Crackdown on Evasion Forces Italians to Kick Cash Habit
Rome, 23 Dec. (AKI/Bloomberg) — Floriana d’Andrea, a Naples musician, carries rolls of euro notes when she buys instruments and audio gear, a practice she’ll have to change as Italy sets new limits on cash payments in a bid to curb tax evasion.
“I bought some expensive sound equipment and the shop owner jacked up the price when I asked for a receipt,” said d’Andrea, 41, who paid 1,600 euros in cash in the transaction. She has a credit card but rarely uses it.
Prime minister Mario Monti, in office just over a month, wants landlords, plumbers, electricians and small businesses to stop conducting large transactions in cash, which critics say helps them evade taxes. The government on 4 December reduced the maximum allowed cash payment to 1,000 euros from 2,500 euros.
“If they force us to use credit cards, prices will go up,” said d’Andrea, noting that many retailers offer discounts to customers who pay in cash and don’t demand a receipt, in effect splitting with them the savings from evading the country’s 21 percent sales tax.
Italy loses more than 120 billion euros in unpaid taxes every year, according to the Equitalia tax collection agency. The country spends another 10 billion euros annually on security and labor for processing cash transactions, according to banking association ABI.
Monti is focusing on curtailing evasion as one way to reduce Italy’s 1.9 trillion-euro debt, which is bigger than Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal’s combined. Investor concern that Italy remains at risk of being overwhelmed by the region’s debt crisis pushed the country’s borrowing costs to euro-era records last month.
Small Transactions
“Tracking cash payments won’t automatically ensure lower evasion, which often involves transactions smaller than 1,000 euros,” said Luca Mezzomo, head of economic research at Intesa Sanpaolo in Milan. The measures “could, however, be a good instrument for the tax authorities to identify people who spend more than they’ve officially earned.”
The reform pits the government against some Italians who prefer to pay for everything from wedding receptions to home renovations with cash, allowing merchants to underreport or not declare the revenue, and gaining a discount in exchange. Many small companies pay salaries in cash, allowing employees to report less income, the Finance Ministry said last year.
“Businesses make us accomplices, because nobody wants to pay extra on a large transaction,” said Adele Costantini, a professor of medicine in the southern region of Abruzzo, who had to argue to get a receipt from a house painter. “I want them to pay the tax, not unload it on me.”
Big Savers
Italians are the euro region’s least-indebted consumers and among its biggest savers, according to data from the European Union’s statistics office, Eurostat. Their frugality may be at least partly linked to a distrust of paying with anything other than cash. Italian credit-card holders use their cards on average only 26 times per year, or five times less than in the U.K., according to the Bank of Italy.
“The culture of cash is strongly ingrained in Italians, even those that don’t evade,” deputy finance minister Vittorio Grilli said at Rome press conference on 5 December. The government initially wanted to set a 300-euro or 500-euro cash limit but decided against it, Grilli said, reasoning that citizens needed time to adapt to new rules.
Italian banks, which charge businesses up to 2 percent for credit-card transactions, could end up being the main beneficiaries of the new rules, according to Rome-based consumer group Adusbef. “Unless banks cut fees on credit cards and current accounts, they’ll just make more money from the new law,” said Mauro Novelli, the general secretary of the organization, which represents banking and insurance customers.
Older Italians
Consumer advocates say the new law also discriminates against older Italians, many of whom don’t use credit cards. As many as 7.5 million Italians have never had a bank account, according to Adusbef. “The law cannot force old people to use plastic or open bank accounts,” Novelli said.
The government is negotiating with the banks to get them to cut fees on credit cards and lower costs for bank accounts to encourage the move away from cash, Grilli said.
Banks are willing to consider zero-cost current accounts for low-income retirees and discuss credit-card costs “in light of the government’s new measures,” Giuseppe Mussari, head of Rome-based ABI, said on 11 December. However, lenders won’t “give away” services that carry a cost for them, he said.
‘Stringent Limits’
Italy’s tradition of saving won’t be at risk from the new measures, said Nicola Borri, an economics professor at Rome’s LUISS University. “Italians mainly use debit or credit cards with stringent limits,” he said. “Financial instruments that allow you to pile up debt are very limited in this country.”
Politicians have seized on the cash issue as a way to build support among a public reluctant to change. “There’s a real danger of crossing over into a fiscal police state,” former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said at a political convention on 27 November in Verona, about two weeks after the debt crisis toppled his government.
“What we need is a revolution in Italians’ thinking and that takes time,” Monti told reporters early this month. “This is meant to be a first step.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Euro: A Drab 10th Birthday Party for the Currency
Choices made in 2012 will decide its survival
(ANSAmed) — ROME — On the first of January 2002, the then President of Italy and one of the most ardent supporters of the project, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, oversaw the entry of the euro into circulation in this country. With no technical hitches worth mentioning, no ATMs refusing to obey instructions and with nothing more than the kits Italians had been issued with before Christmas to aid them with the changeover, all went according to plan. The new Euro replaced such historic currencies as the thousand-year-old Italian Lira, the French Franc, the Florin and the mighty German Mark itself.
But the new currency was built to a design based on the soundness of this latter currency and the ECB, the European Central Bank in name, remained German in spirit — a condition for the German ‘Ja’ to entry into the international monetary project. Eleven nations pioneered the currency — and Italy managed to be among these, albeit with a typically Italian last minute rush — having to adopt a tax purpose-made for the transition. Greece was left behind at the starting blocks, but was given a year in which to adjust its public finances — a job never done in any thoroughgoing fashion. Today there are seventeen members: an unlucky number for most Italians, and it was therefore no surprise to many that the euro should now hit a crisis. Assailed by currency speculators, with a central bank charged with its defence, but without a licence to print money or to stand as guarantor of last instance for the debts of member countries, and least of all for the least disciplined of them at present: Italy and Spain. While Ireland, Greece and Portugal have already had recourse to international bail-outs and have technically surrendered their national budgetary independence. Almost on the dot of its birthday, then, on December 9, the euro underwent a course of emergency treatment whose success is far from clear. Germany obtained from the rest of the European Union — (that is, from the Euro-zone plus another nine countries, with the United Kingdom keeping its distance) — the go-ahead for a fiscal compact, as Mario Draghi the currency’s new chief guardian called it. The pact amounts to a commitment to apply the rules of a budgetary pact as if modified by an inter-governmental treaty and a review of the changes has not been ruled out for the future. And so 2012 will be a crunch year for the survival of the euro, 10 years on from its creation, and there is no shortage of gloom among analysts, with predictions of an exploding euro-area, or of a two-speed set up involving stronger and weaker members and the expulsion of the more indebted. Hit by the Greek syndrome — or maybe better the Greek tragedy — markets await the next head of government summit called for January 30 where matters such as growth and employment are to be on the agenda. These are sore points not just in Italy, but in almost every country of the Union. Until today, the single currency appeared to be set on overtaking the dollar in terms of soundness — but it has instead shown its dependence on the performance of the US economy. It has overcome the feeble conclusions of previous EU summits, but this uncertainty cannot last forever. And so it is that the Wall Street Journal reports national central banks preparing for the return of their old currencies (the finger is being pointed at the Dublin-based bank first of all) while other leaks — which are being consistently denied — speak of Germany re-espousing its first love — the Mark. And all this as the hours count down to the anniversary of that great moment ten years ago. March had been set as the last date for exchanging the old lire into euros, but this latest pact has de facto brought the date forward, reaping a dividend of around one billion for the treasury. This may not be much, but it would be useful these days if it could count as a reduction of the Italian government’s debt — that great white whale the Monti government has to tame in order to win back the confidence of international markets. And so the euro’s tenth birthday promises to be an anti-climax, with the whole world watching events in Rome to see whether Italy really is ‘too big to fail’ or, with a spread that is staying stubbornly over 500 points, whether it turns out to be ‘too big to save’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France to Hold Jobs Summit as Unemployment Hits 12-Year High
A sharp rise in France’s unemployment figures is putting pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy to deliver, with over half the French population wanting the candidates for the spring presidential election to focus their energies on maintaining jobs. Figures released by the labour ministry this week show that the number of those unemployed hit 2.85 million in November, a 12-year high and the seventh consecutive monthly increase.
The numbers have sparked a debate in France about the nature and future of employment with Sarkozy convening a jobs summit on 18 January. The discussion has mainly focussed on part-time work and reducing hours and salaries instead of losing jobs, a proposal that has to be agreed with the unions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iceland is Our Modern Utopia
Público, Madrid
In rejecting by referendum a bailout for their toxic banks and the repayment of external debt, the citzens of Iceland have shown it is possible to escape the laws of capitalism and take control of one’s destiny, writes a Spanish historian
Miguel Ángel Sanz Loroño.
Since the times of Oscar Wilde it has been known that a map without the island of Utopia on it is a map “not worth even glancing at”. Despite that, the journey of Iceland from the darling of late capitalism to a project in true democracy suggests that a map without Utopia is not only unworthy of our attention, but is also a hoax conjured up by a defective cartography. Whether the markets like it or not, the lighthouse of Utopia has begun flashing faint warning signals to the rest of Europe.
Iceland is not Utopia. It is known that there can be no kingdoms of liberty within the Empire of necessity of late capitalism. But it is a recognition of a dramatic absence. Iceland is proof that capital does not own all the truth there is to this world, even when it aspires to control all the maps we can lay out.
With its decision to halt the wheel of tragedy of the markets, Iceland has set a precedent that could threaten to break the back of late capitalism. For now, this small island, which is doing what was claimed to be too unreal to be possible, does not seem to be sinking into chaos, though it does seem to be sinking into an information blackout. How much information are we getting from Iceland and how much on the loans to Greece? Why has Iceland gone off the pages of some of the media that should be telling us what is happening out there in the world?
A constitution drafted by citizen assemblies
So far it has been the birthright of those in power to define what is real and what is not, what can be thought and done and what can not. The cognitive maps deployed in order to understand our world have always had obscure corners where lies the barbarism that upholds the dominions of the elites. Those unmapped shadows of the world usually go with the elimination of their opposite, the island of Utopia. Walter Benjamin has already put it in writing: There is no document of civilisation that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
These elites, aided by theologians and economists, have been defining what is real and what is not: what is realistic, according to this definition of reality, and what is not and therefore an aberration of thought that cannot be taken into account. That is, what can be done and thought and what can not. But they have done it, in accordance with the basis of power and its violence: the dreaded concept of necessity. One must make sacrifices, they say with a stricken gesture. Either adapt, or face the unimaginable catastrophe. Late capitalism has exposed its logic in a perversely Hegelian way: all that is real is necessarily rational, and vice versa.
In January 2009, the Icelandic people rebelled against the arbitrariness of this logic. The peaceful demonstrations of the crowd brought down the Conservative cabinet of Geir Haarde, and running the country fell to a left-leaning parliamentary minority, which called elections for April 2009. The Social Democratic Alliance of Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and the Left-Green Movement renewed their coalition government with an absolute majority. In autumn 2009, by a popular initiative, a Constitution began to be drafted by citizen assemblies. In 2010, the Government proposed creating a national constitutional council whose members would be chosen by lot. Two referenda (the second in April 2011) refused to rescue the banks and pay the foreign debt. In September 2011 the former Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, was put on trial for his role in the crisis…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Discusses Stimulus Plan With Cabinet
Ministers back ‘phase 2’ growth initiatives
(ANSA) — Rome, December 28 — Italian President Mario Monti met with cabinet members Wednesday to discuss the second phase of his austerity plan that aims to stimulate economic growth. “After ample debate, the cabinet unanimously agreed with the president’s proposals,” according to a written statement from the ministers in Monti’s emergency government. The 30-billion-euro package of tax hikes, spending cuts and pension reforms passed a confidence vote in the Senate to win final approval Thursday.
Before that vote Monti told the Senate that “phase two” of his emergency government’s action would be “all about growth”.
The former European commissioner has said that the New Year would bring several moves to stimulate Italy’s flagging economy, including liberalizations and lowering taxes on businesses.
Monti’s austerity package has angered Italy’s trade unions, who have staged a series of strikes in protest against it.
They say the “unfair and unjust” measures hit the poor and the middle classes too hard and do not clobber the wealthy or tax evaders hard enough.
Monti, who stepped in to lead an administration of non-political technocrats after the debt crisis forced Silvio Berlusconi to resign as premier last month, has said the alternative is a financial meltdown that would render the state unable to pay pensions and salaries.
As expected Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, which remains the biggest in parliament, voted in favour of the package.
However, the former premier is said to have threatened to withdraw his support and force early elections if the government imposes more tax increases. The package features a new property tax and a rise in value added tax, which will take it up from 21% to 23% in the top band in the second half of next year.
Pensions above 1,400 euros will not be raised in line with inflation next year and the retirement age will go up from 60 to 62 for women and from 65 to 66 for men.
Furthermore, the minimum number of years of pension contributions needed to retire before the retirement age will increase from 40 to 42 years for men and 41 years for women.
