Citigroup Sees 50-50 Chance of ‘Grexit’
Citigroup has said the probability of Greek euro-exit in the next 18 months is 50%, compared to 25-30% in November. The “Grexit” would lead to “a sequence of sudden stops in the external financing” of southern euro-countries, with further exits “reducing the euro-area to a greater DM zone,” it noted.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Commissioner: Euro Could Survive Greek Exit
EU digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes, a Dutch politician, has told Dutch paper Volkskrant that a Greek euro exit would not destroy the single currency: “They always said: if a country is let off or asks to get out, then the whole edifice collapses. But that is simply not true.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Commission is Losing Patience With Greece
The EU commission is pushing Greece to finally implement reforms, warning that otherwise Athens might not receive any more bailout cash from Europe. The representatives of the European Commission have shown the patience of a saint when it comes to matters concerning Greece. And they have often been very restrained when speaking in public. But it seems this is now coming to an end.
For months, the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, known together as the troika, have been negotiating with the Greek government concerning a second bailout. This despite the fact that Greece has yet to fully implement the conditions attached to the first bailout. In addition, there have been doubts whether all of Greece’s parties even feel bound by the commitments.
Antonis Samaras, the head of the conservative New Democracy party, has been openly disputing the latest austerity measures called for by Greece’s international creditors. Weekend negotiations with the party leaders in the transitional government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos also failed to come to any agreement.
“The truth is that we are already past the deadline,” European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj said in Brussels on Monday. “The ball is in the court of the Greek authorities.” Speaking in Brussels, Altafaj said Greece had to bring something to the table in order to receive help from the eurozone, adding that Greece had “lived beyond its means for a very long time.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU’s Barroso: ‘We Want Greece in the Euro’
(BRUSSELS) — European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso insisted Tuesday that Greece will remain in the eurozone after one of his deputies suggested the eurozone would survive a Greek exit. “We want Greece in the euro,” Barroso told reporters. “The cost of a Greek exit from the eurozone would be higher than the cost of continuing to support Greece,” he said before talks with his predecessor Jacques Delors.
He added that Greece was “very close” to an agreement on a debt rescue package, which includes a new bailout from governments and banks taking losses on their bond holdings. “We, the commission, are doing all we can to reach a solution.”
European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper, stressed she was not in favour of Athens going back to the drachma but said a Greek departure from the monetary union would not be a disaster.
“It is not a train crash if someone leaves the eurozone,” Kroes, also commissioner for digital technology, told De Volkskrant daily newspaper. “It is still being said that if you let one country leave or ask them to leave, then the entire structure collapses. That is simply not true.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Trade Deficit Hits Record High in 2011
France’s trade deficit with the rest of the world hit a record €69.6 billion ($91.3 billion) last year according to figures given by a minister in a newspaper interview.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
General Strike Hits Greece, EU Raises Pressure on Debt
(ATHENS) — A general strike gripped Greece on Tuesday to warn against ever deeper austerity measures being demanded with increasing urgency by the European Union as part of a debt rescue deal with banks. Greece is at the limit of a timetable to agree new budget measures, and to conclude a debt-write-off deal with banks, under a second rescue package which it needs to avoid debt default in about six weeks’ time.
The 24-hour strike against severe budget action began under the slogan “That’s enough, we can’t take any more.” Protesters were set to converge on Syntagma Square in central Athens, a landmark of Greek anger against austerity measures from the EU and IMF.
Work in schools, ministries, hospitals and banks, were markedly reduced and in Athens buses and metros were delayed. Air travel was expected to be unaffected however. Yiannis Panagopoulos, leader of the GSEE union, has described the measures as a “death sentence” for the country, aimed at slashing salaries by 20-30 percent on top of previously imposed cuts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Spread and Yield Down, Bourse Up
Greek bailout hopes give market boost
(ANSA) — Rome, February 7 — Signs that a Greek bailout agreement would soon be reached brought down both the yield and the spread and gave a small boost to the Milan bourse on Tuesday. The spread between 10-year Italian and German bonds, a measure of Italy’s credibility on the sovereign-debt market, dropped to 363 as the yield went down to 5,59%, correcting the damage caused Monday by fears of a default in Greece.
The Milan Ftse Mib index went up 0.62% to close at 16.491 points
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No Reason to Talk of Portugal Default: EU’s Barroso
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said on Friday there was no reason to speak of a possible Portuguese default, in the wake of market fears about the country’s financial health. “Portugal is applying its assistance successfully and with the approval of its international partners,” said Barroso.
“There is no objective reason to talk of a default or to feed catastrophe scenarios,” Barroso, Portugal’s former prime minister said in Lisbon. “I am convinced, as president of the European Commission but also as a Portuguese citizen, that Portugal will succeed in overcoming its difficulties,” he told a meeting of industrialists.
Portugal became the third European Union member state — after Greece and Ireland — to seek international aid when it received a loan of 78 billion euros ($103 billion) from the EU and the International Monetary Fund last May. In return it agreed to sell-offs of public companies and labour reforms including less holiday time, which provoked protests in several cities.
On January 13, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Portugal’s credit worthiness to below investment grade. The centre-right government last month signed agreements with employment and labour leaders which officials said would result in growth, competition and jobs. The EU/IMF loan is being paid over a three-year period, subject to Portugal’s implementation of reforms.
But investors and analysts have in recent days expressed growing concern that the country will not be able to meet its repayments and, as Greece has had to do, will ask to renegotiate its debt burden. Portugal Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho dismissed such fears in an interview published Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal’s Economic Future in Limbo
The situation in Portugal remains uncertain as the government, economists and investors take opposing views. The government is optimistic, economists expect a haircut, and investors are cautious. Getting a clear, consistent line on Portugal’s economic outlook is hard. Analysts, creditors, economists, the country’s politicians and the Portuguese people themselves all take different views on the situation.
In light of the eurozone crisis, Portugues Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar has been trying to put his country in a good light. Mounting debt, gaping holes in the budget, weak growth rates and poor economic performance are all to blamed for Portugal’s dependence on an EU bailout package. “For more than a decade, the macroeconomic inbalance and structural weaknesses have increased,” Gaspar explains in a frank attempt to regain public trust.
But Gaspar says his country is on the right track, with the help of a 78 billion euro (US$102 billion) bailout package from the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). An associated reform package aims to push economic growth, create jobs, balance the budget and raise Portugal’s international competitiveness. For the Portuguese people, the reforms mean tax hikes and lower wages. The cuts are also affecting social services and more and more Portuguese are voicing their criticism of the harsh austerity measures.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top Spanish Banks Book 6.1 Bn Euros for Doubtful Loans
Spain’s top three banks announced Tuesday they are putting aside 6.1 billion euros ($8.0 billion) to cover for doubtful property loans in 2012 as part of a banking sector shake-up. The banks — Santander, BBVA and CaixaBank — are being forced to act under a government-led reform aimed at cleaning up balance sheets weighed down with an estimated 176 billion euros in risky assets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Foreign Investments Plummet in 2011
Down by more than 29% compared to previous year
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, FEBRUARY 6 — In 2011 foreign direct investments (FDIs) plummeted, dropping from 2.147 billion euros in 2010 to 1.711 billion euros last year, amounting to a dramatic drop-off of 29.2%. Numbers alone which indicate how the economic crisis hitting the country is structural, affecting all sectors, not allowing anyone to escape unscathed from the rising sea of difficulties. One figure that stands out involves the country’s major industry, tourism, which suffered an 83.3% decline in FDIs last year. To better define the dramatic nature of this figure, one only needs to remember that nearly 10 Tunisians out of every 100 make a living from tourism through direct employment and the allied industries. And when the downward spiral of the tourism sector’s effects become evident (closing businesses and layoffs in the short and medium term), Tunisia will suffer another blow.
But other sectors have also been heavily affected by the free-fall in the investment sector. In 2011 the decline in investments in the manufacturing sector amounted to 42.4%, while the decrease in the energy sector was 19.3%.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why Germany Isn’t Benefiting From Euro’s Woes
There is a widespread belief that Germany is the big winner of the euro crisis, as investors stash their money in the euro zone’s last safe haven, driving interest rates on German bonds down to record lows. But the idea is just a myth. Indeed, the crisis could end up costing Berlin dearly.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mind Control Could be Future of Warfare
Wars of the future might be decided through manipulation of people’s minds, concludes a report this week from the UK’s Royal Society. It warns that the potential military applications of neuroscience breakthroughs need to be regulated more closely. “New imaging technology will allow new targets in the brain to be identified, and while some will be vital for medicine, others might be used to incapacitate people,” says Rod Flower of Queen Mary, University of London, who chairs the panel that wrote the report.
The report describes how such technology is allowing organisations like the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to test ways of improving soldiers’ mental alertness and capabilities. It may also allow soldiers to operate weaponry remotely through mind-machine interfaces, the report says.
Other research could be used to design gases and electronics that temporarily disable enemy forces. This potentially violates human rights, through interference with thought processes, and opens up the threat of indiscriminate killing. The panel highlights the time that Russian security forces ended a hostage siege in a Moscow theatre in 2002 by filling the venue with fentanyl, an anaesthetic gas. Along with the perpetrators, 125 hostages died.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Nears Completion in Rock Hill
Rock Hill Muslims look forward to sharing new home with community
Rock Hill — a city with a rich history of downtown churches that were crucial to its growth and development — will soon open its newest downtown church without a single cross in sight. The religious building is a Muslim mosque. There is no mistaking the cream-brick building on West Main Street. There is a Middle Eastern arch over the front door. The minaret — a tower from which the faithful are called to prayer five times a day — rises from the southwestern roof facing busy Main Street. York County’s first built-from-the-ground-up mosque is set to open in late spring if construction that has gone on for two years, including a time where work stopped to raise money, finishes up as local Muslim leaders expect.
The mosque will replace a small Islamic Center of South Carolina, in a strip mall on Cherry Road. As soon as prayers are ready to be said, an open house for the community is planned, said James “Jumah” Moore, director of the Islamic Center. Area religious, political and social leaders will be invited to tour the building. The public will be invited, too.
“This has always been a dream of ours — to have a place where Muslims can come together — and share it with the people of this community,” said Moore, a Rock Hill native. “We believe we have much to contribute to the city.” Unlike mosques in other parts of the country that faced public opposition after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, any public outcry against plans to build the Rock Hill mosque has been muted or nonexistent. The Rock Hill Muslim group, which has publicly denounced terrorism and terrorist acts through interviews and opening its meetings and religious services to the public and the media for several years, has openly sought public acceptance and review. The mosque has been planned since 2007, and construction began two years ago — all of it as publicly as possible. True Muslims, these men have said repeatedly, denounce all violence.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Skydiver to Attempt Record-Breaking Supersonic Space Jump
One man’s quest to make a record-breaking leap from near the edge of space is nearing make-or-break time. Sponsored by energy drink Red Bull, Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, 41, plans to skydive from a balloon in the stratosphere at an altitude of 120,000 feet (36,576 meters).
If he can do it, he’ll become the first person to break the sound barrier outside of an aircraft. He’ll also break a trio of other records that have stood for more than 50 years: Baumgartner’s plunge would mark the highest skydive, the highest manned balloon flight and the longest free fall, at about 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
The quest, called Red Bull Stratos, recently got back on track after being stalled by a legal challenge claiming that the idea of the dive was earlier suggested to Red Bull by California promoter Daniel Hogan. That suit has now been settled out of court, and the Red Bull Stratos project is moving forward.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Justice Openly Disses U.S. Constitution Before Whole World
“I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” Ginsburg said in the interview, which aired on Jan. 30 on Al-Hayat TV…
[S]he argued that the United States has the “oldest written constitution still in force in the world,” so instead “you should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II.”
“I might look at the constitution of South Africa,” Ginsburg said. “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.” . . .
[Note from Egghead: Note that white people in South Africa are in DIRE straights. A genocide is predicted upon Mandela’s death. And, Bader-Ginsburg wants the U.S. to adopt a Constitution like that of South Africa! The kicker is that her interview is with a Muslim TV station — and Muslims FULLY plan to impose and inflict Sharia Law on the world in individual countries and via the United Nations. In fact, torture and murder in South Africa is allegedly FUNDED by Muslims who offer bounties for crimes against white people.]
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Twin Victories Revive Santorum’s White House Hopes
(Reuters) — Former Senator Rick Santorum rejuvenated his presidential hopes on Tuesday with overwhelming victories over front-runner Mitt Romney in Republican nominating contests in Missouri and Minnesota.
