Banks Gorge on ECB Loans
(Reuters) — Banks gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros in three-year cut-price loans from the European Central Bank on Wednesday, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy euro zone economies.
Following a string of failed attempts by euro zone leaders to thwart market attacks on the bloc’s weaker members, hopes of crisis relief before the year-end had been pinned on a massive uptake of the ECB’s ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans.
The near half a trillion euro take-up of ECB funds exceeded almost all forecasts. A total of 523 banks borrowed with demand way above the 310 billion euros expected by traders polled by Reuters, making it the most the bank has ever pumped into the financial system.
“The take-up was massive … much higher than the expected 300 billion euros. Liquidity on the banking system has now increased considerably,” said Annalisa Piazza at Newedge Strategy.
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Doubts Increase Over Usefulness of New Fiscal Treaty
Just a few days into the making of a new intergovernmental treaty on fiscal discipline, serious questions are being raised about whether the slight draft offered to date is either useful or necessary. Following the first day of negotiation on the proposed 14-article treaty, first circulated at the end of last week, the three MEPs at the table noted that virtually all the provisions could be done using the current EU treaties.
“It is for political, symbolic reasons that they want to do this agreement,” said Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian liberal MEP, while his Socialist counterpart Italian MEP Roberto Gualtieri noted that “most, if not everything, could have been done through secondary legislation.” Both MEPs, briefing colleagues on Tuesday evening (20 December,) noted that the legal services could give no answer when specifically asked what in the draft pact could not be achieved under current EU law.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ECB Opens Flood Gates to Turn Tide of Debt Crisis
The European Central Bank opened the flood gates on Wednesday to drown the debt crisis, injecting a record amount into eurozone banks but analysts were sceptical that it would be enough. In its first-ever 36-month refinancing operation, the ECB fully met a total 489.19 billion ($641 billion) in bids from 523 banks at a rate of just 1.0 percent.
That is higher than the previous record of 442 billion euros for a one-year auction in June 2009 and came in at the top end of analysts’ expectations for 100-500 billion euros. Stock markets, where sentiment has been higher all week, firmed on the news and the euro held up against the dollar but eurozone bond market rates firmed, except for France.
German banks welcomed the move, which also eases some of the pressures which have caused banks to curb lending to businesses and households. “It has decisively improved the liquidity situation of the European banking sector,” said the head of the German BdB banking federation, Michael Kemmer.
Along with the other liquidity measures announced by the ECB last week, “these are the right and important steps to counter the danger of a credit crunch in the euro area,” Kemmer said. Last week, ECB chief Mario Draghi said the central bank would launch its longest-ever refinancing operation, effectively providing unlimited funds to banks on exceptionally easy terms.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany to Borrow €250 Billion to Service Debt
Germany intends to borrow up to €250 billion ($329 billion) from the markets in 2012, less than this year’s level, the government’s financing agency said Wednesday. “The annual preview of government issuance in 2012 contains one-off issues with a total volume of €250 billion, which will serve to finance the federal government budget and the special funds of the federal government in 2012,” the agency said in a statement.
In 2011, Germany had initially planned to raise €302 billion before revising the figure downward to €275 billion, with two-thirds coming from the bond market and one-third from the money market. The fresh money borrowed will be used to repay the country’s debts and the interest on them, the agency said.
Germany, Europe’s top economy, has more than €2.0 trillion in debt or more than 80 percent of its gross domestic product, resulting in interest charges of tens of billions of euros annually. It benefits from lower borrowing rates compared to many of its partners in the eurozone, which have been hit hard by sinking investor confidence. However market volatility has taken its toll. Investors shunned a November auction of German 10-year bonds, considered the gold standard of eurozone debt, in a development that sent shock waves through the single currency area.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Coalition Govt Stained by Pension Dispute
Flat-out “no” by right on more sharp reductions
(by Furio Morroni) (ANSAmed) — ATHENS — The coalition government in Greece led by Premier Lucas Papademos is on the brink of a confrontation. As announced in recent days, New Democracy, the centre-right part backing the government with PASOK (socialist) and LAOS (far right), took a firm stance today against any further pension cuts, which will be discussed today in a crucial cabinet meeting. After statements by party spokesman, Giannis Michelakis, who clearly stated that New Democracy would not vote in favour of salary and pension cuts, Labour and Social Security Minister, Giorgios Koutroumanis, made a considerable about-face today. And just before the meeting where new pension cuts were supposed to be decided (it would have been the third in five months), the minister said that his ministry’s proposal was only the basis for discussion, and no decisions were supposed to be made. The reductions contained in the Labour Ministry’s bill involve pension cuts ranging from 15% to 40% depending on the financial situation of the welfare agency distributing them. But there is tension in the Greek cabinet also due to disagreements between PASOK and New Democracy ministers. Difficulties are mainly linked to the chaotic situation within PASOK resulting from conflicts due to the race for succession in party leadership which is distracting the socialist ministers from their institutional tasks. According to the Greek press, Lucas Papademos is also reportedly highly annoyed with these problems, as speculation on the need for a government reshuffling continues, and was rekindled today by LAOS leader Giorgios Karatzaferis, who stated that “if there is not a reshuffling and a new government with a maximum of 10 ministers and 3 deputy premiers is not formed, early elections will be necessary immediately”. Also today, a source from the Institute of International Finance (IIF) denied the existence of any reason for the optimism expressed yesterday by Greek Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, regarding an imminent framework agreement between the Greek government and creditors to cut public debt held by private institutions in half as part of the second rescue plan for Greece. Today, the IIF source, cited by Skai TV, denied that there is “room for such optimism. Everything is still up in the air, both the outcome of negotiations and the percentage of participants in the programme”. Despite the situation of extreme uncertainty, unrest over the government’s economic policy persists, and today the union representing Greek tax office employees called a 48-hour strike for December 29-30. The protest comes following a worsening of the problems in the sector and alleged heavy criticism against workers in the sector. The strike on the last two days of the year will certainly create serious problems not only for the Finance Ministry in terms of tax collections, but also for many people who have to settle any outstanding business with the tax office.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Nea Dimocratia Blocks New Pension Cuts
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, DECEMBER 21 — Nea Dimocratia, The centre-right party that is part of the Greek government coalition together with Pasok (socialists) and Laos (far-right), today spoke out against any further pension cuts. A discussion on the issues was scheduled in today’s cabinet meeting. After the statement of party spokesman Giannis Michelakis, who told television channel Ant1 that his part will never vote for new wage and pension cuts, Labour and Welfare Minister Giorgos Koutroumanis took a step back. Shortly before the start of the cabinet meeting in which a decision should be taken on another reduction of pension payments (the third in five months), Koutroumanis said that “today the Ministry’s proposal will be discussed but no decisions will be taken.” Meanwhile, tensions are rising in the Council of Ministers because of the conflicts between Pasok and Nea Dimocratia Ministers, but also due to the chaotic situation inside the Pasok party. The problems in Pasok have been caused by conflicts over the party’s new leadership; they distract the socialists Ministers from their work.
Premier Lucas Papademos, according to the Greek media, is angry and concerned about these issues, amid insistent calls for a government reshuffle. Laos leader Giorgos Karatzaferis said today that “without a government reshuffle and the formation of a new government with 10 Ministers and three Vice-Premiers at most, we will have to organise early elections at once.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Venizelos Optimism for Swap Dampened
Result of talks still up in the air, says IIF source
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, DECEMBER 21 — A source from the Institute of International Finance (IIF) has today categorically denied that there should be any reason for the optimism expressed yesterday by Greece’s Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, over a deal framework deal between the Greek government and creditor banks to halve the public debt owned by private investors as part of the country’s second bailout plan. The news was reported by the private radio and television network Skai.