In his speech in the Senate on Thursday Monti stressed the importance of working with “the social partners”, especially the trade unions, who have repeatedly baulked at talk of revising a key prevision in the 1970 Workers’ Statute that says workers fired without just cause must be reinstated.
The premier did not mention the totemic Article 18 but repeated that labour-market reform to open up places for women and young people, a third of whom are jobless, was a high priority for his government.
He also said new benefits for those who lose their jobs should be introduced.
“The phase that now opens will focus on the labour market and job-loss support,” Monti said.
“It will be necessary and possible to proceed in a different way from that hitherto used with the political and social groups because the labour market, by its nature, requires greater dialogue with social partners,” Monti said.
He added that phase two will feature efforts to cut public spending and red tape and encouraged Italians to buy Treasury bonds to help ease the pressure the state paper is coming under on the financial markets.
On Wednesday, markets initially seemed to react positively to the meeting as interest rates were halved at a Treasury bond auction. But the impact was short-lived as the spread between the long-term bond against the German benchmark returned to 500 basis points.
Monti’s cabinet is scheduled to have “future meetings” to discuss details of the stimulus plan, according to the premier’s office.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Petrol Prices Hit New Record
More increases expected in 2012
(ANSA) — Rome, December 29 — The price of gasoline hit a new record of 1.722 euros a litre in Italy on Thursday.
According to the trade journal, Quotidiano Energia, the oil giant ENI increased the price of petrol by 1 cent to 1.722 euros a litre and the price of diesel by 0.5 cents to 1.694 euros a litre. Italian drivers faced a dramatic increase in prices in early December when a nationwide tax hike on gasoline took effect as part of the government’s 30-billion-euro ‘Save Italy’ austerity package.
At that time the average price of a litre of petrol rose almost 10 cents to 1.708 euros, making it the most expensive in Europe.
While prices remained relatively stable over Christmas, the online daily predicted further increases in early 2012 and expected other companies to follow ENI’s lead and also raise their prices.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ten-Year Bond Yield Falls Below 7%
Market responds well to last auction of the year
(ANSA) — Rome, December 29 — Yields on 10-year Treasury bonds fell below 7% at a closely watched auction Thursday.
The yield fell to 6.98% from 7.56% at the last auction in November.
A yield of 7% is the rate at which other eurozone countries have sought bailouts .
Demand was 1.36 times the 2.5 billion bonds on sale, compared to 1.34 times at the November auction.
The auction, the last of the year, was seen as a more severe test of market sentiment than a three-month auction Wednesday which saw yields halved from 6.5% to 3.25%.
Also on Thursday, an auction of three-year bonds saw yields plummet to 5.62% from 7.89% at the last auction, while demand was 3.46 billion euros for the 2.53 billion euro in bonds sold.
Counting a third auction on seven-year paper, the Treasury placed a total of seven billion euros Thursday.
The Milan bourse was steady at +0.1% while the spread between Italian and German bonds was slightly up at 522 basis points, a potentially dangerous threshold.
Italian Premier Mario Monti said a spread above 500 points was “unjustified” in view of the Italian economy’s “sound” fundamentals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Pledges Market Reform and Growth in 2012
‘Action to free up competition and capital’, says PM
(ANSA) — Rome, December 29 — Premier Mario Monti on Friday promised his government would focus on growth and labour market reform in the next phase of his ‘Save Italy’ economic package.
Monti was speaking at the prime minister’s traditional end-of-year media conference in Rome.
“The next few weeks will be dedicated to growth,” Monti said. “However, government funding will not be used, not only because there is so little but equity demands we reduce it.
“We are convinced that this action to free up energy, liberalisation and competition and to promote human capital for universities, research and challenging and essential reform of the labour market will eventually lead to growth and equity”.
The prime minister stressed it would have been “devastating” if Italy had not adopted its recent reforms in exchange for intervention from the European Central Bank.
“That had to be done,” he said. “From today we move on to what we want to do”.
Monti said after the package entitled ‘Save Italy’ he had no objection if the new phase was called ‘Grow Italy’.
He stressed that neither he nor his ministers saw the phases as two distinct periods and the decree ‘Save Italy’ included “growth and equity”.
“The growth phase is in tune with the consolidation of public accounts,” he said.
“Sustainable consolidation cannot occur if the famous denominator — GDP — does not grow adequately”.
Monti’s 30-billion-euro package aims to balance the budget by 2013 and avoid financial collapse arising from the debt crisis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Non-Euro Denmark Takes Over EU Amid Euro Crisis
Non-euro country Denmark takes over the European Union presidency Sunday, determined to solve the crisis in the 17-member eurozone by cultivating consensus among all 27 EU members. The Scandinavian nation of 5.6 million, one of the few countries in Europe run by a centre-left government, will have to face the euro crisis head-on even though it risks being marginalised along with the nine other EU members, including Britain, that have not adopted the euro.
“I understand perfectly that the 17 members of the eurozone need to take some decisions amongst themselves,” Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a Social Democrat, has said. But it is in the interest of core EU members France and Germany “to keep the 27 together” and consult all EU member states “when these decisions concern them”, she said, because “in times of crisis, we have to believe in our institutions.”
After Denmark rejected the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum in 1992, Copenhagen negotiated four opt-outs to European cooperation, including one on the single currency. These exemptions “will of course be fully respected,” Denmark’s European Affairs Minister Nicolai Wammen said. But, he stressed, “we will also chair the meetings on these issues.”
Thorning-Schmidt said Copenhagen wants to try to “be a bridge between the 17 and the 27” to make sure that the gap does not widen between the eurozone and non-euro countries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Corruption of America
So… is America growing richer or poorer based on per-capita GDP? Seems like a simple enough question, doesn’t it? Is our economy growing faster than our population? Are we, as individuals, becoming more affluent? Or is the pie, measured on a per-person basis, growing smaller?
This is the most fundamental measure of the success or the failure of any political system or culture. Are the legal and social rules we live under aiding our economic development or holding us back? What do the numbers say?
Unfortunately, it’s a harder question to answer than it should be. The problem is, we don’t have a sound currency with which to measure GDP through time. Until 1971, the U.S. dollar was defined as a certain amount of gold. And the price of gold was fixed by international agreement. It didn’t actually begin to trade freely until 1975. Therefore, the value of the U.S. dollar (and thus the value of U.S. production, which is measured in dollars) was manipulated higher for many years.
Even today, our government’s nominal GDP figures are greatly influenced by inflation. The influence of inflation is particularly pernicious in GDP studies. You see, inflation, which actually reduces our standard of living, drives up the amount of nominal GDP. So it creates the appearance of a wealthier country… while the nation is actually getting poorer.
The only real way to accurately measure per-capita GDP is to build our own model. The need to build our own tools tells you something important — the government doesn’t want anyone to know the answer to this question. It could easily publish data far more accurate than the indexes it puts out. But government doesn’t want anyone to know. And it wants to be able to say “those aren’t the real data” when studies like ours produce bad news.
So pay attention to how we built our charts. You can see for yourself that our data are far more accurate than the government’s figures. Our data are based on the real purchasing power of the currency, not the nominal numbers, which are completely meaningless in the real world.
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UK: Cuts ‘Spell a Care Crisis for the Elderly’: Charity Chief Warns That 900,000 Won’t Get Support Next Year as Councils Slash Funding
Cuts to social care services mean that Britain’s elderly are facing an ‘absolute crisis’, according to the head of a leading charity.
Age UK’s director Michelle Mitchell said increasing numbers of older people with considerable care needs were ‘getting absolutely no support at all, or poor quality and limited support’ as a result of cuts to local authority provision.
She said research by the King’s Fund health charity showed that the number of older people who need significant care support but receive no assistance will reach almost 900,000 in 2012, rising to one million by 2015.
‘This means people will deteriorate more quickly and go into hospital,’ she warned.
‘We have seen the rates of admissions to hospital increase over the last few months which, apart from anything else, is very expensive — to have someone admitted through A&E and then kept in hospital.
‘Care is in crisis and it is getting worse. We have evidence to show that local authorities have cut care for older people by 4.5 per cent this year — and this at a time when social care is chronically underfunded anyway.’
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Court Turns Deaf Ear to Anti-Semitism
A terrorism expert and Islamic watchdog isn’t surprised that a court has ruled to reject the claims of anti-Semitism at the University of California, Berkeley. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a Jewish student and a recent graduate of UC Berkeley filed suit, claiming officials failed to protect Jewish students from the threats and harassment brought on by two campus Muslim groups. The complaint focuses on the activities during the anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” in 2010 conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. The harassment included uniformed Muslims conducting “checkpoints,” asking passing students if they were Jewish. The annual event is meant to compare Israel’s policies to the institutionalized racism of South Africa’s former white government. One of the plaintiffs claimed that a leader of the pro-Palestinian group rammed her with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest. However, the court rejected her complaints, saying much of the alleged harassment, even if true, constituted protected political speech that UC Berkeley had no obligation to stop.
But Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch says the Muslims were actually the enemies of free speech. “The Muslim students who threatened and acted thuggishly toward the Jewish students were not acting in any kind of legitimate way in defense of free speech. They were trying to shut down the Jewish students,” he contends. “And so this ruling is really sort of ridiculous. Now, thuggishness and shouting people down and shutting people up is protected speech, and to complain about that is to try to shut down the thugs. It’s kind of an appalling situation.” An attorney for the plaintiffs is weighing his clients’ options, but Spencer is not confident the students’ right to speak freely about Islam at Berkeley will be protected.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
DuPage Mosque Project Wants to Add Dome, Minaret
A group planning to build a mosque near Willowbrook is hoping that the future structure will include a dome and minaret.
Recent changes to DuPage County’s zoning laws could pave the way for a planned mosque near Willowbrook to have a dome and minaret, despite a previous vote that rejected those distinctive structural features. Muslim Educational and Cultural Center of America has approval to construct a roughly 47,000-square-foot mosque on almost 5 acres along 91st Street near Route 83. But in February, the county board refused to give the group permission to exceed DuPage’s 36-foot height restriction in unincorporated residential neighborhoods. At the time, the group needed a height variance to add a 69-foot dome and 79-foot minaret to the future mosque. But then in October, DuPage adopted a set of zoning law changes that apply to churches, mosques and other places of assembly.
One of those revisions allows religious design elements — including bell towers, steeples and crosses — to exceed 36 feet as long as certain setback requirements are met. However, the features can’t be taller than 72 feet. “MECCA didn’t have the chance to bring the heights down to what was perceived to be acceptable to the county board,” said Mark Daniel, the Elmhurst-based attorney representing the group. “Now under the new ordinance, they have the right to go in and ask for this relief.” MECCA has started the process of trying to amend its conditional-use permit to include a shorter 50-foot dome and 60-foot minaret. A county zoning board of appeals hearing on the petition is scheduled to resume on Jan. 9.
The county board eventually will get the final say on whether any changes can be made to MECCA’s conditional-use permit.
In the meantime, neighbors are expected to oppose the changes even though MECCA moved the planned location of the dome east away from neighboring residential parcels. The dome would be more than 300 feet away from residential neighbors to the west. Following the old zoning rules, county board members in February said MECCA representatives couldn’t show a legal hardship to justify a height variance. DuPage officials said the height limit for residential areas was adopted in 2005. Since that time, the county hasn’t allowed any variances for religious uses. In the meantime, MECCA is hoping to start building the mosque by March. The construction is expected to take 18 months from the date work begins.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Twin Moon Probes Set for Lunar Arrival This Weekend
A pair of NASA spacecraft is getting set to orbit the moon this weekend, a move that will kick off the probes’ effort to study Earth’s nearest neighbor from crust to core.
NASA’s twin Grail spacecraft are slated to start circling the moon one day apart, with Grail-A arriving on Saturday (Dec. 31) and Grail-B following on Sunday (Jan. 1). The two probes will then fly around the moon in tandem, mapping the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail and helping scientists better understand how the moon formed and evolved. “This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon,” Grail principal investigator Maria Zuber, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Philadelphia Security Firm Discriminates Against Muslim Worker
Imperial Security, Inc., a Philadelphia security firm, recently signed a consent decree with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle a case involving discrimination against a Muslim worker. Imperial Security hired Julie Holloway-Russell, a Muslim who wore a khimar headscarf covering her hair, ears, and neck to her job interview to become one of the company’s security guards. After landing the job, Ms. Holloway-Russell wore the khimar when reporting for her first work assignment. She was told to remove the khimar because the company’s dress code required all employees to wear a white shirt, tie, black pants, a black belt, black socks, and black shoes, and it forbade additions to the uniform for any reason, including religion. Ms. Holloway-Russell was offered a company-approved baseball hat to wear in lieu of her khimar, but she refused to remove her khimar. She was then terminated.