Santorum, who until Tuesday had won only one of the first five Republican contests, crushed his rivals in a non-binding primary in Missouri and in the Minnesota caucuses. His previous victory had been by a slim margin over Romney in Iowa.
Results were still being tallied in the caucuses in Colorado, the third state to vote on Tuesday in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.
On the first day of multiple nominating contests in the 2012 primary season, networks projected Santorum as the winner in Missouri and Minnesota. In Missouri, with 86 percent of the vote counted, Santorum had 56 percent to Romney’s 25 percent, according to the secretary of state’s website.
With 56 percent of the vote counted in Minnesota, the secretary of state’s website said Santorum had 45 percent of the vote, U.S. congressman Ron Paul was in second with 27 percent and Romney a distant third with 17 percent. It marked the first time so far in the 2012 Republican race that Romney did not come in first or second in a state contest.
The victory gives new hope to Santorum, a staunch social and religious conservative, and new momentum in his battle with former U.S. House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich to be viewed as the top conservative alternative to the more moderate Romney.
“Wow. Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” Santorum told supporters in St. Charles, Missouri after results came in from those two states.
“I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama,” he added to cheers from the crowd…
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We Must be Honest About Honour Killings
by Michael Coren
White guilt has terrible consequences. This was made profoundly clear in Canada during the three month trial of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed. They were convicted a week ago of the first-degree murder of Zainab (19), Sahar (17) and Geeti Shafia (13), and 50-year-old Rona Amir. The three teens were Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Yahya’s daughters, Hamed’s sisters. Rona was Mohammad Shafia’s first wife. The four women had been drowned in their car in June, 2009. The killers had chosen a canal in Kingston — a university town half-way between Toronto and Montreal — because they assumed that the local police would be less sophisticated and able than those in a larger city. They had also researched murder techniques on the internet, and planned this honour killing long in advance.
The case has naturally shocked the country, but is in fact only the most recent of a dozen murders in the last twelve years, most involving Muslim patriarchs aided by sons, cousins, and wives, killing young girls who wanted to be horribly western by wearing nice clothes, dating nice boys, doing nice things. In the Shafia episode, the three daughters had refused to wear the burka, and one of them had even dared to wear a bikini. Rona Amir had been unable to give her husband children, so he had taken a second wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Canada. Although not the girls’ biological mother, Rona had loved them and tried to protect them. She had to die too.
Which brings us to the greater point here, with more long-term consequences than this single repugnant case. The authorities — be they police, politicians, social workers, media — are obsessed with appearing to be progressive and non-judgmental where Islam is concerned; partly out of a fear of being accused of Islamophobia, but also because they genuinely believe that the white, Christian West has more to learn from Islam than the contrary. The Shafia girls had pleaded with their teachers for help, and while front line social workers acknowledged that the situation was potentially disastrous, the concerns evaporated as soon as they reached middle management. So Mohammad Shafia — who had written of his daughters, ‘may the devil shit on their graves’ — was effectively permitted to commit mass murder.
Even now, commentators are embarrassingly, cringingly reluctant to link the crime in any way with Islam. Moments after the verdict was announced, the lead detective in the case told the public that ‘domestic violence is a terrible thing’. It is — but this wasn’t domestic violence. It was yet another example of a psychosis that has its epicentre in Pakistan, but extends to most parts of the Islamic heartland, and many in the Muslim diaspora. It’s a self-evident truth that not all Muslims behave so brutally, but it’s also undeniable that Islam teaches that a woman is the property of a father, then a husband. Most fathers and husbands are kind, but if they are not they are empowered by Koranic teaching and the prism of Sharia law to behave pretty much as they like. Quite simply, honour killing is not considered a crime in much of the Islamic world.
While it’s true that honour killings are not exclusively Muslim, Islam is the only faith that boasts textual defence and sacred justification for such grotesque acts. When 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was murdered in Canada in a 2007 honour killing by her Pakistani father and brother, CAIR Canada — an oft-quoted and worryingly influential Islamic group — told the gullible that, ‘It’s important not to generalise. There are cases of violence across all faiths and all cultures’. That was rubbish; but worse than Muslim extremists hiding the truth are non-Muslims embracing lies without question. We saw this during the Parisian riots, when mobs of overwhelmingly Muslim youths beat and torched their way through the city, often screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’. Yet they were almost never described as being Muslim by the media. So different from when the Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik, a freemason who wrote that he had no relationship with God and had not attended a church in fifteen years, was repeatedly defined as a ‘Christian fundamentalist’ on international television.
Similarly with gangs of young Asian men in England who groom women to be sexual commodities. The fact that they are invariably Muslim suddenly becomes irrelevant to journalists who otherwise assume every background detail to be essential to a good news report. In the United States, President Obama played this game of obscene hide-and-seek when he dealt with Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 colleagues and wounded dozens more. Even though Hasan identified himself as a Muslim radical and told friends that it was the duty of a Muslim to wage war against the US Army, Obama refused to refer to the man’s religion.
He has gone further. Under the current administration, and to a degree even under his predecessor, moderate Muslims have been marginalised and almost excluded from the political establishment and halls of power. It’s the racism of lowered expectations. Fundamentalist organisations have convinced white liberals that only activists with beards or burkas are genuine Muslims, and to think otherwise is colonial and patronising.
It leaves us in a situation where will be more honour killings, and more Shafia girls murdered merely for being who they are. The killers can be dealt with, but not their politically correct enablers. There’s something terribly unjust about that.
Michael Coren is host of The Arena, a nightly current affairs show on Canada’s Sun News TV
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ As Britain Marks Dickens Bicentenary
Britain marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens on Tuesday with the laying of a wreath at his grave in Westminster Abbey in London and a street party in his native Portsmouth. Prince Charles and Ralph Fiennes, who will star in the latest film version of Dickens’ masterpiece “Great Expectations”, attended the ceremony in Poets’ Corner at the abbey, where Dickens was buried in 1870.
The congregation included what is believed to be the largest ever gathering of descendants of the Victorian novelist as well as representatives from the worlds of literature, film and theatre. An event was held simultaneously in Portsmouth, the port on England’s south coast where Dickens was born on February 7, 1812.
In a message read in Portsmouth, Prince Charles said: “Despite the many years that have passed, Charles Dickens remains one of the greatest writers of the English language, who used his creative genius to campaign passionately for social justice. “The word Dickensian instantly conjures up a vivid picture of Victorian life with all its contrasts and intrigue, and his characterisation is as fresh today as it was on the day it was written.”
The author had asked to be buried at Rochester Cathedral in his beloved Kent in southeast England, but a public outcry led to him being placed in Poets’ Corner. Fiennes, who will star as Magwitch in the adaptation of “Great Expectations”, read an extract from another of Dickens’ greatest novels, “Bleak House”.
At a church service in Portsmouth, actor Simon Callow read from “David Copperfield”, which was first published as a novel in 1850. The tale was inspired by Dickens’ experiences as a boy working in a leather blacking factory when the family fell on hard times after his father was sent to the debtors’ prison. But by his mid-20s, Dickens was a literary star and his fame continued to grow.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
After the Oslo Massacre, An Assault on Free Speech
Norway’s left seeks to silence Islam’s critics by linking them to a mass murderer.
By Bruce Bawer
Last July 22, a powerful explosion rocked a government building in downtown Oslo, killing eight people. Later that day, 69 people, mostly teenagers, were shot to death by a lone gunman at a Labor Party camp on the nearby island of Utøya. By nightfall, police had a suspect in custody: a 32-year-old Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik, who had apparently carried out both attacks on his own.
Contrary to nearly everyone’s original assumption that Islamic terrorists were behind the Oslo attack, a 1,500-page “manifesto” by Breivik showed that he opposed the mass immigration of Muslims into Norway and had targeted the Labor Party gathering because of the party’s role in shaping the country’s multicultural immigration policy.
As an American who had lived in Oslo since 1999, I was deeply distressed by the atrocities of July 22. But when I learned that they were the work of a native Norwegian who claimed to have acted in opposition to Norwegian multiculturalism, I was even more devastated. For I saw at once what this would mean.
Consider this: Criticizing Islam is now a punishable offense in several European countries. In the past few months alone, a Danish court fined writer Lars Hedegaard for talking about Islam’s treatment of women in his own home, and activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was found guilty of lecturing about Muhammad’s marital history in what an Austrian court considered an inappropriate tone.
Critics of Islam have yet to be put on trial in Norway. But as I watched Norwegian TV’s coverage of the massacre in Oslo and at Utøya, it was clear to me that such critics—who were already used to being labeled racists and “Islamophobes”—would have an even rougher time after July 22.
“In Norway,” I wrote in these pages on July 25, “to speak negatively about any aspect of the Muslim faith has always been a touchy matter . . . . It will, I fear, be a great deal more difficult to broach these issues now that this murderous madman has become the poster boy for the criticism of Islam.”
This statement was harshly criticized by Norway’s multicultural left. How dare anyone speak of such issues at a time like this! It was as if the concerns I had raised were abstract or narrowly political…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Skate at Your Peril in Most Places
The cold snap, snow and freezing temperatures have encouraged many people in Flanders to reach for their skates and risk a jaunt on the ice. Saturday night was particularly cold. Daytime temperatures on Sunday failed to rise above freezing creating conditions favourable for skaters. In Veurne, Woumen and Diksmuide in West Flanders skaters ventured onto the ice often risking life and limb because in many places the ice was not thick enough. Often though signs warning against skating were ignored.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Stock Exchange to be Turned Into a Beer Museum?
The city of Brussels confirmed its plan to turn the current stock exchange building in the capital’s Anspach Avenue into a beer museum in 2014. “We want to give the building back to the public and turn it into an attraction that will create a lively neighbourhood and increase the tourist potential of this part of the city,” mayor Freddy Thielemans PS said yesterday. The city confirmed that it is currently looking into various possible new uses for the stock exchange building; one of them being a beer museum. To prepare the public to the new purpose of the building the Federation of Belgian Beer Brewers will be staging part of its annual beer weekend early in September at the stock exchange building.
The project, the Belgian Beer Temple, is set to cost at least 15 million euros, with 70% of the financing coming from the Brussels Region, the City of Brussels and the Federation of Brewers. Unlike the Netherlands with their Heineken Experience, Belgium only has a number of small beer museums. If one considers the huge role of beer in the identity of the country, the notion of a beer museum makes perfect sense and both the Flemish tourist organisation Flanders Tourist Office and Visit Brussels back the project as an excellent tourist attraction. “A large museum such as this will help us focus our attention on beer,” says Catherine Dardenne, culture and leisure manager at Visit Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Solvay Hails World’s Largest Fuel Cell of Type in Flanders
Chemicals giant Solvay hailed Monday the successful entry into service in Flanders of what it said was the largest fuel cell of its type in the world. A super-battery that produces enough electricity to power nearly 1,400 homes, the Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell has been producing clean electricity at a “steady rate” for weeks at a SolVin plant part-owned by Germany’s BASF in Antwerp, northern Dutch-speaking Belgium. SolVin is a market leader in vinyl, or PVC production.
The fuel cell converts the chemical energy from hydrogen into clean electricity through an electrochemical reaction with oxygen, and “has generated over 500 MWh in about 800 hours of operation,” Solvay said in a news release.
The company said this equates to the electricity consumption of 1,370 families over the same period. Fuel-cell technology is tipped by developers as a future power solution for everything from cars to ships.
Flanders has benefited from a 14-million-euro investment in this applied technology, with the EU, the Dutch and the Belgian Flemish governments backers of Solvay’s 5.0-million euros investment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Commission Still Pulls the Strings on EU Foreign Policy
BRUSSELS — A new deal between the European Commission and Catherine Ashton sheds light on how much power the EU executive still has on foreign relations. Coming one year after the launch of her European External Action Service (EEAS) and two years after the Lisbon Treaty, the so-called inter-service agreement — a 40-page paper dated 13 January and seen by EUobserver — details who does what in the EU’s day-to-day dealings with foreign countries.
It says the commission and the EEAS “jointly” plan overall spending strategies on the Union’s €9.5-billion-a-year external relations budget. But development commissioner Andris Piebalgs, neighbourhood commissioner Stefan Fuele and aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva keep full control of designing and implementing actual projects in the 104 countries and €7.5 billion covered by their portfolios.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Burqa Ban Legislation Row Heating Up
The far-right anti-Islam Freedom Party PVV, which props up the minority government in parliament, has demanded that the Dutch police corps enforce the burqa ban. The PVV is supported by Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten on the issue. PVV MP Joram van Klaveren was speaking on Sunday in response to remarks made by the chief of Amsterdam’s police corps, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, on national TV talk show g. Mr Aalbersberg said it should be left up to the police officer on duty to decide whether or not to write out a ticket for a Muslim wearing a burqa or niqab. The police chief added issuing a warning should also be an option.
