Chinese Firms Buy Into Europe
(PARIS) — Chinese automakers have returned in force to Europe, buying up brands and plants after early efforts to get a foothold in one of the world’s largest car markets failed. Great Wall Motor is the latest China entrant, with production at its plant in Bulgaria due to start Tuesday, giving it access to the European market of some 500 million people with a very competitive line up which may give Europe’s established firms pause for thought.
Prices for its base Voleex C10 model, the Steed 5 pick-up and Hoover H5 four-by-four run from just 8,000 euros to 14,700 euros ($10,600 to $19,400) and the company, which has 10 sites in China, says is aiming for production of 500,000 vehicles overseas by 2015.
Analysts said it may be surprising that Chinese firms seem so determined to get into Europe, a saturated market where car sales are declining, but there are benefits for them, especially in terms of branding and prestige. “It is a way for them to make progress in quality levels,” said Yann Lacroix, analyst at Euler Hermes in Paris.
In Britain, Geely Motors plans to start selling a mid-range sedan by the end of the year at a very competitive 10,000 pounds ($15,460, 12,000 euros).
Announcing the move in December, the company, which owns Sweden’s Volvo Cars, said “the leaps and bounds made in manufacturing mean that China’s car makers are rapidly closely the gap with Europe’s establishment. “We will be aiming to widen our range just as quickly as possible, probably at least a new model range every year for the next four to five years.”
Reflecting the growing global ambitions of Chinese automakers, Geely bought Volvo from US auto giant Ford for $1.5 billion in 2010, less than a quarter of what Ford paid for the company in 1999. “In that way, the company made a very significant technological jump,” Lacroix noted.
Meanwhile, China’s largest home-grown carmaker Chery Automobile has established its base in Italy with local company DR Motor and at the end of last year bought a Fiat plant at Termini Imerese in Sicily.
Chery is developing its own marque for Europe, Qoros, in cooperation with an Israeli company which should make its first model next year. Chinese auto companies have also shown an interest in acquiring those European firms which have run into hard times as their home market falters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Greek Bailout Can be Reached, ‘ Say Monti, Merkel, Papademos
Leaders look optimistically to Eurogroup Monday
(ANSA) — Berlin, February 17 — Italian Premier Mario Monti, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Premier Lucas Papademos believe a deal can be reached on a second Greek bailout, Monti’s office said Friday. “The three announced they were confident that an accord on Greece could be reached Monday at the Eurogroup meeting,” said the premier’s office after a telephone conference between the leaders. Held in Brussels, the Eurogroup is a meeting of finance ministers from the eurozone. The impasse over Greece’s bailout, which has dragged on for weeks, has been seen as a sign that European leaders are far from solving the eurozone debt crisis, provoking instability on the sovereign-debt market. Monti, Merkel and Papademos spoke after the German chancellor called off a visit to Rome when German President Christian Wulff announced he would step down over a loan scandal.
They will reschedule “as soon as possible,” said German spokesman Steffen Seibert. “Our ties with Italy remain very close in these days”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jim Rogers: Don’t Pay Governments Much Attention
Investors shouldn’t pay “much attention” to what governments are doing, well-known investor Jim Rogers, CEO and Chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Friday. “If you listen to governments, then you are not going to make a lot of money. Governments lie, distort and make mistakes,” he said.
His comments came after months when the markets have followed European politicians’ efforts to solve the euro zone debt crisis. Improving US economic data has led some to argue that the US will not be too badly affected by the situation in Europe, although Rogers disagrees. “Europe as a whole is the largest economy in the world. If Europe has problems, we in the US are going to feel those problems,” he said.
Investors should focus on “real assets” like commodities to deal with continuing worries of another downturn, he added. “My way of playing this is to own real assets like commodities,” he said “You now have the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve printing money. The way to protect yourself at a time like this is to own assets.”