Imperial Security will pay $50,000 under the consent decree, designate an EEO officer who will receive complaints of discrimination or retaliation, revise its employee handbook to permit accommodation of religious beliefs, and establish a procedure for handling discrimination complaints and a disciplinary policy for any employee who engages in discriminatory or retaliatory behavior. The Imperial Security case comes on the heels of a case resolved last summer against Abercrombie & Fitch. In that case, a young Muslim woman interviewed to become an Abercrombie sales associate but was denied employment because she wore a khimar to her job interview and “did not comply with their looks policy,” says Natasha Abel, a trial attorney in the EEOC’s Philadelphia district office.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Floridians Join National Lowe’s Boycott
FORT LAUDERDALE — A Sunrise contractor has joined a national boycott of Lowe’s, saying the home improvement supply store bowed to bigotry by pulling advertising from a TLC reality television show about Muslims after a fundamentalist Christian group pressured it to do so.
“I am not only upset… but it’s shocking to hear someone would pull an add just because someone is Muslim,” said Mohamed Sulaman, an American Muslim who has been in the South Florida construction industry for 13 years. “I don’t know what the show is but, due to the fact they pulled the ad out just based on the Muslim thing, that is why I am taking a stand and not shopping at Lowe’s.” Lowe’s pulled its advertising from TLC network’s All American Muslim Dec. 5 after an email campaign launched by the Florida-based fundamentalist Christian group Florida Family Association (FAA) targeted the show’s advertisers. The show allows a peek into the lives of American Muslim families living in the Dearborn, Mich. areas heavily populated by American Muslims. It portrays them as normal, everyday Americans who practice an often misunderstood faith. But the families are too all-American for the Tampa-based FFA which urged its members through its web site to email the show’s 60 advertisers to encourage them to pull their support. They said the show was “clearly designed to counter legitimate and present day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and sharia law” while asserting that it was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Stephen Hawking is Hiring: Seeks Assistant to Help Him Speak
If you’ve always dreamed about one day working with Stephen Hawking, now could be your chance. The famed astrophysicist is looking to hire a technical assistant to help develop and maintain the special electronic system that enables him to communicate, according to his personal website.
Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that left the scientist severely disabled. In 1985, Hawking lost his real voice in a tracheotomy procedure, according to an Associated Press report. Now, the physicist uses a computerized speech system attached to his wheelchair to interpret the twitches of his face to produce a synthesized voice.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Story of the Year: Anti-Muslim Bigotry in America
INSIDE THE FIRST AMENDMENT By Charles C. Haynes First Amendment Center
The recent decision by Lowe’s Home Improvement to pull ads from the reality TV show “All-American Muslim” caps a very successful year for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States. So successful, in fact, that anti-mosque protests, anti-Shariah laws, and anti-Muslim hate crimes could easily fill any list of “top five” religion stories in 2011.
Lowe’s withdrawal from sponsoring a show about the daily life of five American Muslim families was apparently in response to objections to the program from a conservative Christian group called the Florida Family Association.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Lowe’s action re-enforces the message anti-Muslim groups have been propagating for years: Portraying Muslims as ordinary Americans is problematic, if not wrong and dangerous, because it may lull the rest of us into ignoring the stealth threat of Islam and Muslims to the freedom and security of theUnited States. Of course, the Florida Family Association and other anti-Muslim groups hasten to tell you, there are some “good Muslims.” But Islam itself, they argue, is inherently violent and oppressive — and eventually Muslims inAmericawill subvert our laws by imposing their own. Never mind how many studies show high levels of opposition to radical Islam and extreme interpretations of Shariah law among Muslim Americans. Never mind how much Muslim leaders and institutions in theU.S.help in the fight against extremism. Never mind the millions of Muslims who have practiced their faith freely and peacefully inAmericafor generations — without undermining the Constitution.
No reasoned argument, no amount of scholarship, no pile of studies is enough to convince the diehard “stop the Islamization of America” crowd that they are wrong to demonize Islam and Muslims in the U.S. In 2011, the anti-Muslim narrative migrated from the right-wing fringe into the mainstream. It’s gone so far that even an innocuous television show created to fight stereotypes loses a sponsor because it doesn’t portray the very stereotypes it attempts to dispel. Fortunately, Americans who care about religious freedom are beginning to push back. As I write this, Christians, Jews, Muslims and others are organizing boycotts of Lowe’s in cities throughout the nation. And growing numbers of religious and political leaders are speaking out against intolerance and prejudice aimed at Muslim Americans. If the decision-makers at Lowe’s had hoped to avoid controversy by pulling sponsorship from the show, they badly miscalculated.
In a world plagued by extremists acting in the name of Islam, it goes without saying that Americans have every reason to be worried about homegrown terrorism. According to the polls, Muslim Americans strongly share that concern. That’s why imams preach and work against extremism and Muslim Americans are actively helping law enforcement foil terrorist plots (studies support both of these assertions). Incoherent and unnecessary laws banning Shariah, unfounded fears about mosques in the neighborhood, and ugly attempts to paint all Muslims with the terrorist brush, are all red herrings that divert Americans from our shared goal of fighting extremism (of all varieties) and securing our safety and freedom.
Ironically, Lowe’s cave-in to anti-Muslim prejudice may prove to be exactly what was needed to wake Americans up to the very real dangers of Islamophobia in our country. If we must concede 2011 to the propagators of fear and hate, let’s work to make 2012 a banner year for proponents of religious freedom. 12-28-11
Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum,555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.,Washington,D.C.20001. Web: firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail: chaynes@freedomforum.org.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A Tunnel Divides Them: Germans and Danes Split Over Undersea Link
Denmark plans to build a 20-kilometer tunnel under the Baltic Sea to Germany in what would be the largest infrastructure project in Europe and one of the world’s longest undersea tunnels. Most Danes support the project, but resistance is growing on the German side.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
An Independent Scotland Would Have 7 Votes in the EU Council
An independent Scotland would be awarded seven votes within the Council of Ministers, the EU institution representing member states, according to information from the EU Commission, the UK Press Association reports. The UK itself would see its voting share reduced from 29 to 27 in the event of Scottish secession.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Inexorable March Toward Islam
by Soeren Kern
As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago. What follows is a brief summary of some of the more outrageous Islam-related controversies that took place in Europe during 2011.
In Austria, an appellate court upheld the politically correct conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for “denigrating religious beliefs” after she gave a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam. The December 20 ruling showed that while Judaism and Christianity can be disparaged with impunity in postmodern multicultural Austria, speaking the truth about Islam is subject to swift and hefty legal penalties. Also in Austria, the King Abdullah Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue was inaugurated at the Albertina Museum in downtown Vienna on October 13. The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar initiative is to “foster dialogue” between the world’s major religions in order to “prevent conflict.” But critics say the center is an attempt by Saudi Arabia to establish a permanent “propaganda center” in central Europe from which to spread the conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Five Years on Romania, Bulgaria Cash in on EU Membership
Five years after joining the European Union, Bulgaria and Romania are cashing in billions of euros in aid and their citizens can earn a living in the bloc’s more fortunate members, even if obstacles persist. “Many things have changed since January 1st, 2007. For one thing, Romanians and Bulgarians can travel freely and work in the EU,” Romania’s Minister of European Affairs Leonard Orban told AFP.
Despite labour market restrictions introduced by 11 member states, hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians and two million Romanians are working in other EU countries, mostly Italy, Spain and Germany. Whether they are construction workers or nurses, Bulgarian migrants sent home more than 680 million euros ($880 million) in the first 10 months of 2011, while remittances from Romanians topped 2.7 billion.
The biggest windfall for the two former communist countries, among the poorest in Europe, was however the EU money aimed at helping them catch up with the older member states. Nearly 20 billion euros were set aside for Romania over the 2007-2013 period and some 6.7 billion for its southern neighbour. An additional 13 billion euros was earmarked for the two countries’ farmers.
A bridge across the Danube, the extension of the underground rail system in Sofia and hundreds of kilometres (miles) of motorways in both countries will draw most of the EU funds, a godsend for lagging infrastructure. But spending all this money is not easy. Lengthy procedures and scarce funds to co-finance the projects as required by the EU have delayed many of the development-targeted programmes.
With barely 3.5 percent of the funds used so far, Romania has by the far the poorest track record. Bulgaria posts a much higher rate, 18 percent, according to the minister in charge of European funds, Tomislav Dontchev.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Armenian Vote: Turks Urged to Boycott French Goods
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, DECEMBER 23 — Under the banner “Minister incites Turks to boycott French goods”, Turkish daily Hurriyet reports that Turkey’s EU minister said people would react to France’s Armenian genocide denial bill. “We saw in the past for the case of Italy, those who emptied wine onto (the streets) and burned coats and ties were this country’s people. There is no need for suggestion, this nation’s people decide on their own,” EU Minister Egemen Bagis told reporters yesterday. Bagis said Turks would react by not consuming French goods in response to the controversial bill. It was announced last night that Ankara is recalling its ambassador and freezing political visits as well as joint military projects, including exercises. Ankara will also cancel permission for French military planes to land and warships to dock in Turkey as a result of the bill.
Meanwhile, Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Minister Nihat Ergun said Turkey would probably not assume an embargo policy against France nor violate international agreements.
However, France should take into consideration the uneasiness that would emerge in Turkish society, Ergun said. Bulent Eczacibasi, president of the board of directors of Eczacibasi Holding, said any boycott against the French firms in Turkey would harm the Turkish economy. “It would not be wise to punish those companies working in Turkey; by doing that we will hurt ourselves. We should be calm and our steps should be outcome-oriented. We should avoid taking steps with anger that could be detrimental to ourselves,” he said. In a last warning to France over the Armenian genocide denial bill, Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek said bilateral ties were under threat of “irreparable damage” and urged French lawmakers to use “common sense”. The planned bill has united Turkey’s ruling and opposition parties in Parliament, which in a joint declaration denounced it as a “grave, unacceptable and historic mistake”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Veiled Woman Given Driving Fine
A woman in Brittany was slapped with a €35 ($45) fine after police spotted her driving her car wearing a full-face veil. The woman, who was visiting family in the north-west coastal town of Saint-Brieuc, was wearing the face-covering niqab, reported daily newspaper 20 Minutes. Police stopped the woman who “seemed hesitant in her driving,” said local police spokesman Laurent Dufour. “On closer inspection, they realized she was veiled,” he said. “This is an issue of skill, safety and visibility,” said Dufour. He compared driving with a full face veil to driving a car with ice on the windscreen, eating a sandwich or smoking a cigarette.
France banned the wearing of full-face coverings in public in October last year. Dubbed the “burqa ban”, anyone refusing to show their face risks incurring a fine. Earlier in December a 32-year-old woman was sentenced to 15 days of ‘citizenship service’ after she refused to remove a full-face veil. The woman, Hind Ahmas, said she would not obey the ruling. She risks a two-year prison sentence and a €30,000 fine if she does not perform her citizenship service.
Last week a Muslim man was jailed after he punched a nurse who tried to remove his wife’s burqa during an emergency C-section. He was sentenced to six months in prison and described by the judge as putting “his religious dogma above the laws of the Republic and his French citizenship.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French ‘Cola Tax’ Approved: Paris Vows to Fight Deficit and Obesity
Officially part of the country’s tough austerity measures to combat the debt crisis, France will implement a new “soda tax” on Jan. 1. The legislation is also part of a growing trend in Europe to impose sin taxes on food and drinks associated with poor health and obesity.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hungarian Journalists Sacked for Criticising Government
Hungary’s broadcaster has sacked two journalists, Balazs Nagy Navarro and Aranka Szavuly, who are on hunger strike to protest against alleged government meddling in the media, the Irish Times reports. The move comes amid growing EU criticism about the style and reforms of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Dolce Vita’ Diva Ekberg, Broke and Alone, Appeals for Help
Rome, 22 Dec. (AKI) — Anita Ekberg, the Swedish 1960s blond bombshell who famously cavorted in Rome’s Trevi Fountain in the 1960 Federico Fellini classic “La Dolce Vita” is destitute and asking for help.
Ekberg, 80, has been living in a care home near Rome for the past three months after she broke her thighbone in a fall. She hasn’t returned to her apartment which was robbed of furniture and jewellery. A fire has rendered it unfit for habitation, according to accountant Massimo Morais who was appointed to help manage her affairs.
Morais has written to the Fellini Foundation of Rimini appealing for financial held and posted on the Foundation’s Facebook page.
“We ask the Foundation to help share with other benefactors that possibility, however modest,” to help a good actress,” Morais said in the letter. “A small present is always a big gift.”
Ekberg’s iconic role saw her act opposite Italian Marcello Mastroianni. Playing dreamy American movie star with only the first name Sylvia, donning an elegant evening dress she calls out “Marcello, come here. Hurry up,” beckoning Mastroianni’s philandering character Marcello Rubini to join her in the 17th century Baroque fountain.
Starring in more than 20 movies, including “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars,” 1953 and “War and Peace,” 1956 she was married twice and romantically linked to Mastroianni, Frank Sinatra and Gary Cooper.