The burqa ban in the Netherlands has stirred up a national debate. Earlier, other police chiefs from various Dutch corps announced they did not intend enforcing the new law when it is passed. The lower and upper houses of parliament still have to vote on the legislation which will ban all clothing which covers a face in public.
The burqa ban was part of the PVV’s election programme and its implementation was part of a deal negotiated by the Freedom Party and the coalition partners, the conservative VVD and the Christian Democrats. Geert Wilders’ party gives parliamentary support to the minority government.
In neighbouring Belgium, the second EU country after France to implement a burqa ban, the campaign of the far-right Vlaams Belang ‘Flemish Interest’ also stirred up considerable controversy. The daughter of Flemish Interest leader Philip Dewinter featured on the campaign poster wearing a niqab and a bikini top with the text “Freedom or Islam?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
European Deep Freeze Refuses to Relent
The cold snap which has held Europe in its grip for over a week has yet to relent. Several countries have reported rising numbers of casualties as a result of the deep freeze. Holland, meanwhile, hopes the cold continues long enough to hold the mythical ice-skating race called Elfstedentocht.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Freeze: Emergencies in Italy, Greece and Serbia
Italy has imposed emergency measures on businesses to conserve gas supplies as freezing weather continues to grip the country and much of Europe. An “emergency situation” is in place in southern Serbia where 70,000 villagers are stranded by snow.
In Greece, several villages near the Bulgarian border have been evacuated after the River Evros burst its banks. A day of mourning has been declared in Bulgaria, where a dam collapsed leaving nine people dead, A 2.5m (8ft) torrent surged through the south-eastern village of Biser on Monday. Five people were killed in the village itself and four more died elsewhere when their cars were swept away by the flood.
Two more dams were said to be on the brink of collapse and officials declared a code orange for much of the country, a severe warning of the risks of damage or injury from the harsh wintry conditions. In Greece, a state of emergency was declared in the Evros region.
Many of the victims of Europe’s cold snap have been homeless people in Ukraine and Poland. Forecasters says the icy conditions will last at least until the end of this week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Opens First Official Muslim Cemetery
STRASBOURG — France has opened the first Muslim-only cemetery in the northeastern city of Strasburg, a move hailed by Muslims as a step toward integrating one of the country’s largest minority group.
The cemetery’s opening is a “historic” moment for Muslims in France that is “an important symbol of belonging” for the community, Mohammed Moussaoui, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, February 7.
A host of local officials and Muslim leaders attended the opening of the cemetery, which has space for about 1,000 graves.
The cemetery, which cost around 800,000 euros, faces Makkah, has a room for washing before prayers and a separate prayer room..
Sending their dead to be buried in their home countries for decades, French Muslims have long called for having an official cemetery to bury their beloved on French soil.
It was felt Muslims may be discouraged from burying members of their family in the cemetery over fears their remains may one day be exhumed and destroyed to make room for other burials.
“If a religious community is to feel entirely at home in a city, it must be helped in building places for worship and for the burial of its believers,” Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told AFP.
France is home to a sizable minority of six million Muslims, the largest in Europe.
Islam calls for respecting human beings whether alive or dead
A Muslim’s dead body should be immediately taken to a mortuary for washing and preparation.
Two or three adult Muslims should wash the body and then put on the shroud (kafan). Before the burial, the funeral prayer should be done.
The burial should be done as soon as possible. It is makruh (reprehensible) to delay the burial of the dead.
Integration
Though the French law forbids the public building of cemeteries restricted to one religion only, the Alsace-Moselle region benefits from a different law governing the separation of the Church and State.
“Local law in the Alsace-Moselle region allows us to construct a cemetery run by the local council,” Anne-Pernelle Richardot, deputy mayor of Strasbourg, told RFI radio.
France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state forbids the building of municipal cemeteries restricted to only one religion.
But the Alsace-Moselle region, which includes Strasbourg, operates under different basic laws dating from its reversion from German to French control after World War I.
The only other Muslim-only cemetery in France is a private one in Bobigny which was built in 1934 as an annex to a hospital.
Elsewhere in France, towns have had to create Muslim-only sectors of public cemeteries.
There has been an increase in the number of Muslim-only sections in local cemeteries over the past few years, but some Islam specialists say the 200 sections currently in France are not enough to meet demand.
A report published by the Regional Council for Muslim Affairs, CRCM, in the Rhone-Alpes region estimated some 600 Muslim-only sections were needed in France and every town which had a mosque should provide this facility.
“This cemetery meets a pressing and legitimate need by Muslims and shows how migrants are increasingly putting down roots,” said Erkin Acikel, head of the CRCM.
“We belong on this soil and being buried here is a sign of integration.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
France Inaugurates First Official Muslim Cemetery
France inaugurated its first municipal Muslim cemetery in the city of Strasbourg on Monday, a move hailed by Islamic leaders as a step in recognising one of the country’s largest minority groups. Local officials and Muslim leaders attended a ceremony in the northeastern French city to launch the cemetery, which has space for about 1,000 graves.
Mohammed Moussaoui, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, hailed the cemetery’s opening as a “historic” moment for Muslims in France and said it was “an important symbol of belonging” for the community. “If a religious community is to feel entirely at home in a city, it must be helped in building places for worship and for the burial of its believers,” Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told AFP.
France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state forbids the building of municipal cemeteries restricted to only one religion. But the Alsace-Moselle region, which includes Strasbourg, operates under different basic laws dating from its reversion from German to French control after World War I.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Inaugurates First Public Muslim Cemetery
PARIS — France’s first public cemetery for Muslims was inaugurated Monday in the city of Strasbourg. Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries said the cemetery, which has space for about 1,000 graves, demonstrated the continuation of harmonious relations between the different religious communities in the city, as he opened it. Until now, Muslims in France have buried their dead in specially assigned areas in Christian graveyards, where there is an acute shortage of space. Previously, many Muslims had sent their dead to their home countries to be buried, but the practice is declining due to the expense involved. The Alsace region, of which Strasbourg is the capital, allows the public funding of cemeteries, unlike the rest of the country. The city has paid about $1.05 million toward the graveyard. The dead will have to be buried in coffins, in accordance with French law, rather than simply using shrouds, although talks are planned to see if the law can be relaxed to accommodate Muslim customs.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Germans Jailed in UK for Owning Terrorist Material
Two German men were jailed in Britain on Monday after pleading guilty to possessing articles from an al-Qaida magazine. Police seized a hard drive and laptop from Christian Emde, 28, and Robert Baum, 24, both from Solingen in western Germany, when they arrived in the southern English port of Dover on July 15 last year.
Emde received a 16-month term, minus 193 days he has already spent in custody, and Baum received 12 months after they both pleaded guilty to having material which could be of use to someone preparing an act of terrorism. Emde admitted four offences under the Terrorism Act for possessing online copies of the al-Qaida magazine “Inspire”, which contained titles such as ‘Destroying Buildings’ and ‘Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.’
Baum admitted one charge under the same act of having an article entitled ‘39 Ways Of Participating Or Serving In Jihad.’ Their lawyers had argued that Emde, who is unemployed, had been studying extremism but was not a terrorist and was not going to pass the documents to anyone, while Baum was studying Islam while searching for a purpose in life.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Holland: “Islam Democrat” Wants Dogs Banned
In Holland there is something that will soon be in Germany as well: an Islamic Party. The party, ironicallly, is called “The Islam Democrats,” as though Islam and democracy have anything at all to do with each other, or should have. The newest, overall intelligent recommendation by this party in The Hague city council is the banning of dogs. In our part of the world, the dog is man’s best friend. In the Muslim world, it’s quite the opposite. Dogs are considered najassah (unclean), and the word “dog” is also used as an insult.
Hasan Kücük, member of The Hague city council for the Islam Democrats has therefore demanded that the ownership of dogs as house pets become a crime. This bill, of course, has led to protests among the Dutch people. Many of them see this bill, and rightly so, as a part of the advancing islamization of Europe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hope Grows for Unique Dutch Ice Skate Marathon
The Dutch are sharpening their skates in the hope that a legendary long-distance race on frozen canals may be held for the first time in 15 years, but organisers said Monday the ice was still too thin. “At this point we cannot set a date. It all depends on the weather,” Wiebe Wieling, chairman of the Society for the Frisian Elf Steden (11 cities), the race organiser, told a press conference in the northern city of Leeuwarden, broadcast on national television.
“Although we have excellent quality ice in northern Friesland, there is a problem area in the south — the ice is simply too thin,” Wieling said. “Today we can unfortunately not give any conclusion (whether the race will be held),” he said.
Officially skated for the first time in 1909, the so-called Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Race) is a race over 200 kilometres (120 miles) on the frozen canals that run through Friesland province’s main cities. Seen as the Netherlands’ ultimate ultra-race, it can only be held if the ice is thick enough — at 15 centimetres (six inches) — to hold some 16,000 skaters, cheered on by two million spectators, Wieling said.
Since 1909, the Elfstedentocht has only been skated 15 times, notably three times in a row during World War II in 1940, 41 and 42, making it a rare event that has been dominating headlines in the Dutch media since cold weather set in a week ago.
Dependent on weather conditions, the race had no set date and race organisers usually give 48 hours’ notice before its start, setting in motion an army of volunteers to prepare for the invasion of skaters and spectators. Wieling said Monday more inspections would be done, particularly in southern Friesland with the next announcement on ice conditions expected by Wednesday. “Our motto is that if it’s too dangerous, we won’t do it,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is NASA Pulling Out of Europe’s Mars Exploration Missions?
The BBC is reporting that the U.S. space agency is close to officially announcing its intention to step away from the European-led ExoMars mission that was scheduled for a (delayed) 2016 and 2018 launch to the Red Planet.
Composed of a Mars satellite and drilling rover, the combo would make invaluable measurements of atmospheric methane — a potential sign of microbial life on the surface — and drill deep into the ground, accessing a subterranean environment no robot has ever touched before. Of course, the prime objective is to search for the biosignatures of Martian life, but the whole kit would also understand how much water is locked just below the surface and help to assess the Mars environment for future manned missions.
Unfortunately, it looks like there’s bad news on the horizon; the European Space Agency’s (ESA) key partner may be pulling out. “The Americans have indicated that the possibility of them participating is now low — very low. It’s highly unlikely,” said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science. “They are interested, they know it’s a very good option for them — but they have difficulties putting these missions in the budget.” This news comes ahead of President Obama’s announcement of next year’s budget that will undoubtedly see NASA in its cost-cutting cross hairs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Crackdown on Naples’ ‘Handicapped’
Naples, 1 Feb. (AKI) — Italian police on Wednesday arrested dozens of people suspected of defrauding the state by collecting money for fake handicaps in Naples, the southern city where about 4 percent of the population are registered as having disabilities.
With the fresh arrests, 201 people have been detained and 5 million euros of assets seized from the recent start of a crackdown on false disabilities.
Italy’s National Security Institute, INPS, pays out tens-of-millions of euros in false handicap claims every year.
The crime now carries harsh undertones as Italy is at the centre of a European economic crisis that toppled Silvio Berlusconi’s government in November and prompted his unelected successor to push through massive painful cost-cutting measures that include tax hikes and pension reform.
In January, police filmed a “blind” man near Milan riding a bicycle and driving a car to the supermarket. He was arrested after he pocketed government funds totalling 160,000 euros over around 18 years.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Mosque Wars
The southern Italian island of Sicily is about to become the proud new owner of a multi-million euro mega-mosque. The mosque, to be built in the medieval town of Salemi in southwestern Sicily, is being paid for by the oil-rich Persian Gulf Emirate of Qatar. Supporters of the mosque hope it will become a reference point for Muslims in Sicily as well as the rest of Italy. Construction of the mosque reflects the growing influence of Islam in Italy, which is now home to an estimated 1.5 million Muslims. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the mayor of Salemi, Vittorio Sgarbi, said: “Sicily is excited about hosting Islam. Nothing is more important than finding common feelings and beliefs in the different religions that believe in a single God. This is one of the reasons that, just as our cities have Christian places of worship, I think it is important for a mosque to be built in Salemi for citizens of Arab culture and language. History imposes it upon us.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Limerick, Ireland Hospital ‘Unsafe’ — Nurses
Nurses have said that the main regional hospital in the mid-west of Ireland is currently unsafe due to over-crowding across the entire facility.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said that the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick currently had 96 additional in-patients “above the normal capacity of approximately 350 in-patient beds”.
