Bad Signs for EU Economy
Worrying indicators accumulated on Thursday on the state of Europe’s economy. The EFSF, the eurozone’s bail-out fund, had to pay higher interest rates than expected; the yield on Italian 10-year bonds rose above 7%; and the euro continued to fall against the dollar to hit a 15-month low.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Demands Belgium Pare 2012 Budget
The European Commission has rejected Belgium’s 2012 budget as over-optimistic and is demanding it shave an extra 1.2 to 2.0 billion euros to avoid breaching the three percent threshold. In a letter sent Thursday to Belgian Finance Minister Steven Vanackere, the EU’s Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said his services “have come to the conclusion … the deficit forecast for Belgium in 2012 should be updated to about 3.25 percent of GDP”.
Belgium’s new government should in consequence “in the coming days” agree to pare down the budget by about 1.2 to 2.0 billion euros, he said. “This would allow us to conclude … that Belgium has undertaken the required fiscal effort,” he said, calling on the country’s new government to inform the Commission of its response “by the end of the week, latest by Monday morning.”
Under new rules agreed in December that give the EU executive added powers to enforce budgetary discipline, infringement of the three percent deficit ceiling can set off a quick train of action including fines and judicial penalties.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Critics Say Small Loans Hurt the Poor
Microcredits have long been seen as an effective and simple tool to help the poor turn their lives around. Yet researchers are increasingly questioning whether microfinance programs are really a solution for everyone.
But ask Milford Bateman, a British researcher based in Croatia, about the benefits of microfinance and he bristles. He calls microfinance “a complete disaster” and points to the stories of over-indebted farmers committing suicide in India, microfinance bubbles in India and Bosnia and exorbitant interest rates that are making headlines.
“Instead of having this massive reduction in poverty and real economic development, we’ve had the complete opposite,” Bateman says. He has spent years researching the negative effects of microfinance, which he believes governments and development agencies chose to ignore.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai: Budget Tries to Keep Debt Under Control
But doubts on ability to fulfil obligations continue
(ANSA) — DUBAI, JANUARY 5 — The key words of Dubai’s 2012 budget are caution, optimism and recovery, words that were repeated over and over by the emirate’s authorities in the past 12 months to citizens, regional markets and international investors. The budget was presented a few days ago and includes a cut of 6.83 billion, to “improve the efficiency of expenditure while boosting productivity and social and economic return.” But there are still doubts if Dubai will be able to pay its pending debts: 12 billion over 2012 and more than 93 for what is called “Dubai Inc.”.
The announcement between 2010 and 2011 of a restructuring of the debt of Dubai World, the government holding that forms one of the pillars of Dubai’s economy, caused agitation on the regional markets, as well as outside the region. After months of negotiations with banks and creditors, DW has finalized its obligations totalling 20 billion euros, reassuring the interests that gravitate around its economy.
Still, early in 2012 financial analysts once again raised doubts about the solvency of the emirate. The government-related companies with the highest debts include Jebel Ali Free Zone, called to fulfil its obligations of 1.5 billion euros by November and DIFC, Dubai International Financial District, 970 million euros in sukuk (Islamic bonds) with maturity in 2012. There are already some “rescue” instruments: in 2009 the Fund for financial support was created by the government of Abu Dhabi and the central bank with an endowment of 15.5 billion euros.
Another option is the sale of assets, like DW has already sold some of its international assets, but the success of this option depends on the willingness of foreign investors, which seem less than enthusiastic at the moment. According to the government programme, revenues will be close to 6.5 billion euros, 60% from taxes on services, 22% from customs duties, 11% from the oil sector and 7% from companies that are owned by the government, including Dubai Aluminium, Ducab (which produces power cables) and NBD, the National Bank of Dubai.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Under-25 Unemployment Rising, Spain and Greece Worst
Record high increase in joblessness on the year for Athens
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JANUARY 6 — The rate of unemployment for those under age 25 continues to rise. In November 2011, it was at 22.3% in the 27 members states (compared to 22% in October 2011 and 22% in November 2010). The eurozone figure is not much better, which sees a 21.7% rate in November 2011, compared to November 2010’s 20.6%. These figures were reported by Eurostat, the European statistics institute, which said that marking a new EU record was Spain at 49.6%, though the highest increase of the year-on-year figure was Greece, which in September 2011 had 46.6% of its citizens under age 25 without work, compared with the 36.3% seen in November 2010. Higher than the EU average for under-25 unemployment were also Portugal (30.7%), Italy (30.1%) and France (23.5%). Overall, the rate of unemployment in the eurozone in November 2011 was unchanged compared to October, at 10.3%, while it had been at 10% in November 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Unlikely to ‘Vanish’ This Year: IMF Chief
The euro is unlikely to “vanish” this year, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Friday, but warned a report this month will show the global economy growing slower than the 4.0 percent estimated in September. “Will 2012 be the end of the euro currency? My answer is I dont think so,” she told a press conference during a visit to South Africa.
“It’s a young currency, it’s a solid one as well. You have, within the zone, not in relation with the currency, serious pressures and issues concerning the sovereign debt, concerning the strength of the banking system, but the currency itself is not one that would vanish or disappear in 2012.” “Will Greece quit the euro zone in 2012? The euro partners have affirmed, reaffirmed, and reaffirmed their determination. We can only support that,” she said.
But she warned that the crisis was taking a toll on Africa and the rest of the world, with the International Monetary Fund set to release a report around January 25 that is likely to lower the global growth forecast. “We are currently revisiting our world forecast,” she said. “It is very likely to be revised downwards.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Bonds Find Buyers, But Spain and Italy Cause Concern
France successfully raised 7.963 billion euros ($10.23 billion) in new long-term bonds. But concerns about eurozone sovereign debt persist, as the single European currency hits a 16-month low.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Stocks Suffer, Monti Pays Surprise Visit to Brussels
‘I live in Rome and Brussels,’ premier says
(ANSA) — Milan, January 5 — Italian stocks and bonds took a pounding Thursday amid fresh fears about the eurozone debt crisis and as Premier Mario Monti paid a surprise visit to Brussels.
The Milan stock exchange closed 3.65% down while the spread between Italian and German bonds hovered around an unsustainable 520 points and the yield was above the 7% danger level.
The reasons for Monti’s unexpected trip to Brussels were not immediately divulged.
But when he arrived the Italian premier explained the trip by saying “I live in Rome and Brussels”.
On Friday Monti is set to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss fresh anti-crisis moves and has other key international meetings scheduled ahead of a European Union summit on January 30.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Industry Minister Calls to Beef Up ECB
‘Give Europe a true central bank’ says Passera
(ANSA) — Rome, January 6 — Italian Industry Minister Corrado Passera called on the European Union to boost the role of its central bank in order to tackle the debt crisis on Friday. “We need to give Europe a true central bank, with the instruments to manage stability and liquidity in the markets,” he said.
Passera was in Paris with Italian Premier Mario Monti to discuss fresh anti-crisis moves with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of a key EU summit on January 30.
“We need to complete the architecture of the common currency, with all the instruments and mechanisms of governance that are still lacking in order to guarantee the full stability of the euro,” said Passera. Throughout the crisis, EU leaders have been divided regarding whether the role of the European Central Bank is to be a lender of last resort.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Launches Winter Clothing Sales in Tight Economy
Merchants hopeful yet realistic amid euro-austerity
(ANSA) — Rome, January 5 — Italy’s winter sales season officially launched in most cities Thursday and shop keepers are hopeful yet realistic about how the global economic downturn might affect consumer spending. “Given the crisis, we expect to see a small difference,” says David Cenci, owner of Rome’s chic clothing store Cenci.
A ten-minute line wraps around his entrance on an unseasonably warm January morning.
“It’s like this every year,” he says. “But perhaps this year sales will be down slightly”.
Known the world over for designer labels such as Prada and Versace, Italian fashion is a hot commodity that typically sees discounts only twice a year, once in the winter and once in the summer.
In more prosperous times before the word ‘euro’ was so often followed by ‘crisis’, shop keepers clearing out the last season’s unsold merchandise could expect to make decent profits in high-volume sales this time of year. According to the retail association Confcommercio, the average Italian spent 168 euros on clothing during the winter sales season in recent years.
Yet estimates for 2012 from the leading consumer group Codacons have lowered the amount to 110 euros — a 30% drop — in light of the global economic crisis which has significantly lowered spending power across the country.
From January 2002 to January 2012, Codacons said a four-member family took a total hit of 10,850 euros because of rises in the prices of retail goods, local rates and petrol as well as higher rents and government budget cuts.
Those losses amounted to nearly 40% of a family’s purchasing power since the euro became Italy’s currency.
Despite the burden, the government is hoping to spur consumer spending with a new measure allowing stores to stay open as long as they want. Previously, retailers had to close after a certain number of hours per day, as well as some holidays, Sundays and one day during the work week. The relaxed rules, which also apply to bars and restaurants, are part of the emergency government’s package of stimulus and budget measures that aim to raise 30 billion euros and lift the country out of its debt crisis.
“I think (the measure) is a good thing,” says Cenci. “It doesn’t mean that we have to stay open later, but that we can if we want to”.
But critics argue that the measure will only benefit large companies with the personnel to cover more shifts, while smaller businesses will lose their ability to compete.
“Such deregulation from the Monti government serves to benefit large-scale retailers,” says Marco Venturi, president of Confesercenti, a leading small and medium-size business group.
The full effects of the new deregulation will take time to assess. In the meantime, it’s every storekeeper for himself to try and reel in shoppers during this winter sales season, which goes on for several weeks.
Merchants say the biggest spenders of 2012 tend to be foreigners from Russia and Asia, emerging markets with growing upper classes.
“I do my big shopping only twice a year: January and June,” says Natalia, a Russian tourist who gave only her first name. “I come to Italy for this reason, because clothing costs double where we come from”.
When asked how much she intends to spend, Natalia estimates 4,000 euros, the same as in previous years. Her friend Natasha has similar intentions. “I love Italy and Italian fashion,” she says.
“I don’t know how much I will spend. I don’t care”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ratings Agency: France ‘Treated Like BBB’ Country
The chief economist at ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has told Le Parisien newspaper that investors are already treating France as if it had a BBB rating. The comment was lent some credibility by a bond auction on Thursday in which France was forced to pay an interest rate of 3.29 percent. This is much higher than the 1.93 percent paid by AAA-rated Germany.
Jean-Michel Six, chief European economist, and Carol Sirou, the president of Standard & Poor’s in France, gave a rare interview with the daily newspaper in which they tried to deflect some of the criticism they and other ratings agencies have received in France. France and several other EU countries were put on notice late in 2011 that their AAA ratings were under threat as the eurozone debt crisis continues.