Prior to film stardom, curvy Ekberg was a popular pinup girl and won the Miss Sweden contest in 1950.
“She would dearly love to go home but the fact is she can’t as she does not have the money to restore the house where she lives which was damaged in the fire,” Morais said. “She also has no family to help look after her and lives on her own. That’s why she is asking the Foundation for help.”
The Rimini, Italy-based Fellini Foundation, founded in 1995, said it plans to hold an event for Ekberg but has not yet worked out the details.
“I feel a bit alone,” Ekberg told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in a September interview to commemorate her 80th birthday. “But I have no regrets. I’ve loved, cried, been crazy with happiness.”
Speaking of the movie that launched her into the pantheon of screen icons, she said, “It was 1960. A lifetime ago.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Captain’s Wife Attacks Govt Over Hijacking Response
‘It is shameful, no-one called us,’ says wife
(ANSA) — Naples, December 27 — Rita Musumeci, wife of the captain whose ship the Enrico Ievoli was seized by pirates off the coast of Oman, has attacked the Italian government for failing to offer enough support.
“It is shameful. No-one from the government called us to let us know,” she said. “They are keeping nice and warm with their families. What do they care”? The Enrico Ievoli was captured off the coast of Oman with 18 crew members aboard, including six Italians.
Musumeci said it was “absurd” for her to have received the news from journalists.
“No-one from the foreign ministry informed us,” she said.
“The relatives of other crew members are in exactly the same position”.
Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi used Twitter to say that he was closely following the hijacking of the tanker and was hoping for a “positive conclusion”.
The Naples company that owns the oil tanker said it is working closely with the Italian government to recover the ship and its crew.
“We are working to do everything possible to ensure their maximum safety,” said Attilio Ievoli, vice-president of Marnavi, who owns the shipping firm with his brother Gennaro.
He said he had learned via a telephone conversation that the crew was “doing well”.
Ievoli said he wanted to offer his support to the families, despite the distance.
“We are in contact with the Foreign Ministry and we have only followed the security instructions issued by the government,” he said. Last week another Italian oil tanker, the Savina Caylyn owned by the Neopolitan company Fratelli D’Amato, was freed after being hijacked by Somali pirates in February.
The Italian Foreign Ministry denied the pirates’ claim that a ransom was paid.
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.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Barbara Berlusconi ‘Pregnant’ With Pato’s Child
Magazine says she is expecting her third child
(ANSA) — Rome, December 27 — Barbara Berlusconi, daughter of the former Italian premier, is reported to be expecting a baby with her Brazilian partner and football champion Alexandre Pato.
According to the Italian weekly gossip magazine Diva e Donna, Berlusconi is pregnant with her third child and the footballer who plays for AC Milan is the father.
“Barbara Berlusconi, 27 years, already the happy mother of Alessandro, 3, and Edoardo, 2, born from her relationship with former financial analyst Giorgio Valaguzza, is expecting her third child with Pato, according to persistent rumours,” the magazine said.
Berlusconi’s father Silvio Berlusconi owns AC Milan and she is a member of the board.
She and Pato appeared to formalise their relationship when they went to La Scala Opera House and appeared hand in hand at the premiere of Don Giovanni on December 7.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rich Businessman Suspended for Landing Helicopter on Beach
Same suspect laughed at potential profit of 2009 L’Aquila quake
(ANSA) — Rome, December 28 — The Italian civil aviation authority on Wednesday suspended the pilot’s license of a controversial Roman businessman who landed his helicopter on a public beach north of the capital to allegedly take his mother out to eat.
Francesco Maria De Vito Piscicelli claimed dangerous winds forced an emergency landing Tuesday but critics accused the wealthy contractor of flaunting his opulence at a time when most Italians are cutting back due to the euro crisis.
Piscicelli, who comes from an aristocratic Neapolitan family, was in the news when wiretaps leaked to the press revealed that he laughed at the prospect of winning contracts for reconstruction after the 2009 earthquake in Abruzzo, which killed 308 people.
The embattled businessman is currently on trial for bribery to land the contract for a new Carabinieri training school on the outskirts of Florence.
Piscicelli has denied all wrongdoing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Shrimp Shortage’ Set to Spoil Swedes’ New Year
Seafood features prominently on many a Swede’s New Year’s menu, but harsh winds on Sweden’s west coast have made fishing difficult recently, sending shrimp and crayfish prices sky high. Fish counters around the country have far lower supplies of the popular seafoods than usual, just as shoppers are gearing up to buy and prepare their festive New Year’s dinners. A kilo of shrimp may set revelers back 500 kronor ($72), more than twice the usual price. The high prices have fish retailers concerned that many Swedes may opt out of serving sea food for dinner on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s a shame. For all those who had planned to eat shrimp and crayfish it’s looking very tough. We’re searching high and low, and may get a small selection, but unfortunately it won’t be very cheap for New Year’s,” said fish retailer Nisse Molinder of Melanders fisk, to Sveriges Radio (SR). The reason for the shortage are the series of storm that have battered Sweden’s west coast with fierce winds, making it nearly impossible for fishing boats to leave the harbour in search of the popular crustaceans.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Elk Hunter Acquitted of Killing Skier by Mistake
A Swedish elk hunter who felled her first elk with a single shot that passed through the animal only to hit and then kill a cross-country skier, has been acquitted of manslaughter charges by the district court in Växjö in central Sweden. The 32-year-old hunter had held her license for six years when her first elk was felled in December 2010 with a single shot, a shot with tragic consequences. Just 60 metres beyond the felled beast lay a 71 year-old cross-country skier in the snow in Ljungby, in southern Sweden. The bullet which killed the elk had continued, hitting the skier and killing him instantly
“We tried to resuscitate him, but it was impossible,” said the woman to the police. The incident occurred in Ljungby, in southern Sweden, in December 2010. The 32-year-old woman faced manslaughter charges for the incident, but the court ruled on Thursday she was innocent on all criminal charges. According to her lawyer, the incident has been hard for the hunter overcome.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: 2011: Record Year for Popular Initiatives
Switzerland’s system of direct democracy seemed more alive than ever in 2011, with the year seeing the launch of a record 23 popular initiatives. Most of the popular initiatives launched or voted upon were related to immigration, the environment or the economy.
The record haul of initiatives can be partly explained by the fact that 2011 was a federal election year, with political parties using the mechanism of direct democracy to set their political agendas. Major international events, like the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, helped the greens and the newly formed Party for Solidarity — Switzerland, to raise awareness about Switzerland’s nuclear policy. Both asked citizens to phase out nuclear power.
Another environmental initiative, in this case launched by the newly formed Liberal Green Party, proposed an energy tax to replace the Value Added Tax (VAT). The return of the financial crisis also prompted political parties to launch several initiatives. The Socialist Party, in alliance with the unions, launched an initiative to set a minimum wage in Switzerland.
The Socialists also teamed up with the Greens and various organizations to collect enough signatures to force a vote on the establishment of a publicly funded health insurance system. Not for the first time, foreigners represented one of the hottest topics for national initiatives. Using controversial posters that earned it international infamy, the Swiss People’s Party hit the headlines with its initiative against mass immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Netherlands Benefits Little From Its Foreign Students
Most foreign students who attend Dutch universities leave as soon as they have their degrees and do not contribute to the local economy, the Volkskrant reports on Friday.
The claim is made by Sander van den Eijnden, head of Nuffic, the organisation which stimulates the internationalisation of higher education in the Netherlands.
Van den Eijden tells the paper better integration of foreign students would bring advantages for the Dutch economy by encouraging more to stay.
‘Our strong point is our English language abilities, that is why they come here,’ Van den Eijden is quoted as saying. ‘But it is also our weakness because foreign students are on the edge of society because they do nothing in Dutch.’
Costs
Later on Friday, the cabinet publishes new figures looking at the cost and benefits of encouraging so many foreign students to come to the Netherlands.
The paper says that even though the EU pays €6,000 a year towards the bill for each foreign students, they still cost the Dutch taxpayer €108m a year. Far more foreign students come to the Netherlands than Dutch students study abroad.
This is partly due to the low fees — around €1,700 for EU nationals — which make it much cheaper for students to take a degree in the Netherlands than, say, England. Some universities, such as Maastricht, advertise heavily abroad…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Police: We Are Treating Murder of Indian Student Shot in Head by Killer Who Had Asked for the Time as Race Hate
The murder of a gifted university student gunned down by a stranger is being treated as a ‘hate crime’, police said today.
Anuj Bidve, 23, was shot at point-blank range after he and a group of friends strayed into a deprived area of Salford, Greater Manchester, in the early hours of Boxing Day.
The Indian-born electronics student, from a wealthy Delhi family, had apparently been executed despite replying politely when his attacker asked him the time.
A fifth person, a 20-year-old man, was today arrested in connection with the murder and is being questioned by police along with two youths aged 17, one aged 17 and a 19-year-old.
Speaking at a press conference today, Chief Superintendent Kevin Mulligan said detectives were not ruling out that the shooting might have been racially motivated.
He said: ‘A racially-motivated crime is when there is actual evidence to show that it is the actual motivation for the crime.’
He said a hate crime, ‘by definition, is something that a community or anyone perceives is racially motivated’.
Yesterday locals left tributes to Mr Bidve at the scene in Ordsall, an area known for high crime levels.
A note addressed to Mr Bidve and attached to a small bouquet of flowers, said: ‘Evil and mindless people took your life away for nothing.
‘We are local residents who are so saddened and sickened at this senseless act (that) we don’t think living here will ever be the same.
‘We send our condolences to your family and friends and hope you don’t blame us all. Rest in peace Anuj. God bless you — unlike your murderer who will rot in hell.’
The killing has disgusted members of the community in the tough inner city suburb, which has found itself the subject of worldwide condemnation on news and social networking sites since the killing.
Last night council leader John Merry urged the community to ‘unite and name the gunman whose actions brought shame on the city’.
He added: ‘The victim and his friends were just walking into town — as many students would do at this time of the year.
‘The community will only get over this if they come forward with information that will help convict the person responsible.’
Norman Owen, leader of Salford’s Liberal Democrats, agreed Mr Bidve’s murder had shamed the city.
‘This is a disgrace,’ he said. ‘What kind of city are we living in when we have a young man walking on the street with a gun and is ready to use it. We are being dragged down by this issue and the police have got to get into gun crime.’
Police were last night continuing to question three boys — two aged 17 and a 16-year-old — arrested on Tuesday, as well as a 19-year-old arrested in the early hours of yesterday.
Yesterday witnesses described how they desperately fought to keep a gifted university student alive after he was gunned down by a stranger who had just asked him for the time.
Anuj Bidve had responded politely but the man pulled out a gun, placed it against his head and pulled the trigger.
One eyewitness driving past the scene in Salford, Manchester, immediately after the attack revealed that she ‘just kept on trying to keep him breathing’.
Yesterday. the mild-mannered 23-year-old’s family spoke of ‘losing faith in everything’ after the murder.
The Lancashire University electronics student had been approached by the killer and another man as he walked with friends to Christmas sales at 1.35am on Boxing Day.
After Indian-born Mr Bidve, from a wealthy Delhi family, fell to the pavement, his two attackers fled into the night.
Mr Bidve — who had not been drinking — had been walking with nine friends through a rough inner-city district in Salford, Manchester, after leaving their nearby hotel to queue for early morning bargains.
His friends desperately tried to give him first aid as armed police arrived at the scene and launched a widespread manhunt.
Last night police were questioning two youths — aged 16 and 17 — after they were arrested following police raids on houses in Salford.
Three men were today arrested in connection to the enquiry and all five remain in custody.
A police source said the youths were ‘connected to the shooting’ but were not believed to be the gunman and his accomplice.
Although no racist insults were heard, detectives are closely investigating the theory the shooting might have been racially motivated.
Witness Sheetal Patel, 25, said she held Mr Bidve’s hand as he lay dying in the street.
The cake maker had been driving past when the student’s friends waved down her car.
‘When we arrived at the scene, the guy was lying on the floor,’ she said. ‘I was holding his hand, but he was alive.
He was making noises. All I was saying is, “You’re very strong, you’re going to be all right”. We just kept on trying to keep him breathing and to make him know that we were there.
‘There was one guy holding Anuj’s head trying to put pressure on the wound. And there was another guy who was on the phone to the police.’
Miss Patel said that ‘he was shot in the head, but the bullet didn’t go through his head’ and there did not appear to be an exit wound.
‘We all thought he was going to live,’ she added.
Tributes yesterday poured in for Mr Bidve.
His brother-in-law Rakesh Sonawane, 30, said the student had moved to the UK in September to do a postgraduate course at Lancaster University after completing an electronics degree in Pune, India.
He said: ‘Anuj had been very happy. It was his dream to go to the UK but unfortunately his dream could not last longer than three months.’