The union said the hospital was facing its worst-ever pressure and called on the HSE (Health Care Executive) to implement its major disaster plan for the region. It also urged General Practitioners in the locality to attend the hospital to provide any assistance possible.
It said the hospital was “stretched beyond manageable and safe parameters in terms of the volume of admitted patients requiring medical and nursing care, and available beds and nursing staff to administer safe care”.
In a statement the nurses’ union said that in the hospital this morning there were 34 patients on trolleys (gurneys) in the emergency department (three of whom were children), 12 admitted patients on beds in the medical assessment unit, 11 patients on beds in the surgical day ward, 25 on beds in ward 1B where closed beds had re-opened with skeleton staff and 14 patients on extra beds/trolleys around wards.
The union said staff at the hospital could not deliver safe care to such volumes of additional patients without extra personnel.
INMO industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty said: “In February 2012 this hospital is under the worst pressure ever experienced and, despite the Minister’s assurances of improvements and “Special Delivery Unit” recommendations; the situation is deteriorating further.”
Ms Fogarty said additional nursing staff and acute in-patient beds must be prioritised to address the crisis and “to prevent a major unavoidable incident at the Mid West Regional Hospital”.
“It is incomprehensible that a hospital is allowed to reach such levels of over capacity, which undoubtedly lead to unsafe practices, low standards of care, mistakes and neglect of ill patients.”
The union called on the HSE to implement the major disaster plan and also called on GPs in the region to attend the hospital to provide any assistance they may be able to offer.
A spokesman for the HSE in Limerick said that the hospital was facing pressures. He said that it had appealed to members of the public not to attend the Mid Western Regional Hospital except in cases of genuine emergency.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Lost Treasures: The Napalm of Byzantium
It was one of the most terrifying weapons ever made. But the secret ingredients and technology required to make the incendiary substance “Greek fire” has defeated scientific minds ever since the 12th century. Greek fire was a flaming mixture fired from the ships of the Byzantine empire from the 7th century. The fire would cling to flesh and was impossible to extinguish with water. This deadly concoction was created by a family of chemists and engineers from Constantinople, and the secret recipe died with them.
John Haldon from Princeton University has a hunch though: he suspects it was a petroleum-based liquid modified to increase its potency. He thinks the key ingredients were a highly flammable light crude oil called naphtha, and pine resin, which is sticky and would have made the mixture burn hotter and longer.
But there was more to the mystery of Greek fire than its ingredients alone. “When enemies captured elements of the equipment, they just weren’t able to work out how to use it to recreate the same effects,” explains Haldon. Historians have the same problem, but they’ve deduced that a bronze pump probably pressurised heated oil, which was then ejected through a nozzle and ignited. In 2002, a reconstruction was built for a National Geographic TV programme, using a mixture of light crude oil and pine resin. Their flame destroyed a ship in minutes.
Uncertainties remain because the secret was never written down, but the power of Greek fire is beyond doubt. “It was definitely an effective weapon of terror,” says Haldon.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Many Water Pipes Frozen in Holland
A record number of people in the Netherlands spent the weekend without water because of frozen or burst water pipes. Water Company Vitens said it received some 2,000 calls for help from people who had no running water.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Survivors Laugh at Self-Styled Hero Breivik
The Norway gunman who killed 77 people in twin attacks in July asked an Oslo court Monday to immediately free him and demanded the country’s highest military award, sparking derision from survivors.
Showing no sign of remorse, 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik said the massacre was “a preventive attack against state traitors” who were guilty of “ethnic cleansing” due to their support for a multi-cultural society.
“I do not accept imprisonment. I demand to be immediately released,” the right-wing extremist told the court before it ordered that he be held in detention until his trial opens on April 16th.
Hollow laughter erupted in the rows where several dozen survivors and families of the victims were seated, when Behring Breivik twice demanded his immediate release.
Wearing a dark suit and pale blue tie, Behring Breivik entered the courtroom and touched his heart with his handcuffed fists, then lifted them straight out toward those seated in the courtroom, in what his lawyer Geir Lippestad described as a “right-wing extremist salute.”
“He wanted to show the far right that he is one of them,” Lippestad said.
With his blond hair parted on the side and a thin strip of beard along the jawline, Behring Breivik refused to plead guilty but admitted to committing the acts he said were necessary to “defend the ethnic Norwegian population.”
“We, the Norwegian resistance movement, will not just stand by and watch while we are made a minority in our own country,” he said, adding that he had acted “to defend his people, his culture, his religion.”
He also asked to be decorated with a bravery medal, saying: “I want the Norwegian army to recommend me for a War Cross with three swords.”
Behring Breivik, who has claimed to be on a crusade against multi-culturalism and the “Muslim invasion” of Europe, set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo on July 22nd, killing eight people.
He then went to Utøya island, some 40 kilometres north-west of Oslo, and, dressed as a police officer, spent more than an hour methodically shooting and killing another 69 people, mainly teens, attending a summer camp hosted by the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing.
The massacre was the deadliest committed in Norway since World War II.
During Monday’s hearing, Behring Breivik turned around to face the media several times, a smile on his lips.
He reiterated his belief that the court was not a competent authority to try him, accusing judge Wenche Fliflet Gjelsten of being “appointed by those who support multi-culturalism.”
“The Labour Party traitors of the nation use asylum, family regroupments, asylum on humanitarian grounds and immigration quotas as tools for Islamic colonialisation,” Behring Breivik told the court.
“It’s good to see him like that, surrounded by police officers, just a dozen metres away from me,” said Magnus Haakonsen, a young Utøya survivor who fled the shooting spree by dashing into the water and swimming away.
“The first time I saw him on Utøya, he was also a dozen metres away but he was pointing a gun, at me. Now, in a way, the weapons are pointed at him, the weapons of justice,” he said.
According to the 18-year-old, who escaped two of Behring Breivik’s bullets, “a good way to disarm his arguments is to laugh at him.”
“He has a completely demented vision of things,” chimed in another survivor, Jørgen Bunk, who turns 18 soon.
“I understand that he wants to be released, seeing that he thinks he’s a hero. For us, it’s obviously completely crazy,” Bunk added.
A first psychiatric evaluation conducted last year found that Behring Breivik was criminally insane. A second opinion is expected by April 10th, and if it confirms the first diagnosis he will likely be sentenced to psychiatric care in a closed ward instead of prison.
It will ultimately be up to the Oslo district court to decide whether he is sane and to determine his sentence.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Norway’s ‘Other’ Terrorists File Appeal
UPDATED: Mikael Davud, sentenced last week to seven years in prison in Norway for planning a terrorist attack, has decided to appeal his conviction. One of his two partners was also sentenced to prison in what were called “historic” court rulings, and he’s appealing, too.
Davud and Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, both of whom came to Norway as refugees, are the first to be convicted on charges of terrorist association in Norway. They were arrested in July 2010 and ultimately put on trial for planning terrorist attacks against the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten and/or its artist Kurt Westergaard. The attacks allegedly were planned in response to the newspaper’s publication of Westergaard’s cartoons that many Muslims find offensive.
A third man now known as David Jakobsen was also charged in the case but acquitted of actually planning terrorist attacks. He was convicted, though, as an accomplice because he aided Davud in acquiring hydrogen peroxide that could be used to produce explosives.
Davud, formerly known as Muhammed Rashidin, is a Uighur from western China who came to Norway in 1999 and was granted Norwegian citizenship in 2007. Bujak is an Iraqi Kurd who also arrived in Norway in 1999 and later obtained permanent residence, while Jakobsen, formerly known as Abdulaif Alisjer, is originally from Uzbekistan and came to Norway as an asylum seeker in 2002.
Prosecutors in the case, which involved participation of terrorism investigators from the US, UK and other countries, had sought sentences of 11 years for Davud and five years for Bujak and Jakobsen. Their defense attorneys argued that all should be acquitted and Davud’s attorney, Carl Konow Reiber-Mohn, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) Monday morning that he’d be filing an appeal on behalf of Davud.
Another defense attorney, Arild Humlen, told NRK that Davud claims there’s no evidence he had any agreements, as alleged, with terrorist organization al-Qaida, nor did he have any pact with Bujak. Humlen also said the defendants don’t believe any terrorist acts were involved and that a seven-year jail term for Davud was too long.
“He believes the conviction is unfair, and is sorry he wasn’t believed, that his purchases (of potential explosives) were to be used against the Chinese Embassy in the fight for Uighur rights,” Humlen told NRK.
Bujak also decided to appeal, while Jakobsen has accepted his four-month term. All the defendants are receiving credit for time already spent in custody, which amounts to 606 days for Davud and Bujak and 132 days for Jakobsen.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Handcuffed Breivik Back in Court
Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik dressed for the occasion when he knew he’d be photographed and filmed just before his latest custody hearing began on Monday. Wearing a dark suit and tie, along with a pair of handcuffs, he posed willingly and then pulled out notes for some prepared remarks.
Confessed terrorist and mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik met the gaze of a large press corps on Monday, and state broadcaster NRK carried his brief court appearance live on national TV until the judge ordered cameras to be turned off. Breivik was seated between his defense attorneys Vibeke Hein Bæra (left) and Geir Lippestad. NRK’s text notes how the court allowed photos until legal proceedings began. PHOTO: NRK / Views and News
It was the last custody hearing to be held before Breivik’s trial begins on April 16, and the first time media were allowed to photograph the man who bombed Norway’s government headquarters and then gunned down 69 persons at a Labour Party summer camp on July 22. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) was among those who carried live coverage from the Oslo City Court (Oslo Tingrett) despite strong protests from many survivors and victims’ families.
They don’t want Breivik to gain any publicity for what he’s called an effort to halt Norway’s emergence as a multi-cultural society. Breivik has never shown any regret for his murderous rampage, which left a total of 77 persons dead, and legal experts told NRK he appeared well-prepared for his 20 minutes in court.
He immediately raised his arms upon walking into the courtroom, showing his handcuffs in what some observers interpreted as a right-wing extremist greeting. Police escorts quickly steered him to his seat between defense attorneys Vibeka Hein Bæra and Geir Lippestad.
After the judge ordered cameras to be turned off, Breivik was given one minute to speak. NRK reported how he said he did not recognize the validity of the Norwegian legal system and thus demanded to be released. He once again admitted carrying out the actual events that led to his arrest, but claims he shouldn’t be punished, because he was simply acting on orders from the organization of which he claims to be a commander. His mission, he said, was to carry out attacks on “traitors” who are allowing an “Islamic colonization” of Norway, specifically, as he sees it, the Labour Party.
He was simply launching a “preventive attack” to “protect the native population” of Norway, he said. His remarks came as the country marked the annual observance of Samifolkets dag on February 6, honoring Norway’s indigenous Sami people. It wasn’t clear whether that was the “native population” Breivik had in mind.
Some legal experts speculated that Breivik’s remarks are part of a legal defense strategy to uphold a determination by court-appointed psychiatrists that Breivik is insane. If he was sane, they reasoned, he’d recognize Norway’s legal system, while his other remarks highlighted what Lippestad long has called Breivik’s altered state of reality. Breivik will be allowed as much as a week during his trial to explain how and why he carried out the bombing and massacre on the island of Utøya on July 22.
The only relevant portion of his prepared remarks at Monday’s custody hearing was the demand to be released, because custody hearings are only meant to address the terms of his incarceration. Lippestad said he supported his client’s request for release, “but that’s his (Lippestad’s) job,” legal analyst Gunhild Lærum told NRK.
Breivik will instead continue to be held for at least 10 more weeks. His custody hearing lasted less than half an hour.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Not All Civilisations Equal, French Minister Says
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar by claiming that not all civilisations are equal, with some more advanced than others.
“Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value,” Gueant on Saturday told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.
“Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not,” he argued in his speech at a meeting organised by a right-wing students group.
“Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred,” he went on his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
He stressed the need to “protect our civilisation.”
The interior minister’s comments provoked a torrent of criticism from the opposition and on the Internet, less than three months a head of a French presidential election.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
OSCE Calls for Muslim Umbrella Organisation
Experts from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have recommended the establishment of an umbrella organisation for all Swiss Muslims. In their report, seen by the Swiss News Agency on Tuesday, three OSCE experts who visited Switzerland in November warned that intolerance and discrimination against Muslims had increased since 2001, and were being exploited by “the extreme right and populist parties”.
“Groups like Bosnians and Albanians, who were previously defined by their ethnicity, are now identified by their religion,” they found. The report also cites discrimination against Muslims when they apply for citizenship or look for jobs.
