue to exert pressure, the UN must act, it is not normal for the U.N. Security Council not to act. We have called on Assad to change but the regime did not want to know, which is not acceptable. We are ready to strengthen the sanctions.
Juppe, at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, said France wants to work with the Arab League and Turkey as well as the Syrian opposition. He also urged the Syrian opposition to avoid an “armed insurrection,” amid increasing reports of armed clashes between the sides. Davutoglu, responding to a question on whether his country would support a no-fly zone over Syria, said there might be need to enforce some measures if Syria maintains its crackdown on civilians.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
How the Arab Spring Can Save Europe’s International Ambitions
One of the most striking elements of the outside involvement in the Arab Spring is the failure of the Obama administration to develop a comprehensive approach in dealing with the uprisings. The United States is unable to truly champion freedom and democracy, largely due to its close relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. This provides opportunities for other actors — such as the European Union or China — to upgrade its engagement with the region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar, The Tiny Gulf State That Has Turned Into a Big Player in the Great Game
Qatar has emerged as the pea-sized power behind the Arab League’s tough new stance over Syria.
Almost exactly a year ago, the Queen hosted a state dinner for one of the world’s more colourful couples, the portly Emir of Qatar and his spectacularly attired wife, Sheikha Mozah. I wrote at the time that there were two interesting things about their tiny country, which few Britons could pinpoint on a map and even fewer pronounce properly. One was banal: it was very rich. The second struck me as odd, but it was what a number of people had told me: one diplomat said, “Everyone suddenly seems to hate Qatar.” In the intervening 12 months, the emirate has become much better known. Its jets have flown alongside our own over Libya. It has showered largesse on pro-democracy movements, even as its pet television station, Al Jazeera, publicised their revolutions. At home, the Emir announced the statelet’s first elections. Yet the dislike has only got worse. What has the poor old nouveau riche country done?
I’m not just talking about winning the right to host the World Cup in 2022 back in December — although the subsequent abuse of its culture, temperature, and manner of victory did, in retrospect, set the tone. Even though football fans never went so far as to burn the Qatari flag, that is what a lot of Arabs have been doing. At first, it was because they were paid to: dictators such as Colonel Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, seeing the Qatari hand in the revolutions that were bringing their reigns to an end, got out the bovver boys. But now there are protests in democratic Tunisia against Qatar’s interference in its politics, while in Libya, even those who have most cause to be grateful are complaining.
Take Mahmoud Jibril, formerly Libya’s interim prime minister and a man who, had it not been for the Emir, might now be swinging from Gaddafi’s gibbet. This week, he excoriated Qatar as “the most obvious” case of foreign powers relentlessly pursuing their own interests. Abdulrahman Shalgam, Libya’s envoy to the United Nations, was blunter. “Who is Qatar?” he asked in a television interview. “Does Qatar even have an army? Qatar only has mercenaries.” The emirate has undoubtedly behaved in two ways that are beyond the normal expectations of Arab states. For a start, rather than standing to the side and opining fruitlessly — the traditional role of the Arab League — it has jumped in and got its hands dirty. It had hundreds of its special forces in Libya, shipping in much-needed arms and advice to rebel bands. It was also the prime mover in the Arab League’s unexpected decision this week to go beyond hand-wringing over Syria and vote to deprive Bashar al-Assad of his place at the table.
On the other hand, Qatar has also gone further than removing dictators. Its money and influence have shaped these countries’ post-dictator politics in an Islamist way. It is host to Egypt’s most important cleric-in-exile, Yusef Qaradawi. It is friendly — to say the least — with the well-funded Ennahda, the self-proclaimed moderate Islamists who won Tunisia’s elections. And in Libya, its propulsion into the spotlight of Islamist militia leaders has been so controversial that even mild-mannered Western diplomats have spoken up. After Tripoli fell, one was alarmed to walk into a meeting at the defence ministry to hear them say that they couldn’t take a decision on one thorny topic, as they hadn’t yet consulted the Qatari chief of defence staff.