Rogers added that he thinks silver looks more attractive than gold at the moment because of the sustained rise in the gold price.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Firms Rant Against the Inertia of the Swedish Model
(STOCKHOLM) — Swedish companies, relatively unscathed by the European debt crisis, dislike the Swedish economic model’s inertia, want reforms to boost their competitiveness, and want to adopt the euro, their representatives say. “I think Sweden should join the euro… We benefit a lot from the single market, which is not sustainable without the single currency,” said Urban Baeckstroem, who heads the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the country’s main employer’s organisation representing some 60,000 businesses.
European Union member Sweden rejected the common currency in a 2003 referendum and Baeckstroem acknowledged that “we haven’t lost anything so far,” by standing outside the bloc. According to a December poll however, nearly nine out of 10 Swedes want to hold onto their krona.
“It’s not a short-term matter for Sweden (but) more of a long-term one,” Baeckstroem said at a meeting with international media.
But if Sweden wants to remain competitive in the long run, industry players insist it must act soon, not only to move towards embracing the euro but also to reform Sweden’s womb-to-tomb welfare state, which is seen weighing heavily on business flexibility.
The problem, many say, is that Fredrik Reinfeldt’s centre-right coalition government has proven hesitant to introduce far-reaching reforms since coming to power in 2006.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Harvard: Jew Haters, Motherhood and Israel
This morning I received an e-mail alert from CAMERA that my alma mater, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is hosting a two-day conference which essentially begins with the proposition that Israel has no right to exist. This isn’t surprising. After all, the Kennedy School is home to my old professor Steve Walt. No one there batted a lash when he co-published his updated version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion with University of Chicago’s John Mearshimer.
Not only did Walt suffer no recrimination from his colleagues at Harvard when he first emerged a professional Jew basher. He suffered no recrimination when he used the controversy surrounding his book into a means of transforming himself into a celebrity Israel basher…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
D.C. Terrorism Case: Suspect Told Others to be Ready for Battle, Authorities Said
WASHINGTON — The Moroccan man accused of plotting to carry out what he thought would be a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol told acquaintances that America’s war on terrorism was a war on Muslims and that they needed to be ready for battle, according to authorities.
Then the 29-year-old unemployed man started preparations of his own and believed he was working with an al-Qaida operative on the plot, according to court documents and an affidavit. A man brought him an automatic weapon. He got a suicide vest, scouted out targets and practiced setting off explosives, the documents say.
On Friday, Amine El Khalifi’s goal to detonate the vest at the Capitol ended with his arrest in an FBI sting, said U.S. authorities who had been monitoring him for nearly a year. Undercover operatives — not an al-Qaida representative as he believed — gave him a gun and explosives that didn’t work, according to an affidavit. He had those items with him when he was taken into custody at a parking garage near the Capitol, a counterterrorism official said.
He was charged in a criminal complaint with knowingly and unlawfully attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against property that is owned and used by the United States. He made a brief appearance Friday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Va., where a judge set a bail hearing for Wednesday.
El Khalifi, who is not believed to be associated with al-Qaida, expressed interest in killing at least 30 people, officials said. Two people briefed on the matter told The Associated Press the FBI has had him under surveillance around the clock for several weeks. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
He came to the U.S. when he was 16 years old and overstayed his visitor visa, which expired in 1999, making him in the country illegally, according to court documents.
Before settling on a suicide bombing plot, he considered targeting an office building in Alexandria, where military officials worked and a restaurant in Washington to target military officials who gathered there. He even purchased nails for the operation, according to the affidavit.
But he settled on the Capitol after canvassing that area a couple of times, the counterterrorism official said. He met with an undercover law enforcement officer, who gave him an automatic weapon that didn’t work. El Khalifi carried the firearm around the room, practiced pulling the trigger and looking at himself in the mirror.
He later asked his associates for more explosives that could be detonated by dialing a cell phone number. In January, he told an undercover agent he wanted to know if an explosion would be large enough to destroy an entire building. The same month, he went with undercover operatives to a quarry in West Virginia to practice detonating explosives, according to court documents.
El Khalifi’s activities drew the suspicions of a former landlord in Arlington, who called police a year and a half ago.