Last night, Venizelos said that the deal between the Athens government and creditor banks would be concluded shortly. “We are close to an agreement. I am confident,” the minister said, adding that “this can be feasible if our partners respect the deal of October 26 and 27”.
Today, however, the IIF source quoted by Skai denied that there should be any “space for optimism of the sort. Everything is still up in the air, from the result of the talks to the percentage of private participants in the programme”. Skai suggests that, given the current international economic situation, the only certainty is that new Greek government bonds will be subordinated to English rather than Greek law, as was the case with the current bonds, and as imposed by the IIF at the European summit of October 26.
Greece’s second bailout (worth 130 billion euros) will see the involvement of private individuals, who will have to accept a 50% reduction in the nominal value of credits through a swap of old bonds held by Greek banks in exchange for new ones. The plan aims to reduce Greek debt from 160% of GDP to 120% by the year 2020. Thirty of the 130 billion euros in the bailout plan are aimed at recapitalizing Greek banks, which alone hold almost 50 billion euros of Athens’ debt.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Unicredit to ‘Hire Dozen More Banks’ To Underwrite Stock Sale
Milan, 20 Dec. (AKI/Bloomberg) — UniCredit, Italy’s biggest lender, plans to hire an additional 12 banks to help manage its 7.5 billion-euro rights offering next month, said two people with knowledge of the discussions.
The co-lead managers will work alongside the 14 securities firms UniCredit hired to underwrite the stock sale, said the people, who declined to be identified, because the plans are private. UniCredit is in talks with mostly European banks for the roles, one of the people said.
Banks managing a rights offering typically guarantee the sale of shares, taking on the risk that they may be left with the shares if investors balk. By hiring additional managers, UniCredit is trying to limit the risk the firms may be left with unsold stock. The Milan-based bank, whose market value has more than halved to 13.9 billion euros this year, is selling shares after Italy’s Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl last month failed to get orders for all the stock on sale in its rights offering.
“It’s a huge amount to be raised at a difficult time, so it’s possible that they want to reduce risk by bringing in more banks,” said Joern Lange, a Vienna-based analyst at Raiffeisen Capital Management, which manages about $36 billion in equities. “UniCredit’s sale will be a tough one, but it all depends on the price. If the political environment becomes less tense, they should be able to get it done.”
UniCredit is raising the money to plug a capital shortfall and comply with the European Banking Authority’s targets. The stock has dropped about 10 percent to 0.70 euros in Milan trading since the lender announced the offering on Nov. 14.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Denies Planning to Change Law on Dismissals
Fornero has ‘nothing special in mind’ on Article 18
(ANSA) — Rome, December 21 — Welfare Minister Elsa Fornero on Wednesday denied that the government was considering measures that would make it easier for firms to sack workers.
Fornero has come under heavy fire over the last few days from Italy’s trade unions, who believed she wanted to change Article 18 of the Workers Statute, which makes it illegal for companies with more than 15 employees to dismiss people without just cause.
Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the main centre-left Democratic Party, backed the unions earlier on Wednesday when he said it would be “crazy” to touch Article 18.
But Fornero, a leading member of Premier Mario Monti’s government of technocrats that stepped in after the financial crisis forced out Silvio Berlusconi’s administration last month, said the row had been created by the media misinterpreting her comments.
“I don’t have anything particular in mind concerning Article 18,” she told RAI television.
“I was naive but journalists are very good at setting traps”. The government has said it plans to adopt reforms to loosen Italy’s labour market to help young people and women enter the job market. Even before the row over labour reform, Italy’s unions were already furious with Monti’s government for its 30-million-euro austerity package designed to lift the country out of its debt crisis.
The unions have staged a series of strikes in protest against measures that they say hit the poor and middle classes too hard.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Massive Lending Operation: ECB’s Risky Plan to Flood Banks With Cash
The European Central Bank has launched the biggest lending operation in its history, and banks pounced on the offer on Wednesday, borrowing almost a half-billion euros for three years at a low interest rate. Governments hope the banks will use the cash to buy sovereign bonds, but critics warn the ECB’s strategy is risky and could stoke inflation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Offers IMF €7 Billion to Help Eurozone
Norway on Wednesday offered the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about €7 billion ($9.2 billion) to help bolster the European economy, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. “Norway today offered the International Monetary Fund a loan of 55 billion kroner to help stabilise the European economy,” Stoltenberg told reporters. Earlier this week, the 17 countries that share the euro pledged €150 billion ($195 billion) in bilateral loans for the International Monetary Fund to assist the debt-laden eurozone. European Union leaders had called at a December 9th summit for €200 billion, including contributions from non-eurozone countries.
“We are doing this because it is in our interest to restore enough order in the international economy to be able to get out of the crisis we are currently bogged down in,” Stoltenberg said. “It is not a gift, it is an investment,” he insisted.
The loan requires approval from the Norwegian parliament and is conditional on other contributions from other countries, he said. Four non-eurozone members of the EU — the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland and Sweden — each pledged on Monday to make loans to the IMF for use in stabilising the eurozone. But Britain, also a member of the EU but not of the eurozone, has meanwhile refused to stump up its roughly 30-billion share.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy’s Comeback: Euro Rescue Efforts Boost French Leader
Written off as a failure just months ago, conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy is inching back up in the polls as the election season begins. While he’s restyled himself as a statesman out to rescue the euro, his opponent, Socialist candidate François Hollande, is still searching for the right message.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The ‘German Premier’: Task Force Leader Cleans House in Greece
Armed with 45 experts and 30 years of experience, Horst Reichenbach is in Athens to help the Greeks economize and institute reforms. His conclusions about their situation are sobering, but he also reports a new sense of determination for tackling the debt crisis there.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Crash Specialists: Argentina’s Lessons for a Crisis-Ridden Europe
Ten years ago, Argentina’s economy was in a shambles, the victim of vast sovereign debt, a peso that was pegged to the US dollar and rigid IMF austerity measures. A decade later, Europe is facing many of the same problems. Argentina’s recovery has plenty of lessons for the euro zone — if only it would listen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Andrew Bostom: Gingrich: Gerson, And Sharia
Former President George W. Bush’s aide Michael Gerson posted a distressingly ignorant column on 12/13/11 which attacked both former speaker and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, and my colleague Andrew C. McCarthy, for their sober, if frank conceptions of the Sharia. The counterfactual basis for Mr. Gerson’s diatribe is his own thoroughly deficient understanding of Islam’s religio-political code for personal, societal, and Muslim state behavior. He glibly—and wrongly—imputes unique Western notions of individual rights, equality before the law, or even rational legal procedures of evidence to the Sharia’s so-called “set of transcendent principles of justice.”
Gerson condemns Gingrich’s apt summary conclusion (made during a July 2010 speech at the American Enterprise Institute) that “Shariah in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world,” while deriding the former speaker’s “qualifications” to make such an assessment. The crux of Gerson’s vitriolic, uninformed “argument”—that Gingrich has deliberately misrepresented as normative Sharia “the most radical form of Islamic law”, and dared to identify this sacralized code as “totalitarian”—is factually-challenged—and dangerous—drivel.