The Islamist connection is red rag to the world’s two leading sources of conspiracy theory. The Left points to the West’s close friendship with Qatar, which is home to 13,000 US troops and its Central Command, and says this is part of a capitalist plot to sabotage Arab democracy in the interests of Western oil supplies. The Right says that President Obama has been suckered into laying the ground for a new wave of Islamic conquest — more pacific than al-Qaeda, maybe, but no less hostile to Western principles. These theories can be partly true without being conspiracies. Yes, Washington has had ideological problems with Qatar. But presidents have taken the view that since Islamism is the region’s dominant ideology, it is better to do business with Islamic rulers who have a vested interest in taking on nihilistic regimes, whether secular (Gaddafi) or religious (the Taliban). Qatar practises an Islam that is devout but not so oppressive as to ban bars, women drivers, or other religions, and is promising to ensure that the region’s tumultuous revolutions toe the democratic line. Whether you are on the Left, Right or centre, that sounds like the sort of friend the US should be making.
There is another point, too. In the old world order, there were only two powers whose interventions counted: America and Russia. Today, the US can no longer claim exclusive rights to a policy of using money and troops to win friends and influence people. It may surprise us that some of the new players in the Great Game are the size of a squashed pea. But it shouldn’t shock us that they want to have their say.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: We Want to be Open-Air Museum
(ANSAmed) — PAESTUM (Salerno) — Turkey, an increasingly prominent player in international politics and economics, is also moving forwards on tourism and, by focusing on its immense archaeological heritage, is now aiming to become “a open-air museum “. These were the words of the Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ertugrul Gunay, when he spoke at Paestum to the sixteenth edition of the Mediterranean Archaeological Tourism Exchange, at which Turkey is guest of honour.
“Turkey — said the minister — is very rich in archaeological terms. We are well known for tourism in the sea, on the Aegean coast, but this is not enough. We have riches in all parts of the country, from east to west, from north to the south, and would like to become an open-air museum, from Nemrud to Aleppo.” For Gunay, this issue is closely linked to the battle for the return of Turkish artefacts in foreign museums: “Every time I go to the British Museum or the Louvre, or Berlin, I want to cry, or scream in anger. Unfortunately, many of these works were sold at regular intervals throughout the Ottoman Empire with written permission. I hope we can get back illegally exported items over the next 50-100 years. And in the next two or three years, I would like to see the return of the St Sophia to Istanbul, held by the Louvre. “
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islam Offers a Third Way in Pakistan and Tunisia: Pankaj Mishra
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — During the worldwide depression of the mid-1930s, the poet and Islamic modernist Muhammad Iqbal, often called Pakistan’s spiritual founder, wrote a poem dramatizing the inadequacies of Western political and economic systems. Democracy and capitalism had empowered a privileged elite in the name of the people, Iqbal felt. But he was not much fonder of Marxism, which was then coming into vogue among anti- colonial activists across South Asia and the Middle East:
“But what’s the answer to the mischief of that wise Jew That Moses without light, that cross-less Jesus Not a prophet, but with a book under his arm For what could be more dangerous than this That the serfs uproot the tents of their masters”
Confronted with extreme inequality and corrupt Westernized elites, many Muslim thinkers had already begun to present Islam as a guarantee of social justice. Setting up the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, Hassan al-Banna advocated the redistribution of wealth, and a crackdown on venal politicians and businessmen. Like al-Banna, Iqbal believed that the Prophet had transmitted the blueprint for a just society centuries before Marx — “the wise Jew” — worked it out in the British Museum. And he remained confident that after the ruling elites of capitalism and socialism had lost credibility, “the message of the Prophet might appear again.” Iqbal considered the idea of a classless society, in which the rich were custodians rather than owners of property, to be morally superior to socialism as well as capitalism:
“Protector of women’s honor, tester of men A message of death for all sorts of slavery Undivided amongst kings and beggars Cleans the wealth of all its filth Makes the rich the custodians of riches What could be greater than this revolution? Not to kings but to God belongs the land.”
I have been thinking of Iqbal’s lines in recent weeks as the Islamist democrats of Rashid Ghannouchi’s Ennahdha party triumphed in Tunisia’s first free elections in years, and the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan — declared by Pew Research Center to be the most popular political figure in Pakistan — staged a huge rally in Lahore, staking his first serious claim to power.