It is not the first time that the issue of an umbrella organisation has been raised. Representatives of 30 Muslim communities discussed it back in 2010, but were unable to reach a conclusion. There are more than 300 Muslim associations in Switzerland, and several umbrella organisations, but none is regarded as being representative of Muslims as a whole.
There are thought to be about 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland, nearly 90 per cent of them of foreign origin. The largest single group is from the former Yugoslavia, followed by those from Turkey. Much smaller numbers come from Africa, both north and south of the Sahara, and from other places. About 10,000 are Swiss converts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Signs of Ancient Ocean on Mars Spotted by European Spacecraft
A European spacecraft orbiting Mars has found more revealing evidence that an ocean may have covered parts of the Red Planet billions of years ago. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft detected sediments on Mars’ northern plains that are reminiscent of an ocean floor, in a region that has also previously been identified as the site of ancient Martian shorelines, the researchers said.
“We interpret these as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich,” study leader Jérémie Mouginot, of the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) in France and the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement. “It is a strong new indication that there was once an ocean here.” As part of its mission, Mars Express uses a radar instrument, called MARSIS, to probe beneath the Martian surface and search for liquid and solid water in the upper portions of the planet’s crust.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: School Rapped Over Bullying Victim’s Suicide
A 15-year-old girl from southern Sweden took her own life after several years of bullying during which her school’s idea of combatting the problem had been to make her go tell the other students that their taunts upset her. The girl had been experiencing problems in school since the age of thirteen and frequently had abuse hurled at her by a gang of boys.
According to the family, the girl, who had a reputation as a “good student” was transferred together with a friend into a class with an unruly boy gang. The girl was seated next to the boys, who started to call her names, write taunts about her on the board and send her dirty pictures over the internet.
The problems then escalated when she was 14, when profanities were graffittied onto the girl’s locker, cans were thrown at her and she had to listen to abuse every day. The parents felt that the teachers had lost control of the social climate of the whole form.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Girl to Friend: ‘I Think I’Ve Got a Knife in My Throat’
Police continue to hunt for the man suspected in the stabbing a 10-year-old girl outside of her school in Gothenburg on Monday. As the girl recovers in hospital, local residents remain on edge following the attack. “I saw blood when I came up to her. She said, ‘I think I’ve got a knife in my throat’,” a 9-year-old friend of the victim told the Metro newspaper.
The friend at first thought the 10-year-old had a bloody nose, but soon realized her friend lying on the ground had a knife protruding from her neck. She then saw a strange man running from the scene. “He was wearing white trousers and a black leather jacket and had something in his mouth,” the girl told Metro.
The day after the attack, more officers are out on patrol in the neighbourhood near the Bergsgård school where the stabbing took place. “We’ve boosted our presence in the area,” police spokesperson Elf Edberg told the TT news agency on Tuesday morning. “If for no other reason than to increase the sense of security.” Edberg refused to say, however, exactly how many additional officers were on patrol in the Hjällbo district.
The stabbing, which took place Monday morning, left the school in shock. “Obviously it’s worrisome. What’s happened is just tragic,” parent Jama Abdi Qafaar told the local Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper. He placed some of the blame on the inadequate security at the school. “They should have wardens out during recess. It’s too easy to get in here,” he told the paper.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Malmö Mayor in Non-Violence Plea to Residents
Politicians in Malmö are planning to write open letters to the community in a plea to help curb crime, a tactic which has already proven successful with local police. “To those who have heard or seen anything in these different crimes, be sure you come forward as soon as possible to police and others,” the letter will say, the Social Democrat mayor of Malmö, Ilmar Reepalu, told Sveriges Radio (SR).
Reepalu wants to follow in the footsteps of the local police, whose letters to residents have sparked a strong reaction from the public in the last month, resulting in more tips and showing that residents are eager to help quash crime and solve the city’s escalating problems with violence
The police have received numerous tips, including help from people who are members of criminal gangs. “We have seen a strong change in society. People want to help and contribute with as much information as possible,” said Mikael Mattsson of the Malmö police to the TT news agency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish PM Wants People to Work Until Age 75
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt wants people to consider working until age 75 and employers to be open to hiring those over 55, he said in an interview Tuesday.
The conservative, who heads a centre-right coalition, said Sweden’s generous welfare state and pension system would not be sustainable with an ageing population unless people worked longer.
In an interview with the Dagens Nyheter daily which sparked a strong reaction from labour unions, he said attitudes needed to change and employers needed to start viewing those over 50 differently.
“To hire someone who is 55 who says ‘yes, I plan to work until I’m 75’ — that’s 20 years, that’s a very long and interesting employment relationship compared to a person who at that age plans to start winding down in five or six years,” the prime minister said.
Sweden has a flexible retirement age, where workers can begin drawing on their pension at 61 or keep working until 67. Of Swedes over 65 years old, 7.8 percent were employed in 2010, says Statistics Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Turkish Minister Probed Over Armenia Remarks
Swiss prosecutors have launched a probe into alleged remarks by Turkey’s EU affairs minister denying the Armenian genocide, a crime under Swiss anti-racism laws, ATS news agency said on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Abu Qatada Back on the Streets Within Days
Abu Qatada, the radical Islamic preacher once described as Osama bin Laden’s “right hand man in Europe”, will be back on the streets within days after being granted bail.
A senior immigration judge said yesterday that Qatada could be released despite even his own defence team suggesting that he posed a “grave risk” to Britain’s national security.
Qatada was granted bail by Mr Justice Mitting after the European Court of Human Rights ruled last month that he could not be deported to his native Jordan. The bail conditions will be similar to those set in 2008, with the cleric confined to his home for all but two one-hour periods each day. He will also be allowed to take one of his five children to school. Restrictions on his movement, however, could be lifted if the Home Secretary fails to show within three months that progress is being made in negotiations with Jordan regarding his extradition. Mr Justice Mitting, the president of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac), said yesterday: “If by the end of that, the Secretary of State is not able to put before me evidence of demonstrable progress in negotiating sufficient assurances with the government of Jordan … it’s very likely that I would consider that a continued deprivation of liberty is no longer justified.”
The release of Qatada will intensify concerns that European courts are eroding the sovereignty of Britain’s justice system. David Cameron said after last month’s ruling that decisions by European courts were “distorting” and “discrediting” the concept of human rights. The decision to release Qatada, a 51-year-old father of five, means he can return home and will be able to claim up to £1,000 a month in state benefits. The taxpayer will also have to foot up to £500,000 a year for his security surveillance. Critics attacked the decision as a “disgrace”, while the Home Office warned that Qatada remained “a dangerous man” who posed a “real threat to our security”. Charlie Elphicke, a Tory MP, said: “This is a man who is seeking to undermine our country at every turn. It is clear that Qatada should not be in this country another day.” Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said no bail decision should “interfere with keeping our country safe”. She said Mrs May’s “foremost responsibility is the protection of the public and national security”, adding: “Abu Qatada should face terror charges in Jordan, and the Home Secretary needs to urgently accelerate discussions with the Jordanian government to make that possible.”
Qatada is being held in the high security Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire. He was described by a Spanish judge as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe” and Siac previously described him as a “truly dangerous individual”. He was granted bail following a decision by the ECHR that he could not be deported to Jordan without assurances that evidence gained through torture would not be used against him. His defence argued there was therefore no realistic prospect of deportation and claimed his detention was unlawful. The Home Office argued that he should be detained while officials sought further assurances from Jordan. Mr Justice Mitting concluded that his detention had been justified but the chances of his removal were “slimmer than they were” before the human rights ruling. He said the risks to national security and of absconding had not significantly changed from May 2008, when he last granted bail. Qatada was recalled within six months of his release for breaching the terms of his licence.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Qatada, had told the immigration judge in central London that Qatada should be released regardless of the risk he posed to national security. “However grave the risk of absconding, however grave the risk of further offending, there comes a point when it’s just too long,” he said. Qatada is believed to have spent longer in custody “than any other detainee in modern immigration history”, according to his legal team. He arrived in Britain on a forged passport in 1993. In 1999 in Jordan, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence for conspiracy to carry out bomb attacks. He was first detained in Britain in 2002, when an immigration court described him as a “truly dangerous individual”.
Tim Eicke QC, for the Home Secretary, said Qatada “should remain detained”. He was “someone who poses an unusually significant risk to the UK” and “the mere passage of time certainly hasn’t rendered it [his continued detention] unlawful”, Mr Eicke said. He added that there was “no indication here from the appellant that he has changed his views or his attitude to the UK and the threat he poses to it”. Qatada had also shown a “willingness to ignore the rules”, he said, even while behind bars as a category A prisoner. Mr Justice Mitting admitted himself that in 2008 Qatada “expressed very forcefully his views direct to me” and he “has shown no inclination of any change in attitude”. A Home Office spokesman said it had argued for the “strictest possible bail conditions” to be imposed. “This is a dangerous man who we believe poses a real threat to our security,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Five Lessons From Prevent — Following Today’s Home Affairs Select Committee Report
by Paul Goodman
I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read today’s Home Affairs Select Committee report in to Prevent in full, but the Home Office presumably has: it says that the committee “broadly support[s] the outcome of the Prevent review and the revised strategy”. The Committee’s alertness to the dangers of neo-nazi terrorism — which the BBC has swooped on — and the need to remove violent extremist material from the net seem sensible. I look forward to reading the whole report. Its publication is as good a moment as any to ask what lessons can be learned from the history of Prevent — and recent events in relation to violent extremism and extremism more broadly. I draw five conclusions.
- Government knows more about Britain’s Muslim communities than it did before 9/11. Britain’s three million or so Muslims are extremely diverse in terms of their theological, national and ethnic background. It follows that no single organisation speaks for them. Whitehall has always hankered after a single phone number for British Muslims (the parallel is with Kissinger’s alleged desire for a single phone number for Europe) and before 9/11 it looked to the Muslim Council of Britain to provide it. The events of that day and what followed gradually brought about change. During Labour’s first term, Tony Blair said that the MCB was “doing a lot of impressive work making the voice of the Muslim community heard”. During Labour’s third one, Hazel Blears ended dealings with it during the Daud Abdullah controversy. The present Government has no official relations with the MCB. Whatever one’s view of the organisation, polling has found that only 6 per cent of British Muslims believe that the MCB represents them. Whitehall didn’t know this until fairly recently, but has grasped the point thoroughly now. In short, government may not know all that much about British Muslims, but it knows a lot more than it did.
- The Coalition has learned lessons from Labour’s Prevent failures. Blair’s reaction to 7/7 was first to commission the Preventing Extremism Together together project, then abandon it in favour of a twelve-point plan which was never fully implemented (and of which his Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, may not have been aware before its publication), and then introduce a revised Contest policy, including the overhauled Prevent. Labour spent £70 million on it over three years. Goodness knows what the bill for the whole programme has totalled. I doubt if there has ever been a full audit, but some of the money was unaccounted for (as both I and the Taxpayers Alliance pointed out) and parts of it spent on activities distant from counter-terrorism: the Coalition pointed out in its revised Prevent Strategy that 19% in one year went on arts and cultural activities (“local theatre production”) and 13% on sports and recreation (“boxing clubs, football clubs”). In other words, much of Labour’s Prevent programme securitised integration and cohesion policy — a tangling which this Government has begun laboriously to unknot.
- Big majorities of British Muslims reject Al Qaeda. The most authoritative polling to date reported that only 7 per cent of British Muslims admired the organisation (and the author of the report concerned, Munira Mirza, found that “it is is difficult to know how to interpret such statistics”). And the last big terrorist attack in Britain took place the best part of five years ago. It is reasonable to conclude from what’s happened since that there is less support for terrorism “on the ground” than there seemed to be in the aftermath of 7/7. That conclusion comes with a warning. It is impossible to know how many plots the security services have thwarted. There were convictions in relation to one last week. There has been at least one narrow escape. But given the drama of the last decade — Afghanistan, the promotion of Wahhabiism in Britain from abroad, Iraq, the self-serving clashes between the English Defence League and Unite against Fascism, Israel’s incursions into Lebanon and Gaza, the antics of Anjem Choudary, and so on — it is worth reflecting on how little Islamsist terror there has been in Britain, not how much. Like everyone else, most British Muslims have political views. And like everyone else again, these are less important to them than home, work, family and getting on with their lives.