With vanishingly rare intellectual honesty and resolve, Gingrich has described how normative Sharia—antithetical to bedrock Western legal principles—by “divine,” immutable diktat, rejects freedom of conscience, while sanctioning violent jihadism, absurd, misogynistc “rules of evidence” (four male witnesses for rape), barbarous punishments (stoning for adultery), and polygamy…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
Sandra Bullock Smuggles Sausage for Christmas
Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock has admitted to smuggling delectable sausage from Germany into the United States for Christmastime. During an appearance this week on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the 47-year-old star of films like “The Blind Side” said she and accomplices have been smuggling the sausage into America ever since her German mother died in 2000. “We break the law because we have to manage to smuggle German sausages into the country and apparently bringing meats across the waters is against the law,” Bullock said.
Although raised in the United States, the actress was born to a father in the US Army stationed in Nuremberg where he met Bullock’s mother, a German opera singer. As a child, Bullock became fluent in German and travelled to her mother’s performances throughout Europe. On the “Tonight Show” she declined to explain how she smuggles the sausage — whether through the mail on her person — but said she has a need for a very specific type of meat for her Christmastime spread.
“It has to be from Nuremburg,” she said, likely referring to the famed Nürnberger Rostbratwurst. “They’re these little sausages that you just have shipped in and you fry them up with sauerkraut and potato salad but they have to be the right ones because they sell a lot that are imposters.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Adopts Religious Intolerance Resolution Championed by Obama Administration
(CNSNews.com) — The U.N. General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion, and urging countries to take effective steps “to address and combat such incidents.”
No member state called for a recorded vote on the text, which was as a result adopted “by consensus.”
The resolution, an initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is based on one passed by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in Geneva last spring. The State Department last week hosted a meeting to discuss ways of “implementing” it.
Every year since 1999 the OIC has steered through the U.N.’s human rights apparatus a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion,” which for the bloc of 56 Muslim states covered incidents ranging from satirizing Mohammed in a newspaper cartoon to criticism of shari’a and post-9/11 security check profiling.
Critics regard the measure as an attempt to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Cold Weather Front May Spell Snow for Southern Italy
(AGI) Rome — Italy’s emergency response services issue weather warning as new cold front heads for Italy. Today’s bulletin forecasts a cold weather front heading for Sardinia and the Tyrrhenian coastline in southern Italy. Temperatures are expected to drop significantly, with snowfall forecasts below the 1,000 metre line.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Decaying and Deadly: WWII Mines Pose Growing Risk in Germany
Two anti-tank mines from World War II have exploded spontaneously in the ground next to a road in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. Fortunately, nobody has been hurt so far. Experts are warning that the risk of such sudden blasts is growing because the trigger mechanisms are decaying with age.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Plan to Deploy Police at Strike-Hit Airports
The government threatened to deploy police officers at airports in place of striking security workers, during the busy holiday season, as their action continued for a fifth day. “If the strike continues tomorrow, border police, airport police and if necessary riot police… will be mobilised to ensure security at airports,” Transport Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said on Tuesday. “It is very difficult in present conditions to scan and verify all passengers and luggage,” she said.
Three hundred policemen and women and 100 gendarmes were already on standby to fill in for the strikers,” interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told AFP. The strike was on launched Friday by unions demanding improved working conditions and salary increases. Negotiations on Sunday aimed at ending the strike failed. By Tuesday evening, 430 of the 607 scheduled flights had taken off from Paris’s Charles De Gaulle airport. All the flights from Lyon airport had taken off.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Funds Afghan TV Cop Show
The German government is bankrolling a new TV cop show in Afghanistan in the hope of helping improve the image of the country’s much-maligned police force. According to the website of news magazine Der Spiegel, the series will attempt to portray Afghan police in a new light: As courageous, smart and honest, in contrast to their current widespread perceptions of them as being corrupt and ineffective.
And in a country where women have traditionally been marginalised, it also will show investigators confronting crimes against women and demonstrating that they can serve as police officers. One of the central figures of the new show, called “Commissioner Amanullah,” is Saba Sahar, a 37-year-old who is a well-known actress but also a real-life policewoman, according to Der Spiegel.
Currently there are only about 1,400 policewomen in Afghanistan’s 125,000-strong police force. The show, which is slated to go on the air beginning next April is being sponsored in part by the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan, which has been the focus of Germany’s efforts to help professionalise Afghan police forces.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Teens Jailed for Brutal Berlin Metro Attack
A judge has handed down prison sentences of between four and six years to four young men charged with attempting to kill a man at a Berlin metro station earlier this year. The three 18-year-olds and one 15-year-old were convicted of attempted murder for attacking a 30-year-old house painter and his co-worker at the German capital’s Lichtenberg U-Bahn station in February.
The victim’s co-worker escaped with minor injuries, but the 30-year-old suffered massive brain trauma during the beating and remains severely injured. During the trial, prosecutors argued that the accused — all of whom are from immigrant backgrounds — had been motivated by “hate of Germans” and “having fun by committing gratuitous violence against the weak.”
The teens told police that they had been provoked after the man shouted the Nazi salute “Seig Heil” at them, but police dismissed that claim after speaking to witnesses. Authorities expressed shock when the incident took place, with Berlin’s interior weighing in with strong condemnation. They also said they were surprised no bystanders stepped in to protect the helpless victim. The incident was one of several recent attacks at public transportation facilities that left the German public angry and authorities struggling to improve security.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bisogniero New Ambassador to Washington
NATO deputy secretary-general replaces Terzi
(ANSA) — Rome, December 21 — Career diplomat Claudio Bisogniero, an expert on NATO, relations with China and international financial issues, was on Thursday appointed Italy’s new ambassador to Washington. Bisogniero, 57, succeeds Giulio Terzi who has become foreign minister in Mario Monti’s new emergency government.
After spending time in China in the early 1980s, where he observed the opening to the West under Deng Xiaoping, Bisogniero was seconded to NATO in the late 1980s where he followed the rise of Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the thaw between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
He served at the Quirinale Palace from 1989 to 1992 before four years in Washington as chief advisor for US economic and financial affairs. In 1996-99 Bisogniero represented Italy at the United Nations in New York and led Italian moves to reform the Security Council.
After returning to Rome he took up various posts at the foreign ministry including deputy director-general for political affairs in 2002-05, working on the UN, NATO, the G8, disarmament and human rights.
From 2005 to 2007 he was director-general for relations with the US, Canada and Latin America.
A ranking ambassador, in October 2007 Bisogniero was appointed deputy secretary-general of NATO in Brussels, among the highest international posts held by Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lithuania: Nurses Go Norway
Faced with the economic crisis, Lithuanian medical staff are increasingly leaving to work in Norway, where salaries are much higher. Although they do not become exiles, they do have to contend with a permanent schedule of return journeys between Oslo and Vilnius.
More and more Lithuanians are working abroad, but only leaving home for short periods. Four weeks in Norway, and two in Lithuania: this is the package that Norwegian homecare providers typically offer prospective medical personnel.
In Lithuania, the emigration of doctors and nurses has become a headache for everyone. It seems as if they are all leaving the country one after the other. This year, close to 3% of our doctors opted to try their luck abroad — a phenomenon that has in part been prompted by the opening of the German labour market.
According to official figures, non-specialist nurses working in Lithuania earn a net average of 1,074 litas [311 euros] per month, and the low pay is one of the main reasons why they are opting to go abroad. Employers in Scandinavian countries, which offer a high level of medical services, and where there is a shortfall of doctors, are taking advantage of the situation. The Finns are recruiting in Estonia, while the Norwegians are active in Lithuania. However, no one is being asked to emigrate, just to come and work on short-term missions.