Very Different Men
On the face of it, the Tunisian and the Pakistani events have little in common. Ghannouchi, born in 1941 to a rural family, has long been considered a significant intellectual contributor to debates about secularism, modernity and Islam. The cosmopolitan, glamorous Khan has only begun, with the help of Iqbal works, to outline his political philosophy — what he calls in his new book “Pakistan: A Personal History” a “comprehensive blueprint for how Muslims should live in accordance with the highest ideals and best practices of Islam.” Furthermore, Ghannouchi is Tunisia’s unrivalled leader. Though popular among urban youth, Khan has yet to test his popularity in rural areas where most of Pakistan’s voters reside. The road to political power in a diverse society like Pakistan’s is long and hard, and may involve Khan in many compromises.
That said, the personal and political trajectories of the two figures are not dissimilar. Like many leaders and thinkers in Islamic countries, both travelled through secular ideologies and lifestyles — Ghannouchi as a Nasserite socialist, Khan as a denizen of London’s social scene — before arriving at a worldview grounded in Islam. More importantly, their respective countries have stumbled through many failed postcolonial experiments with Western political and economic systems, resulting in wayward elected governments and uneven economic development, before arriving at their current rendezvous with political Islam.
It may seem more understandable that a majority of Tunisians, who have suffered from a secular and kleptocratic despotism, want to experiment with a more Islamic polity. But why would Pakistanis, who felt the coercive power of an Islamic state for almost a decade under the military dictatorship of Mohammad Zia Ul-Haq, want to do the same? Perhaps because — and this is not sufficiently recognized — every generation brings to political life its own ideas, hopes and illusions. Too young to remember Zia’s regime, many Pakistanis invest their faith in the born-again Khan out of disgust with the modernizing military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who was president from 2001 to 2008, and interchangeable civilian politicians Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, who all share an appalling record of corruption and ineptitude. (Pakistanis are also thrilled by Khan’s unambiguous denunciations of the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone attacks in their country.)
Not Radical Revolutionaries
In any case, Tunisians voting for Ghannouchi and Pakistanis flocking to Khan’s rallies are not the radical revolutionaries or closet theocrats they are often made out to be by a paranoid local elite and a global liberal intelligentsia. Rather, these are people who have simply failed to develop the habit of seeing Islam as a purely religious phenomenon, separate from economics, politics, law and other aspects of collective life. Whether liberal and secular elites like it or not, there are a large number of socially conservative Muslims who wish to see the ethical principles of Islam play a more active role in public life. The mind-numbing division between “moderates” and “extremists” that often passes for profound understanding of Islamic societies in the West simply fails to account for this invisible majority of Muslims, who are unlikely to plump for secular liberalism either now or in the near future.
For many nationalist and reflexively conservative Pakistanis, Imran Khan’s belief that “if we follow Iqbal’s teaching, we can reverse the growing gap between Westernized rich and traditional poor that helps fuel fundamentalism” is not the empty rhetoric it may sound to a Westernized Pakistani. Indeed, the history of South Asia and the Middle East has repeatedly shown that the failure of modernizing endeavors, and the widespread suffering it unleashes, has always enhanced the moral prestige of Islam. In the eyes of its victims, the debacle of modernization and secularization has also diminished the credibility and authority of local elites as well as their Western sponsors.
The classic example, of course, was Iran. Visiting the Islamic Revolution after the fall of the secularizing Shah, the French philosopher Michel Foucault claimed that “Islam — which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization — has a good chance to become a gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men.” The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that Foucault rashly cheered on has, in another generational shift, run its course. And revolution per se may be far from the minds of young Pakistanis and Tunisians trying to regain control of their national destiny. But the powder keg of political Islam that Foucault spoke of remains dry elsewhere in the Muslim world; and its potency is only likely to increase as Western political and economic systems and ideologies seem, to many Muslims, feeble, and yet so malign.
(Pankaj Mishra, the author of “Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
No Sallah Ram for the Country’s Students in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur — As Nigerians enjoyed their delicious mutton during the Eid celebrations, there was no such treat for their compatriots living in Malaysia. The best they got was the flesh of domesticated bovine animals probably imported from Thailand or from other Malaysian neighbours. It is not the tradition of Malaysians to sacrifice rams during Eidul Adha; the festival Nigerians call Big Sallah and what Malaysians call Hari Raya Qurban.