- The Arab revolts against dictatorship present fresh challenges. I don’t like “Arab spring”, which suggests that all will inevitably turn out well in the middle east, or “Arab winter”, which does the opposite. What we know is that the Muslim Brotherhood is now the main governing force in Tunisia, is set to play the same role in Egypt, and is leading the government in Morocco. The brotherhood is playing a significant part in the opposition to Assad in Syria and is evidently a rising political force in the region. The agony of Syria is a reminder that the revolts and the strife between two extremisms — one Shiite, emanating from Iran, the other Sunni, emanating from Saudi Arabia — are impacting on each other. Labour was clearly not ready for the knock-on effects of Israel’s 2009 incursion into Gaza on community relations in Britain. It is worth asking whether this Government in general — and DCLG in particular — is prepared for the possible consequences of, say, a sudden Israeli attack on Iran (anti-semitic incidents would surely rise), a “lone wolf” neo-nazi strike on a mosque or an Al Qaeda-inspired terror bomb with mass casualties (Muslims would rightly be fearful of the consequences): the Government’s draft integration policy suggests not.
- Britain is set to begin a new relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. Parallels beween western democracies and the middle east are misleading, but one way of describing the turn-around in the region is that a year ago the brotherhood was in opposition and today it is in government (or on the way there). Some of those who until very recently were languishing in exile — or prison — now sit behind Ministerial desks. In time, they will surely urge the British Government to be less suspicious of — and perhaps even enter into partnership with — their friends and allies in the UK. This would put Conservative Ministers in a difficult bind. On the one hand, they will not want to help build up the position of Islamism in Britain; on the other, they will not wish to offend countries with which we trade and do business. The decisive factor will be how Muslim Brotherhood-led governments actually govern — and in particular, what happens to religious freedoms and the position of women. If the countries concerned turn into Sunni Irans, British Christians will become more outspoken about the plight of their co-religionists abroad: as I’ve noted before, the volume has gradually been rising for some time. If, however, the Brotherhood lives up to its progressive and pluralist rhetoric, doors that are shut to it in Britain may open.
We shall see. The only Tory position to take is to learn from the past and prepare for the worst, hopeful that matters may turn out better than expected. But until or unless they do, prepare in particular for the churches to become more vocal about the treatment of Christians abroad. Above all, the most crucial area will probably turn out to be not the middle east but Afghanistan and Pakistan — given the size of our Pakistani and Kashmir-origin communities. Were Pakistan to collapse, or war to break out between it and India, the consequences here would be serious. Whatever the merits of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s report may be, it is time for its counterpart, the DCLG Select Committee, to try to establish the facts about the scale of anti-Muslim hatred and violence in Britain.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Fanatic Qatada Out of Jail in Days
JAILED hate preacher Abu Qatada will be back on British streets within days. A judge yesterday granted the Islamic fundamentalist bail despite claims that he is a “serious risk” to UK national security. Qatada, 51, who was once dubbed Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe, will walk free from prison next week. Lawyers for Home Secretary Theresa May failed to keep locked up the extremist reckoned to be Britain’s most dangerous man. A Home Office spokesman said after the ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission: “Qatada should remain in detention — our view has not changed. “That is the argument we made to the court today and we disagree with its decision. This is a dangerous man who we believe poses a real threat to our security and who has not changed in his views or attitude to the UK.”
The fanatic — behind bars for six years — applied to be freed after European human rights judges ruled he could not be deported to Jordan because he would not get a fair trial. They said he could not be sent back to his homeland, where he is wanted on bomb plot charges, without guarantees that evidence gained by torture would not be used against him.
Ministers wanted him to remain behind bars at Long Lartin maximum security jail, Worcs, while they fought the decision. The judge at yesterday’s hearing in London, Mr Justice Mitting, said Qatada, who has cost taxpayers £1million in benefits, legal fees and jail costs, should be “bailed on highly prescriptive terms for three months”.
Earlier Ed Fitzgerald QC, for Qatada, said: “The detention has now gone on for too long to be reasonable or lawful and there is no prospect of the detention ending in any reasonable period. “However grave the risk of absconding, however grave the risk of further offending, there comes a point when it’s just too long.” Qatada’s legal team claimed that he had spent longer in custody “than any other detainee in modern immigration history”. But Tim Eicke QC, for Mrs May, said: “The Secretary of State has taken all steps to diligently try to achieve removal and deportation as soon as possible.” Qatada’s bail conditions will be similar to those set in 2008, with him allowed out of his London home for two one-hour periods per day. He will be allowed to take one of his five children to school. Qatada was granted asylum in 1994 despite arriving on a forged passport.He has called on British Muslims to be martyrs in a holy war. Qatada featured in hate sermons found on videos in the flat of one of the September 11 bombers and a Spanish judge branded him “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: George Monbiot’s Worst-Ever Guardian Column — and That’s Saying Something!
George Monbiot has outdone himself in the Guardian today. Citing the recent Canadian study that purports to show a link between conservative views and low intelligence (reported in the Mail last week), he claims that the current government was elected by “misinformed, suggestible voters”. “It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own,” he writes. “But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.” Moonbat is far from the only Lefty to seize on this study (Charlie Brooker devoted his Guardian column to it yesterday). Indeed, this must be the first time the Twitterati have linked en masse to a Daily Mail article since they erupted in a fit of moral outrage about Jan Moir’s obituary of Stephen Gately.
The first thing to be said about this supposedly definitive piece of research — Moonbat calls it “embarrassingly robust” — is that the authors, Gordon Hodson and Michael A Busseri, rely to a great extent on a measure of intelligence that has been discredited. The bulk of their data is drawn from two British longitudinal studies, the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study. The “cognitive abilities” of both groups was assessed using “standardised measures”, i.e. IQ tests, with the first group being tested aged 11 and the second group aged 10. Now, as numerous Left-wing critics of grammar schools have pointed out, trying to measure a person’s “cognitive ability” at such a tender age is fraught with difficulty. According to a recent paper in Nature, IQ fluctuates dramatically during adolescence, with some people’s scores improving and others’ deteriorating, and only becomes relatively static once the brain has stopped growing. It follows that a person with a below-average IQ score at the age of 10 or 11 will not necessarily have a below-average score in adulthood. (My solution to this problem, as a defender of grammar schools, is to test children again at the age of 14, allowing for a degree of movement in and out of the schools at that point.)
Hodson and Busseri make much of the fact that when the participants in the two studies were asked their views about a range of issues in their 30s, those who’d scored at the lower end of the ability spectrum 20 years earlier were more likely to have “ideological orientations rooted in resistance to change and a desire to maintain existing social stratifications”. However, given that the participants weren’t re-tested in their 30s, we simply don’t know whether the group exhibiting these characteristics were at the lower end of the ability spectrum or not. Not “empirical fact”, then, but a piece of research that’s largely worthless because of its reliance on flawed data. Even if we ignore this problem, the “evidence” that Hodson and Busseri have assembled is hardly conclusive proof that Right-wing views are inferior to Left-wing ones, as Moonbat seems to think. Apparently, he’s unfamiliar with the fallacy of ad hominem, defined as “an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it”. If he’d studied elementary logic he’d know that you cannot judge a particular set of beliefs by examining the characteristics of those who hold them. Doesn’t matter what those characteristics are, they’re all equally irrelevant. From a logical point of view, Moonbat’s argument is analogous to claiming that Right-wing beliefs are inferior to Left-wing ones because Right-wingers are more likely to have red hair. (Moonbat has form when it comes to ad hominem, as James Delingpole has pointed out.)
To see how idiotic George Monbiot’s argument is, let’s assume for a moment that there is a connection between a person’s intelligence and the worth of his or her political beliefs. Indeed, let’s take the example of Moonbat himself. The rebellious public school boy was a year above me at Brasenose College and took a second in Zoology in 1985. (This is described as an “upper second” in a 1995 profile of him in the Independent, but the journalist must have got the wrong end of the stick — God knows how — because Oxford didn’t distinguish between upper and lower seconds until 1986.) Now, David Cameron graduated from the same Oxford college three years later and not only did he get a better degree than Moonbat — a first — but it was in a subject generally considered a lot more difficult than Zoology — Philosophy, Politics and Economics. According to Moonbat’s own twisted logic, therefore, David Cameron’s pragmatic conservatism must be superior to Moonbat’s anti-capitalist, tree-hugging, eco-toff, bat-sh*t crazy, loony tunes Left-wing-ery. Which, of course, it is, but for reasons completely unrelated to the yawning chasm that separates their respective IQs. I’m no fan of Moonbat’s (can you tell?), but even he can do better than this. Generalising about a group of people on the basis of their average IQ score is reckless at the best of times, particularly when the data you’re relying on is questionable. But when it is done to advance a particular political cause, it becomes downright pernicious.
Stop Press: Gordon Hodson and Michael A Busseri’s study has been described as “a contender for the worst use of statistics in an original paper ever” by Dr William M Briggs, Professor of Statistical science at Cornell (hat tip: Libertarian View). You can read Professor Briggs’s analysis here.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Journalist: Some British Papers Spread Anti-Muslim Propaganda
He also noted that statistics about immigrants in the country were being changed to present a negative picture of them.
A former Daily Star journalist has repeated accusations that a number of British daily newspapers put pressure on journalists to fabricate anti-Muslim stories. Richard Peppiatt, who worked as a full-time freelance journalist at the Daily Star for two years, claimed that editors forced journalists to fabricate news that suggested Muslims and immigrants were threatening national security. He said the fabricated stories were mainly related to Muslims, depicting them as a threat to British society. The defamatory stories became more widespread after the bombings in London on June 7, 2005 — often referred to as 7/7 — and the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the United States. “Especially since 7/7 and, to a degree, since 9/11, Muslims have certainly been painted as the ‘cartoon baddy.’ Definitely in the tabloids. Someone always has to be blamed, you can’t just leave it up in the air when something happens; somebody always needs to take the blame. Sadly it’s the Muslims that have been chosen to be portrayed as the ‘baddies’,” he told Cihan in a phone interview.
Peppiatt noted that it was not possible for Muslims to take action against the publication of derogatory articles because it is only possible for an individual who has been mentioned by name to make a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), the regulatory body for UK magazines and newspapers. However, if a group or a religion is targeted it is difficult to file a complaint.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MPs Urge Action on Online Radicalisation
A parliamentary committee has warned that the internet is a “fertile breeding ground for terrorism”, posing more danger than extremism on campus. MPs have found that online activity is influential in almost all instances of violent radicalisation, yet it is not sufficiently monitored for counter-terrorism purposes. The nine-month investigation by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee concluded that the web was “now one of the few unregulated spaces where radicalisation is able to take place”, representing a greater risk than prisons, universities or places of worship. “There is seldom concrete evidence to confirm that [universities or prisons] are where they were radicalised”, the report said. One member of the committee, Cardiff MP Alun Michael, said that during the investigation “one Muslim said to me that ‘you should worry more about Sheikh Google than about what’s happening at the mosques’.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Qatada Has to Go
The Government must reassert its rights and eject Abu Qatada whatever the European Court thinks.
The 10-year saga of Abu Qatada’s battle to avoid deportation to Jordan as a threat to national security epitomises the waning power of the British state to decide who can and cannot remain in this country. At every turn, efforts to remove him have been thwarted by human rights considerations. Now, he is to be released from prison on bail in order to continue his legal action to be allowed to stay. We are no longer able to protect our own citizens by ejecting wrong-doers from the country. Lady Justice Hallett, hearing a rape charge against a known Lithuanian sex offender this month, asked: “Do we just let anyone in, even if they have such a serious conviction?” More to the point, why are we not able to kick them out when it is apparent that they pose a risk? The highest court in the land ruled three years ago that guarantees offered by Jordan that it would not torture Abu Qatada removed the barrier under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights preventing his deportation. But this was overridden by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which moved the judicial goalposts by ruling that he should not be deported to stand trial in Jordan since evidence against him might have been obtained by torture. In doing this, the Strasbourg court added to the substantial hurdles that already hindered the UK’s ability to deport serious criminals and suspected terrorists, a further example of unacceptable expansionism by this supra-national body. Qatada, who was imprisoned for breaching the terms of a control order, is now to be released because it is unjust to keep him in custody when there is no realistic prospect of removing him. This Catch-22 is making a mockery of the British justice system. The Government must reassert its rights in this area and eject Qatada whatever the European Court thinks.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Up to 10,000 African Girls in Spain ‘Risk Genital Mutilation’
THOUSANDS of young girls in Spain could be at risk of undergoing female circumcision without an anaesthetic when they reach puberty, disturbing figures show. Around five million girls worldwide, aged between toddlerhood and around 18 years old suffer this potentially deadly mutilation every year. But around 10,000 in Spain are also at risk, having been born into families from one of the 27 countries around the globe — most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa and particularly include Sénégal, Mali and Nigeria — where this barbaric practice is not against the law.