A prominent union leader said President Nicolas Sarkozy was the “hostage” of the ratings agencies in an interview on Thursday Since receiving its warning, the French government has made cuts of €20 billion ($25.6 billion) in an attempt to bring its public deficit down to 4.5 percent of GDP from 5.7 in 2011. More recently, ministers have been trying to downplay the impact a downgrade might have. “It would be another difficulty, but not an insurmountable one,” the president told Le Monde newspaper in December.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK to Do ‘Everything’ Against Use of EU Institutions in New Treaty
British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to do “everything possible” to stop signatories of a new fiscal treaty from using the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. “You can’t have a treaty outside the EU that starts doing what should be done within the EU,” he told BBC.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A Polymath Physicist on Richard Feynman’s “Low” IQ and Finding Another Einstein
A conversation with Steve Hsu
Is it true Feynman’s IQ score was only 125?
Feynman was universally regarded as one of the fastest thinking and most creative theorists in his generation. Yet it has been reported — including by Feynman himself-that he only obtained a score of 125 on a school IQ test. I suspect that this test emphasized verbal, as opposed to mathematical, ability. Feynman received the highest score in the country by a large margin on the notoriously difficult Putnam mathematics competition exam, although he joined the MIT team on short notice and did not prepare for the test. He also reportedly had the highest scores on record on the math/physics graduate admission exams at Princeton. It seems quite possible to me that Feynman’s cognitive abilities might have been a bit lopsided-his vocabulary and verbal ability were well above average, but perhaps not as great as his mathematical abilities. I recall looking at excerpts from a notebook Feynman kept while an undergraduate. While the notes covered very advanced topics for an undergraduate-including general relativity and the Dirac equation-it also contained a number of misspellings and grammatical errors. I doubt Feynman cared very much about such things.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CAIR: 400 Wash. State Muslims to Meet Lawmakers on MLK Day
SEATTLE, Jan. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Monday, January 16, some 400 Washington state Muslims are scheduled to meet with dozens of their elected representatives as part of the annual “Washington State Muslims Day at the Capitol.” The event, one of the largest of its kind in the nation, is being organized by the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA).
SEE: Washington State Muslims Day at the Capitolhttp://www.cairseattle.org/category/events/muslimcapitolday
CAIR-WA’s event is designed to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his defense of civil rights through positive civic engagement.
WHAT: 5th Annual Washington State Muslims Day at the Capitol
WHERE: Morning Assembly at Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St. NW, Olympia, WA. March to Capitol, Rally on Capitol Steps and Legislative Visits on Capitol Campus
WHEN: Monday, January 16, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Detailed schedule to be released closer to event date)
CONTACT: CAIR-WA Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari, 206-367-4081 or 206-931-3655, E-Mail: abukhari@cair.com
PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES: Some 400 Muslims march from Olympia Center to the Capitol; Muslims rally at Capitol Steps; Legislative appointments 11:15 a.m.-1:45 p.m. (Media welcome to accompany some groups to meetings. Schedules available on request.) Muslim voters attending the event will represent 33 of the 49 state legislative districts. They will provide information about recent anti-Muslim incidents and will urge their legislators to speak out against Islamophobic rhetoric and hate crimes. Participants will also urge legislators to take action on other issues, including preserving critical public programs and having a balanced approach to the state budget. They will present legislators and their staff with a copy of the English translation of the Quran, Islam’s holy text.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Microsoft Patents ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Feature for GPS Devices
Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.
A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”
Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route.
The patent, written in a combination of tech-speak and legalese, was awarded to Microsoft earlier this week.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Police Investigate Students’ (Year-Old) Racial Rant
PHOENIX — Parents at Arcadia High School get a letter from the school, and now the school is working with Phoenix police to investigate something that was posted on YouTube and Facebook.
WARNING: Video Inappropriate: Graphic Content
Here is the text from the video on YouTube:
“This law is about the new law that just passed in Arizona legislature for you f****** illegals to go back to your homeland. Yeah, so grab your burritos and get the f*** out of our country, because you make our life a living hell.
“Go back to f****** Mexico. Get your f****** green card like everyone else and then come back.
At least five police officers were at the school Friday morning, and Friday’s pep rally and this weekend’s winter dance have both been canceled. The school is afraid of possible retaliation from the video.
The principal wrote letters to parents about the situation on Thursday and Friday:..
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Santorum Wants to Impose ‘Judeo-Christian Sharia’
by Dean Obeidallah
Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah is a comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special, ABC’s “The View,” CNN’s “What the Week” and HLN’s “The Joy Behar Show.” He is executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival. Follow him on Twitter.
(CNN) — There are two Rick Santorums: The first one I might not agree with, but the second one truly scares me. “Santorum One” pushes for less government regulation for corporations and shrinking the federal government. You may or may not agree with these positions, but they are both mainstream conservative fare. Then there’s “Santorum Two.” This Santorum wants to impose conservative Christian law upon America. Am I being hyperbolic or overly dramatic with this statement? I wish I were, but I’m not.
Plainly put, Rick Santorum wants to convert our current legal system into one that requires our laws to be in agreement with religious law, not unlike what the Taliban want to do in Afghanistan. Santorum is not hiding this. The only reason you may not be aware of it is because up until his recent surge in the polls, the media were ignoring him. However, “Santorum Two” was out there telling anyone who would listen. He told a crowd at a November campaign stop in Iowa in no uncertain terms, “our civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.” On Thanksgiving Day at an Iowa candidates’ forum, he reiterated: “We have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport with the higher law.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Hard Way: Our Odd Desire to Do it Ourselves
From self-assembly furniture to cake mix, we value the things we make ourselves — however badly we do it
WHEN instant cake mixes hit US shelves in the late 1940s, sales were disappointing. Pioneering consumer psychologist Ernest Dichter went into the nation’s kitchens to investigate. His interviews with housewives led him to a startling conclusion. The mixes made baking too easy; cooks felt undervalued. On Dichter’s recommendation the next generation of mixes required the addition of a fresh egg. They sold like hot cakes.
The story is an example of an odd phenomenon in modern consumer societies. Economic orthodoxy dictates that we should place more value on items that spare us work. As we increasingly identify ourselves as money-rich and time-poor, we should be prepared to spend more of the former to save the latter. But humans and economic orthodoxy don’t always see eye to eye. “People have this very strong, internalised notion that effort equals quality,” says behavioural economist Michael Norton of Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
952 Children Died in Finland War Prison Camps: Historian
Nearly 1,000 children died in prison camps after being held for suspected links with a Soviet-backed group during Finland’s 1918 civil war, a war historian said Wednesday. “At that time there was a lot of hatred and distrust in Finland and children were accused because of what their parents and relatives had done,” Tuulikki Pekkalainen told AFP, revealing a little known aspect.
Pekkalainen said that while just over 500 children were killed during the war, 952 others — including babies — died in the prison camps after the end of the war due to horrific conditions. The camps remained in existence after the war as prisoners were held pending trial.
“Children were also born in prison,” the author said. “There is the story of a prison where there was no warm water to wash a baby, so the women warmed the water in their mouths,” she said.
The civil war pitted the social democratic “Reds”, supported by Russia, and the conservative “Whites”, supported by Germany, who fought for control and leadership after Finland’s independence from Russia in 1917. Researching the subject for a book to be published in 2013, Pekkalainen has focused on 350 children, from infants to teens up to the age of 15, whose records are available in Finland’s National Archives.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Salafist Twerps Reportedly Harass Passers-by in Antwerp
Brussels (UNN) Belgian police on Wednesday detained 15 members of a radical Salafist Islamic group after they harassed passers-by in the city of Antwerp and shouted anti-Western slogans, police said. The Sharia for Belgium activists distributed leaflets glorifying Islam and criticizing the Western way of life in a central street of the northern port city Antwerpen.
Organisers had made no request for a demonstration, which was therefore authorised,said the spokeswoman. When officers asked the demonstrators to identify themselves they refused,” she added. “This led to skirmishes but no one was injured.”
The group was detained for causing a public disturbance and taken to a police station for identification and questioning. They were released later on Wednesday but Antwerp Mayor Patrick Janssens has decided to fill a complaint against Sharia for Belgium because, he said, he wants public order to be respected in his city, he said. Sharia Belgium wants Islamic law to be introduced in Belgium, whose second city of 480,000 inhabitants has a large Muslim community, mainly from Turkey and Morocco, and one of Europe|s biggest Jewish Orthodox communities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cheap Swedish Beer Gives Norway a Headache
Cheaper Swedish alcohol, as well as an increase in beer brought illegally across the border, is giving Norwegian vendors a headache, as manufacturers continue to see a drop in sales. Recently, beer sales in Norwegian region Östfold, near the Swedish border, has taken a beating and has reportedly dropped by 5 per cent in the last year, compared to 3 percent for the country as a whole.
“It is the proximity to the border and the fact that the shopping centres are getting better on the other side. The motorway also makes it easier to bring wares home. It must be added, though, that there is a huge amount of smuggling going on,” said Hansa Borg brewery’s CEO Lars Midtgaard to Norwegian TV network NRK. Midtgaard, along with many in the industry, blame this on the increase of tax on alcohol, which was raised by 7 percent over 2011 and 2 per cent at the beginning of 2012.
“At the same time the fees have been stable in our neighbouring country,” Midtgaard told NRK. “The difference in price between us and foreign countries are increasing and it becomes increasingly more profitable to smuggle beer into the country.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Parliament Groups Call for Sanctions Against Hungary
The Green, Socialist and Liberal groups in the European Parliament on Thursday called on the EU to impose sanctions on Hungary following the conservative government’s “dangerous slide towards an authoritarian regime” — according the Greens. Hungary is under attack for restricting media freedom and the independence of its central bank.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sarkozy in Tug-of-Love Over Joan of Arc
President Nicolas Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen this week embark on a tug-of-love over the French patron saint Joan of Arc, a surprise player in the upcoming presidential election. The two leaders are to stage rival celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the birth of the 15th-century Catholic martyr who has been appropriated by the far-right partly for her booting out of medieval English “immigrants”.
The teenage peasant led the French army against the English after experiencing religious visions and was later burned at the stake, but her broad appeal to French of all political colours has ensured her immortality. France is officially a secular state, but the story of Joan’s struggle against the English and Burgundians on behalf of the French crown has often served as an inspiration in patriotic causes.