Nurses who sign with Norwegian companies work four weeks in Norway before returning home for two weeks off. The amount they are paid depends on their level of seniority in Norway: with salaries varying from 7,000 (€2,000) to 14,000 (€4,000) litas per month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: My Son is Worst Terrorist Since WWII: Jens Breivik
The father of Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in twin attacks in July, says his son is the “worst terrorist” since World War II, in an interview released on Wednesday. Jens Breivik, 76, a retired diplomat who lives in the south of France, told German news weekly Stern that he last had contact with his son about six years ago by phone but that he now wanted to visit him in prison.
“I want to look him in the eyes. Perhaps I am in a position to arouse feelings in him,” he told Stern in comments published in German. “He is the worst terrorist since the Second World War. He killed 77 innocent people and isn’t even showing remorse,” he added in an interview. Breivik, who divorced Anders’s mother when he was one year old, said they did not have much of a father-son relationship and had no common interests. But he indicated he felt a sense of guilt. “Probably all that wouldn’t have happened if I had looked after Anders more,” he added.
Behring Breivik killed a total of 77 people on July 22nd, most of whom died when he embarked on a shooting spree on the island of Utøya, some 40 kilometres north-west of Oslo. He had earlier set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people. His father had worked in one of the now destroyed government buildings in the 1990s, Stern said.
Now in custody at the high-security Ila prison near Oslo, Behring Breivik, 32, is scheduled to go on trial on April 16th. A psychiatric evaluation of the confessed killer who claimed to be on a crusade against multiculturalism and the “Muslim invasion” of Europe, concluded late last month that he suffered from “paranoid schizophrenia”.
If confirmed by a panel of experts and the Oslo court, that conclusion will most likely mean Behring Breivik cannot go to prison but instead will be sent to a closed psychiatric institution for treatment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Man Shot Dead in Malmö
A 55-year-old man was shot in the head while renovating a café in central Malmö on Tuesday afternoon.
Officers were alerted of the shooting shortly after 1pm. “The incident had taken place just before that,” said Marie Persson of the county police to news agency TT. The police quickly arrived on the scene, secured the premises and let emergency services in to try to save the man’s life. He was taken by ambulance to the Skåne University hospital, where his condition was judged to be life threatening. He died later during the evening.
According to witness statements, two men had entered the café, which two others were refurbishing, when some sort of dispute ensued. “One of the men then pulls out a gun and shoots the workman in the head,” said police officer Thomas Paulsson to Sveriges Television (SVT). After the shooting, the two men quickly exited the shop, leaving the bleeding victim and his severely shocked 30-year-old colleague, who managed to get help alerting police.
“He came running in here saying his friend had been shot, wanting me to call the police,” one witness told local paper Sydsvenskan. “I thought he was joking at first but he took a deep breath and I realized that he must be serious. I closed the door and called the police.”
According to Sydsvenskan, the victim was not previously known to the police. However, one of the owners of the café is said to be a 40-year-old former member of the disbanded Lion Family gang, which operated in the area in 2009 and 2010. Police have yet to make any arrests in connection to the shooting.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: ‘Tattoo’ Marketing Angers Larsson’s Partner
The late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson’s former partner has slammed the commercialization of the author’s best-selling novel, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” in connection with the release of Hollywood’s adaption of the book. “We would never have sold any rights for merchandising,” Eva Gabrielsson told the AP news agency.
Gabrielsson, who was in a relationship with Larsson for more than 30 years before he died of a heart attack in 2004 at age 50, has been engaged in a long-running dispute with Larsson’s family over the rights to the estate of the late-author. The journalist-turned-novelist died without a will, and the couple never had children. Under Swedish law, Larsson’s assets — including copyrights — thereby automatically went to his father and brother, leaving Gabrielsson with nothing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: UBS ‘Rogue Trader’ Remanded in Custody
A trader accused of a $2.25 billion fraud at Swiss bank UBS was remanded in custody by a London court on Tuesday as his case was adjourned until January 30th, when he must enter a plea. Kweku Adoboli, 31, is charged with two counts of fraud and two of false accounting between 2008 and September this year.
Judge Alistair McCreath adjourned Adoboli’s plea and case management hearing for a second time to give the defendant’s new legal team more time to consult with their client. Dressed in a white shirt, navy blue tie and grey suit, Adoboli sat on the front row of the dock with a notepad in his hand. He spoke to confirm his name.
The son of a Ghanaian former UN official, Adoboli worked for UBS’s global synthetic equities division in the City of London financial district. He bought and sold exchange traded funds, which track different types of stocks or commodities such as precious metals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Baby Born to Muslim Mother After Affair Must be Adopted to Stop Honour Killing Attempts by ‘Shamed’ Grandfather
A baby born to a Muslim mother after an affair must be adopted to prevent the child becoming the victim of an honour killing, the Court of Appeal ruled today.
The baby’s mother, who is not married, was so ‘terrified’ of how her family would react that after becoming pregnant she ran away from home.
She then concealed her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and travelling to the other side of town for her antenatal care.
As soon as the baby — known only as Q — was born the mother gave her up for adoption.
Upholding a High Court decision, three judges ruled that Q’s father could not have his daughter to live with him because of the risk the baby’s maternal grandfather would track her down.
Instead, Q, who is now a year old, will be adopted.
The baby’s maternal grandmother had told police that if her husband found out about the child ‘he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children’.
Today Lord Justice Munby, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin said in a joint ruling that the child was at risk if she was not adopted.
They said if the grandfather discovered the affair ‘it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family’.
The couple who are adopting the child had been looking after her since December 2010.
They are also Muslim and from the same country as the mother, but from a different community.
The judges imposed unusually wide reporting restrictions banning the publication of all names and locations linked to the case because of the continuing dangers faced by mother and child.
The baby’s father — a married man known as F — had launched an appeal against the decision made by Mrs Justice Parker in the High Court last July.
She found there would be ‘a very significant risk of two and two being put together’ if the child went to live with its father because the baby was quite obviously not his wife’s child.
The appeal court judges ruled: ‘In the particular circumstances of this case, the judge rightly regarded the risk of physical harm to Q and M (her mother) as being of major importance.’
The court heard that although both the baby’s mother and father were Muslim, there was a ‘profound cultural difference’ between them.
Upholding Mrs Justice Parker’s decision to make an adoption order, the appeal judges said: ‘The mother’s evidence, supported as it was by her actions, and the evidence of (the father) and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm.
‘In our judgment this conclusion cannot be criticised.’
The adopting couple, Mr and Mrs A, were ‘loving and devoted adopters to whom Q has formed a deep attachment’.
The couple were Muslims who had taken advice from their imam that they could adopt Q.
The judge had rightly concluded that under Islamic law and tradition ‘there would be no long-term harmful consequence in adoption’.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Baby Was at Risk of “Honour Killing”
LONDON (Reuters) — A baby at risk of becoming the victim of an “honour killing” because she was born as the result of her unmarried Muslim mother’s secret affair must be adopted to keep her safe, the Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.
Three senior judges rejected a bid by the one-year-old girl’s natural father to have her live with him and his wife.
The child’s natural mother is in favour of adoption so that her own family will not find out about the birth.
Lord Justice Munby, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin said in a joint judgment the case involved “exceptionally difficult adoption proceedings,” the Press Association reported.
The judges imposed unusually wide reporting restrictions banning the publication of all names and locations linked to the case because of the continuing dangers faced by mother and child.
The appeal court rejected an appeal by the father “F” against a decision last July refusing him a residence order allowing the baby to live with him.
The judge ordered that “baby Q” should be adopted by a couple, also Muslim, from the same country as the mother, but from a different community.
She found there would be “a very significant risk of two and two being put together” if the child went to the father because Q was quite obviously not the child of his wife, who had a child of her own.