It consists of removing all outer parts of the girl’s genitals and stitching them up, and is rarely carried out using any form of sedation. Often, it takes place in the desert with sharp instruments such as a broken shard of glass or a stone. Since age commands respect in many African countries, parents often find themselves overriden by grandparents or elderly women inn their villages if they try to refuse to put their daughters through the process.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Keep Paying New Hamas-Linked Government
BRUSSELS — The EU has said it will keep on giving money to the Palestinian authorities despite their new deal with Hamas, an EU-designated terrorist group.
Foreign relations spokesman Michael Mann said on Monday (6 February) that it’s business as usual after the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas in Qatar earlier the same day agreed to form a unity government. “The EU looks forward to continuing its support, including through direct financial assistance, for a new Palestinian government that should uphold the principle of non-violence,” he noted in a written statement.
An EU diplomat based in Israel told EUobserver: “We need to see what this new government will look like — it’s very early. We need to know who will be the ministers and what they will say. We expect a technocratic government that will prepare for elections.” The EU currently gives the Palestinian side some €450 million a year in aid meant to help refugees and support state-building measures, such as creating a decent civilian police force in the West Bank. It has already signed up for €150-million-worth of new projects for 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ayatollah: Kill All Jews: Annihilate Iran Lays Out Legal Case for Genocidal Attack Against ‘Cancerous Tumor’
The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.
The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.
Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a “‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”
The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Obama’s Rhetorical Storm
The Obama administration is absolutely furious at Russia and China. The two UN Security Council permanent members’ move on Saturday to veto a resolution on Syria utterly infuriated US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. And they want us all to know just how piping mad they really are.
Rice called the vetoes “unforgivable,” and said that “any further blood that flows will be on their hands.” She said the US was “disgusted.”
Clinton called the move by Moscow and Beijing a “travesty.” She then said that the US will take action outside the UN, “with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people’s right to have a better future.”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Emirates: Construction Abu Dhabi Mega Airport Approved
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI — The Midfield Terminal Complex (MTC) for the Abu Dhabi international airport has been approved by the Emirate’s authorities, with the area now set to become one of the Middle East’s most futuristic architectural structures, both in terms of design and eco-sustainability. The Midfield, so-called because it will be built in between two runways, is the focal point of the multi-million dollar restructuring of the airport, which in turn is part of the economic diversification scheme (Strategic Plan 2030) drafted by Abu Dhabi to overcome the Emirate’s dependence on oil.
Once complete, in 2017, the airport will be able to cope with a transit of 30-40 million passengers per year, says the ADAC, the company that manages the airports in the Emirate.
The figure is currently 12 million, which is estimated to be a considerable increase, given the trend of recent years. There has been a record increase of 19.7% over the last five years, as a result of the rapid growth of the Emirati flagship airline Etihad Airways and of Abu Dhabi as a tourist and business destination. The terminal’s main hall is the size of three football pitches, up to 52 metres in height and visible from over 1.5 kilometres away, and has been conceived with attention to eco-sustainability.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Iran Can Destroy Israel in 9 Minutes’
Iranian blogger urges Tehran to exploit West’s inaction to ‘wipe out Israel’ by 2014; lays out strategy
An Iranian blogger on Saturday urged Tehran not to delay an attack on Israel, claiming that the Islamic Republic could destroy the Jewish state in “less than nine minutes.”
Alireza Forghani, a computer engineer, wrote in his essay that Tehran should exploit the West’s dawdling over a strike on Iran to “wipe out Israel” by 2014 — that is, before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s term runs out. The post was widely covered in the Iranian media on Saturday.
Forghani lays out the religious justifications for the attack and presents strategies for an offensive that would target key Israeli sites using land-to-land missiles.
The first step in the strategy, Forghani suggested, should be to launch ballistic Sijil missiles on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, as well as power stations and other energy sources, sewage facilities, airports, nuclear plants, media hubs and transportation infrastructure. In the second step, Shahab 3 and Ghader missiles should target the rest of the country’s population centers. Total annihilation, he asserts, could be achieved within nine minutes.
‘Killing civilians justified’
Forghani posited that targeting civilians could be justified with revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s ruling that Muslims must wage a Jihad against an enemy who attacks an Islamic nation.
“So since Israel has attacked Palestine and occupied this part of the Islamic Entity, defending the oppressed Palestinian Muslims is compulsory,” Forghani wrote.
The blogger appears to quote Ynet security analyst Ron Ben-Yishai as saying that there is no spot in Israel that is not vulnerable to an Iranian missile attack, although Yishai referred in his column to the capabilities of Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, not the Islamic Republic.
Forghani, who describes himself as an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian government and a former member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia, stressed that the opinions presented in his post are his own and do not represent the regime’s position.
Dr. Raz Zimt, a research fellow at the Institute for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University, claimed that the stir that the post caused in the Iranian media might indicate the dawn of public discourse about a preemptive strike on Israel. The article might also signify the effect that the global discussion about a possible military operation in Iran has on the Islamic Republic.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Muslim Poets Meet Islamic Revolution Leader
Poets and participants of a major international gathering on the current Islamic Awakening (wrapped up in Tehran Monday) met with the Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei Monday night in a week dedicated to unity between Muslims worldwide. The meeting commenced with several poets from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Islamic Republic of Iran reading out their latest works on the theme of an Islamic Awakening movement that has been inspiring the Muslim nations in their struggle against Zionism and Imperialism. Other poems were about the Holy occupied al-Quds city, the Palestinian issue, the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of Iran (1979), and the auspicious birth anniversary of the Noblest Messenger of Allah Hadhrat Muhammad, whose birth time provided the theme for calling the week as week of unity among Muslims.
[…]
[JP note: Political agitprop not poetry.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kremlin’s Tough Top Diplomat: Russian Foreign Minister is Nobody’s Fool
Sergey Lavrov has reaped massive criticism for Moscow’s veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria, but the Russian foreign minister remains unmoved. The top diplomat, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, has a track record of standing up to the West.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Shaken by Rallies, Putin Says Russian Civil Society Maturing
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, facing an outburst of protest against his rule, called Monday for an update of Russia’s political system in response to what he said was a maturing civil society. “We need to create a political system where people can and must speak the truth,” Putin said in a wordy article which also quoted Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
“Our civil society has become incomparably more mature, active and responsible. We need to update the mechanism of our democracy. They must fit in growing public activity,” Putin said in the article published on his campaign website and in the business broadsheet Kommersant. Putin said the middle classes had become more “demanding” of politicians. “The new demands towards the authorities, the middle classes’ emergence from their narrow world of building their own prosperity is the result of our efforts. We worked on this,” he wrote.
In a rare acknowledgement of the role of the Internet, which has galvanised the opposition movement, Putin called for the parliament to be obliged to discuss any public petition that manages to gather 100,000 signatures on the Internet.
Putin is battling the worst legitimacy crisis of his 12-year rule. Tens of thousands took to the streets since disputed December parliamentary elections in a wave of protests unseen since the early 1990s. Opposition activists said more than 120,000 people braved frosty weather to attend an opposition rally on Saturday, the budding protest movement’s third since December.
In the piece — his fourth campaign article — Putin stressed that direct elections of regional governors would be reintroduced, a system he eliminated under his presidency in 2004. But at the same time he said Russia must avoid “the temptation to simplify politics, to create a fictitious democracy” and insisted the country needed a “strong, effective and respected federal centre.”
Putin has written four articles since January on subjects including Russia’s economy and illegal immigration, although he has refused to take part in debates with the other presidential candidates.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook and Google Remove ‘Offensive’ India Content
Facebook and Google say they have complied with an Indian court directive and removed “objectionable” material.
They are among 21 web firms, including Yahoo and Orkut, facing a civil suit in Delhi accusing them of hosting material that may cause communal unrest.
A criminal case of similar allegations is due to be heard next month.
Judges have threatened to block sites that fail to crack down on offensive content, but many firms say it is impossible to pre-filter material.
Late last year, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal met officials from Google, Facebook and other websites and said the government would introduce guidelines to ensure “blasphemous material” did not appear on internet.
The Delhi High Court last month asked Facebook and Google India to “develop a mechanism to keep a check and remove offensive and objectionable material from their web pages” or “like China, we will block all such websites”.
The civil case being heard in Delhi on Monday was filed by Muslim petitioner Mufti Aizaz Arshad Kazmi, who alleged the companies were hosting material intolerant to religious sentiment.
Google and Facebook told the court they had complied with an earlier order by a Delhi district court judge to take down certain material.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Uttar Pradesh Polls: Parties Go All Out to Woo Muslim Voters
Azamgarh: With less than 24 hours to go before Uttar Pradesh votes in the first phase, all eyes are on the state’s large 18 per cent Muslim vote. How crucial will it be this time around? Young Muslims of Uttar Pradesh are debating quota for the Muslims announced by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. A Muslim voter in Uttar Pradesh Madiur Rehman believes that caste is a reality in India and benefits extended to Hindu backward should be extended to Muslim backwards as well. From quota within quota to sops for the Muslim weavers political parties are going all out to woo this crucial 18 per cent constituency of Muslim voters, but their announcements are seen with skepticism. The experts say that issues among Muslims are similar to that of others hence the political class may get it wrong by thinking of them as an en-masse voting block. Political scientist Zoya Hasan said, “It’s a myth to say that Muslims vote en-block. Muslim vote has gone to the SP, the BSP and the Congress, if they were to vote en-block the way dalits have been voting for the BSP then one of the three parties could have won the elections quite easily, that’s not the case.” When Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi came campaigning to Azamgarh last month the students of Shibli National College showed him the black flag. The demand for a judicial probe into the Batla House encounter of 2008 has been a long pending one and Muslims of Uttar Pradesh want the terror tag to be removed and are doubtful of the intentions of the Congress party. Fair justice is just one of the many demands of Uttar Pradesh Muslims. What’s at the top of their minds is education and job.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: West Borneo: Festivities for Year of Dragon Amid Islamic Threats
Up to a million people took to the streets of Singkawan, to attend celebrations for the Cap Go Meh. In recent days, extremist leaders have shouted slogans against the party, branded as “anti-Islamic”. Authorities and police have monitored security, no major accident or collision.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — The Indonesian community of Chinese origin, local and foreign tourists have flocked to the town of Singkawang — about 100 miles north of Pontianak, the provincial capital of West Borneo — to attend the celebrations for the Cap Go Meh. The traditional street party with dancing, music, songs, falls exactly 15 days away from Imlek — the Lunar New Year on 23 January, which marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon — and attracted the attention of hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million people from all over the archipelago and overseas. To cast a shadow on festivities, some threatening banners hoisted — most likely — by members of Islamic extremist fringe, but the tight control of the police has prevented any incidents of violence.
Singkawang is the favorite destination for tourists and Indonesians of Chinese origin, who have invaded the city — according to some sources reaching one million, ed — for the celebrations linked to Cap Go Meh. Yesterday dozens of people dressed in colourful traditional clothes, dancing to the sound of music in streets and squares, as every year, the culmination of the festival is represented by a folk performance by renamed Tatung, the most famous event and appreciated by participants. Among them Jacky Cheung, a famous singer in Hong Kong who came to witness the event firsthand. ,
However, banners and signs appeared in the days preceding the festival the streets of the town — majority Chinese — which called on the Muslim community to boycott the festival. Local sources report that the perpetrators of the act are to be found among the leaders of the extremist fringe, according to who the Cap Go Meh celebrations, “are contrary to Islam” and its principles.
The presence of senior officials, including the governor of West Borneo, and police officers at the averted the possibility of violence or riots. Imposing security measures, for an event that has sold out hotels and hostels since the past few months. Also yesterday, celebrations and festivities were held in Bogor, about 60 km south-west of Jakarta, with dance performances including the artistic tribal Reog Ponorogo dance and the Papu dance to mark the Lunar New Year.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Yoga: From Ritual Sex to Middle-Class Ritual
The practice of yoga has come a long way from its origins in India thousands of years ago. Here are a few facts about the popular activity.
Yoga means ‘union’ in Sanskrit — of mind, body and spirit. The practice of yoga is thousands of years old and originates in India. Yoga hasn’t always been so clean: the original yogis were often “vagabonds who engaged in ritual sex” according to William J. Broad. It was rebranded as a healthy way of life in the 1920s by one Jagannath G Gune, an Indian nationalist. Many well-known exercises, like the Sun Salutation, are 20th century inventions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Beijing and Brussels at War “Over Planes”
China does not intend to submit to air carbon tax scheme, which provides for a limitation of carbon dioxide in the mainland airports, and calls for Europe to act “wisely” in view of the next bilateral summit focused on the crisis.