Following the Shafi’i school of thought, Malaysians prefer to slaughter bulls, cows and buffalos. A seventh of the bull equals a ram or one sacrifice. The Imam of Annur Mosque of Universiti Teknologi Petronas explains: “According to the Shafii school of thought, one seventh of the bull is sacrificed, so in this country, seven people usually own one bull but everything is coordinated by the local mosque; it’s not the people that will go and search for themselves. What the mosque does is to figure the cost of a bull and divide it by seven and then ask people to contribute that amount; that is those who are interested in the sacrifice.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Terror Court Acquits Islamist Group Leader’s Sons
Islamabad, 17 Nov. (AKI/Dawn) — An Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted three sons of Sufi Mohammad , the chief and founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in a terrorism case, DawnNews reported.
TNSM is a Pakistani militant group whose objective is to enforce Sharia law in the country. The rebel group took over much of Swat in 2007
The ATC acquitted Abdullah, Abdur Rehman and Fazlullah during a hearing of the case.
The court, however, said that it would continue hearing of other cases against the three brothers. They were facing several cases of murder, terrorism and revolt.
The brothers were still languishing in jail.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
South China Sea Dispute Overshadows Asia Summits
As world leaders gather on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, tension is high between the US and China, which have different approaches to the South China Sea dispute. Meanwhile, Japan wants to boost ties with ASEAN.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Portal on Immigrating to Union Launched
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 18 — Where to go to ask for a permit to work in Germany? Does a non-EU citizen need a residence permit to study in Spain? If a worker feels exploited, whom can he or she turn to? These are some of the questions the European Union will answer in a new initiative that was launched today: an internet portal dedicated to people from outside the EU who want to live and work in the EU-27. The project, the ‘EU Immigration Portal’ (ec.europa.eu/immigration), was presented by European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom.
“The portal is practical, easy to use and supplies comprehensible information on the EU and national immigration policies,” the commissioner said. “Workers, students, researchers and immigrations who want to join their families can found the information they need here.” Many people who “want to immigrate in the European Union don’t know what it takes, they don’t know how to apply for a residence permit, whether they need a visa and they don’t know the possible risks,” Malmstrom explained. “And immigrants who are already in the European Union don’t always know their rights.” Therefore, she concluded, “it is in everyone’s interest to improve communication in this field to minimise incomprehension and bureaucracy: this is the goal of the new portal on immigration we launch today.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Getting Crowded Here: 90% of Immigrants to the UK Settle in England
The surge of immigrants has helped make England one of the most densely populated countries in the world and increased concerns about overcrowding.
Migration Watch UK said it had completed a study of immigration and found that, of the 7.1 million foreign-born people now living in Britain, 6.6 million of them live in England — 93 per cent of the group.
Scotland is home to 326,000 foreigners, while there are 150,000 immigrants in Wales and 100,000 in Northern Ireland.
The campaign group said its research had also shown England is already one of the most crowded countries in the world.
The group’s chairman, Sir Andrew Green said: ‘The immigration lobby like to talk about the UK, obscuring the fact that England is six times as crowded as Scotland.
‘Since the vast majority of immigrants come to England, it is England’s place in the league table that counts. Leaving aside city states and small islands, England lies sixth among the most crowded countries in the world.
‘As people sit in traffic jams or squeeze onto their morning trains it will be clearly ridiculous to claim that their eyes are deceiving them and there is not a problem simply because places like the Maldives or Mayotte have higher population densities than England.’
The study comes amid huge public concern about official projections from the Office for National Statistics suggesting that the UK’s population will reach the 70million ‘tipping point’ within 16 years…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Most People Fail the Short Integration Test for Long-Term Residents
Of the 8,500 people who have taken a short test designed to assess knowledge of the Netherlands and Dutch society, only 38% passed, the NRC reports on Friday.
The short test (vrijstellingstoets) is taken by people who have lived in the Netherlands for some time. If they pass, they do not have to take a formal integration course and exam.