She is regularly wheeled out as a symbol of French unity, alongside such Gallic icons as general Charles de Gaulle or Vercingetorix, who defied the Romans like a real-life Asterix. Her broad appeal is key: French Catholics see in her a saint, nationalists see her as a royalist warrior who kicked out the English, while Socialists can hail her humble origins, although she was the daughter of a landowner.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Bobsleigher Nearly Dies From Wood in Buttock
Three Canadian bobsleighers are recovering in hospital after a brutal World Cup training crash in Altenberg in the German state of Saxony that briefly left one of them fighting for his life.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Higgs Result Means Elegant Universe is Back in Vogue
AFTER a short spell on the rocks, a mathematically elegant view of the universe is back in vogue. Recent hints of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider help explain why we have not seen evidence for the beautiful theory of supersymmetry yet — and point to fresh ways to focus the search. Supersymmetry, or SUSY, is an extension to the standard model of how particles and forces interact. Via elegant equations, it posits that every fundamental particle — including quarks, electrons, photons and neutrinos — has a heavier, as yet unseen “superpartner” with slightly different properties (see diagram). This smooths some embarrassing wrinkles in the standard model. However, not one superpartner has yet shown up at the LHC, the particle smasher at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, prompting fears that, despite its beauty, SUSY could be wrong.
That changed on 13 December, when LHC physicists reported that they might have found traces of the Higgs boson, the standard-model particle that is thought to give all others mass. The data suggested a mass for the Higgs close to 125 gigaelectronvolts, 133 times that of the proton and too light for a Higgs to survive without a heavier companion particle, which could be a superpartner. “This is very good news for people who believe in supersymmetry,” says Howard Baer of the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ministers Identify Glitches in EU Diplomatic Service
BRUSSELS — Twelve member states have said bureaucracy and mis-management are hampering the effectiveness of the EU’s new diplomatic service one year after its launch. The foreign ministers of Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden put forward their ideas in an informal three-page paper dated 8 December and seen by EUobserver.
While couched in polite language, the text strikes raw nerves in Brussels on issues including turf battles between the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS), EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton’s handling of ministerial meetings and her purported neglect of security affairs.
Under current arrangements, Ashton’s service is responsible for framing EU foreign policy and managing joint relations with non-EU countries via 140 foreign delegations. But the European Commission is responsible for funding foreign programmes and for handling many day-to-day EEAS matters, such as making sure Ashton’s people have working computers on their desks and get their expenses on time.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mullah Krekar to Leave Norway?
Mullah Krekar, former leader of the extremist Islamic group Ansar Al-Islam and an accused terrorist living in exile in Norway, told Rudaw the media that he will soon return to Kurdistan.
Krekar, the nom de guerre of Najmaddin Faraj, has been under house arrest in Norway since 2001. While Norway has declared him a threat to national security, the country has been unwilling to deport Krekar back to Iraqi Kurdistan on human rights grounds because Iraq practices death penalty.
Krekar, one of Iraqi Kurdistan’s most notorious figures, has been charged with terrorism in Norway — where he sought refuge in 1991 — for allegedly threatening to kill a politician. His bloody past and that of the Kurdish extremist group Ansar al-Islam — which has links to Al-Qaeda — includes charges by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which has accused Krekar and his men of beheading dozens of PUK fighters in Kheli Hama village in 2002.
Rudaw contacted PUK lawyers to find out if the party has filed cases against Krekar in any of Kurdistan’s courts.
Nasih Hama Hassan, a lawyer for PUK politburo, said the PUK “has not filed any lawsuits against Krekar.”
Speaking to Rudaw via telephone from Norway, Krekar said, “My return to the Kurdistan Region has become a major political issue. Each side wants to have me back to fight their opponents for them.”
Krekar is also known for his fiery jihadi messages that he frequently releases via the Internet.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union, a moderate group led by Salahaddin Bahaddin, has often been attacked by Krekakr in his speeches and media interviews.
But Mohammed Hawdiyani, an attorney for the Islamic Union told Rudaw that his party has nothing against Krekar.
Nawzad Baban, a legal advisor and lawyer for Kurdistan Communist Labor Party, also said his party holds no grudge against the former leader of Ansar Al-Islam.
“We have always been a civilian party and have not had any problem with him,” said Baban.
The Islamic League (Komal) and its leader Ali Bapir have not been spared from Krekar’s disparaging comments. Krekar has often described as an Iranian stooge and his party agents of Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Islamic League’s lawyer said, “Unfortunately, Mullah Krekar has been attacking Islamists for a while but we do not have any lawsuits against him.”
Faraj was one of the founders of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan until the late 1990s when IMK split and Krekar created Ansar Al-Islam with an extremist wing from the party.
Shwan Qaladizayi, a senior leader at Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, said his party’s doors are open for Krekar to return.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Mother Drowns Baby Daughter in Bucket While Boyfriend Watches Live on Skype
A mother drowned her baby daughter in a bucket while her boyfriend watched live over the internet.
Norwegian Yasmin Chaudhry killed the one-year-old by plunging her into a bucket of water during a 3am Skype video call with her British partner.
Chaudhry, 26, said she had just wanted to discipline her baby for waking up and ‘disobeying her’.
She called an ambulance and initially told paramedics that the baby had fallen into the bucket by accident.
The girl was unconscious when the paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead the next day, in October 2010.
Chaudhry was initially arrested on suspicion of negligence because of inconsistencies in the stories she gave to police and the paramedics, but is now facing a preliminary charge of murder.
‘This has been a long investigation and she eventually admitted it to us in October 2011,’ Norwegian police prosecutor Kristin Rusdal told MailOnline.
‘She said it was done to discipline the child. She had been holding her under water.
‘She had discussed the discipline with this friend, with whom she had a relationship. They met online and had met in person only once.
Chaudhry claimed that her boyfriend — who is not the child’s father — told her to do it.
Both she and the Briton deny wanting to kill the baby.
The British man has not yet been named because his name does not appear in any of the court documents published in Norway.
Ms Rusdal confirmed a preliminary murder charge had been filed against the British man and said police were discussing extradition.
Officers from Oslo flew to Britain just before Christmas to question the boyfriend with the help of Scotland Yard.
‘We could issue a formal request to the British authorities to see if they wan to investigate the case, but because it is so closely tied to our investigation we would like to see them together,’ said Ms Rusdal.
Chaudhry’s five-year-old son was taken into care following the horrific episode in October 2010.
Yesterday she was remanded until February 4.
The baby’s father now lives in Pakistan after splitting with the mother.
His lawyer said: ‘He is, of course, very shocked.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Norway ‘Received Phone Threat Before Attacks’
The Norwegian government received a phone threat just months before the July 22nd twin attacks that killed 77 people, but police were not alerted to the call, public radio station NRK reported on Friday. A man with the same refined tones as the gunman Anders Behring Breivik spoke calmly about shooting members of the youth wing of the Labour Party, said the radio station. He also mentioned a manifesto during the phone call to the government in March 2011.
Due to the disturbing contents of the call, the receptionist detailed it on a written note, but this was never transmitted to police, the Norwegian government services centre said. “The call was never considered as a real threat but more like a vague and incoherent conversation,” Margot Vaagdal, head of the centre’s communications, told AFP.
It was only after Behring Breivik’s attacks that the police were alerted as the centre “found that a part of what was said was perhaps relevant for the case,” said Vaagdal, although she would not confirm details of the call.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Did Breivik Give Advance Notice of His Crime?
A man rang government headquarters last year threatening to shoot Labour Youth Movement (AUF) members just months before Anders Behring Breivik’s twin attacks.
Reports surfacing today suggest the menacing call, made by a man with a polished eastern Norway (Østlandet) dialect, also contained abusive and derogatory remarks directed against Jens Stoltenberg, his government, ex Social Democrat (SV) Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and references to a manifesto.
The incident lasted several minutes, but officials have no record of whom the person was. Written details of the person’s name, telephone number, and date of the call have since disappeared following the bomb explosion.
Moreover, which official the call was transferred to is also unknown. According to NRK the female operator, who warned her superior, does not wish to comment about the matter and is unsure of exactly when the conversation took place. Although she has been interviewed, police have not yet asked for the audio logs.
“It was not considered to be a concrete threat because the caller was so vague and incoherent,” says Eva Måge Brown, Government Administration Services (G.A.S.) head of section, “we still do not consider it to be one [even after 22nd July].”
She confirms this forms the basis of why police were not informed at the time but afterwards. Neither Mrs Måge Brown nor police wish elaborate further.
“Threats must be reported to police and the Police Security Service (PST), irrespective of how serious they are [generally-speaking]. Any threat is investigated […] It’s up to the PST and police to decide whether it is a threat, not the G.A.S.’ job,” PST information advisor Siv Alsén declares.
It is not clear whether the caller actually was Anders Behring Breivik, but the terrorist’s defence counsels have asked police to look into the matter.
“We are aware the conversation is included in the case documents, and are waiting for police to conclude their investigations. I think it’s strange [they have not requested the audio logs]. Besides knowing the caller’s identity, it’s important to establish whether this was an advance warning,” says Vibeke Hein Bæra, verifying only that this has been discussed this with their client.
Meanwhile, Christian Democrat (KrF) leader Knut Arild Hareide, head of Parliament’s 22 July Committee, says using hindsight is easy, but admits, “we have been naïve in certain areas and have to use what now know to ensure better preparedness from now on. The main focus was fighting Islamist terror pre-22 July, and we are now thinking more of Right-Extremism.”
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy Hails Joan of Arc to Boost Election Campaign
The French patron saint, Joan of Arc, has become an unlikely focus of the presidential election campaign, on the 600th anniversary of her birth. President Sarkozy is seeking to claim her legacy for his own party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Ek the ‘Most Important Man in Music’: Forbes
Swedish music streaming service Spotify’s ground breaking inventor Daniel Ek has been hailed the most important person in the world of music by American journal Forbes. “The music industry has been waiting more than a decade for Ek,” writes Forbes.
The journal praised Ek for his work and says it believes he has invented a “sustainable revenue model” that will fight piracy because it is much more enticing to consumers. “In the current landscape, where Google provides the search, Facebook the identity and Amazon the retail, Ek wants to supply the soundtrack,” wrote the journal.
The tribute from Forbes comes after an autumn of several backlashes for the company when hundreds of record companies removed their artists from Spotify’s catalogue, while the company was being criticized for “cannibalism”, gobbling up the profits of other digital re-sellers, according to Sveriges Television (SVT).
Spotify defended itself saying that as the company continued to grow, the revenues for the artists and companies would also keep growing. However, after six years of negotiations, Spotify is finally reached agreements with a large number of record companies and Forbes predicts a bright future ahead.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Kopimism: The World’s Newest Religion Explained
Isak Gerson is spiritual leader of the world’s newest religion, Kopimism, devoted to file-sharing. On 5 January the Church of Kopimism was formally recognised as a religion by the Swedish government.