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The Chinese government today banned national airlines to adhere to the air carbon tax implemented by the European Union last February 1 and has allowed companies to charge a fee to travelers to pay any extra fines imposed by the Old Continent. This is the last act of a battle between Beijing and Brussels on the eve of next week’s summit between the leaders of China and the EU.
The EU scheme provides for a significant reduction in the emission of gases harmful to the environment, for continental airplanes or foreign airlines that use European airports. It involves a fine of 100 Euros per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted outside standard EU parameters. China has decided not to adhere to the scheme because it believes the deal “an unfair trade barrier, intended to limit the entry of Chinese airlines in other markets.”
An anonymous director of Chinese Civil Aviation this morning told the Xinhua news agency of the scheme, that “China hopes for Europe to act in a broader spectrum of action to combat climate change and improve Chinese-European relations. For our part, we will consider all necessary measures to defend the Chinese consumer and industrial development. “
The clash over emissions is part of a larger game being played by Beijing and Brussels. The leaders of China and EU are ready for a bilateral meeting set for next week, and the continent is hoping in Chinese investment to emerge from the current recession. China, for its part, said it “wants to help”, but has remained vague about the contents of this help: this is why, on several occasions, the two governments have used trade agreements as a bargaining tool.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Philippines Searches Swamps for Kidnapped Europeans
Philippine troops were scouring mangroves on remote southern islands on Monday as the search for two kidnapped Europeans intensified, security officials said. Hundreds of naval troops and Marines have been deployed to search for Swiss Lorenzo Vinciguerra, 47, and Dutchman Ewold Horn, 52, in the remote Tawi Tawi archipelago, said Colonel Jose Johriel Cenabre.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
March Date for Mosque Plan
THE planning application for a proposed mosque in Munster will not come before Cockburn council next week as first anticipated. Due to the high volume of submissions received from the public, the item was deferred by council officers and is likely to appear again in March for consideration by councillors. A City statement released last week said submissions had “identified several areas of the application that require detailed consultation with the applicant before a recommendation can be finalised”. Last November, tensions arose after comment on the proposal by the South Metropolitan Muslim Association was offered only to residents of properties directly surrounding the proposed 1.23ha site on the corner of Russell and Lorimer roads, forcing the City to re-open consultation to the wider community. The consultation period closed on December 16. The City received 424 submissions, with 298 in support of the proposal and 126 against. Of the 25 submissions from landowners within 300 metres of the site, 23 objected to the proposal. Since then, conservationists and supporters of the Carnaby’s black cockatoo have inundated the City’s Facebook page with pleas to reject the application on the grounds that the site is a known nesting place for the endangered birds.
[JP note: Let us pray that common sense prevails and Carnaby’s black cockatoo is saved.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: Woman Found Dead at Mosque
Cape Town police are investigating the death of a young Blue Downs woman after her body was found at a mosque in the area on Monday morning. An inquest docket has been opened.
Janine Philander’s mother and sister cried uncontrollably while her body was removed from the backyard of the Tuscany Glen Mosque. Both were comforted by community members.
Blue Downs resident Debby Cookson says she felt unsettled by the death of the 22-year-old, adding instances like these are rare. “I’m concerned about what’s happening in the community because I’m raising children here.” It is not yet clear how Philander died. Police say there are no marks on the victim’s body, which means she may have been strangled.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Starts Building Fence on Turkish Border
Greece on Monday started building a 10-km long fence on its border with Turkey to keep out thousands of irregular migrants seeking to cross into Europe. “This is a project which has practical and symbolic value,” citizen protection minister Christos Papoutsis told reporters. Its cost is estimated at €5.5 million.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece to Build £2.5million Six-Mile Razor Wire Wall to Block Worst Illegal Immigration Route Into Europe
The busiest crossing point for illegal immigrants into Europe is set to be blocked with a new £2.5million razor wire wall.
Greek authorities plan to erect the six mile, 13ft high double fence, on an area bordering Turkey which sees an average of 245 people per day crossing illegally, the EU’s border agency Frontex’s figures show.
And according to latest estimates, around 90 per cent of all illegal immigrants into the EU have come through Greece.
Once inside Europe’s visa-free Schengen zone, people are free to travel unchecked through internal borders, and many travel on to the UK.
Greece has been warned that failure to step up border controls would leave the country at risk of being expelled from the Schengen zone.
Speaking to reporters while inaugurating a new police command centre on the border, Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis told reporters: ‘This is an opportunity for us to send a clear message … to all the EU, that Greece is fully compliant with its border commitments.’
‘Traffickers should know that this route will be closed to them. Their life is about to get much harder.’
More…
Papoutsis said work on the fence which will stretch between the villages of Kastanies and Nea Vyssa in the Evros border region, near the north eastern town of Orestiada, would begin next month.
It should be linked to a network of fixed night-vision cameras providing real-time footage to the new command center.
Most of Greece’s 125-mile border with Turkey is delineated by the Evros River — called the Meric River in Turkey — but the fence will cover a short stretch where the two countries are divided by land.
WARNINGS OVER VISA-FREE SCHENGEN ZONE:
Only weeks ago, the head of Interpol warned the failure of many European countries to check passports against an international database of lost and stolen travel documents could ‘lead to another September 11’.
Secretary General Ronald Noble, a former head of the US Secret Service, said the security gap could allow potential terrorists to enter Europe and cross multiple borders undetected.
Mr Noble said the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to travel across much of the EU without a passport, meant a single weakness in border security could put the whole of the European mainland at risk.
He said: ‘So many basic steps aren’t being taken, which could lead to another September 11, another July 7, another March 7 in Madrid.
The lesson that should have been learned…is that people carrying stolen travel documents, if they are not stopped, can enter your country and mastermind a horrible attack.’
Greece is already receiving emergency assistance at the Evros border from the EU border protection agency, Frontex.
Despite police efforts to seal the border, illegal immigrants continued to walk across.
Three men spotted walking across the frontier in torrential rain told The Associated Press that they had come from strife-torn Syria.
‘We’ve been walking for seven days,’ said one of the men, who only identified himself as Said, 24, but gave no other details. ‘I’m trying to reach an uncle of mine who lives in Hungary.’
Mr Papoutsis’ plans for a strengthenedborder have been controversial in the past with the European Commission critcising them as a ‘short-term measure’ that did not deal with the root of the problem.
Last year he had said the wall was a necessary measure after more than 100,000 people illegally entered the Mediterranean nation in the previous 12 months.
According to the EU’s border agency Frontex, the area concerned has become the main entry point for migrants travelling from war-zones and conflict in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
He added: ‘The Greek public has reached its limit in taking in illegal immigrants. We are absolutely determined on this issue. Greece can’t take it anymore.’
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Growing Support for Children’s Amnesty
More than 25 local councils have expressed support for an amnesty for underage asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected. The councils believe young asylum seekers who have lived most of their lives in the Netherlands should not be sent back to their country of origin — where they usually do not even speak the language.
The 25 local councils include major cities such as Enschede, Eindhoven, Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam en Breda. The councillors in these cities have called on their mayors to raise the issue with Immigration Minister Gerd Leers. A petition on the internet has been signed by 118,000 people. The petition is an initiative of Green Left MP Tofik Dibi, and is supported by various entertainers, writers and sports figures. Mr Dibi launched the petition just before Christmas after failing to convince the immigration minister to grant asylum to Angolan boy Mauro, a case that received widespread national attention.
Tofik Dibi’s petition is meant to help other such children before their case hits the headlines. Estimates of how many children such a pardon would affect vary depending on the criteria — it could be as many as several thousand. According to the regulations, Immigration Minister Gerd Leers has no choice but to have these children deported. But he does have discretion to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to grant asylum on humanitarian grounds. That is how the coalition government would like it to stay.
Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party agreed to support this coalition on the condition that immigration would be dramatically reduced. The last thing the Freedom Party wants is another amnesty for asylum seekers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Brain Drain, 300,000 Leave Country Due to Crisis
2011, more emigrants than immigrants, 1st time in 10 years
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 6 — With a record youth unemployment figure close to 50% and double the European average, the phenomenon of brain drain in Spain has turned into a bonafide exodus since the start of the crisis. In the country, which recorded a new all-time record with 4,599,829 jobless in January, the year 2011 ended for the first time in 10 years with a negative migration balance, according to data issued by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Overall, more people have left Spain — 507,740 — compared to the number of people who have entered the country (417,532). Over 300,000 people, including tens of thousands of young people, have moved abroad in search of work, according to the INE’s study. These emigrants are young, between the ages of 25 and 35, with a qualified professional or educational resume and without any dependents. The new emigrants head mainly to Germany and France, as well as Great Britain and Eastern European countries like Poland, where experienced professionals are in demand. Others move to emerging economies like Brazil or Argentina.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Asylum Seekers Sanding Off Fingertips: Report
Many Eritrean and Somalian refugees are taking extreme measures to destroy their fingerprints to avoid being identified and returned to the first country they entered in Europe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Euthanasia on Wheels Starts Next Month
In the Netherlands, six specialised euthanasia teams consisting of one doctor and one nurse will begin making house calls as of next month. Their patients will be people who meet the criteria of Dutch euthanasia laws but feel they are not being taking seriously by their GP. Euthanasia organisation Right to Die-NL announced on Monday the ‘end-of-life clinic’ will become operational on 1 March.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Entire Genome of Extinct Human Reconstructed
How’s this for impressive: a genome pieced together from a 30,000-year-old finger bone contains fewer errors than genomes generated using samples from living people. The genome, published online today, is from an extinct group of hominins called the Denisovans.
Fossils of the Denisovans, close relatives of the Neanderthals, were discovered in Siberia in 2008. A draft genome was released in 2010 by Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, which revealed that Denisovans interbred with modern humans. However, each position in the genome was read only twice, so the fine detail was unreliable.
The new genome covers each position 30 times over. Pääbo plans to use it to estimate how much genetic variation was present among the Denisovans, revealing whether they suffered population crashes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I Want to Take the First Picture of a Black Hole
Images of a black hole could test general relativity as well as prove they exist, says astronomer Dan Marrone
A black hole, by definition, is black. So how are you going to take a picture of one?
If you look right at the black hole it should look quite dark, as very little light escapes. But just around the edge of it you see a bright ring, which is due to the photons that barely missed going into the black hole and skimmed around the edge of it a couple of times. This light is what we think we will be able to detect with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
The EHT is a “whole Earth telescope”. How does it work?
In radio astronomy, to get a higher resolution than you can from a single telescope, you record signals from many telescopes around the world and multiply them together with a special computer. It is as if you have a single telescope almost the size of the Earth.
Which black holes are you targeting?
Sagittarius A*, which is the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, and the black hole at the centre of M87, the biggest galaxy in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. With a telescope the size of the Earth and at the frequencies we are observing, we can just make out black holes of this size.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islam’s Groundhog Day
by Daniel Greenfield
Groundhog Day is the long eternal tragedy of Islam, which always sees its shadow and always ends up with six weeks, six months or six hundred years of more winter. That hopeful time when the bitter cold of winter begins its slow transition into the warmth and renewal of spring never comes for Islam. In a reversal of the cycle of season, the Arab Spring led to the Islamic Winter, but that is the endless pattern of Islamic attempts at reform and rejuvenation, which rather than finding renewal in their attempts at transformation only go on perpetuating the same cycle of violence, tyranny and oppression. There is a peculiar tragedy to a religion which cannot escape its own destructive nature, each time it reaches for some form of redemption, its hands come up dripping with blood and it all ends in more bodies and petty tyrannies.
The film Groundhog Day showed us a man who was doomed to repeat the same day over and over again until he learned to use his time to become a better person. Islam has been stuck in its own form of that cycle, repeating the same century over and over again, moving from religious ecstasy to holy war, seeking redemption through religious tyranny, and finding that there was no escaping the internal decay and instability in the veins of its religion. Islam’s only redemption lies in establishing a theocracy. Its commitment to power and the indulgence of the earthly and heavenly paradise of loot, slaves and violence led to its own degeneration over and over again. Having no other spiritual form than the exercise of power, it has corrupted itself each time, and then attempted to exorcise the corruption through more of violence.
[…]
This is the terrible cycle that repeats itself without hope of redemption. This is the rite of winter that is at the heart of Islam. It is a dark and bloody rite that has not changed in a thousand years. What we are witnessing in Islamic oppression and terror is the ancient ceremony of death, the ritual sacrifices of Ayatollahs and Mullahs over deserts and dusty fields, which hold back the coming of the spring.
[JP note: Nice analogy and one which would be difficult to fault — it will all end in tears.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
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