His brother-in-law said he was ‘clever and sporty’, had a wide circle of friends and loved watching football and supporting Manchester United.
And he added: ‘He had lots of friends. You only have to look at his Facebook page to see how many friends and followers he had. We have completely lost faith in everything.’
A statement last night from Mr Bidve’s family said: ‘Anuj was a loving son, a super caring brother and first and forever friend for many.
‘He valued his relationships and put them over anything else. He was the first person you could call when in trouble. Anuj loved to travel and loved his food. He loved to cook.
‘He could easily bring a smile on anyone’s face with his innocent jokes. He loved playing football. He enjoyed his life and is an inspiration for us to live life to its fullest.
‘His passing will not only leave a void in our lives, but in the hearts of all those who knew him.’
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
UK: JDL and Far-Right Parties Find Common Ground
Extremist Jewish factions and far-right parties team up against “Islamisation” despite the latter’s anti-Semitic past.
Right-wing movements previously associated with anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi ideologies are increasingly opting for a surprising tactic to garner legitimacy within mainstream politics: Forging alliances with extremist Jewish organisations under the banner of fighting “Islamisation”. “Far-right parties are professing a new found love of Israel as a way of escaping their past anti-Semitism and racism, and to justify their prejudice towards European Muslims as not being racist,” Toby Archer, a researcher who studies far-right parties and the “counter-jihad blogosphere”, explained to Al Jazeera. “Parties like the British National Party (BNP) in the UK, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and the National Front in France are all coming out from a neo-fascist past.” These parties have stopped using anti-Semitic rhetoric, Archer said, which had prevented them from attracting support. It is important to distinguish between the traditional far-right, who are historically anti-Semitic, and the populist new-right, who have emerged in the last two decades and partake in an anti-Muslim discourse, he said. The English Defence League (EDL) closely linked to the BNP, a right-wing anti-Islamic extremist group based in the UK. The EDL has gained notoriety for its aggression against British Muslims and its links with neo-Nazi groups. Last year, it moved to garner support within the Jewish community by officially opening a Jewish Division open to “represent the Jews who are fighting against Islamisation,” according to a statement. Tommy Robinson, a spokesperson for the EDL, said one of the group’s fundamental beliefs was that as a “shining star of democracy”, Israel has the right to defend itself.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man Arrested After Woman’s Body Found in Canal on Christmas Day
A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a young woman’s body was discovered in a canal on Christmas Day.
Ruby Love, who was born Rubina Malik, was found in the Grand Union Canal at Bankside in Southall, west London, shortly before midday on Sunday, police said.
The 23-year-old was from Harrow in north-west London.
Officers were called to the scene by a member of the public at about 11.40am on Sunday.
A 27-year old man was arrested on Tuesday and remains in custody at a north London police station.
Miss Love was thought to have known the arrested man.
A post-mortem examination was not able to establish a formal cause of death and the results of further tests are awaited. Her family have been informed.
The isolated stretch of canal last night remained sealed off as detectives preserved the scene.
A grass verge, footpath and narrow road remained behind police tape three days after the grim discovery of Miss Love’s body.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Police have launched a murder investigation following the discovery of a body in the Grand Union Canal on Christmas Day.
‘Police were called by a member of the public to reports of a body found in the Grand Union Canal at Bankside, Southall.
‘Officers are appealing for anyone who witnessed anything suspicious on, or before Christmas Day.’
The section of canal where her body was spotted is part of popular walk the Hillingdon Trail and has been handed a ‘seal of approval’ by the London Walking Forum.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Obituary: Professor Sir Michael Dummett
Professor Sir Michael Dummett, who has died aged 86, was among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality.
Logic, language and mathematics were his chief philosophical preoccupations. He was particularly interested in the work of Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), a German mathematician who tried, but ultimately failed, to demonstrate that formal logic could govern all mathematical truths. In his book, Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (1991), Dummett attempted to pinpoint precisely where the German had gone wrong, and in the course of his analysis he argued that Frege’s work had two significant by-products for philosophy. First, Frege had invented a new formal language for logic in which, for example, it is possible to describe the difference between the phrase “everybody loves somebody”, and the phrase “there is somebody whom everybody loves”, and to demonstrate clearly how different conclusions can be derived from each of these propositions. Second, Dummett suggested, Frege’s theses about the nature of logic opened up a whole new field — the philosophy of language, through which philosophers might account for thought through an analysis of grammar and semantics.
As well as his work on Frege, Dummett was known for his struggle to resolve the argument between what he termed “realist” philosophers and “anti-realists” (idealists, nominalists etc), who disagree about the logical principles they apply to propositions that are under dispute. For Dummett, the championing of anti-realism meant a rejection of the realist principle of bivalence — the idea that any sentence which attempts to make an assertion must be either true or false. Dummett held that this was not the case for sentences that discuss certain subjects — for example, mathematics. In particular, Dummett argued that metaphysical debates — such as whether unicorns are real — are properly understood as debates about logical laws and the nature of truth. He delivered his most complete statement of the nature of such metaphysical debates, and the means by which they can be resolved, in The Logical Basis of Metaphysics (1991). Thought and Reality (2006) was a further disquisition on anti-realism.
Though he influenced a whole generation of analytic philosophers, including such figures as John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke, and Crispin Wright, Dummett’s work was not easy reading. His stature amongst colleagues was immense, but inevitable difficulties in communicating his theories concisely prevented him from achieving the wider attention he deserved. When asked by his publisher to supply a new introduction to a work on Frege, for example, Dummett supplied 500 pages of material. But his commitment to truth had very practical applications, and ones which he pursued with vigour and personal courage. In particular, throughout his career he maintained a deep interest in the ethical and political issues concerning refugees and immigration, informed by what he described as “an especial loathing of racial prejudice and its social manifestations”.
In the post-war period, Dummett and his wife Ann were among the earliest and most dogged campaigners on race relations. In 1958 they co-founded the Institute of Race Relations think tank and in the 1960s, as the trickle of immigration became a flood, they drove a battered van to Heathrow Airport day after day to take up the cases of Asian and West Indian immigrants threatened with deportation. On one occasion they were arrested and prosecuted after staging a protest against a market stallholder who refused to serve black customers. Police dropped charges and the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, apologised. Dummett saw the root of the problem as lying in the political system. In his book On Immigration and Refugees (2001), he argued that lurking behind the egalitarian veneer of democracy is the more manipulative principle of playing on people’s prejudices to gain votes. This, when applied to issues of immigration, has invariably led to a jingoistic policy — a policy founded, essentially, on racism. In Britain, according to Dummett, much of the blame rested with the Home Office, a department which he accused of “decades of hopeless indoctrination in hostility”, first against Commonwealth immigrants, and later against asylum seekers and refugees. “For the Home Office,” he once wrote, “the adjective ‘bogus’ goes as automatically with ‘asylum seeker’ as ‘green’ does with ‘grass’.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Record Number of Patients Catch Infections in Hospitals
The number of patients who contracted life-threatening infections in NHS hospitals has almost doubled in two years to a record level, official figures have shown.
Recorded cases of patients with a “nosocomial condition” — any infection acquired in hospital or a medical environment — also rose by more than a third last year compared with the year before.
A large proportion of the patients involved were aged over 75, the figures from the NHS Information Centre show. Illnesses related to such infections led to average stays in hospital last year of 31.1 days.
Experts blamed poor hygiene for the dramatic rise in infections, including superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) as well as norovirus and E.coli.
But the Department of Health dismissed the “misleading” figures, published online, saying that officials have “got better and better at tackling hospital infections”.
According to the new figures, supplied by NHS hospitals, the number of patients found by consultants to have hospital-acquired infections rose last year reached a record 42,712.
That figure increased from the 31,447 recorded in the previous year and almost double the 22,448 documented in 2008/09.
Last year’s figures were the highest levels recorded in the 13 years in which the records have been publicly available. In 1998/99 there were just 335 such cases. The Centre did not provide a breakdown of illnesses.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Found Stabbed to Death and Man Critically Ill in Hospital After Sobbing Schoolboy Covered in Blood Knocks on Neighbour’s Door
A woman has been found stabbed to death after a sobbing schoolboy turned up on a neighbour’s door covered in blood.
A man was also discovered with injuries and is in hospital in a critical condition after the double stabbing earlier today in Wolverhampton.
The child, believed to be of secondary school age and the son of the couple, fled the bloody scene to raise the alarm.
The man in his 30s and woman, 36, were discovered at the address at about 7.47am after police arrived at the gruesome scene.
One neighbour said: ‘We heard the little lad was covered in blood and crying uncontrollably when he knocked on a neighbour’s door, that’s when police were called.
Carol O’Mahoney, another resident who lives nearby, said: ‘Neighbours said they had a five-year-old boy and that the little one was seen running from the house for help this morning covered in blood.’
Police have said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident which happened in a house that is used as temporary accommodation in the Whitmore Reans area of the city.
The family is believed to be of Iranian origin and West Midlands Police have launched a murder inquiry.
A police cordon is in place at the scene as officers investigate the circumstances of the woman’s death and how the man came to sustain his injuries.
The murder is the latest in a string of knifing incidents across the country over the festive period including a double stabbing in Islington, London, last night.
Two men were found with injuries and four women were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder following an argument that broke out in a shop just before midnight.
The two victims were apparently stabbed when the disturbance spilled out onto Greenman Street, near the junction with Essex Road.
One man, aged 42, remains in a serious, but stable condition in hospital, police said today. The other suffered a minor injury to his arm and did not require medical treatment.
A third man, who is not believed to have been stabbed, was seen nearby with minor head injuries.
The four women were arrested and are today being questioned, although it is not believed they were involved with the stabbings.
Giving just his Christian name, a man called Adam spoke about the incident which happened on the Peabody Estate.
He said: ‘Just after 11pm I heard loads of shouting and screaming and lots of people ran into the block.
‘I thought it was someone having a party. I heard someone shouting “f**k off” a lot and “f****g hell, f****g hell”. They were running up the stairs and down again.
‘It sounded like a lot of people and then there were a lot of police after that.’
Drips of dried blood could be traced from the police cordon to inside the block, with blood on the stairs and a large pool by a ground floor flat that officers had cleaned.
Other residents reported hearing an argument but did not witness the incident.
Detectives from Islington are trying to identify other suspects as they piece together the chain of events that led up to the woundings, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
He said police officers and paramedics from London Ambulance Service were called at 11.56pm to reports of two men suffering stab wounds.
It is not known if a weapon has been recovered.
The Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘The four women will be questioned by detectives from Islington CID. They were arrested following an incident shortly before midnight last night.
‘Two men were stabbed one is stable in hospital. The other suffered more serious injuries, we’re are not sure if his condition is critical at the moment.
‘A third man suffered head injuries but they were not serious and did not require hospital treatment.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Terzi: Partnership Fundamental, EU Must Look
(ANSA) — ROME, DECEMBER 27 — The European Union must “re-orientate” its policy “towards European partnership”. This is according to Italy’s Foreign Minister, Giulio Terzi, who has been speaking on Radio Anch’io. “The Mediterranean has a fundamentally important role in this historic period of Italian foreign policy,” Terzi said. “It is certainly not a new phenomenon, but a direction that is enriched by new positions and a new sense of urgency. This is why in the last few weeks I have worked thoroughly both bilaterally and in Brussels in the member states’ Foreign Affairs Council to raise awareness and to attempt to re-orientate the entire European policy towards Mediterranean partnership”. “It seems that awareness of this is emerging but naturally we are operating with a great deal of intensity in terms of bilateral relations too,” the minister said, highlighting his forthcoming trips to Mediterranean countries.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Court Orders End to Virginity Tests on Women Held
(AGI) Cairo — An Egyptian court has ordered an end to the practice of forced virginity tests for women being held in the country’s prisons. The verdict comes after a protester in Tahrir Square, Samira Ibrahim, complained that she was subjected to the test in April after being arrested during a demonstration in the Egyptian capital. Human rights organisations said that they had been informed of the procedure. Today’s decision by judge Aly Fekry was greeted by jubilant cheers from hundreds of activists present in the courtroom.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti to Visit Libya January 21
PM to reactivate 2008 friendship treaty
(ANSA) — Rome, December 29 — Italian Premier Mario Monti will visit Libya next month to restore cooperation with the north African country, reactivating an important friendship treaty.
Monti said he would take “various ministers” with him to Tripoli on January 21 “to reactivate the friendship treaty with broad scope, to restore, intensify and update cooperation”. Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said last week that Italy would move “swiftly” to implement a range of provisions in the treaty, sealed three years ago but suspended during the war against late Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Terzi said Libyan transitional leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil had shown during a visit to Rome on December 15 “how much Libya had been awaiting the reactivation of the treaty”.
“We are moving very swiftly to enact all of its various dimensions,” the foreign minister added.