Was it hard to become an official religion?
We have had this faith for several years and one day we thought, why not try and get it registered? It was quite difficult. The authorities were quite dogmatic with their formalities. It took us three tries and more than a year to get recognised.
What criteria do you have to meet to become an official religion?
The law states that to be a religion you have to be an organisation that practises moments of prayer or meditation in your rituals.
What are the Kopimist prayers and meditations?
We have a part of our religious practices where we worship the value of information by copying it.
You call this “kopyacting”. Do you actually meet up in a building, like a church, to undertake these rituals?
We do meet up, but it doesn’t have to be a physical room. It could be a server or a web page too.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Recognizes Information-Sharing as Religion
Three attempts in the past year have paid off for a newly recognized religion in Sweden that views information as holy and copying as a sacrament. Its leaders have previous ties to the Pirate Party Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Tense Year Looms in EU Relations
While there was little movement in 2011 owing to the Swiss elections, 2012 looks like being a crucial year for relations between Switzerland and the European Union. Bern and Brussels will have to find a solution to what is known as the institutional issue.
Among the objectives for 2012 presented in early December by the Swiss government, “clarification of institutional relations between Switzerland and the European Union” is one of the ten biggest priorities.
Beginning in 1972 with the initial agreement on free trade, the patchwork of ad-hoc arrangements between Bern and Brussels has grown steadily; today there are about 120. They range from rather technical matters, such as cooperation on statistics, to issues that are much more tangible for the ordinary mortal, such as the agreement on the free movement of people — the Schengen accord.
Apart from these arrangements, Switzerland and the European Union have been negotiating on around ten other issues which are far from secondary. In particular, tax policy is a topic which the EU will likely want to get back to in 2012 in view of the dramatic financial situation the member states are currently facing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘The Iron Lady’ Should Have Been Delayed: British PM
Prime Minister David Cameron said as “The Iron Lady” opened in Britain Friday that the film showing former premier Margaret Thatcher’s dementia should have been delayed until after her death. The biopic shows Thatcher as a frail, sometimes confused old lady — she is now 86 and is rarely seen in public — looking back at her career with the ghost of her late husband Denis looking on.
Cameron, in his first comment on the film, said he had been impressed by Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Britain’s first woman prime minister, who like him was a leader of the centre-right Conservative party. But Cameron questioned whether it was right to make the film while Thatcher was still alive.
“It’s a fantastic piece of acting by Meryl Streep but I just can’t help wondering why do we have to have this film right now?” he told BBC radio. “It is a film much more about ageing and elements of dementia rather than about an amazing prime minister, and my sort of sense was a great piece of acting, a really staggering piece of acting, but a film I wish they could have made another day.”
Streep, who is tipped for an Oscar for her performance, has said she relished the “opportunity to play someone at the waning of her life… and that interested me too because there aren’t very many films that pay attention to older ladies.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘The Shard’: The Building That Will Change London Forever
British developer Irvine Sellar and Italian architect Renzo Piano are building the tallest building in Western Europe, known as “the Shard.” But ambition and arrogance have blinded the pair to the building’s disregard for London’s history and character.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Acting as Cover for Extremism is the Real Problem
by Martin Bright
As news stories go, it’s about as straightforward as they come. A group of community activists keen to recruit in the Jewish community turns out to have a trustee who has made a public statement celebrating antisemitic terrorists who murder Jews. What’s more, one of the founder institutions of the organisations is a mosque which regularly hosts antisemitic hate preachers from the Middle East and South Asia. And yet, for exposing the links between London Citizens, the “community organisers” best known for their campaign on the living wage, and the Islamic extreme right, the Jewish Chronicle is accused of carrying out a “Jihad against the Jews”. The title of a hastily arranged meeting at this year’s Limmud would have been deeply offensive if it hadn’t been so infantile.
I realise that my description of Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg as a “useful idiot” in these pages has caused anger and upset among his congregation at New North London synagogue and his supporters in the wider community. My words were carefully chosen and I stand by them. The Rabbi himself defends his decision to share a platform with Mohammed Abdul Bari of East London Mosque at the end of a London Citizens parade last month. This is a mosque which recently advertised a discussion with Sheihk Saad al-Beraik, a Saudi cleric who has called for the enslavement of Jewish women by the Palestinians. He also told the Jewish Chronicle last week that he has not challenged London Citizens about its deputy chair of trustees, Junaid Ahmed, who spoke during Operation Cast Lead in praise of Hamas leaders. This seems like a strange abdication of responsibility. Rabbi Wittenberg would surely never take the same approach with a senior member of the British National Party. Apparently he doesn’t “seek to confront people with a record of difficult views”, but would confront abhorrent views if he encountered them directly. The message to those who want Rabbi Wittenberg to act as cover for extremism is simply not to tell him to his face that they hate Jews.
I do not accept Keith Kahn-Harris’s false dichotomy between the “politics of engagement” and the “politics of exclusion”. Engagement for the sake of engagement is pointless and intellectually lazy. In order to engage, it is essential to know with whom you are engaging. Rabbi Wittenberg and those within the Jewish community who feel it is a good idea to make common cause with London Citizens and East London Mosque have stubbornly refused to do the most basic due diligence. The mosque has always been heavily influenced by the Jamaat-i-Islami, the South Asian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the “politics of exclusion” this party has few rivals, promoting hatred against Hindus, women and other Muslims who do not follow its austere vision of Islam. At present, several prominent members of the party face trial for war crimes associated with the Bangladeshi war of independence in 1971 (Jamaat backed Pakistan in the struggle). One of these men, Delwar Hossein Sayeedi, found himself at the centre of a storm in 2006 when he was invited to speak at East London Mosque. When members of the Bangladeshi community argued that Sayeedi should never have been issued with a visa, Mohammed Adul Bari leapt to his defence.
Have Rabbi Wittenberg and his supporters ever raised concerns about war crimes in Bangladesh or East London Mosque’s relationship with Jamaat-i-Islami’s politics of hate? I somehow doubt it. I am told I would take a different approach if I had better contacts within New North London Synagogue. Mr Kahn-Harris might want to ask himself who it was that raised questions about London Citizens if not concerned members of that congregation. I would be happy to develop the relationship further, but have not been invited by anyone within the Masorti movement to share the intelligence I and others have about their unsavoury partners. To those who argue that engagement with the Islamic extreme right helps bridge divisions between our communities, I ask the following question: where is the evidence that Rabbi Wittenberg’s involvement with London Citizens has stopped a single antisemitic hate preacher coming to East London Mosque?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: British Muslims Named in the 2012 New Year Honours List
The Muslim Council of Britain congratulates all those named in the 2012 New Year Honours List. They are recognised for their outstanding achievement and service across the whole of the United Kingdom. The MCB also congratulates the following British Muslims honoured today, underlying once again the many positive contributions Muslims make to British society.
If we have missed a name, please do email us at media@mcb.org.uk
To see the full list, go to: www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_200708?cid=rss
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
Dr Tahir Ahmed MAHMOOD. For services to Women’s Health.
Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
Zahoor AHMED. Chairman, Gifts International. For services to International Trade.
Durdana, Mrs ANSARI. For services to Muslim Women in the UK.
Professor Mohamed EL-GOMATI. Professor of Electronics, University of York. For services to Science.
Mohammad HABEEBULLAH JP. For services to the community in Greater Manchester.
Amin Mohamed MAWJI. For public and voluntary service.
Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)
Dr Syed Nayyer Abbas ABIDI. For services to the Black and Minority Ethnic community.
Mohammed AKRAM JP. For services to the British Pakistani community in Scotland.
Councillor Mohammad BHATTI. For services to Local Government and to the community.
Sayeeda, Mrs CHOWDHURY. Outreach Worker, Longsight Sure Start Children’s Centre, Manchester. For services to Children and Families.
Hifsa Haroon, Mrs IQBAL DL. For services to Community Cohesion in Staffordshire.
Al’adin MAHERALI. For services to Voluntary Sector and to the Business.
Mohammed Saeed MOUGHAL. For services to the community in Birmingham.
Anwer Ibrahim Issa Ismail PATEL. Managing Director, Cohens Chemist Group. For services to community pharmacy.
Mohammed Foiz UDDIN. For services to Community Cohesion.
Akram ZAMAN. JP Chairman, Protocol. For services to the community in Northamptonshire.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Diane Abbott: Taxi Drivers Refuse to Pick Up Black Passengers
Diane Abbott is facing fresh calls to resign after enraging London’s taxi drivers with a claim that they routinely refuse to pick up passengers who are black.
Miss Abbott came close to losing her job as a shadow health minister yesterday and was forced to apologise over her comment on Twitter that “white people love playing ‘divide and rule’“. It seemed that her apology had deflected the worst of the criticism, which included the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, condemning her as “stupid and crass” and her own party authorities issuing a public rebuke.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Iron Lady’s Home Town Loath to See Her Cast in Bronze
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher remains a divisive figure in the UK, 20 years after she left office. Even in her home town the locals are still arguing about whether to honor her, possibly with a statue.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Margaret Thatcher: An Embedding Zionist
by Martin Bright
Margaret Thatcher may not have had the visceral or spiritual connection to Israel felt by Tony Blair or Gordon Brown but her premiership marked a sea-change within the Conservative Party, which has defined its policy ever since. Mrs Thatcher’s anti-Communism and uncompromising position on terrorism made her naturally lean towards Israel in the Middle East.
As the academic and former Israeli government adviser Jonathan Spyer has pointed out, UK policy in the Middle East can generally be divided between the “diplomatic approach”, which allies itself with existing regimes or those it judges likely to seize power, and the “strategic” approach, which divides regimes into those judged moderate and those thought to be a threat.
The first approach has traditionally been promoted by the Foreign Office and is generally hostile to Israel, whereas the “strategic approach” has often been preferred by Downing Street and sees Israel as a natural ally (although Attlee and Heath were exceptions to this rule). This did not mean that the Thatcher-era marked a golden era of UK-Israel relations. As the JC revealed in 2010, secret papers released by the National Archives showed that she thought Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was the “most difficult” man she had to deal with, a man whose policy on West Bank settlements was “absurd”. In June 1981, she unleashed the full force of her fury at Israel after the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. In 1983, she made plain her opposition to former Irgun fighter Eliahu Lankin becoming Israel’s ambassador to the UK, as she viewed him as a terrorist. He later withdrew.