Frank Dynda said when he told El Khalifi to leave, the suspect said he had a right to stay and threatened to beat up Dynda. The former landlord said he thought El Khalifi was making bombs, but police told him to leave the man alone. Dynda had El Khalifi evicted in 2010.
El Khalifi had at least one man staying with him and claimed he was running a luggage business from the apartment, Dynda said, doubting that was true because he never saw any bags.
“I reported to police I think he’s making bombs,” Dynda said. “I was ready to get my shotgun and run him out of the building, but that would have been a lot of trouble.”
Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center imam Johari Abdul-Malik, who along with other Muslim leaders meets regularly with the FBI, said he was contacted by an agency official after El Khalifi’s arrest and was told that Khalifi was not someone he needed to worry about.
He said the official told him that Khalifi was “not a regular at your mosque or any mosque in the area.”
He said he offered to supply the FBI with surveillance video of the mosque in Falls Church, Va., in case it helped with their investigation but was told that was it not necessary.
Police are close to arresting one of El Khalifi’s associates on charges unrelated to the terror conspiracy, the counterterrorism official said. The associate was said to also be a Moroccan, living here illegally. Police are investigating others El Khalifi associated with, but not because they believe the associates were part of a terror conspiracy, the official said.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Shut Down Amish Farm for Selling Fresh Milk
The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether.
The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer’s supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children.
But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer’s Rainbow Acres Farm, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and it was exercising its due authority to stop sales of the milk from one state to another.
Adding to Mr. Allgyer’s troubles, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel said that if the farmer is found to violate the law again, he will have to pay the FDA’s costs for investigating and prosecuting him.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
MSNBC Made a Big Mistake in Firing Pat Buchanan
by Tim Stanley
It’s official: the conservative pundit and politician Pat Buchanan has been sacked from MSNBC. He got in trouble in November of last year for writing a book called Suicide of a Superpower — a vast, angry Jeremiad about the decline of America. A liberal pressure group called Color of Change decided that it was racist and started lobbying MSNBC to sack its best known Right-wing pundit. After a couple of months, the network caved and Buchanan was gone. Last night, he wrote a column giving his side of the story. He says that he’s been “blacklisted”. I think it’s simpler and sadder than that. I’ve been following Pat for three years, writing a biography about him that came out on Tuesday. Tonight, we’re doing a book launch in Washington DC — broadcast live on C-Span’s BookTV. I expect a lot of media and a lot of anger.
So why does Buchanan matter so much? I’d argue that his life is pretty much a biography of modern conservatism. He wrote speeches for Richard Nixon, invented Right-wing TV punditry in the late 1970s with his Crossfire show, became communications director for Ronald Reagan and ran for the presidency three times in the 1990s. His presidential campaigns broke with mainstream conservatism to push a peculiar blend of social conservatism, economic populism and military non-interventionism: think Rick Santorum stapled to Ron Paul. His transformation into a “maverick for the little man” made him unpopular with both the Left and the Right. His voters were demographically close to the modern Tea Party. When he won the New Hampshire primary in 1996, his supporters were the poorest, the most religious and the most likely to have been previously registered a Democrat.
Buchanan was never just a knucklehead conservative. His brand of politics was shot through with wit, in such a way that borders on the satirical. In the 1990s, he said that George HW Bush’s campaign manager was “a geisha girl of the New World Order”. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was “an 85-year-old chain smoking dwarf”. Pat promised that he wouldn’t attack Vice President Dan Quayle because, “I don’t want to be accused of child abuse.” And, when asked if he favoured any kind of gun control, he replied: “It’s important to have a steady aim.”
This combination of experience and entertainment value made Buchanan a natural Right-wing foil on MSNBC. So why has he been sacked now? Part of the answer is that he crossed an invisible line. Suicide of a Superpower conflates — erroneously in my view — culture with demography. The decline of Western civilisation is linked, in Buchanan’s mind, with the “death of the white race”. This moved his politics into the murky area of racial conflict — enough in Britain to probably get him not only sacked but permanently barred from the airwaves.