Under the friendship treaty Italy agreed to pay colonial reparations of $5 billion over 20 years, including the construction of a coastal highway, while Libya pledged to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
Now that it is being reactivated, Italy will be able to fully reopen its oil and gas pipelines and Libya will pursue wide financial interests in Italy including stakes in giant bank Unicredit and soccer club Juventus, helped by assets that had been frozen during the war.
Monti has stressed the move would help both countries “focus on the priorities of the new Libya” after the demise of Gaddafi, who was caught and executed by rebels on October 20.
The treaty was signed by Gaddafi and then Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi in mid-2008.
Italy was initially wary about taking part in the war against Libya but later provided key air bases for the Nato-led campaign as well as fighter-bombers that ran hundreds of sorties.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Soliman: National Guard Position Attacked
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, DECEMBER 27 — The national guard headquarters in Soliman (in the governorate of Nabeul, in the Capo Bon area) came under attack last night by a group of thirty or so persons throwing stones and petrol bombs. The attack was aimed at freeing a youth who had been arrested on suspicion of drug dealing and illegal trading of alcoholic beverages. The attack failed thanks to the arrival of a sizeable force of police officers, who arrested three persons and are looking for others.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Gaddafi’s Adoptive Son Arrested
Miled Abdessalem may be extradited to Tripoli
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, DECEMBER 28 — Miled Abdessalem, the adoptive son of Colonel Gaddafi, has been arrested in Tunisia today, where he was staying illegally. Sought by Interpol, Mr Abdessalem may face extradition to Libya, if the country’s government so requests.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Lambast Cairo Police Searches at NGO Premises
(AGI) Washington — A US State Department spokesman today expressed “profound concern” at searches conducted at Cairo NGO offices. The searches were ordered by Cairo magistrates and involved the premises of 17 NGOs, two of which American. The State Department spokesman said “similar operations are inappropriate […] and run counter to years of bilateral cooperation.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Priests Brawl Over Clean Up at Bethlehem’s Nativity Church
(AGI) Bethlehem — Armenian and Greek Orthodox priests came to blows in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity over who should have the honor of cleaning up the church after Christmas services. When the crowds of the faithful leave, it falls to the clerics to clean up and hundreds of them brawled in the church over the spot where Jesus is said to have been born.
Palestinian National Police had to intervene to break up the fight.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bombs, Threats Ahead of New Year in Lebanon Resort
TYRE, Lebanon — Zuheir Arnaout seethed with anger as he surveyed the damage from a bomb that targeted his restaurant in Tyre, one of the few cities in southern Lebanon where alcohol is still tolerated. “What is it they want? To stop people from drinking, from having a good time?” he demanded outside the popular “Tyros” restaurant on the scenic Mediterranean seafront. On Wednesday, a bomb made of two kilos of TNT exploded and caused extensive damage to the restaurant, destroying the “Tyros” band’s instruments in the process. The attack came a few days before New Year’s Eve and was the third of its kind targeting alcohol-friendly restaurants in Tyre in the past two months. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings in Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city that boasts a picturesque port and Roman archaeological sites. Home to both Muslims and Christians, Tyre is also popular among expats and UN peacekeeping troops deployed in southern Lebanon along with their families. Like many Tyre townsfolk, Arnaout believes the bombings aim to kill off the city’s lucrative tourism sector, which peaks in summer, as well as its popularity during the winter holiday season. “There are rumours going round that some want to prevent the New Year’s Eve countdown from being celebrated in Tyre,” he said. But Arnaout insisted he would not give in to threats. “New Year’s Eve will be celebrated in this restaurant — the livelihood of 32 families depends on it,” he told AFP.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Brand New Island Rises From Red Sea Depths
Volcanic activity in the Red Sea is causing the formation of a new island in the Zubair archipelago as lava is cooled by the surrounding seawater and solidifies. The underwater volcano responsible is located on the Red Sea Rift, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart.
Yemeni fishermen first spotted lava spewing 30 metres into the air on 19 December and this was later confirmed by satellite observations. Ash plumes were detected by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard its Terra and Aqua satellites and NASA’s Advanced Land Imager aboard its Earth Observing One satellite, which produced this image. Elevated levels of sulphur dioxide in the region were also recorded by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard NASA’s Aura satellite.
By 23 December, the lava mass had broken the water’s surface and the new island had begun to take shape. The island is currently around 500m wide and is still growing. The question now is whether or not it has staying power. It may continue to grow significantly as volcanic activity continues, or the fragile lava mass may be broken up by the action of the sea’s waves.
Whatever the outcome, volcanic activity in the Red Sea region appears to be on the rise.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Christians and Muslims a Year Since the Start of the Arab Spring
The Arab uprising spread like wildfire and every Arab country felt its effects. However, the changes must be seen against the backdrop of the Islamist rise to power. Christians are afraid but must cooperate with Muslims. Syria’s case and the bishops’ reaction are a case in point. The West is confused and Obama discredited. A year on, here is a review of what happened in the Arab world.
Beirut (AsiaNews) — Everything began a year ago when a young Tunisian, Mohammed Buazizi, fed up by poverty and police humiliation, set himself on fire. It was 15 December, and like a wildfire on a dry prairie, his sacrifice burnt its way from country to country. It all happened because the Arab world is going through tough times. People felt pain and wanted change. All they needed was spark for the fire to start.
The Arab revolution spread unevenly, depending on the country. In some countries, people were better prepared. In Tunisia, people are stronger and more mature and their former regime did allow protest from time to time. Where the regime was completely dictatorial, as in Libya, an external intervention was necessary. In the Syrian case, the situation is even more complex and it is unclear whether a solution will be found or not.
In some countries, like Jordan, very little happened, probably because their situation is not as bad as elsewhere. In others, nothing happened because population is largely uniformed; for instance, oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where people live well but do not know what are human rights, freedom and equality.
The Arab world and its needs
In any case, unrest this year in the Arab world was caused by the fact that people’s needs are not met. The first and foremost need or reason is poverty, which affects a good part of the population. However, the revolution was not their doing for they live in such grim conditions that the idea of revolution would not have crossed their mind. Others carried it out and they joined in, as in Egypt where 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. In Tunisia, the young man who set himself on fire was desperate because of poverty and unemployment.
The second reason is the dismal level of youth unemployment. In our culture, the inability to start out in life is a source of humiliation. Unemployment means the inability of forming a family. In Europe, reaching the age of 30 without one’s own family is not a tragedy. In our countries, people start to think about creating their own family at the age of 20 with the expectation that they would have it by 25. But if you are jobless, that is impossible. In our countries, a man must be able to buy a house; a woman must bring the furniture. However, if they are unemployed, they cannot get marry and that is humiliating.
The third reason is ethical. It is the lack of dignity and freedom to express one’s opinions as well as the level of inequality. This is especially true for intellectuals as well as the middle classes. Other forms of discrimination, not necessarily religious, also play a role.
Finally, television brings the rest of the world into people’s living rooms. People feel backward compared to others and wonder why it is so. At the same time, they hear that the president, the minister and others are billionaires. All this creates a sense of injustice, which felt as something quite personal.
All this created a sense of frustration that led to the uprising.
Islamist victory
Initially, the movement began spontaneously, from the grassroots. It had no real leadership and today we can see its consequences. Those who made the revolution did not reap the fruit of victory. They enabled others, who were better organised, to benefit for their work. It was such a setback, that some are already saying that it “wasn’t worth the trouble”.
I remain confident. Even though Islamists won, this step was necessary because it allowed other priorities different from theirs to come to the fore. Dignity, jobs, freedom, equality and democracy, were the reasons behind the youth-led revolution, not religion.
It is true that Islamists can now wield power. Now they can show that “Al-Islâm huwa l-hall!”, that “Islam is the solution” for everything. They will have to demonstrate that an Islamic system will solve the problems of unemployment, education, equality, democracy, finances, etc.
For the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islamists will exercise political power. It will be an important occasion to see in what areas they can provide concrete answers to real problems and in what they will not. It is also will be an important to see what type of Sharia they will implement, whether it will that of Saudi Arabia, where a woman was beheaded on witchcraft charges, that of Iran, which is blocking the country’s development, or some other versions. As for us, our view will depend on results.
What is certain though is that Islamists, especially Salafists, are using the Arab spring to impose their version of Islam. This was brought home to Tunisia (when they tried to impose the niqâb on women at Manouba University, the country’s best known institution of higher learning, and open a mosque near the campus) and Egypt (when many churches were attacked, crosses destroyed and soldiers assaulted women, leading to last Tuesday’s demonstration).
Education for democracy
In Egypt, the massive electoral victory (60 per cent) of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists now means that the former will have to prove that they deserve the electorate’s confidence.
Their victory was inevitable. After 60 years of military rule, the democracy was but a faded memory. Yet, more than 50 per cent of the electorate came out to vote, and that is positive. The turnout in past elections did not go above 5-7 per cent. Egyptians refrained from voting knowing that the outcome had already been fixed. Under Nasser, the ruling party won 95 per cent of the vote with 5 per cent of voters casting their ballot.
Tunisia is a special case. Turnout in its recent election was at least 80 per cent. This is a sign that people are interested in politics and are prepared to participate.
Now it is time for young people to organise. Their societies and the rest of the world have taken the Arab Revolution seriously. But they need to plan and achieve unity; otherwise, all is lost. Unlike Tunisia, young people created dozens of parties in Egypt, splitting the vote and so they lost the advantage they had.
The ‘Egyptian Bloc’, a liberal party open to Christians and Muslims alike founded by billionaire Copt Naguib Sawiris, won 17 per cent of the vote. It is not much, but it is something.
This shows there is hope for the future. The movement must raise awareness among Egyptians about what is at stake. In addition to the economy, which is doing badly, it must focus on education. Egypt is particularly backward compared to other Arab countries. Its illiteracy rate is around 40 per cent (especially among women) and the quality of education is poor. This is why people vote according to religious affiliation rather than political analysis.
Despite attacks against churches, Christian-Muslim solidarity has given rise to a certain sensibility and movement for equality, hitherto impossible. Although minimal given the efforts, this is something positive.
The situation in Syria
Syria is where people realise the most what is at stake. Until recently, the Assad regime had appeared very stable. Now that situation is very serious and difficult. Information about is happening inside the country remains unclear. The bishop of Aleppo recently told me to be weary because what is said outside the country is different from what is said inside.
Nonetheless, some new things are emerging. For the first time, the Arab League took a clear position. It suspended Syria from the organisation and agreed to sanctions and more.
Of course, the League’s position is somewhat ambiguous. Syria is an ally of Iran, a predominantly Shia country, whilst the Arab League is almost entirely Sunni. The Arab League’s threats against Syria might thus be motivated more by this opposition than by love for the revolution. Whatever the case may be, Syrians for the past nine months have been willing to give their life to change the situation, and this is a truly new fact.
Syria has distinct problems, those of a totalitarian power structure facing an unarmed population. Neighbouring Arab countries are said to be providing financial aid to the rebels, but a Syrian or Arab mediator is needed; otherwise, there will be destruction.
For the first time, Turkey has come to the defence of Syrian rebels. Perhaps, it has its own hegemonic goals or maybe it is acting to meet its obligations as a Western ally. Or perhaps Turkey might want to promote itself as a model of moderate Islamic nation, despite its own less than stellar human rights record.
The situation in other countries
The future is uncertain in Libya. Islamist ideas are being articulated, but the country’s main problem is how to reconcile its many tribes so that they work together for its development. With industry still in its infancy, it is unclear whether it can move forwards.
Saudi Arabia did not experience any uprising (since it was nipped in the bud by the military), but people still want some change.
By contrast, in countries like Yemen and Bahrain, a revolution did take place, leading to some significant changes. Neither can ever be the same.
Morocco too saw some volatility but no revolution. Fear was sufficient to initiate some social reforms. Even before this, the kingdom had modified its family law (Mudawwanah), giving women more legal rights.
All this suggests that people in the Arab world are seeking their own path.
What about Christians?
In general, Christians fear that Islamists will hijack the revolution. They, especially Salafists, scare us. A danger does exist, but cooperation with others is the only possibility to get the most from the situation. We should not be afraid. Naturally, working with the Islamists will be hard, but some Islamists have political plans and a desire to overcome their country’s backwardness. We must remain watchful to show them when they cross certain limits, when they violate certain rights, etc.
Dialogue is possible and useful on certain social issues. It is time we help and support each other, and show more solidarity towards non-Christians, and vice versa. It is time to work together against illiteracy, poverty, disease, etc. In the field of education and health care, Christians have already shown their generosity and professionalism towards everyone, Christian or Muslim. I think it is possible to work together with most people.
At the same time, we must defend justice, freedom of conscience, the freedom to live our faith and proclaim it; this way, we can implement the principle of equality. Egyptian Muslims speak of the “best religion”, an idea that finds application in the legal field. And of course, by best they mean Islam. For us, that is unacceptable.
Other forms of discriminations exist (men vs. women, rich vs. poor), and we must work against all of them, because they are contrary to the spirit of the Gospel.