The short test hit the headlines on Friday after it emerged that a writer who has won an EU literature prize for a Dutch language novel failed the test.
‘There were no questions about Van Gogh, the Nightwatch, windmills, the canals or Sint Maarten but questions such as ‘Mo lives on social security and wants to take his son to a crèche. Who has to pay?’, Rodaan Al Galidi told NRC.next.
Children
The NRC reported later on Friday that the 30 questions in the short test are particularly difficult for men, people without children and people who don’t claim social security.
‘There are questions about mortgage tax relief, gay marriage, menstruation, pregnancy and child vaccinations, childcare facilities, child health clinics, the Dutch school system, pay and conditions deals, permits and 16th and 17th century history,’ the NRC says.
Some 75% of the 10,000 people who took the longer test between 2007 and September 2011 passed, the NRC says.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
One Click to Europe: EU Launches Migration Website
The European Union launched a website Friday to help would-be migrants navigate a maze of 27 states with their own immigration rules for workers and students. With some nations facing a shortage of certain types of workers, despite high unemployment, EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem called for deeper cooperation with non-EU states to manage migration.
“Despite the high levels of unemployment in the EU today, we will in the near future need more labour migration because of the demographics. This is something that member states have to recognise,” Malmstroem told a news conference. Malmstroem cited figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showing that the EU will need some two million health care professionals — doctors and nurses — in the next three years.
There are 20.1 million foreigners in the EU, representing four percent of the bloc’s population of half a billion people. As part of its migration strategy, the commission unveiled a website, http://ec.europa.eu/immigration, aimed at making it easier for foreigners to learn how to apply for various visas across the EU.
“Many people who want to move to the European Union do not know what possibilities exist, how to apply for a resident permit or the risks related to irregular migration,” Malmstroem said. “And migrants who are already in the EU are not always aware of their rights,” she added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Salah Witness and Two Texts
One of the expert witnesses who gave testimony at Palestinian activist Sheikh Raed Salah’s immigration tribunal has now raised questions relating to his own evidence. In October, an immigration tribunal found in favour of Home Secretary Theresa May’s order that Sheikh Salah should be banned from Britain as “his presence would not be conducive to the public good.” Last week it emerged that the sheikh had been granted permission to appeal against the tribunal ruling. He appealed on six grounds and was successfully granted permission to go ahead with the appeal to the Upper Tribunal. But this week, academic Professor Ilan Pappé, who gave evidence on Sheikh Salah’s behalf, said that he had not based his evidence on the English text of one of Sheikh Salah’s speeches that was before the Immigration Tribunal and quoted from in the Tribunal’s subsequent ruling. Professor Pappé claims he has never seen this English text and that he based his evidence on an entirely different Arabic text.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Benetton Branded ‘Blasphemous’ For Withdrawn Pope Kiss
Vatican objected to image in provocative ad campaign
(ANSA) — Rome, November 17 — Benetton was branded as blasphemous Thursday for a provocative ad campaign featuring an image manipulated to show Pope Benedict XVI kissing on the mouth Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, the imam who heads Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque.
The Italian fashion giant withdrew the image from its new global anti-hate campaign, Unhate, on Wednesday after the Vatican objected that it was a “totally unacceptable use” of the pope’s image.
“Messing with religious symbols and sentiments is not a symptom of creativity but of enormous intellectual laziness,” read a comment in Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference. “(It is) a serious act of blasphemy”. The campaign by Benetton, which has a reputation for provocative advertising, also uses a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kissing Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and US President Barack Obama kissing Chinese leader Hu Jintao in the controversial lineup.
There are several other shots including one showing French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel kissing one another.
Benetton said it had not intended to offend Catholics or Muslims.
“The sense of this campaign is exclusively about fighting the culture of hate in every form,” a spokesman told ANSA.
“So we are sorry that the use of the image of the pope and the imam has hurt the sensibilities of the faithful.
“To show this, we have decided to withdraw this image from all publications with immediate effect”. The Benetton family founded the company in 1965 and the company has a network of around 6,000 stores with a total turnover of two billion euros generated in 120 countries. Benetton attracted worldwide attention with its ‘United Colors’ publicity campaign by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani.