If the child’s maternal grandfather found out about the affair “it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family,” said the judge.
The appeal court said on Wednesday: “It was plainly the judge’s view that this might provoke action to preserve the family’s honour.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stonehenge Rocks Pembrokeshire Link Confirmed
Experts say they have confirmed for the first time the precise origin of some of the rocks at Stonehenge. It has long been suspected that rhyolites from the northern Preseli Hills helped build the monument. But research by National Museum Wales and Leicester University has identified their source to within 70m (230ft) of Craig Rhos-y-felin, near Pont Saeson.
The museum’s Dr Richard Bevins said the find would help experts work out how the stones were moved to Wiltshire. For nine months Dr Bevins, keeper of geology at National Museum Wales, and Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University collected and identified samples from rock outcrops in Pembrokeshire to try to find the origins of rhyolite debitage rocks that can be found at Stonehenge.
By detailing the mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock, a process known as petrography, they found that 99% of the samples could be matched to rocks found in this particular set of outcrops. Being able to provenance any archaeologically significant rock so precisely is remarkable”
Rhyolitic rocks at Rhos-y-felin, between Ffynnon-groes (Crosswell) and Brynberian, differ from all others in south Wales, they said, which helps locate almost all of Stonehenge’s rhyolites to within hundreds of square metres.
Within that area, the rocks differ on a scale of metres or tens of metres, allowing Dr Bevins and Dr Ixer to match some Stonehenge rock samples even more precisely to a point at the extreme north-eastern end of Rhos-y-felin. Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University called the discovery of the source of the rocks “quite unexpected and exciting”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Teenage Rapists Aged Just 16 Caught on Camera ‘Elated’ After Horrific Sex Attack on Woman, 20
Two teenagers subjected a woman to a terrifying rape ordeal after stalking her and abducting her as she left a nightclub.
Jailat Khan and Shahzada Khan, both just 16, were caught after they were captured on CCTV celebrating their sickening attack in Leeds city centre.
The victim, in her early 20s, was on the phone to her boyfriend asking him to get her a taxi at around 2am when she was dragged into a doorway.
He could hear her screams for 30 seconds before the line went dead. She was then raped.
The pair have now been jailed for the shocking attack.
A court heard the pair, both Afghanis, were prowling the streets on June 12 this year looking for an easy target when they came across their victim.
The defendants spotted the woman and followed her after she left the HiFi club in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and one spoke to her when she stopped at a bus stop while the other was looking around assessing the area.
The pair then struck from either side bundling her into a fire exit doorway.
Jason Pitter, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court she was pushed to the ground and when she screamed Shahzada put his hand over her mouth.
She could hear Jailat laughing and tried to struggle but was overpowered. Jailat raped her while his accomplice held her down.
Mr Pitter said: ‘While on the mobile phone to her boyfriend, he had the misfortune of hearing the attack begin.
‘He heard her become distressed then say ‘Get off, get off, what are you doing’. He heard her scream for 30 seconds before her line went dead.’
The defendants ran off when they were disturbed but Shahzada was then captured on CCTV making a playful bowling motion. The prosecutor said they appeared ‘elated’ after the attack.
‘Those actions do not portray the grave nature of their conduct moments before,’ said Mr Pitter.
Two men heard the victim’s distress and went to her assistance. She was hysterical and pleaded with them not to leave her alone saying ‘Why has this happened to me? Why have they done this to me?’ When the police arrived they found her sitting in the doorway hugging her knees, shaking, crying and muttering.
Jailat Khan, of Beeston, Leeds, was ordered to be detained for five years and Shahzada Khan, of Leeds, was ordered to be detained for four years after both admitted kidnap and rape.
Sentencing the pair on Tuesday, Judge Christopher Batty said they had targeted a vulnerable woman alone in the city centre and the effect on her was ‘immeasurable’.
‘Not a day passes without her suffering flashbacks and nightmares. She has not been out since these events, her confidence has gone and she is currently taking anti-depressant medication.’
The judge, who lifted a ban on their identities because of the severity of the attack, said: ‘I have been to that alleyway and it is a very cold, miserable, frightening place and I can’t even begin to imagine how the complainant felt. It is a very dark and lonely spot.’
He told them had they been adults the sentence would have been longer but he had taken into account their plea sparing the victim a trial and their age.
Stephen Crossley, for Jailat Khan, said he arrived in the UK in 2009 and was given discretionary leave to remain until July next year following the deaths of his father and brother in Afghanistan and loss of contact with his mother and sister in that country.
Neither he nor Shahzada Khan knew their ages and both had been given a statutory birth date of January 1, 1995.
Catherine Silverton, for Shahzada Khan, said he was brought up in Afghanistan, Pakistan and then the UK by a couple he thought were his parents but discovered when he was remanded they were his aunt and uncle, his real parents having died in a car crash when he was young. He had expressed remorse.
She added: ‘Nothing I say on the defendant’s behalf is intended to suggest that these offences were anything other than the stuff of nightmares.’
The Khans were identified following an appeal. Jailat Khan’s DNA was found on the woman and while in custody, he was found to have a ‘worrying attitude to women’ and threatened to rape a member of staff.
After the case Det Supt Paul Taylor said: ‘This was an extremely shocking incident and is thankfully something which I have never seen before in my many years as a detective.
‘After stalking lone women until they were able to find a victim, they then celebrated their crimes in full view of CCTV cameras. This proved to be their undoing.’
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Uses NASA Technology to Preserve Ancient Tomes
One of the world’s oldest libraries in Rome faces a huge problem — how to preserve 1,800-year-old manuscripts in a digital format that’s readable for next-generation computers. A format designed to store images taken by satellites and orbital telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope could offer a solution to the Holy See’s Vatican Library.
Archivists have already begun scanning the fragile, ancient tomes in the Vatican’s collection with software that can transform old pages pressed against glass into an accurate, flat digital image. Such images saved in the flexible image transport system (FITS) format — designed by NASA and European space scientists in the 1970s — will allow computers built even 100 years from now to decode whatever information is stored. “If you have a tool that can read FITS today, you can read FITS files from 20 years ago,” said Pedro Osuna, head of the European Space Agency’s scientific archives. “It’s always backwards compatible.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Wilders: Islam Book Generates Interest Outside US
A book by Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders which is due to be published in the US in April is also generating interest in other countries.
“They will probably soon follow” Wilders said on Wednesday; the first day the book could be ordered in advance. The book is called Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me and is scheduled for US release on 30 April.
Mr Wilders says the book is an “Indictment of Islam and its Prophet Mohamed.’‘ It is not yet known whether it will be translated into Dutch.
The Freedom Party leader says the book offers “a solid, historical analysis of the dangers of Islamisation.” In it, Wilders makes concrete proposals and political solutions to “turn the tide on the Islamisation of the West and preserve our precious liberty.”