Despite a sometimes testy relationship with Israel itself, Mrs Thatcher embedded pro-Zionism within her party — and the essentially sympathetic approach of the Cameron-Osborne leadership of the Conservatives remains part of her political legacy.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nazi Defender Will Visit SOAS
A lawyer who has defended Nazi war criminals, Holocaust deniers and Palestinian terrorists, will speak at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, shortly after Holocaust Memorial Day. Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer, vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, hopes to raise the visit of French-Vietnamese lawyer Jacques Verge’s with Home Secretary Theresa May. Anti-fascist campaigners from Searchlight are urging the Home Office to ban him. Mr Verge’s, 86, counts Nazi Klaus Barbie, Holocaust denier Roger Gaudy and pro-Palestinian terrorist Carlos the Jackal as former clients. In 2008 he said he would happily have defended Adolf Hitler.
Mr Verge’s is due to speak at SOAS on February 3.
Klaus Barbie’s defence was financed by Francois Genoud, a Swiss Nazi who was the executor of Joseph Goebbels’s will. Genoud also paid for the defence of Carlos the Jackal.
Searchlight’s Gerry Gable said the magazine had been investigating Mr Verge’s since October. “His role goes well beyond the legal representation needed to ensure his criminal clients get a fair trial. “It is possible for the Home Office to ban EU citizens if their presence is not conducive to the public good. We think that applies to Jacques Verge’s.” At the planned SOAS debate, Mr Verge’s will speak alongside Finnish international lawyer Martti Koskenniemi, in a panel discussion chaired by French-Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani.
PhD student Robert Murtfeld, who is organising the event, said: “Jacques Verge’s has been invited as a main speaker with Professor Koskenniemi, a Finnish diplomat for more than 20 years. In his 2002 paper on ‘Between Impunity and Show Trials’, Professor Koskenniemi analyses critically Vergès’ involvement in the Barbie case.” Denis MacShane MP, chair of the European Institute for Study of Antisemitism, said: “Jacques Verges is an ageing sensationalist who has links with some of the most repellent ideas and individuals on the far right, who have sought and seek to justify, excuse or avoid retribution for evil acts. It is sad that SOAS should be lending its name to this stunt merchant, who no longer gets the publicity he craves in France but has found some useless idiots at London University — again! — to promote his noxious narratives”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Passengers to Face Heathrow Delays as Olympic Athletes Are Given Priority Treatment
They are supposed to be a national celebration of sporting excellence and gold-medal-winning endeavour. But it seems that — whatever the action on the track or in the field — the Olympic Games will cause delays and frustrations for travellers in the UK.
Policy documents for the UK Border Agency, seen by the Daily Mail, warn that the influx of visitors into the country ahead of and during the tournament in July and August, will cause long queues at Heathrow Airport — and may lead to non-Olympic passengers being held up as arrivals connected to the Games are given priority treatment. The collection of biometric data on incoming passengers, including fingerprints, may be a particular cause of delays, the documents warn.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pollard and Bright’s Islamist Fear Betrays Our Community Values
It is part of the job of the Jewish Chronicle to raise difficult questions. One such troubling question is how far London Citizens, a broad-based coalition of religious and community groups within which some supporters of Islamist extremism are involved, is unwittingly providing a way for fundamentalist groups to gain respectability. At one level then, Martin Bright’s denunciation in these pages of New North London Synagogue (and in particular its Rabbi, Jonathan Wittenberg) for cooperating with London Citizens, appears to be nothing more than Anglo-Jewry’s principle newspaper doing its duty. However, while in theory Martin Bright and the JC have done nothing more than their job, in practice the controversy over London Citizens has exposed a disturbing trend in the paper’s relationship to the British Jewish community. The London Citizen’s controversy is revealing of the chasm between two kinds of politics. New North London Synagogue and other Jews involved in London Citizens are exponents of a ‘politics of engagement’ that prizes dialogue, cooperation and community above all. The JC under Stephen Pollard and Martin Bright is an exponent of a ‘politics of exclusion’ that prioritises principle and ideology and seeks to marginalise anyone that crosses certain ‘red lines’. Both politics have their place and both have their weaknesses. To some extent Martin Bright has highlighted a certain naivety in those in the Jewish community who advocate a politics of engagement. But I would argue that this whole controversy has ultimately been much more revealing of the blindness that an excessive commitment to a politics of exclusion can produce.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Wind Turbines That Can’t Cope… With the Wind! Three More Are Blown to Pieces in Gales That Swept Across Britain
The impact of the devastating weather which has swept the country is shown by the state of these wind turbines — which couldn’t withstand the strength of the gales.
The huge blades — 15ft long — flew off three turbines including one on the aptly-named Windmill Lane in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
The firm which made the turbines in the Hepworth and Upper Cumberworth areas of the town has promised a full investigation.
Concerned villagers in Hepworth, where the blade from one turbine was flung across a road, warned: ‘Someone could have been killed’.
Frances Barnes, who has 10 acres of grazing land for horses close to the Hepworth turbine, said: ‘It is worrying.
‘People objected to the plans when they first went in — not because it is a windmill but because it is so close to a busy road.
‘It is frightening to think what may have happened had one of the blades flown into the road and hit a car, or indeed if the wind turbine had come down.’
Ryan Gill, of manufacturers Evoco, blamed the exceptionally strong winds for the damage.
A spokesman for the firm — which has 100 turbines nationwide — said wind levels reached 112mph across the Pennines this week and three turbines had been damaged.
He said the company was not alone in experiencing damage to wind turbines and said it had been an exceptionally challenging few weeks for the wind industry following gale force winds last month too.
He said the company built six 50ft turbines in the Hepworth and Upper Cumberworth areas which cost £50,000 each. Each blade is 15ft long, he said.
The turbines are used by local farmers who use them to generate electricity privately and then sell back any excess to the National Grid.
The Evoco website claims the 10kw turbine has been ‘specifically designed to reliably deliver high generation performance in harsh wind conditions’.
The Health and Safety Executive said it had not been contacted about the incident.
Last month, a 300ft wind turbine exploded in flames when it was buffeted by high winds in Ardrossan, Ayrshire, Scotland.
Witnesses said the blades of the £2million turbine were locked at the time, because the National Grid would have been unable to cope with a sudden power surge.
Photographer Stuart McMahon, who took the incredible image, said: ‘The centre of the turbine caught fire first and the flames spread to the covering of the blades.
‘There was burning debris being swept off in the wind and across the fields. These are huge structures and to see one on fire was a spectacular sight.’
Meanwhile, another turbine was knocked over near Coldingham in the Borders which caused several homes to be evacuated and roads to be closed.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Three Men Sentenced Over Arson Attack on Sussex Mosque
Three men have been sentenced for an arson attack on a newly-renovated mosque in West Sussex.
James Everley, 20, of Crawley, James Smith, 20, of Burgess Hill, and Joshua Morris, 20, of Haywards Heath, were all sentenced to three years at a young offenders institute.
The fire at the mosque in Wivelsfield Road, Haywards Heath, was started at about 02:10 GMT on 13 February. Police believe the attack was a religiously-aggravated hate crime.
The men had pleaded guilty at Hove Crown Court to arson, theft of paraffin and a public order offence, which involved racially or religiously aggravated fear of violence.
Ch Insp Jon Hull, district commander for Mid Sussex, said: “The mosque was occupied at the time this fire was started and it could have had devastating consequences if it hadn’t been put out quickly. “Thankfully only damage was caused to the building. Everyone who lives, works or visits Sussex has a right to go about their lives without becoming the victim of a hate crime because of their disability, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or gender identity.” The mosque had been renovated and had reopened three months before the attack.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Upset French Fans Sue Michael Jackson Doctor
French fans of Michael Jackson are suing the late pop star’s doctor for “emotional damage” they suffered over his death, their lawyer said Friday. The case against Conrad Murray, who was jailed in November over the star’s 2009 death, is due to be heard in the city of Orleans on April 11, lawyer Emmanuel Ludot said.
“It’s similar to losing a childhood friend in a traffic accident. Because this death affects you, you have the possibility to file a suit and seek compensation,” Ludot said. The lawyer is acting for around 100 fans who are members of an association that calls itself the “Michael Jackson Community”. He said that while each fan could be awarded damages of up to 10,000 euros (13,000 dollars), they were seeking only a symbolic euro.
Jackson, aged 50 at the time of his death, had hired Murray at a salary of $150,000 a month to look after him as he rehearsed and embarked on a series of “This is It” planned comeback shows in London.
The star died on June 25, 2009 at his Los Angeles home of an overdose of anaesthetic propofol, taken to help him battle insomnia. Murray was found guilty in November of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to the maximum four years in prison.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Qaradawi’s Sharia Gradualism is a Threat to Liberal Democracy
by A Millar
During the Balkans war of the 1990s, Alija Izetbegovic, then Bosnia’s President, was championed by the Western media. For Western reporters, educated in the humanities, Bosnian Muslims were Europe’s new Jews besieged by Serbian nationalists — Europe’s alleged new Nazis. That Izetbegovic had been a longtime member of the Young Muslims, a secretive and once-Nazi affiliated movement, was conveniently overlooked. Izetbegovic, for the Western press, was more than a victim, and more than a “moderate Muslim.” He was, in the view of reporters embedded in Bosnian hotels, a defender of the multiculturalism that was under attack from the Serbs (Orthodox Christians). It seems curious today, but probably the only people in the West — certainly in Britain, at least — to challenge this rosy picture were the communists. Early on during the war, one communist organization held an exhibition of photographs of Serbian victims of Bosnian atrocities. It was, of course, ignored by the media.
Significant atrocities were, of course, conducted by Serb forces. Nevertheless, the media, we are led to believe, is composed of “experts.” But, if reporters — allegedly after the truth — ignored photographic evidence of the frequently conducted Bosnian atrocities, and if one or two reporters may even have doctored evidence against the Serbs, universally ignored was Izetbegovic’s own long term plan to tear down the old (semi-communist) system and establish an Islamic state in its place. Even today, occasionally, a carefully extracted sentence or two from Izetbegovic’s Islamic Declaration (originally published circa 1970, and republished in 1990) is reproduced as evidence of his love of multiculturalism. (Readers can judge for themselves whether this is an accurate portrayal, since an edition of the Declaration can be downloaded here).
It is true that Izetbegovic states at one point in the Declaration that non-Muslim minorities would have rights and freedoms in his envisioned Islamic state, although he is clear that this would depend on how assimilated to Islam the non-Muslims became. The more Islamic they became the more rights and freedoms (to be like Muslims) they would have.