Personally, I am not afraid of an Islamic regime. I am however concerned about intolerance. Many Muslims are also opposed to the Salafists who aim at imposing their intolerant vision of Islam (especially as it applies to women). As Christians, we cannot turn inward; instead, we must work with all those who are fighting for a society that respects human rights.
The Arab spring from a Christian perspective
Because they fear of the future, Christians tend to prefer regimes that are already in place. Such regimes are dictatorial in nature and that is a sin. If the government engages in violence, we must say that we are against violence, whatever its source, whether the opposition, ordinary citizens or the military.
We must say that we are for freedom, but not the excess of freedom that is bringing ruin to the West. We must be for equality and justice, for Christians and Muslims, for men and women. Now is the time for Christians to engage in cultural evangelisation, which is far from proselytising.
Unfortunately, the fear of Islamism is pushing Christians to turn to the past. Most of them do not want to get involved too much in politics; they just want to live in peace. However, as a Christian, it is my right and duty to be politically active.
Given this background, we can understand the position of Syria’s bishops, who prefer the known over the unknown. However, the choice is not between good and evil, but between two evils .. . . and the choice goes to the lesser of the two. Yet, our path is to say what matters.
Lastly, the West
The West has supported dictators and then ditched them. Now it is wavering. The West has been roundly criticised in Arab countries because of their reliance on countries like Saudi Arabia whose ideological foundations in the indirect source of Islamic terrorism. A country like the United States, which speaks about freedom and human rights, tends to be silent in the matter when it comes to the Saudis.
On Libya, Arabs believe the West was more interested in Libyan oil than in Libya’s freedom. In fact, it got involved only against Libya (as it did against Saddam Hussein and Iraq) and not other countries. With Syria, the West is cautious because that country plays an important geopolitical role. . . .. On Syria, the West is not unified and its position is not based on clear principles and values.
I am not an idealist. I think that each country will pursue its interests first. However, since the entire Arab world is caught up in the Arab spring, it would have been better to come up with ways of how to support (or not support) these movements.
The policy towards Israel, which is one of main causes of the Mideast crisis, is an issue that leaves Arabs dismayed, especially after they saw Barack Obama do a U-turn on the same day, first backing a two-state solution and then changing his position during Netanyahu’s visit.
The same is true for his Cairo speech, which first conquered the Arab world, but was discredited months later when it became clear that his policies would not be much different from those of Bush. His credibility is now at all-time low. One has to be committed to principles in order to be a model for others.
The same is true for Europe, which is losing its religious and cultural identity. Unable to deal with its colonial past, it tries instead to hide behind a guilty conscience instead of showing that colonialism too had some value in terms of the dialogue of cultures.
In Europe, people are turning away from the local (usually Christian) religion. The relationship between Europeans and other world religions has become ambiguous. What is more, some governments appear at times to give preference to imported religions, whilst suffocating local ones. If France, for instance, denies is historical Catholic identity, it will not be able to deal with other religions. De facto, a form of schizophrenia has evolved, ranging from the secularisation of Christian festivities to the recognition of religions, other than Christianity.
For this reason, the Arab revolution can also help many young Westerners come to their sense. In Egypt and Syria, some people risked their lives for an ideal, that of a life of dignity, and for a whole people. How many people in Italy or Europe would be willing to do that?
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Is Hague Doing Enough to Stop the Arab Spring Becoming a Winter for Christians?
by Tim Montgomerie
Islamic persecution of Christians is a massive global issue. It has grown with instability across the Middle East. The Middle East Forum’s record of violence and intolerance in November alone includes:
- In Nigeria, “Islamic militants shouting “Allahu Akbar” carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, including opening fire on a congregation of “mostly women and children,” killing dozens”;
- Also in Nigeria, “the Muslim militant group, Boko Haram, executed two children of an ex-terrorist and “murderer” because he converted to Christianity”;
- In Ethiopia more than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church, while screaming “Allahu Akbar”;
- In Algeria five Christians were jailed for “worshiping in an unregistered location”;
- In Kashmir “Muslim police arrested and beat seven converts from Islam in an attempt to obtain a confession against the priest who baptized them”;
- In Kenya, “suspected Islamic extremists, apparently angered at the use of wine during communion—Islam forbids alcohol—threw a grenade near a church compound killing two, including an 8-year-old girl, and critically wounding three others”…
The list goes on here and I also recommend this page run by Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Fraser Nelson took up the issue for Christmas in a powerful piece in last Friday’s Telegraph. Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt MP (himself a Christian) has responded but Fraser is not satisfied with the response. Nor, some months ago, was the leader of Scotland’s Catholics. If Mr Burt and William Hague are looking for a model of how to respond they might look to Canada’s Conservative government. During this year’s election campaign Stephen Harper promised that religious freedom would become “a key pillar of Canadian foreign policy” and next month an Office for International Religious Freedom will be established inside the Department of Foreign Affairs, based on the US equivalent.
At the recent Deauville Summit Harper succeeded in inserting three references to Christian persecution in Arab states into the final communique. My source in Ottawa says the UK was not “terribly helpful” in assisting him in this. Most significantly Canada has also refocused refugee programmes on persecuted Christians. This has included accepting 20,000 Iraqi refugees over the last five years. A commitment to appoint a full-time UK envoy on religious freedom was part of William Hague’s 2001 Tory manifesto. The problem, as Ann Widdecombe recently noted, is out of control. We need a response from the Foreign Secretary that is as big as the challenge.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Monti Believes Greater Pressure Should be Applied on Iran
(AGI) Rome — Speaking at a press conference, while explaining he shares the position assumed by the international community, Prime Minister Mario Monti said greater pressure should be urgently applied on Iran with provisions reducing Teheran’s revenue from crude oil exports. Monti added that “the embargo should not be applied to imports that do not provide Iran with additional financial resources.” The premier was referring to “oil imported by ENI as payment for previously existing credit.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Nightmare Year’ For Women’s Rights in Turkey, Survey
160 women were murdered in Turkey in 2011 by male partners
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, DECEMBER 29 — In the wake of a report that 160 women were murdered in Turkey in 2011 by male partners or relatives, some are calling for women at risk to be given free guns and lessons in how to use them. The new statistics, released by the group “We Will Stop the Murders of Women”, paint a dire portrait of the state of women’s rights in Turkey, as the Istanbul newspaper Today’s Zaman writes. The report reveals that one in two of the 160 women murdered were killed “because they wanted to make an independent decision concerning their own lives”. Of these, 41% wanted to divorce or separate from their husband or partner, 32% were murdered due to jealously on the part of their husband and 16% were killed because they rejected a man’s advances. Only 23% of the women who applied to the state for protection from domestic violence this year received such assistance, the report said. Such stark statistics prompted Hayrettin Bulan, chairman of Sefkat-Der, a non-governmental group working for the protection of women, to suggest that “a last-resort solution to the problem may be to issue guns to women facing violence”. Bulan added that his organization is already in talks with shooting ranges to arrange lessons for women at risk next year. But Hulya Gulgahar, a prominent Turkish women’s rights lawyer, disagreed. “To arm women with guns will create a whole different set of problems,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The FCO Must Do More to Stem the Bloodshed
The Foreign Office has kindly responded to my Telegraph piece from last week, which suggested that they could do more to confront the religious cleansing sweeping the Middle East. In an extended version of a letter he has sent to the paper, the Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt says that his department is doing plenty:
‘Concrete examples include: Iraq, where the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have raised religious freedoms and where the FCO is funding a further meeting of the High Council of Religious Leaders; Algeria where I recently met a delegation of Christian leaders to discuss the challenges they are facing; Egypt where the Deputy Prime Minister has raised our concerns direct with the Prime Minister; and further afield, in Pakistan where we have been working closely with the Minister for Minorities to increase the profile of religious freedom.’
But I’m afraid the response only shows just how far the FCO has to go. Take Iraq, where the FCO is ‘funding a further meeting of the High Council of Religious Leaders’. Does it really think this will make the slightest difference to the number of Christians being executed by Salafi militias? A thousand have been killed by the sectarian violence there, and two-thirds of the 1.4 million Christians have now fled. The only thing left for Britain to do is grant them asylum, not sponsor talking shops for religious leaders. Egypt is midway into becoming an Iraq. This time last year, Islamist fanatics were targeting Coptic churches. One Arab Spring later, and the Egyptian military is now mowing down Christians. It’s great that Nick Clegg is expressing his concerns to the Egyptian Prime Minister about the unfolding bloodshed, but his chances of making the slightest bit of difference are comparable to a snowball’s chance of floating all the way down the Nile.
Burt says he ‘met a delegation of Christian leaders to discuss the challenges they are facing’ in Algeria on 26 Oct. That’s good to hear. But it’s not going to have much effect if William Hague doesn’t even raise the subject when he travels to Algeria (which he didn’t). It’s no good listening to concerns if they’re not passed on. Although Algeria, it should be said, is far from the worst offender. So what should the FCO be doing? It should stop religious repression long before it gets to the Iraq/Egyptian phase where massacres are taking place. In my Telegraph piece I gave a few suggestions:
| 1) | Deny aid to any country that does not allow freedom of religious practice (to anyone: Jews, Bahais, Christians, Sunnis). | |
| 2) | Publish an annual report on religious freedom, which would send a clear message about how seriously Britain takes this. | |
| 3) | Make clear that promoting religious freedom is regarded as a means of conflict prevention, because the next wars are as likely to be within countries as between them. |
And what about William Hague giving a speech devoted to this? Nicholas Sarkozy has already called it ‘religious cleansing’, and Hague — the best speaker in Parliament — could make an even bigger impression. I’d concur with one of the clergymen I most admire, the former Bishop of Rochester Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali. Born in Pakistan, he knows the problem of religious sectarianism as well as anyone, and his letter to the Telegraph appears under the minister’s:
‘The so called Arab Spring may be a winter for Christians, women and other groups. The demands of the shari’a in the areas of blasphemy, apostasy, freedom of worship and of expression will further exacerbate the position of Christians and other non-Muslims. It is time now not just for the “quiet diplomatic word” but for action at an international level to secure the future of religious minorities in the Islamic world.’
What Burt has done is good, but is nowhere near enough. He’s a good minister, and Hague is one of the government’s best talents. Together, reformulating their policy, they could ensure that Britain leads the world in confronting this new evil.
P.S. The Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission has spent years calling for the Foreign Office to beef up its focus on religious freedom, most recently in this report. It suggested that the government ‘appoint a special envoy for international freedom of religion and belief in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and re-establish an FCO Freedom of Religion Panel to advise the Government on violations of religious freedom and methods of promoting religious freedom’.
[Reader comment by kevin on 28 Dcember 2011 at 12:19 pm]
Perhaps a good start would be to worry about religious cleansing nearer at home where hopefully something effective could be done. Tower Hamlets, Bradford, Leicester are easy examples.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Girl Locked in Toilet for 5 Months: Officials
Afghan police have rescued a teenage girl who was beaten and locked up in a toilet for over five months after she defied her in-laws who tried to force her into prostitution, officials said Tuesday.
Sahar Gul, 15, was found in the basement of her husband’s house in northeastern Baghlan province late on Monday after her parents reported her disappearance to the police.
“She was beaten, her fingernails were removed and her arm was broken,” district police chief Fazel Rahman told AFP.
Three women including the teenager’s mother in-law had been arrested in connection with the case but her husband had fled the area, he added.
The case highlights how women continue to suffer in Afghanistan despite the billions of dollars of international aid which has poured into the country during the decade-long war.
“The 15-year-old girl was brought to hospital with severe shock,” said Pul-i-Khurmeri hospital chief Dr Gul Mohammad Wardak.
“She had injuries to her legs and face and the nails on her left had been removed.”
Sahar Gul was married to her husband seven months ago in the neighbouring province of Badakhshan, but she was brought to Baghlan to live with her husband, said Rahima Zareefi, the provincial head of women affairs.
During this time her parents were unable to contact her, she said
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
China Unveils Space Mission Plans Through 2016
The Chinese government on Thursday (Dec. 29) issued a broad statement on its five-year space program, saying top priorities include developing three new launch vehicles — including a rapid-response launch system — and mitigating its contribution to space debris. The 17-page white paper, “China’s Space Activities in 2011,” reiterates China’s focus on lunar exploration, with robotic lunar landers and a lunar sample-return mission slated for launch by 2016. The country’s well-publicized development of its manned space station in low Earth orbit is also a priority.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Police Kill Seven Muslims in West China
Beijing: Police killed at least seven Muslims in China’s restive Central Asia, news agencies reported.