The campaign featured images depicting a man dying from AIDS, an unwashed newborn baby with an umbilical cord still attached and a man slain by the Mafia lying in a pool of blood.
The company also offended Catholics in the past with pictures of a nun kissing a priest.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cardinal O’Brien Renews Call for Support of Campaign Defending Marriage
Cardinal Keith O’Brien has urged renewed support of the Church’s campaign against same-sex ‘marriage,’ which he said is tapping into strong and deeply held feelings amongst many Scots.
“While tens of thousands of Defend Marriage cards have already been completed and returned many more remain available in parishes,” the cardinal told the SCO this week. “If you have not yet filled out a postcard, calling on the Scottish Government to preserve, protect and defend marriage, I urge you to do so now. Several weeks remain in which our Parliamentary Office can receive and process the cards. Please use the remaining weeks to make sure your voice is heard.” The cardinal said this as the Church sent out a second wave of 100,000 postcards to help people make their opposition to redefining marriage known. He added that many parishes had run out of their first set of postcards very quickly.
“We have been over-whelmed at the take-up,” Cardinal O’Brien said. “It’s crystal clear that it underlines the strength and depth of the opposition to same-sex marriage.”
The Scottish Government is currently consulting on whether to change the definition of marriage. The consultation document says the Scottish Government’s initial view is that it supports ‘same-sex’ marriage. The consultation period ends December 9. John Deighan, the Scottish Bishops’ parliamentary officer, said: “It is vitally important than anyone who hasn’t already completed and returned a postcard in defence of marriage does so now. We are able to accept cards right up until the end of the first week of December so I would urge parishioners everywhere, to act while they can.” Mr Deighan is also ‘delighted that a team of volunteers have offered to process the Defend Marriage postcards.’ “They are working with our newly appointed campaign coordinator Josephine Lee,” he said.
Scottish Muslim leaders have also indicated they wish to work with the Church to halt any change to the meaning of marriage. Bashir Maan, spokesman for Glasgow Central Mosque, the largest in Scotland, said last week that senior figures from both groups will meet to discuss a joint response to the contentious plans. “We will talk about how we can try to influence the government. We don’t want them to go ahead with this,” Mr Maan said. “Civil partnerships are enough. Why go further and offend people?” The mosque’s leader has also written to the First Minister, urging him to think again before proceeding with the ‘very dangerous legislation.’ Mohammed Tufail Shaheen, president of Glasgow Central Mosque, wrote to Alex Salmond earlier this month. “Passing this legislation would further encourage homosexuality and increase the number of same-sex marriages,” he said. “If this trend continues, what would become of our society?”
However the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, said she intended to support the Scottish Government’s plans. Miss Davidson, who is herself in a same-sex relationship, did say she does not want religious organisations to be forced to carry out same-sex weddings against their wishes. “On the issue of same-sex marriage I support it,” she said. “But with the important proviso that there is no compulsion for religious organisations that do not wish to carry out ceremonies to be compelled to do so.”
- Ask your parish priest for a supply of Defend Marriage postcards or, if none are available in your parish, contact the Catholic Parliamentary Office on 0141 222 2182
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Human Rights in Islam: Just or Unjust?
Encountering such a faith community doesn’t just make you feel isolated. It makes you uneasy — about the future.
I should mention that when I asserted that there are many ways to practice Islam, I was shouted down by the entire audience. There was only one Islam — the Islam in which every word of sharia is a living reality. I also need to add this: when the master of ceremonies first presented Soliman, Gule, and me to the audience, Soliman and Gule were given long and respectful introductions, while I was described in a few brief sentences and labeled an “Islamophobe.”
One reporter, Åse Cathrine Myrtveit of NRK P2 radio, found her way to the event. She wasn’t allowed to turn on her tape recorder. (Nor was I given permission to photograph the auditorium.) That no other major media were represented there is as unsettling as the fact that “heads will roll in our streets.” Is it that the media do not take the students seriously? Do they see these young people as having been infected by an ideological influenza that they’ll eventually shake off?
| — Hat tip: Van Grungy | [Return to headlines] |
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