Religious minorities were not the only ones that Izetbegovic had in his sights. Notably, the alleged multiculturalist inveighs against feminism — and sees the role of women as that of mothers only — and liberal democracy in his Declaration. He also presents Islam as an essentially political project: “History knows no genuine Islamic movement that was not a political movement at the same time,” he says. For Izetbegovic, one cannot be a Muslim and “act, work, have fun, rule in a non-Islamic way.” For Izetbegovic, a religious revival would pave the way for the Islamic state, crucially, by educating (or indoctrinating) the masses over a long period. This period of indoctrination would ensure the success of the revolution to come.
Izetbegovic is not the only Islamic scholar who has grasped the importance of paving the way for an Islamic or Islamist revolution over a long period, as The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report has noted. TGMBDR notes that the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Youssef Qaradawi, has recently stated that “Gradualism in applying the Shari’ah is a wise requirement to follow.” Qaradawi goes on to say: “Being a divine law, gradualism is to be followed on the political level nowadays. That is to say, gradualism is to be observed when it comes to applying the rulings of the Shari’ah in today’s life when Muslims have been socially, legislatively, and culturally invaded. If we want to establish a real Muslim society, we should not imagine that such an end can be achieved by a mere decision issued to that effect by a king or a president or a council of leaders or a parliament.
Gradualism is the means through which such an end can be fulfilled. Gradualism here refers to preparing people ideologically, psychologically, morally, and socially to accept and adopt the application of the Shari’ah in all aspects of life [my emphasis], and to finding lawful alternatives for the forbidden principles upon which many associations have been founded for so long.”
As Qaradawi and Izetbegovic know, sharia is a complete system that creates a particular way of acting and thinking in all situations, public and private. It is, as both would acknowledge, political, although it would mean total submission to the dictates of the religion of Islam. Qaradawi, like Izetbegovic before him, recommends the gradual introduction of the “divine law” of sharia at the “political level.” Even if, traditionally, sharia is not to be applied in non-Islamic countries, it is clear that that is the intention here. Moreover, the establishment of sharia as the law of the land in the UK and elsewhere in the West is desired by a substantial proportion of Muslims — most polls put it around 40 percent. There are an increasing number of sharia tribunals active in the UK. And, although certainly extremists, Muslim or Islamist gangs have recently embarked on campaigns to enforce “shariah controlled zones” in British cities.
Sharia, as state law, demands the stoning of adulterers, and execution for homosexuality and apostasy, as well as other barbaric punishments, such as the cutting off of the hand for thieves. As longtime gay rights activist Peter Tatchell has noted of Qaradawi, “he favours female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals in Islamic states, the destruction of the Jewish people, the use of suicide bombs against innocent civilians and the blaming of rape victims who do not dress with sufficient modest.” All of this, we should have no doubt, is absolutely in line with Qardawi’s understanding of sharia. For Izetbegovic, Islamists had to be “preachers first and then soldiers.” Qaradawi might not be advocating violence against Western states, but the Balkans offers a lesson in the consequences of such “gradualism.” Liberal democracy should be defended. If the UK’s Conservative-Liberal Democrats Government, and others in Europe, are serious about defending the rights of minorities, they will make it clear that sharia has no place in their society, and will take steps to prohibit it.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
German Foreign Minister to Tour North Africa
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will on Saturday embark on a North African tour, one year after the Arab Spring to promote democratic reform efforts, a spokesman said. The trip will begin in Algeria, where Westerwelle will call for a more ambitious timetable for reforms as well as more scope for German non-governmental organisations to work, in talks with Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, the spokesman told reporters Friday.
On Sunday in Libya, Westerwelle will meet leaders of the interim government for discussions focused on German assistance for those wounded in the war to topple Moamer Kadhafi and in securing weapons stashes. Germany, and Westerwelle in particular, faced sharp criticism last year for abstaining in a UN Security Council vote to authorise its NATO partners to extend a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent the slaughter of civilians by Kadhafi’s forces — the only European Union or NATO ally to do so.
But it has since pledged its support for the country’s reconstruction in the post-Kadhafi era. In Tunisia, the birthplace of the uprisings against authoritarian regimes that swept the region, Westerwelle will Monday discuss “concrete measures to promote democracy and economic development” with President Moncef Marzouki including improving job prospects for young Tunisians.
The EU has voiced concern about a rising tide of “economic refugees” in the wake of the Arab Spring.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Arab Cyber-Attack on ‘Zionist’ Credit Cards
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JANUARY 3 — “We have decided to give the world a present in time for the New Year: information about 400,000 Israelis and their credit cards … If you have to buy anything, don’t hesitate to make use of them… Have fun shopping, for us it is enough reward to have created havoc among Israeli credit card companies”. So ran the message sent out last night by a mysterious ‘OxOmar’ — the name of ‘Hackers Anonymous of Saudi Arabia’ who followed it by uploading a heap of data worthy of Julian Assange. This, the message added, is only the first instalment: the objective of this cyber-guerrilla-warfare is to publish online the private details of at least one million Israelis. The information is to be gathered in part — the message explains — by sifting through “Jewish and Zionist” databases. Included in the data are private addresses, identity-card numbers, email addresses and passwords. Some months ago, another group of anarchist and internationalist-inspired hackers unleashed a joint attack against the website of the military spokesperson, of Mossad (espionage) and of Shin Bet (internal security), managing to keep them offline for hours. The bragging by ‘OxOmar’ has therefore caused serious concern in Israel. According to Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovic, “The situation has become unsustainable”.
Throughout the night, those in charge of bank computing systems were busy assessing the size of the scam and blocking endangered credit cards. After many hours it was possible to ascertain that genuine data affected not 400,000 but 15,000 cards. Call centres were being inundated while just about every Israeli citizen was busy checking whether their own card has been included in the public release. Banks promised their customers that any withdrawals would be cancelled and there has only been news of a few dozens affected cards so far. But the incident contributes to lighting up alarm signals at Shin Bet. One of its special units — the Re’em — has been charged with checking out how defences against cyber-attacks on banks and on mobile telecoms companies can be improved.
As for the Interior Ministry’s project to create a ‘biometric database’ for every Israeli citizen, some leading figures are calling for it to be reviewed. “As long as our enemies continue to target our money, there are remedies… but if they start controlling the fingerprints of our citizens, we would be faced with a real national crisis”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Arab MKs Denounce Police ‘Brutality’
MKs Ahmed Tibi and Ibrahim Sarsour condemn the police for raiding a noisy mosque in Jaffa, threaten consequences.
Arab parties Raam and Taal on Thursday issued a statement condemning what they called “the barbaric behavior of the police and the Ministry of Environment” in confiscating the speakers of a noisy mosque in Yafo (Jaffa). The parties said police broke into the mosque on Tuesday and forcefully removed the speakers from the mosque, which is located in a complex belonging to the Abu Sayaf family. MK Ahmed Tibi (Taal) has submitted an urgent query to Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch in which he condemned what he termed the “inhuman” measures taken against the mosque. Tibi also claimed the raid was carried out following complaints about the mosque by factors related to the Yisrael Beiteinu party. He said the complaints were inappropriate since they were filed soon after Yisrael Beiteinu’s MK Anastassia Michaeli submitted her bill that would require mosques to temper the sound of the muezzin.
MK Ibrahim Sarsour (Raam), who also heads the Islamic Movement in Israel, went even further than Tibi, saying the police’s action is “an unjustified escalation, especially in light of the significant deterioration in the relationship between the State and its Arab population, and the brutal assault of Jewish organizations, that receive support from the government and the public, against the holy places of Islam and Christianity.” Sarsour added that the Arab masses reserve the right to respond to these attacks and said that the government alone will be responsible for the devastating consequences of its “brutal” policies. Tibi and Sarsour are both notorious for the anti-Israel statements they constantly make. Tibi recently launched a verbal assault on the head of the Manhigut Yehudit faction in the Likud, Moshe Feiglin.
As both were being interviewed on Channel 2 News, Tibi called Feiglin “an anti-Semitic Jew who supports the burning of mosques” and labeled him “moral garbage.” Tibi’s tirade came after Feiglin suggested that there is no evidence to suggest that the recent arsons in mosques were carried out by Jewish nationalists. Sarsour recently called to establish an Islamic Caliphate centered in Jerusalem and praised Hizbullah for defeating Israel. He has also urged Arab and Muslim leaders to wage war on Israel, citing Christian Zionists as one of the elements conspiring to ‘Judaize’ Jerusalem.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Land-for-Peace Hoax
The rise of the forces of jihadist Islam in Egypt places the US and other Western powers in an uncomfortable position. The US is the guarantor of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. That treaty is based on the proposition of land for peace. Israel gave Egypt the Sinai in 1982 and in exchange it received a peace treaty with Egypt. Now that the Islamists are poised to take power, the treaty is effectively null and void.
The question naturally arises: Will the US act in accordance with its role as guarantor of the peace and demand that the new Egyptian government give Sinai back to Israel? Because if the Obama administration or whatever administration is in power when Egypt abrogates the treaty does not issue such a demand, and stand behind it, and if the EU does not support the demand, the entire concept of land-for-peace will be exposed as a hoax…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia Almost Triples, UN Alarm
(ANSAmed) — GENEVA, JANUARY 6 — The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has today expressed alarm over the “significant” increase in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. The number of executions almost tripled last year compared with 2010, said UN High Commissioner on Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville in citing a number of reports.
According to data from organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the number of executions went from 27 in 2010 to over 70 in 2011, noted Colville. The spokesman said that Saudi Arabia applied the death penalty for a wide range of crimes, and last month a woman was executed on charges of witchcraft. The UN has also criticised the severe deficiencies of judicial proceedings. Serious concern was also voiced over the recent sentencing of six men accused of robbery to a ‘cross amputation’ (right hand and left foot).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Lifts Ban on Turkish Poultry Imports
(ANSAmed) — RIYADH, JANUARY 5 — After almost seven years, Saudi Arabia has lifted a ban on Turkish poultry imports that was put in place after a bird flu epidemic in 2005, daily Today’s zaman reports. The government began to allow Turkish products to enter Saudi Arabia after a delegation of Saudi inspectors returned with a positive report on Turkey’s poultry industry. The decision also came on the heels of a visit by Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan to Saudi Arabia in late December together with some 100 Turkish businessmen. Saudi Arabia imports some 1 billion USD of frozen chicken per year. Turkey’s trade volume with Saudi Arabia was 5.5 billion USD in 2008 before contracting 37% in 2009 due to a global financial crisis. It increased 30% in 2010, reaching 4.5 billion USD.