The officials said this was an attempt to end a kidnapping by terrorists while rights group termed it as excessive force. Report said police officers opened fire after they encountered resistance in a Wednesday night raid on a mountain hideout outside Hotan city to free two men kidnapped by “a violent terrorist group.” Aside from the seven dead, four people were injured and another four arrested, and while police freed the two hostages, one officer was killed and another injured, said an account on the official website of Xinjiang, the region where the incident took place. A spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government confirmed the account and identified the kidnappers and their hostages as Uighurs, the indigenous, mainly Muslim ethnic group.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Scott, Amundsen… And Nobu Shirase
Japan also had a heroic explorer dashing to the South Pole 100 years ago — and he did it on a shoestring
FOR a few weeks in January 1912, Antarctica was teeming with explorers. Roald Amundsen and his Norwegian party had reached the South Pole on 14 December and were speeding back to the coast. On 17 January, Robert Scott and the men of the British Antarctic expedition had arrived at the pole to find they had been beaten to it. Dejected, they began to retrace their steps in what turned out to be their final journey. Just then, a third man with polar aspirations arrived on the scene. Nobu Shirase was a little late but no less determined to cover himself in glory.
In the story of the race to the South Pole, Shirase is the invisible man. A Japanese explorer, his part in one of the greatest adventure stories of the 20th century is hardly known outside his own country. Yet as Scott was nearing the pole and with the world still unaware of Amundsen’s triumph, Shirase and the Japanese Antarctic expedition sailed into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales in the smallest ship ever to try its luck in these perilous waters. On 19 January 1912, the little wooden schooner sailed up to the edge of the Ross ice shelf and left Shirase and his men to scale the immense wall of ice ready for a daring dash south.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pigeons Match Monkeys in Abstract Counting Skills
They are not renowned for their brainpower, but pigeons may be as smart as monkeys when it comes to arithmetic. Three pigeons were shown a computer screen displaying images with one, two or three shapes and trained to list the shapes in ascending order. To receive a reward of wheat, the birds learned to peck the images in the correct order.
Moreover, after they had learned this skill, the birds could perform the task with pairs of images containing anything from one to nine objects. Two rhesus monkeys were the first non-human animals to perform this task in an experiment in 1998. The pigeons are the first non-primates to manage it.
“We show they can apply what they have learned with a small set of numbers — from one to three — to numbers they’ve not seen before,” says lead researcher Damian Scarf of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. “The learning and applying of abstract numerical rules is not unique to primates.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Diplomatic Supping With Jihadist Devils
While Western diplomats wring their hands over trivial insults to Islam, a slow-motion genocide of Christians has been unfolding in the Muslim world. The latest attack occurred on Christmas day in Nigeria, where the terrorist sect Boko Haram bombed two Catholic churches in the towns of Abuja and Jos, killing at least 39 worshipers. This same group killed 32 Christians last Christmas Eve. In this year alone, Boko Haram has murdered 491 people.
The killings in Nigeria are just one example of continuous violent attacks on Christians and their churches. Yet our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been nearly silent about this war on Christianity. When the Egyptian military participated in the murder of 25 Egyptian Copts, her State Department​ rejected a request from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to put Egypt on its list of countries that violate religious freedoms. Instead, Secretary Clinton​ issued a generic warning to the generals ruling Egypt “to ensure that the fundamental rights of all Egyptians are respected, including the rights of religious freedom, peaceful assembly and the end of military trials for civilians, and that efforts be made to address sectarian tensions.” Compare this reflexive diplo-speak to her more passionate reaction to the recent beating of Egyptian women during a demonstration, one of whom was publicly stripped: “This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people,” she said. Apparently, exposing a woman’s blue bra is a more heinous crime than running over a Copt’s head with a military vehicle.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ghana: Leader of Sufi Sect Cautions Muslim Youth Against Electoral Violence
The Spiritual Head of the Sufi Sect of the Tijanniya Muslim Council of Ghana, has asked Muslim youth to reject overtures by politicians who are out there to create confusion in pursuit of their self-serving agenda. Sheikh Khalifa Abdul Faidi said as the nation prepares towards the 2012 General Election, the youth should be more alert and refuse to be part of any evil project likely to stir up violence and wreck the peace. He said it should not be lost on them that Islam stands for peace and asked adherents of the religion to mirror the virtue.
Sheikh Faidi admonished the youth to distant themselves from acts that would dent the image of Islam. Sheikh Faidi was speaking at the launch of the 36th annual “Sufi Maulud” celebration of the Tijanniya in Kumasi. It is a religious tradition performed to mark the birth day of the Founder of the Tijanniya Sect, Sheikh Ahmed Tijanni. The event fixed for January 5- January 7, 2012, would be held at Prang in the Brong Ahafo Region. Sheikh Faidi appealed to the citizenry, especially leaders of the political parties, to be more responsible in their conduct to prevent tension ahead of the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections. He said it is important for the political parties to accept to play by the rules of fairness and transparency to ensure the success of the polls. GNA
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Humanitarian Operator Killed in Somalia
(AGI) Mogadishu — A humanitarian operator was gunned down today by a man who attacked him in his office in Mogadishu. A colleague of the victim, initially thought to be dead, was actually badly injured in the thigh and lost lots of bllod, but did survive. Both worked for the humanitarian NGO ‘Medecins sans Frontieres’ and apparently both were foreign.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Bombings: Muslim Lawyers Urge More Dialogue
The Federal Capital Territory chapter of the Muslim Lawyers Association (MULAN) has called for more dialogue to resolve the spate of bomb attacks and insecurity in the country.
Chairman of the association, Bar. Abdullahi Awwal Muhammad, while condemning the Boko Haram bombing of St Theresa Catholic Church, Madala, Niger State, said the incident is barbaric, uncivilized and against Islamic teachings. He said this period is a testing time for the country’s democracy and there is need for people of all faiths to work and pray together for a lasting solution to the problem. “This period should enable both Muslims and Christians to dialogue with each other more than before and proffer solutions to end the crises. All countries that have been democratic have undergone several kinds of crises before they get to where they are today. This is the sacrifice that we have to pay to stabilise our own democracy. The only thing is for us to continue to dialogue with one another and look at ways to solve the problem instead of apportioning blames,” Muhammad said. He also urged government to be more proactive in tackling the security challenges facing the country, adding that government should go beyond mounting check points and CCTV cameras in strategic places but provide modern equipment that could check vehicles and enhance security in the land. While felicitating with Christians on the Christmas celebration, he urged them to imbibe the teachings of Jesus Christ.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Uganda: Pastor Mulinde’s Health Improving
By Taddeo Bwambale
The health of Pastor Umar Mulinde of Gospel Life Church International who was attacked with acid on Christmas Eve, is improving.
Speaking exclusively to the New Vision, Mulinde said he felt some improvement in his condition. He said the pain all over his body had greatly reduced.
“I am recovering. Experts are monitoring my condition and they have promised to do their best to help me recover,” Mulinde, who is currently admitted at International Hospital Kampala (IHK), said.
He is under strict guidelines by doctors at IHK not to talk for long, as this affects the sores on his lips. The doctors are struggling to restore his sight after his right eye was affected during the attack.
“My right eye which had closed has been opened. But I cannot see anything at the moment,” Mulinde said.
Unknown people laced Pastor Mulinde with acid as he left his church, leaving his face, neck and other parts of his body severely injured.
The incident occurred at about 9:00pm in the parking lot of the church located in Namasuba, a suburb along the Kampala-Entebbe Highway.
The police are investigating whether his attack is linked to his conversion from Islam to Christianity, or a land wrangle involving a prominent businessman.
On Monday, Pastor Mulinde blamed the attack on religious fanatics opposed to his conversion from Islam, as well as his strong critique on the faith during religious debates and sermons.
The Police have so far arrested one person in connection with the attack.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Hugo Chavez Wonder if USA Gave Him Cancer
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America. Chavez, speaking a day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it’s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.
“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Rules Let 11,000 Migrants a Year Slip Into the UK by the Back Door
Brussels rules are letting thousands of migrants into Britain ‘by the back door’.
Nearly 11,000 moved here this year on the basis of having been given citizenship in another EU country.
The total, revealed in figures from the Office for National Statistics, is up more than a third on the 8,000 cases recorded in 2006. Many of the migrants would normally have been barred from taking up residence in Britain.
But under EU rules they are automatically entitled to come here once they have EU citizenship and start working — or claiming benefits. The data, compiled from passenger surveys, shows that 47,000 non-EU immigrants have found their way to the UK using this method over the past five years.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Indian to Serve 15 Years for Killing ‘Disrespectful’ Son
Rome, 22 Dec. (AKI) — An Indian immigrant was brought to prison Thursday after a Rome appeals court upheld a 15-year-four-month sentence he received for killing his son because he didn’t respect Indian culture or a father’s domestic authority.
K.V., 41, in April 2009 was arrested at his home in the coastal town of Anzio near the Italian capital where he stabbed his son in chest during heated argument because he deemed the 21-year-old victim disrespectful after coming home after 1:00 am.
K.V. and his wife called an ambulance but the son died soon after arriving at the hospital.
The culture clash between parents and their children born in Italy’s expanding immigrant community at times results violence.
In 2010 a Pakistani immigrant was arrested with his son on suspicion of bludgeoning his wife to death near the northern Italian city of Modena after she defended her daughter for refusing an arranged marriage. In June a Moroccan carpenter living near Venice was arrested for allegedly stabbing his wife to death because she wanted to leave him and begin a more liberated and western life with another man.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Agency Slams Immigrant Language Class Failings
Many of Sweden’s municipalities fail to place newly arrived immigrants in Swedish language classes within the time frames stipulated by law, a new investigation has found. “It’s regrettable that municipalities don’t prioritize the possibility for new arrivals to start their education as soon as possible,” Erica Sahlin, a project leader with the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen), said in a statement. “The sooner one can start with Swedish, the easier it is for one to get established both in the labour market and in society in general.”
Around half of the 39 municipalities recently reviewed by the agency suffered from one shortcoming or another when it came to their ability to offer new arrivals a place in Swedish language classes specifically designed for immigrants. According to Sweden’s establishment reform laws, which came into force about a year ago and are designed to help ease immigrants’ transition into Swedish society, newly arrived refugees should have the option of beginning Swedish language studies within one month of applying for a spot in Swedish for immigrants (Svenskundervisning för invandrare — SFI) language classes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK:£42million Bill to Get Remove Failed Asylum Seekers: How Taxpayer Funding for Secretive Flights Has Quadrupled in Past Seven Years
The Government has spent £42million on secretive flights to send failed asylum seekers back home, it was revealed today.
British taxpayers are forking out a staggering £500,000 each month to fund expensive air travel arrangements for foreign nationals who have lost bids to stay in the country.
Entire aircraft are rented by UK Borders Agency staff to send up to 100 immigrants back home at a time to prevent passengers on scheduled services witnessing ‘distressing’ removals.
The average cost of enforcing the removal of a failed asylum seeker was £11,000 in 2005, but this figure had risen to up to £17,000 by 2009.
Including accommodation and support costs, some cases that year cost as much as £25,60.
Figures obtained under Freedom Of Information laws show the shadowy flights — which do not show on airport departure screens — have quadrupled in the last seven years.
In 2004, the data shows £1.73million was spent on sending back those who had failed in bids to stay in the UK.
That soared to £10.4million in 2009/10 and £8.5million in the past year. Over the seven year period the total is estimated to be £42million.
Figures show a record number of foreign nationals, 42,552, were either forcibly removed or went home voluntarily last year. Those journeys were undertaken on either charter or scheduled flights, mostly from UK airports.
A total of 306,535 had been repatriated in the seven years up to September, the data shows.
In 2005/06 the amount spent on charter flights rose to £4.3million and has continued to rise.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Emin ‘Outsider’ In Art World for Voting Tory
Tracey Emin has said that she feels an “outsider” in the art fraternity after admitting she voted for the Conservatives in the last general election. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning, which she was guest-editing, she said people could be “really abusive” about the decision, as people in the art world “never vote Tory”. Emin defended the Conservatives’ record on dealing with the arts saying that they were doing “quite good actually”, but that hard economic times ensured that “everything is being cut and there isn’t any money”. The topic arose after Emin, 48, was told someone had written to Today saying she should not be on the programme as she was a “Tory stooge”. Emin was quick to defend herself, saying: “I voted as an individual, I live in a democracy and I am allowed to vote for what I want, and I wish people would understand that.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Hunt for Meteor Crash Clues in 200-Million-Year-Old Murder Mystery
Mass extinctions are a relatively common theme in the history and evolution of life on Earth, and the most famous one is the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A plethora of research has been conducted to determine how the dinosaur era ended, generating theories of massive volcanic eruptions, catastrophic climate change and giant impactors from space. However, much less is known about another remarkable extinction event that occurred roughly 135 million years earlier — an extinction that may have set the stage for the age of dinosaurs .
The mass extinction that occurred just before the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods wiped out much of the life on land and in the oceans, leaving the world ripe for dinosaurs to plunder. For astrobiologists, the causes of this extinction comprise one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time. Now, a team of scientists is helping to reveal the secrets of the Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) extinction by studying geological formations around the world that bear evidence of a traumatic disruption in Earth’s ecosystems some 200 million years ago.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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