Egypt recently voiced its concerns about the publication. The issue was discussed at the end of November during a meeting between the Dutch ambassador and the Egyptian foreign ministry.
| — Hat tip: The PVV | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey and Kosovo Sign Air Transportation Agreement
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, DECEMBER 21 — Turkey and Kosovo signed a deal on air transportation within the scope of extending flight network in Balkan countries, as Anatolia news agency reports. Turkey’s Civil Aviation Directorate General stated on Wednesday that the deal was signed following the talks between Turkish and Kosovar officials last week, noting that the deal would increase flights between Turkey and Kosovo, especially between Istanbul and Pristina. The deal also includes holding scheduled cargo flights between the two countries. The deal will help Kosovo to connect with not only Turkey but also other countries via Turkey.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Jalil: Saif Gaddafi to Stand Trial Next Week
Son and former successor of Muammar Gaddafi
(ANSAmed) — ROME — NTC President Mustafa Abdel Jalil said that next week in Libya the trial against Saif al-Islam, the son and former successor of Muammar, captured in mid-November in southern Libya, might begin. Jalil also predicted that the trials against others accused of having ties with the former regime would begin.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Govt List: 3 Key Ministries to Ennahdha
Marzouki to submit it to Constituent Assembly tomorrow
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, DECEMBER 21 — The list of ministers of the new Tunisian government was presented by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali yesterday evening to the President of the Republic Moncef Marzouki, who will be submitting it tomorrow (Thursday) to the Constituent Assembly. The list has not been made known but according to reliable sources the Interior, Foreign and Justice ministries will be assigned to representatives of Ennahdha, the Islamic party that won the October 23 elections. The same sources say that Ali Larayedh (political prisoner under Ben Ali’s regime) will be given the post of Interior Minister, Noureddine Bhiri (current party spokesman) that of Justice Minister and Rafik Ben Abdessalem (son-in-law of party leader Rached Ghannouchi) that of Foreign Minister.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Reconciliation: PNA Unity Government by January 2012
Agreement reached in Cairo, Hamas spokesman
(ANSAmed) — GAZA — A Palestinian unity government of experts from the West Bank and Gaza will be formed by January 2012: this is one of the points several Palestinian factions have agreed on in talks in Cairo in the past days. The news was announced by Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum. The factions have also approved the composition of a committee of nine — chaired by the former rector of the Bir Zeit University (West Bank), Hanna Nasser — which will organise new presidential and general elections in the Territories in May 2012.
By the end of January 2012, Barhum said, the Hamas government in Gaza and the PNA government in Ramallah will release all political prisoners. As of tomorrow, Palestinian press agency MAAN reports, the talks in Cairo will focus on the question of the inclusion of the PLO in the political factions that are not yet represented, together with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
Press sources in Gaza have added that a meeting between PNA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, scheduled today, has been postponed; the meeting may be held tomorrow.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Activists Say at Least 100 Killed in Syrian Town
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops assaulting a northwest town with machine gun fire and shelling have killed at least 100 people in one of the deadliest episodes of the 9-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime, activists said Wednesday.
Tuesday’s attack on the town of Kfar Owaid in Idlib province showed the Syrian government was pressing ahead with its crackdown despite its agreement this week to an Arab League plan for bringing a halt to the bloodshed.
“It was an organized massacre. The troops surrounded people then killed them,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said troops on the outskirts of the town surrounded and fired on crowds of civilians and activists trying to flee out of fear they would be detained. The group, which uses a network of local activists to collect information on the crackdown, said 111 were killed in Kfar Owaid Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: 8 Foreign Engineers Kidnapped, Including 5 Iranians
Working near Homs
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, DECEMBER 21 — Eight engineers of different nationalities have been kidnapped by terrorists in the centre of Syria, according to the official Syrian news agency Sana. Five of them are Iranian nationals. The origins of the other three are as yet unknown.
The agency says that the engineers were kidnapped last night close to Homs, as they travelled on a company bus that was taking them to their place of work. The engineers were working at the Jandar power station, in the industrial area on the outskirts of Syria’s third largest city.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Pro-Assad Demonstration in Damascus
Flags fly ‘for army that defends us against terrorists’
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, DECEMBER 21 — Flags, pictures of the President and slogans: today the very loyal supporters of Assad demonstrated in Damascus on the eve of the arrival of the Arab League observers. They came together around the large fountain on Omayad Square,in the centre of the new part of the city. The Assad supporters have organised the event “to pay tribute to our troops,” they explain. “I have dressed my boy in a camouflage combat suit for that reason,” said a young woman who proudly showed her ‘small soldier for a day’.
The new part of the city was unusually calm since early this morning, because all main access roads had been closed for traffic. Security forces guarded the roads, while street traders were selling flags, banners and gadgets with the Syrian flag and the face of the President painted on them. In military uniform, wearing sunglasses, saluting and smiling, enclosed in a heart printed on t-shirts. “We love Syria, we love Bashar”.
A small procession started from one of the university buildings: families, elderly couples but most of all young people. The demonstration was in fact organised by a group of young people who call themselves ‘Young people for the Syrian flag’ and “not by an official organisation”, said two persons of around thirty, both called Rabia and both involved in the organisation of the event. “It has been organised by a group of friends, they have come together here and have spread the word via the social networks and web television. We have dedicated this event to the military, they are Syrian citizens like us.” Many girls are also wearing shirts or trousers in camouflage colours. They want to pay tribute to the army, which “protects the Syrian people” from “terrorists.” When a band starts playing the national anthem on a stage, everybody stops and many start singing, while standing at the salute. Then balloons are released with the Syrian colours and people start dancing, singing and shouting slogans. It almost seems a celebration, and yet Damascus signed an unprecedented agreement on Monday, allowing observers to move around freely in the country, while opposition and activists continue to reports dozens of casualties. “We approve of this agreement,” said one of the Rabias, “and the government has signed it because the people want it.” “Wars have never resolved any crisis,” said the other Rabia, “the only solution is dialogue.” But dialogue with whom? “With all honest Syrian citizens, with those who want reforms and certainly not with those who give weapons to gangs. People in Syria are free and carrying out reforms is a continuous process. At times there are obstacles, and this international conspiracy certainly is one of them.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: A Sad Christmas for Damascus Christians
Subdued out of respect for dead, but ‘we are united’
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS — No Christmas lights are strung up around Damascus, and not even a decorated tree can be found in the Christian quarter of the Old City, where even the churches are bare of adornments. “Out of the respect for the dead,” the Christian community seem to say in unison in Syria, where they account for 10% of the population and have long been one of the most integrated in an Arab country. It is for the latter reason that they have oftentimes shown their support for Assad’s regime, which they feel protected by. And it is for this every reason that now — aware of the crisis afflicting the country — they are calling for Syrian unity.
The community is doing its part by renouncing all “superfluous’ Christmas symbols, observing the holiday solely through religious celebrations and within their families. “There will be celebrations as always, but due to the situation and out of respect for so many who have died, in our church and our family we have decided to spend Christmas in our houses and limit the use of lights and decorations,” said Milad, whose name means ‘Christmas’. Milad works with his father in one of the many goldsmith shops of the souk, whose owners are almost all Christians. “In Syria there is a problem at the moment,” he said, “there is a need for reform, but the situation is not like what some media outlets make it seem. And so the arrival of observers is a good thing. However, we must stay united, more than before, for our future.” Concerns over what the future may hold in store are palpable. “There have never been religious tensions here,” said Iria, a 71-year-old Christian Protestant in her tiny linen shop in the Christian quarter of Damascus’s Old City, “we have always lived in harmony. We are now worried because there are people shooting and killing and we do not know who they are. And we don’t know what will happen if the regime falls — in Egypt, after what happened, the Muslim Brotherhood are now taking over.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Warns France Over Genocide Bill
Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Tuesday asked France to drop a parliamentary bill making it illegal to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was genocide, Reuters reports. The bill, put forward by a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, is due to be debated Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Court Slammed for Slating Holy Book
Local religious leaders and organisations have slammed a Russian court for comparing the Bhagavad Gita, one of the holiest Hindu scriptures, to Adolf Hitler’s controversial Mein Kampf.
The Nazi dictator wrote Mein Kampf while he was in Landsberg prison in Germany in 1925. The book contains Hitler’s anti-Semitic views.