According to most recent foreign trade data available, this volume had already reached 5.1 billion USD in the first 10 months of last year. In his visit, Caglayan said he expects trade between the two countries to reach 6 billion USD in 2012 and put 20 billion USD as the target volume without specifying a time limit, stressing that he wants to see a bigger share of Turkish products in Saudi Arabia’s imports, which total some 125 billion USD.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudis Will Let Israel Bomb Iran Nuclear Site
INTELLIGENCE chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran’s new nuclear site.
The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom.
The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America’s former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel’s use of Saudi airspace.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Blast Hits Damascus During Arab League Visit
A suicide bomber has struck a residential area of the Syrian capital, state television said at least 25 people were killed and 46 wounded. The attack precedes a fresh report on government repression of protesters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Attack in Central Damascus; State TV, Dozen of Casualties
25 peple killed, 47 injured
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — A major explosion has rocked the centre of Damascus today. Syrian state television says that at least 25 people have been killed and 47 injured in the blast. The BBC reports that the bomb exploded on a bus in the city. Activists from the local anti-regime Coordination Committees also say that they heard explosions coming from the areas of Midan, Kfar Suse and Mantiqat al Wadi. In the meantime, Syria’s state television has said that it will broadcast “footage of Midan after the terrorist attack” in a few minutes. Two weeks ago, also on a Friday, two explosions hit the offices of the security services in the Syrian capital, attacks that the authorities immediately attributed to Al Qaeda.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Bursa Aims to Attract Half Million Arab Tourists
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 4 — The province of Bursa, in northwestern Turkey and one of the major tourist destinations along with Istanbul and Antalya, aims to attract half million Arab tourists in 2012. Mehmet Akkus, chairman of executive board of South Marmara Region of Turkish Travel Agencies’ Association (TURSAB), told Anatolia news agency that nearly 800,000 foreign tourists visited Bursa last year and 300,000 of them were Arabs.
Akkus said that they aimed to attract half million Arab tourists to Bursa in 2012. “Bursa will host Turkish-Arab tourism gathering in April 2012 and it will be participated by representatives from 22 Arab countries,” he added. Works have been under way to make Bursa the tourism capital of the Middle East in 2013, he said. Blessed with a delightful climate and the loveliest of settings south of the Karadag coastal uplands, Bursa with its picturesque Old Town and magnificent mosques is one of the highlights of any visit to Turkey. The city also enjoys a long-standing reputation as a spa, the thermal springs in the northwestern suburb of Cekirge, popular even in Roman times, attracting large numbers of visitors.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan Represses Press Freedom, NYT
U.S. daily underlines arrests and financial machinations
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — The New York Times, in an article published today, underlines that the government of Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “repressing freedom of the press” in Turkey and therefore “dimming the democratic glow” in the moderate Islamic country that has been mentioned as a model for the Arab Spring.
The authoritative U.S. newspaper writes that freedom of press in Turkey is repressed through a mixture of intimidation, arrests and financial machinations, including the sale in 2008 of a leading newspaper and a television station to a company linked to the prime minister’s son-in-law.” The article in the NYT particularly highlights the case of an internationally well-known journalist, Nedim Sener, who has been charged with complicity in an alleged coup against Erdogan.
According to his defendants however, Sener is in fact punished with a long custody only for having investigated corruption in the government for 20 years. He is currently tried together with a colleague, Ahmet Sik, who has written about Islamic infiltrations in Turkish security forces. The NYT also points out that in March 2011, the only Turk who has ever won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Orhan Pamuk, was fined for a statement he had made about the murder of Kurds and Armenians. Last month many journalists were arrested for their alleged links with Kurd separatism. According to the union of Turkish journalists there are currently 97 reporters, publishers and other people active in the media sector in prison, more than in China. Nevertheless, the Turkish government states that only four people are in prison for what they have written. The New York Times also mentions the estimated 15,000 internet sites that have been blocked by Turkish State censorship on the internet.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Jails Former Military Chief
The former head of Turkey’s armed forces has been jailed on suspicion of plotting against the government in Ankara. The retired general, Ilker Basbug, is accused of complicity in a failed coup from 2003. General Ilker Basbug was arrested and jailed on Friday near Istanbul, charged with trying to overthrow Turkey’s government. As Turkey’s former military chief — he retired in August 2010 — Basbug is the highest-ranking officer to become embroiled in the so-called Ergenekon case, a long-running crackdown on alleged dissidents within the country’s military and secular establishment.
Prosecutors allege that the hardline nationalist Ergenekon network sought to topple Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist government in 2003. This alleged coup plan, called “Sledgehammer,” is one of many allegations linked to the group. In total, some 400 people face charges.
Basbug is also likely to be charged with using military funds to prop up websites seeking to discredit the Turkish government. Other suspects have said they acted in a chain of command, prompting prosecutors to look to Basbug at the very top.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Alarmed at Jump in Saudi Executions
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday said it was alarmed at the almost threefold increase in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia last year. “We are alarmed at the significant increase in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia in 2011,” said spokesman Rupert Colville at a regular press briefing.
Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences. “What is even more worrying is that court proceedings often reportedly fall far short of international fair trial standards, and the use of torture as a means to obtain confessions appears to be rampant,” he added.
At least 76 death row inmates were executed in 2011, according to an AFP count, while Amnesty International believes that Saudi Arabia carried out at least 79 executions during this period. In 2010, 27 people were executed, according to the UN, citing a report by Human Rights Watch.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, which strictly applies sharia or Islamic law. So-called cross amputation of the right hand and left foot is applied in cases of highway robbery, according to the UN.
“We call on the authorities to halt the use of such cruel, inhuman, degrading punishment. As a party to the Convention against Torture, Saudi Arabia is bound by the absolute prohibition against the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” Colville said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Unholy Madrasas of Pakistan
The Persian word ‘Madrasa‘ literally stands for a school where education is imparted. Conventionally, the religious education related to the Islam has been provided in madrasas. But increasingly, these madrasas across the world are incorporating modern education in their curriculum, along with the traditional Islamic teachings. In Indian state of West Bengal, there are many such madrasas where poor children belonging to all religions, who cannot afford modern education, are admitted. Apart from Urdu, the children here are taught Hindi, General Knowledge, History, Science, Social Studies, and Computers. Indian madrasas seem to be catching up with the times.
But in Pakistan, which was carved out of India in 1947 in the name of Islam, the condition of madrasas is deteriorating day by day. Most of them are said to be imparting training and education based on the Taliban ideology. Apart from instilling extremism, students are indoctrinated against other religions and brainwashed to declare a war on the people of other communities. In these madrasas, children are taught the wrong definition of ‘Jihad‘, and encouraged to become suicide bombs. They are told that dying while pursuing ‘Jihad‘ will secure them a place in ‘heaven.’ This spreading of venom has lead to the massacre of thousands of innocents in AfPak region and around the world. Their major targets have been crowded places like markets, mausoleums, army establishments, police training centres etc in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those calling themselves Muslims have ended up killing the maximum number of innocent Muslims.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Audi Sales in China Outstrip Germany: Firm
Luxury German carmaker Audi said Thursday that 2011 sales in fast-growing China had outstripped its home market for the first time, adding it expected further acceleration in the coming years. Audi, a subsidiary of Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen, said it had sold 313,036 vehicles in China last year, breaking for the first time the 300,000 mark. “China is now Audi’s biggest single market,” the company said in a statement.
More than 80 percent of the cars were manufactured locally in China, the firm added. “Particularly the premium segment in China is making very healthy progress — in our view it continues to offer very good growth potential,” said Peter Schwarzenbauer, from Audi’s sales department. Audi is forecasting that it will sell 250,000 cars in Germany in 2012.
Like its German competitors Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi is pinning its hopes on China for rapid growth, as it sees more traditional markets lose strength amid the eurozone debt crisis. Audi announced last month it planned to build a vast new plant to provide up to 200,000 new cars a year for the booming Chinese market.
The new factory in the southern Chinese city of Foshan will be up and running by 2013, said the firm. Germany is the world’s number two exporter after China.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Puts the Brakes on Foreign Automakers
For years, foreign automobile companies have reaped most of the profits to be had in the enormous Chinese market. But in a largely unnoticed change, Beijing is now ending their preferential treatment of carmakers from abroad to focus more on developing domestic technology and brands.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germans Give Pep Talks on Korean Unification
The border between North and South Korea is the last battlefield of the Cold War. Currently, a delegate of veteran German politicians — from the former east and west — are advising the government in Seoul on how the country might reunify if the opportunity arises in the future. Some see a door opening for change following Kim Jong Il’s death.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spectacular Snow and Ice Display in China
VISITORS from around the world have flocked to China for the annual Harbin International Snow and Ice Festival, which features monuments up to 50m high crafted by some of the country’s best ice sculptors. Multicoloured lights are used to add colour to the sculptures at the event, where tourists can enjoy horse-drawn carriage rides, slide down ice slippery dips and watch brave souls dive from diving boards made of blocks of ice into freezing cold water.
The event has been held since 1963 in Harbin, which is the capital of the Heilongjiang province in northern China. The area is close to Siberia and temperatures can reach as low as -38 degrees celsius in winter. While the festival officially starts on January 5 and lasts for a month, the exhibits often open earlier and stay longer, weather permitting.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
To Save Its Culture, China Slashes Entertainment TV
In a bid to promote cultural values and morals, China is enhancing the quality of its TV programs by slashing foreign entertainment programming.
The Chinese Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued an order in October last year to slash the number of entertainment shows on 34 Chinese satellite television channels, including dating and talent shows, talk shows and dramas, which are considered to be “low taste” or “vulgar.” Such programs are to be cut by two-thirds starting in January and replaced by more “meaningful” ones such as news and educational programming.
As reported by Chinese news agency Xinhua, a spokesperson for the country’s media regulation agency gave further details at a press conference at the beginning of January: The 34 broadcasters will have to limit the number of entertainment shows offered to two every week. Such programming will not be allowed to exceed 90 minutes per day. Two compulsory 30-minute news shows must be aired between 6 pm and 11:30 pm in addition to showing a minimum of two hours of news programming between 6am and midnight.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke Thrills SCG Cricket Crowd Skolling a Beer
FORMER prime minister Bob Hawke has been captured on film skolling a whole beer in the outer at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Mr Hawke, 82, is the star of a video starting to circulate on the internet after he happily bowed to demands from a group of cricket fans during the test match.
“One for the country, Robert!” one of the men yelled at Mr Hawke as he exited his aisle.
“Hey?” Mr Hawke said as he spotted the ale.
“One for the country!” the men yelled back at him.
So Mr Hawke took the cup and drank its contents, only spilling a drop on his chin as fans cheered louder and nearby police laughed.
Mr Hawke, who gave the fans a thumbs up as he departed, is no stranger to beer.