But Buchanan has been saying this sort of thing for over a decade, so why does it only bother MSNBC now? The answer is that US television is moving in a new, worrying direction. As viewers abandon the networks in droves, they are realigning themselves away from balanced news-making and towards becoming propaganda arms for either Left or Right. Fox pioneered this strategy with his “fair and balanced” style that translated into a primetime lineup of witch-finders, tax-cutters and bomb-throwers. MSNBC spotted an opportunity. With no space for liberals given by its biggest rival, the network moved to monopolise the liberal viewership. Its primetime lineup is now dominated by socialists, hippies and an insane shouting man who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Ed Murrow (message to Keith Olbermann: you’re not).
MSNBC dropped Pat Buchanan to preserve the purity of its brand. That’s its prerogative and it can hire and fire whoever it likes. But the move is only going to increase the vapid partisanship of American news broadcasting. All of which leaves Pat out on his ear. One of the hardest things about writing about Mr Buchanan is maintaining balance. The approach I’ve always taken is to simply report the facts and let him speak for himself. The result is that people read my biography of him the way they want to: some have called it a “hagiography”, others a “hit job”. A brief flick through my blog posts will make it obvious what I do and don’t agree with Pat over. But I won’t deny that time spent in his company had made me develop a certain affection for the old man. His treatment by MSNBC was shabby and he deserved better. It’s also a black day for open debate and free speech. MSNBC will live to regret it.
[Reader comment by danoconnor on 18 February 2012 at 08:16 am.]
“A liberal pressure group called Color of Change , decided it was racist and started lobbying MSNBC”
It no longer comes as any suprise , that ColorofChange — according to its own web-site , is a racist based organisation.
“ColorOfChange.org exists to strengthen Black American’s political voice . Our goal is to empower our members “
Just imagine how the MSM would react to this — — “ColourOfChange.org exists to strengthen White America’s political voice, Our goal is to empower our members”. White people still don’t get it. When will they ever learn. It is not racist to form organisations and lobby groups that specifically advocate for Black racial interests, Mexican racial interests, Jewish racial interests, Asian racial interests, Gay interests, Feminist interests, but you White folks just won’t learn your lesson and get back in the little box we stuffed you back in and back on the reservation where you belong. Any, I mean any organisation that even thinks of including the word “White” or “European” in it, is just another step on the way down that slippery slope to another Holocaust. When will you Whites learn that you are the “Forbidden Identity”. You are the only race that doesn’t exist. You and all your future off-spring for the rest of eternity, have been served up a collective indictment for — “ crimes against humanity “ — by a bunch of dope smoking, half-educated, pseudo-intellectual, permanent 16 year old college hippies .
BOO ! Racist ! Scared ya huh ?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pay Cash for Your Coffee? You Might be a Terrorist
Do you pay for your coffee each day with cash? Express an interest in remote-controlled airplanes? According to fliers created by the FBI and Bureau of Justice Assistance for distribution to a variety of businesses, this could be considered indications of terrorist tendencies, the Huffington Post reports.
The 25 fliers part of the campaign “Communities Against Terrorism” are targeted toward “threat areas,” which include airport service providers, beauty/drug suppliers, construction sites, hobby shops, Internet cafes, martial arts, rental cars and tattoo parlors, among others. Each target area comes with a downloadable flier profiling activity employees could look for to detect potential terrorists. …
Read more at:
| [Return to headlines] |
Report: Obama Administration is Giving Away 7 Strategic Islands to Russia
Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.
The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Sean Penn Should Return His Malibu Estate to the Mexicans
by Tim Stanley
I’d like to make a statement about the growing crisis in the Americas. It’s time for justice. It’s time for liberty. It’s time to end the ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology. It’s time Sean Penn handed his Malibu estate back to the Mexicans.