State prosecutors in Tomsk, Siberia, seek to ban the Russian translation of the Bhagavad Gita, contending that it is an extremist religious text that should be on a blacklist.
The call, which has been linked to a Christian extremist group, claims the book spreads “social discord” and wants its distribution in Russia to be rendered illegal.
The Russian ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, said: “I consider it categorically inadmissible when any holy scripture is taken to the courts. For all believers, these texts are sacred.”
He said Russia was a secular and democratic country where all religions enjoyed equal respect.
Protests
Kadakin made the statement after Indian lawmakers forced an adjournment of Parliament over the issue and Hindus staged protests outside the Russian consulate in Kolkata city on Monday.
The Siberian court is expected to deliver its verdict on December 28.
The president of the SA Hindu Maha Sabha, Ashwin Trikamjee, said he had signed an international online petition protesting against the “crazy suggestion”.
Trikamjee said: “There is no logical basis to this call; it is an anti-Hindu sentiment. The Bhagavad Gita is a holy scripture and no one is forced to read it. This call is unacceptable and we have already mobilised locally and sent a letter to the Russian authorities expressing our concern.
“In this day and age, there should be no place for such religious intolerance. In fact, this is one of the the most powerful pieces of literature.”
He said the Maha Sabha would be monitoring the situation very closely.
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) and its followers in Russia have also written a letter to the prime minister’s office in New Delhi calling for immediate intervention.
The Russian court referred the book to the Tomsk State University for an” expert” examination on October 25.
But Hindu groups in Russia say the university was not qualified as it lacked scholars who study the history and cultures, languages and literature of the Indian subcontinent.
Durban Iskcon spokeswoman Champakalata Dasi said they were also strongly supporting their Russian counterparts through the online petition.
| — Hat tip: RW | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Church Keen to Limit ISKCON Activities
By Vladimir Radyuhin and Sandeep Dikshit for The Hindu
The court case against a translation of the Bhagavad Gita in the Siberian city of Tomsk is linked to long-running attempts by the Russian Orthodox Church to limit the activities of the Hare Krishna movement, branding it as a totalitarian sect.
Earlier this year, the authorities banned the construction of an ISKCON community village in the Tomsk region. Seven years ago, the Moscow city government did not allow the movement to build a sprawling prayer-cum-cultural complex in central Moscow. Later, ISKCON was permitted to set up its centre in a Moscow suburb.
ISKCON says it has one lakh Russian followers and more than 100 communities but the Orthodox Church claims the number is in a few thousands.
Russian ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin regretted that the case was being heard in the university city of Tomsk, famous for its secularism and religious tolerance, and reiterated the secular credentials of Russia.
Mr. Kadakin considered it “categorically inadmissible when any holy scripture is taken to…courts. For all believers, these texts are sacred.”
A second-term ambassador, whose first posting was in India in 1971 and who for years taught about India, Mr. Kadakin said the Bhagavad Gita, along with the holy scriptures of other faiths, was a great source of wisdom for the people of India and the world. “Russia, as is known to anyone, is a secular and democratic country where all religions enjoy equal respect. This is even more applicable to [the] holy scriptures of various faiths, whether it is the Bible, the Holy Quran, the Torah, the Avesta and, of course, the Bhagavad Gita, the great source of wisdom for the people of India and the world,” he said.
“It is not normal either, when religious books are sent for examination to ignorant people. Their academic scrutiny should be done at scientists’ fora, congresses, seminars, etc., but not in court. It is strange that such events are unfolding in the beautiful university city in Siberia, as Tomsk…is famous for its secularism and religious tolerance. Well, it seems that even the lovely city of Tomsk has its own neighbourhood madmen. It is sad indeed.”
| — Hat tip: RW | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: ‘675 Women: Girls’ Killed for Honour in First 9 Months of Year
Islamabad, 20 Dec. (AKI) — At least 675 Pakistani women and girls were murdered during the first nine months of the year in so-called honour killings, according to a news report, citing a senior official in the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Many of the victims were gang raped before being killed, the unnamed official said. At least 71 victims of the killings committed for allegedly defaming family honour were under 18 years old, the AFP news agency reported.
At least 19 were killed by their sons, 49 by their fathers and 169 by their husbands, AFP reported.
Many of the victims were accused of having affairs or marrying without permission.
The Commission reported 791 honour killings in 2010 and there was no discernible decrease this year, the official added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Christmas Staple Frankincense ‘Doomed, ‘ Ecologists Warn
The biblical Christmas story of the three kings may need a rewriting, or at least a tweak to one of the gifts — frankincense. Production of the fragrant resin, which is used in perfume and incense, could decline by half over the next 15 years, a new study finds. Tapped from various species of the Boswellia tree that grow in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, frankincense has been traded internationally for thousands of years. However, researchers warn that the trees are declining at a troubling rate.
Ecologists from the Netherlands and Ethiopia monitored Boswellia trees growing in 13 plots of about 65 acres (2 hectares) each located in northwest Ethiopia, near the source of the Blue Nile river. The plots contained trees that were tapped for frankincense, as well as some that were left untapped. The researchers studied the survival, growth and seed production of more than 6,000 Boswellia trees over the course of two years. Based on their finding, the researchers created demographic models to predict the fate of Boswellia populations. They estimate that the production of frankincense could drop to half over the next 15 years, and the number of Boswellia trees could decline by 90 percent in the next 50 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Ship Freed by Somali Hijackers
Crew’s families express relief
(ANSA) — Mogadishu, December 21 — An Italian ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia in February has been freed.
Sources close to the families of the five crew members still being held by pirates said there were scenes of joy and relief on the southern island of Procida, off the coast of Naples, where many of the crew members live.
They were kidnapped when the oil tanker ‘Savina Caylyn’ owned by the Neopolitan company, Fratelli D’Amato, was hijacked by Somali pirates 880 miles off the Somali coast on February 8.
Five of the 22 original crew were still being held by the pirates.
In October an Italian ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia with 23 people on board was freed after an operation by British special forces.
Last year pirates in the region are believed to have earned $80 million from ransom money. Earlier this year governments reached an international agreement that they would not pay ransom
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Somali Pirates Holding 200 Crew Hostage: EU NAVFOR
Somali pirates are currently holding 200 people hostage as part of their ransom business, keeping them from their families during the festive season, the EU’s anti-piracy mission said. “This humanitarian tragedy is especially pertinent over Christmas, a time when families normally gather to celebrate,” EU NAVFOR said in a statement.
It said 199 men and one woman were being held against their will by pirate gangs in Somalia following the seizure of their ships in the Indian Ocean. Since the start of the EU NAVFOR counter-piracy mission in December 2008, 2,317 merchant seamen have been held hostage for an average of nearly five months, with 24 crew from the Dubai-owned Iceberg 1 missing for 19 months.
“It is estimated that at least 60 merchant seamen have died as a result of their captivity in the hands of the pirates and many more have suffered torture and abuse,” the statement said. Of the 200 hostages, 49 are being held without the collateral of a ship, which either sunk or was abandoned, “which means that their future is less clear as their value is seen as less than that of a ship.”
The EU force said the pirates occasionally hold back some crew members after striking a ransom deal to negotiate the release of convicted Somali pirates from the home country of the detained seamen. It cited the example of four South Koreans and seven Indians from the Gemini and Asphalt Venture who were held back after the release of the ships.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Dairy Giant Spends $83m on Argentina Farms
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company said Wednesday it is buying Argentine farm operator Fondomonte S.A. for $83 million in a bid to secure animal feed.