His academic achievements were complemented by setting a new world speed record for beer drinking: he downed 2 1/2 pints — equivalent to a yard of ale — from a sconce pot in eleven seconds as part of a college penalty.
In his memoirs, Mr Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to a voting population with a strong beer culture.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Moon Mineral Found in Ancient Australian Rock
A mineral once found only on the moon has now been discovered in billion-year-old rocks in Australia. Tranquillityite is a mineral consisting of iron, zirconium, yttrium, titanium, silicon and oxygen. It is named after the moon’s Sea of Tranquility, where it was first discovered on the Apollo 11 mission. Until now, it was only seen in samples returned from the moon, as well as in lunar meteorites — that is, rocks blasted off the moon’s surface by cosmic impacts that crash-landed here.
Now scientists have identified what appear to be terrestrial versions of tranquillityite in Western Australia. The mineral commonly occurs as clusters of thin, narrow, fox-red strips in dikes or sills — bodies of rock that likely originally intruded as magma into surrounding layers of stone. Its composition is largely the same as lunar tranquillityite.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
20 Killed as Nigerian Gunmen Attack Christian Mourners
Gunmen in Nigeria on Friday opened fire on friends and relatives gathered to mourn the deaths of three Christians killed on Thursday, leaving up to 20 more people dead.
It was the latest in a series of attacks blamed on radical Islamists who have vowed to wage a religious war on Nigeria’s Christians and drive them from the country’s majority-Muslim north.
Several dozen Christians had come together for a meeting in a town hall in Mubi, in Adamawa state, to mark the deaths the day before of several people killed in the town.
Up to four gunmen surrounded the building and opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles, killing up to 20 people and leaving another 15 badly injured.
“We started hearing many gunshots through the windows,” said Okey Raymond, 48, who was at the meeting.
“Everyone scampered for safety, but the gunmen chanted: ‘God is great God is great’ while shooting at us.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Freedom Fighters Celebrate a Party in Power as ANC Turns 100
The ANC liberated South Africa from minority white rule, but it has undergone a rocky — some would say incomplete — transition from liberation movement to governing party. ‘A better life for all’ was the African National Congress’ slogan at South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, when the whites-only National Party was swept from power. That slogan now has a rather hollow ring to it — the only South Africans who now enjoy a “better life” are the 3 million (out of a nation 49 million) members of the black middle class.
40 percent of the population subsist below the poverty line on less than 50 euros ($ 64) a month. The business empires of ANC freedom fighters such as Tokyo Sexwale or Cyril Ramaphosa, in mining or fast food, are in stark contrast to the poverty suffered by the masses in slums such as Alexandria outside Johannesburg. It’s a well-worn maxim that to succeed in business in South Africa you need an ANC membership card.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration a Tough Issue for Mitt Romney
Experts say Republican’s hard stance during primary may hurt him against Obama in general election
But experts do point to one issue where a position Romney took in the GOP primary may hurt him in the general election, and that’s immigration. The former governor took one of the most conservative positions of any of the Republican candidates when he said all immigrants currently in the United States illegally—estimated to total more than 10 million—should have to return to their home countries before applying for U.S. citizenship. He called a proposal offered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to allow immigrants with deep ties to their U.S. communities to stay, while deporting “undesirables,” tantamount to amnesty.
In a November GOP debate, Romney said, “Amnesty is a magnet. People respond to incentives, and if you could become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you’ll do so.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rome in Midst of ‘Criminal Emergency’, Says Mayor
‘Criminal beasts must be stopped’, Alemanno
(ANSA) — Rome, January 5 — Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said Thursday the city was suffering from a “criminal emergency” after a nine-month-old baby was shot dead in a double homicide.
Zhou Zheng, a 31-year-old Chinese immigrant, and his baby daughter were killed in the Tor Pignattara area in the city’s southeast late Wednesday, when two thieves demanded 5,000 euros from his bar’s takings as he was returning home with his family.
“The latest tragic episode of violence that caused the death of a baby only a few months old and her father is really too much,” Alemanno said. “Rome’s patience and that of her citizens is finished.
“There are criminal beasts that are operating in our city that must be stopped at all costs”. Alemanno was speaking after senior police met for top-level talks to discuss the murder of the father and child.
Zheng was shot in the abdomen as he moved to protect his 26-year-old wife, Zheng Lia, at the entrance of their apartment.
“There are too many drugs and firearms circulating in city districts most at risk,” Alemanno said. “For months I have spoken out about this criminal emergency but the measures taken until now have been clearly inadequate”.
Alemanno asked police and security officials from the interior ministry’s security committee to adopt emergency measures to re-establish control in Rome.
“Rome is waiting for action not promises,” he said.
Meanwhile the city of Rome has proclaimed a day of mourning for the two victims to coincide with the day of their funerals, which has not yet been announced.
Senior police officer and prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro was conducting talks with police on Thursday to discuss the homicides and a co-ordinated response to catching the killers
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Town Gets Rid of ‘Mademoiselle’
A town in the north-west Brittany region has struck a blow for feminist campaigners by banishing the use of the title “mademoiselle”, or “miss”, from all official forms. The continued use of “mademoiselle” in France to refer to an unmarried woman has been the subject of heated debate in recent years.
Regional newspaper Ouest France reported that the town of Cesson-Sévigné, which is a suburb of the city of Rennes, took the decision to get rid of the term from all official forms from January 1st 2012. “This is about getting rid of anything that could be seen as discriminatory or indiscreet,” said a statement from the town hall.
“Having two different terms to distinguish between married and non-married women is discrimination against women as there is no such differentiation for men.” The news follows a campaign launched in September to get rid of the “mademoiselle” term from all official forms across France.
Feminist groups Osez le Féminisme and Les Chiennes de Garde wanted to see the term removed from everything from tax returns to rail pass applications. “Our campaign is aimed at completely removing this sexist title, as it only concerns women,” said a spokeswoman for the campaign at the time.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s State-Owned Train Firm Accused of Racism for Using Asian Family on Advert Promoting Fourth-Class Seats
Italy’s national train company has been accused of racism after an advert promoting its new four-class system showed a family of Asian immigrants in the cheapest seats.
Trenitalia’s advertising campaign for its high-speed Frecciarossa (Red Arrow) intercity trains spectacularly backfired because white Italians were used for each of the other classes.
The state-owned firm’s online brochure was hastily removed and replaced with a more ‘politically correct’ version following a series of complaints.
Blogger Alessandro Gilioli highlighted what he described as ‘xenophobic overtones’ of the advert on the website of weekly L’Espresso.
He said: ‘If the concept [of social segregation] wasn’t clear enough, here is the image chose to publicise the lowest class: an Asian family, presumably immigrants.
‘Curiously, all the clients in the Premium and Executive classes are white.
‘Now, considering this is all ‘a marketing choice’, I would love to know how much the marketing directives of Trenitalia make a month.
‘I bet it’s a salary that consents them to go to the [on-board] bar without being disturbed by people of ethnic minorities on low incomes.’
But the firm, which has already sparked controversy with plans to ban fourth-class passengers from restaurant carriages, denied it was racist.
It claimed the use of the Asian family was ‘just one of several’ which were chosen to illustrate the new Standard category of seats on the high-speed service.
In a statement it said: ‘Taking action following the internet debate that has developed in recent days surrounding the photograph of the new Frecciarossa, chosen simply to publicise the new services offered and with no obvious intent to offend, Trenitalia has decided to substitute the image on its website.
‘The decision was taken in order not to fuel groundless accusations. The subjects depicted in the images represent the diverse types of clients… that travel everyday on Trenitalia, a reflection of the new Italian society: open and multi-ethnic.’
The train’s new four-class system sees passengers given the choice of Executive, Business, Premium and Standard seats.
The brochure showed a white businessman in a smart suit showing a presentation to two white colleagues in an Executive carriage.
Business class was promoted with images of plush but empty upholstered seats. The Premium offering saw a white member of staff offering drinks to two white passengers.
Controversially, the promotion for Standard, the cheapest of the four classes, featured a smiling Asian couple and their daughter.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Men, Women Really Do Have Big Personality Differences
If men and women at times seem to be from different planets, it may be because there are large differences in their personalities, a new study suggests. The results show that about 18 percent of women share similar personalities with men, and 18 percent of men share similar personalities with women. But the majority of women have personality traits that are quite distinct from those of men, and vice versa, the researchers say.
Men tend to be more dominant (forceful and aggressive) and emotionally stable, while women tend to be more sensitive, warm (attentive to others) and apprehensive, the study found.
“Psychologically, men and women are almost a different species,” said study researcher Paul Irwing, of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom.
The new findings may explain why some careers are dominated by men (such as engineering) and others by women (such as psychological sciences), Irwing said. “People self-select in terms of their personality… and what they think is going to be suitable in terms of the fit,” for their career, Irwing said.
However, the paper, published today (Jan. 4) in the journal PLoS ONE, has drawn criticism from others in the field who argue the methods the researchers used for computing their results are flawed, and that men and women are not so dissimilar after all.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Clever Canines: Dogs Can ‘Read’ Our Communication Cues
Dogs can understand our intent to communicate with them and are about as receptive to human communication as pre-verbal infants, a new study shows. Researchers used eye-tracking technology to study how dogs observed a person looking at pots after giving the dogs communicative cues, such as eye contact and directed speech. They found that the dogs’ tendency to follow the person’s gaze was on par with that of 6-month-old infants.
The study suggests that dogs have evolved to be especially attuned to human communicative signals, and early humans may have selected them for domestication particularly for this reason, the researchers said. Other scientists are excited that the eye-tracking method has been successfully adapted for dogs. “This opens many new opportunities in studying dog cognition,” said Juliane Kaminski, a cognitive psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, who was not involved in the research.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thinnest Silicon-Chip Wires Refuse to Go Quantum
Not everything is weird at the nanoscale. Wires so small you’d expect them to obey the strange laws of quantum mechanics have instead displayed the same electrical properties as ordinary electrical interconnects. The finding bodes well for conventional computers, because these tiny, conductive wires could make chips smaller. It could be bad news, though, for the super-fast quantum computers that are hoped to come next.
So far, conventional computers have followed Moore’s law: the density of transistors that a conventional integrated-circuit chip can hold doubles approximately every two years, yielding ever-better performance out of ever-smaller devices.
However, it’s getting harder to build smaller interconnects to wire up the devices on the silicon chip. As the width of metal wires drops to few tens of nanometres, their resistivity soars because electrons start interacting with nearby surfaces, dissipating more heat and lowering efficiency. Also, as wires get down to nanometre scales, quantum behaviour usually dominates.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
0 comments:
Post a Comment