The acquisition will give Riyadh-based Almarai Co. control of roughly 30,000 acres of farmland in the South American nation.
Almarai said the deal is in line with the desert kingdom’s policy of “securing supplies and conserving local resources” and will ensure it has access to high-quality feed.
Despite its scorching desert climate, Saudi Arabia for decades produced millions of tons of homegrown wheat with the help of generous farm subsidies. It is now trying to wind down domestic production because of concerns over dwindling water supplies.
Fondomonte operates three farms dedicated to producing corn and soybeans, according to Almarai. The Argentine company’s website says it also grows barley, rice and sorghum.
Almarai said it plans to use the crops to feed both chickens and cattle.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Stateless Criminals Granted Citizenship
Stateless individuals in Denmark are now receiving the citizenship they are entitled to, though the criminal backgrounds of some is a concern for national security, some argue
The opposition is calling for a revision to a UN convention requiring stateless individuals to be granted citizenship in their country of birth after the most recent naturalisation passed parliament, despite including a number of individuals who would probably not had their applications approved had they been through the normal application procedure.
The list of candidates for naturalisation is usually passed without much fuss in parliament. But out of the 1,700 on this December’s list are 36 who are known to have committed serious offences in Denmark and one who is considered a threat to national security by the domestic intelligence agency, PET.
These 36 individuals are some of the 460 stateless individuals residing in Denmark — mostly children of Palestinian refugees — and are entitled to Danish citizenship under the 1961UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Despite this entitlement, the previous government refused to grant stateless individuals automatic citizenship. The practice was detailed this spring and culminated in Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Venstre) being forced to step down as immigration minister, after it was revealed that she instructed the Immigration Service not to abide by the convention.
At least 40 stateless individuals are thought to have had their justified citizenship request denied as a result. But while Denmark may now be granting stateless individuals their right to citizenship, some political parties disagree with a convention that allows candidates who ordinarily would be denied due to their criminal past avoid a lengthy vetting process.
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EU Court Bars Asylum Transfers Risking ‘Inhuman’ Treatment
The European Union’s top court on Wednesday barred EU states from transferring asylum seekers to other nations in the bloc where they could face “inhuman treatment.” The court sided with Afghan, Algerian and Iranian asylum seekers who challenged attempts by courts in Britain and Ireland to send them back to their EU entry point of Greece, notorious for the squalid conditions of its immigration system.
“An asylum seeker may not be transferred to a member state where he (or she) risks being subjected to inhuman treatment,” the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice ruled. Under an agreement called Dublin II, EU countries are allowed to deport an asylum seeker back to the country in which the applicant first set foot.
Greece, overhwelmed by an influx of migrants crossing its porous border with Turkey, has struggled to process a mountain of asylum requests. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said in 2010 that migrants often endured “inhuman” conditions in filthy, overcrowded detention facilities in Greece.
The European Court of Human Rights ordered Belgium earlier this year to pay damages to an Afghan migrant who had been sent back to Greece. In the case reviewed by the EU judges, an Afghan national who arrived in Greece in 2008 and later made his way to Britain resisted an attempt to send him back to Greece, arguing that his fundamental rights could be violated there. Five other migrants from Afghanistan, Iran and Algeria claimed asylum in Ireland after leaving Greece.
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Fears Grow Over Lab-Bred Flu
Scientists call for stricter biosafety measures for dangerous avian-influenza variants.
It is a nightmare scenario: a human pandemic caused by the accidental release of a man-made form of the lethal avian influenza virus H5N1. Yet the risk is all too real. Since September, news has been circulating about two groups of scientists who have reportedly created mutant H5N1 variants that can be transmitted between ferrets merely breathing the same air, generally an indicator that the virus could also spread easily among humans.
The work raises the spectre of a disease that spreads as fast as ordinary seasonal flu, but with a fatality rate akin to wild-type H5N1 — an order of magnitude greater than the mortality rate of roughly 2.5% seen during the catastrophic flu pandemic of 1918. Until now, debate about the new variants has focused on whether the research poses too great a security risk to be published — even if partially redacted — a question currently under consideration by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).
A number of scientists argue, however, that the NSABB’s deliberations have come far too late. Because further research on the new variants now seems inevitable, a far more important question, they say, is whether the labs that hold samples of the virus — and those who will seek to work with them in the future — have sufficient biosafety protection to make sure it cannot escape.
“This horse is out of the barn,” says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. “At this point, it is utterly futile to be discussing restricting the publication of this information,” he adds, pointing out that the results have already been seen by many flu scientists, including referees, and are probably spreading through the flu grapevine faster than a speeding neutrino.
Sources say that one of the studies, led by Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has been submitted to Science, and that the other, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been sent to Nature. (Nature’s journalists do not have access to submitted manuscripts or the journal’s confidential deliberations on them.) Fouchier also presented his results in September at the annual European Scientific Working Group on Influenza conference in Malta.
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First True ‘Alien Earth’ May be Found in 2012
While 2011 was a huge year for alien-planet discoveries, 2012 could bring something even more exciting: the first true “alien Earth.” This year saw the tally of confirmed exoplanets top 700, with NASA’s Kepler space telescope flagging thousands of additional candidates that still need to be verified. And just this month, Kepler scientists announced two landmark finds — the first two Earth-size alien planets, as well as a larger world in its star’s habitable zone, that just-right range of distances where liquid water (and possibly life as we know it) could exist.
These and other recent discoveries suggest that the prized quarry of many exoplanet hunters — an “alien Earth” — could be just over the horizon. In fact, such a planet may well pop up in the next round of Kepler candidates, which should be released next year, researchers said.
The year has seen a huge increase in the number of known exoplanets. At the start of 2011, astronomers had confirmed 528 alien worlds, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, a database compiled by astrobiologist Jean Schneider of the Paris-Meudon Observatory. Less than one year later — and just 16 years after the first alien planet was found orbiting a sun-like star — the count now stands at 713. And thousands more are waiting in the wings.
On Dec. 5, Kepler scientists announced the discovery of 1,094 new exoplanet candidates, bringing the mission’s total tally in its first 16 months of operation to 2,326. So far, just 33 of these potential planets have been confirmed by follow-up observations, but researchers have estimated that at least 80 percent of them will turn out to be the real deal.
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Record-Busting Motorbike Will be Jet Engine on Wheels
RICHARD BROWN is a man with unfinished business. In 1999, he smashed the one-way speed record for a motorbike by hitting 584 kilometres per hour on the salt flats of Bonneville in northern Utah. But his claim on the outright world record — which is based on the average of two runs in opposite directions — was thwarted by technical problems. Now he is trying again. He hopes to be the first person to exceed 720 km/h on a motorbike while achieving an average two-way speed of at least 640 km/h. Any old bike will not do: he will be using one that is jet-propelled.
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Smallest Planet is Tinier Than Earth
The smallest exoplanets yet found around a normal star span just 1.03 and 0.87 times the Earth’s diameter. The worlds, which are probably rocky like Earth, are too close to their host star to harbour life as we know it, but if they formed farther out as is thought, they may once have been habitable. Discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, the planets orbit a sun-like star about 950 light years away called Kepler-20. They smash the previous record for the smallest exoplanet around a living star, a planet 1.4 times as wide as Earth known as Kepler-10b.
“We’ve crossed the Earth-sized threshold,” says Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The discovery comes just two weeks after the announcement of Kepler’s first confirmed planet in the habitable zone around a star of the same type as the sun — though at 2.4 times Earth’s width, that planet may be gassy like Neptune. The habitable zone is the region around a star where temperatures are right for liquid water to exist on an object’s surface.
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