Sean Penn pretends to be a friend of the developing world, but really he is not. To be fair, his recent call for the Falkland Islands to be returned to Argentina was an admirable strike against capitalist imperialism. Moreover, I and the entire North Korean press corps cheered him on when he flew to Iraq to parley with Saddam Hussein, or when he spoke about Hugo Chavez in such glowing terms. But there have always been hints that his sympathy isn’t really with the workers at all. Aside from that time that he spent 32 days in prison for hitting an extra, his net worth of an estimated $150 million is a bit of a giveaway. His continued occupation of Malibu is an unacceptable mockery of national self-determination. The Mexicans owned that stretch of real estate well into the early 19th century and it was stolen by the Americans in a naked act of imperialist aggression. America’s claim over Malibu is tenuous and rooted in patriarchy. Sean Penn’s house is a mocking reminder of that brute chauvinism, with its high white walls and spacious interiors. Its swimming pool is an insult to the honour of the Mexican people.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Teacher Suing for the Right to Use the ‘N Word’ In Class
A white teacher is suing for the right to utter a racial epithet during discussion with his students about the perils of offensive vocabulary, after he was suspended for using ‘verbally abusive language’.
In a lawsuit fled against Chicago’s board of education, Lincoln Brown claims that his use of the word “n***er” during a conversation with students was a constitutionally-protected attempt to teach his class “an important lesson in vocabulary, civility and race relations”.
The incident arose after his sixth-grade pupils — aged between 11 and 12 — were left “unsettled and arguing” over a note that one of them had passed around class, containing lyrics to a rap song that included the racially offensive term.
Mr Brown consequently started with them “a discussion about how upsetting such language can be, attempted to give his own denunciation of the use of such language and discussed how even such books as Huckleberry Finn were being criticised for the use of the N-word,” the lawsuit states.
Mr Brown, 48, who teaches writing and social studies, said that he was simply exercising his responsibility to educate children against racism.
“I asked them what would they feel if I used that word? I used the full word but I didn’t address it to the students. I was very careful about that,” he explained. Mr Brown has taught in predominantly African-American schools for more than 25 years.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Think Again: Islamophobia as an Offensive Weapon
by Jonathan Rosenblum
Concern for Muslim sensitivities prevents government officials from acknowledging the obvious.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for the dismissal of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the appointment of an outside inspector-general to run the police force. CAIR and other so-called “mainstream” Muslim groups have a long-standing grievance with Kelly and the NYPD arising from a 2007 NYPD Intelligence Report entitled “Radicalization in the West: the Homegrown Threat” and the NYPD’s ongoing surveillance of radical Islamic organizations, including mosques. But the immediate club being used to hammer Kelly is his participation in a documentary entitled The Third Jihad. The New York Times has devoted numerous news stories and two editorials to The Third Jihad, which is described as “anti-Islam” and “a dark film on US Muslims” whose producers seek to advance a pro- Israel agenda.
The Times coverage failed to mention the long roster of authorities interviewed for the film, including the director of the CIA under president Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, the first secretary of Homeland Security, Gov. Tom Ridge, and a host of former US government intelligence officials. The title The Third Jihad was provided by the most eminent living historian of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis. I wrote a long feature article on The Third Jihad when it first appeared two years ago, and interviewed producer Raphael Shore and narrator Dr. Zuhdi Jasser at length. So I have taken more than a passing in interest in the controversy.
Far from being an attack on Islam, the opening lines of the film state clearly: “This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are radical.” Jasser, a devout Muslim of Syrian descent and a former US Navy lieutenant commander, is the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He distinguishes between Islam as a private faith and Islam as a political doctrine mandating the worldwide imposition of Shari’a law. So far, Kelly and his boss, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have tried to get past the immediate controversy through now familiar public penance rituals expressing regrets.
It has been left to others, most notably Woolsey and Ridge, to make the substantive case for the NYPD’s anti-terrorist policies. In an op-ed in The New York Daily News (and rejected by the Times), the two argue that the NYPD’s undercover terror prevention program, including intelligence-gathering within the Muslim community, has been one of the prime tools allowing the NYPD to foil several credible threats that have arisen from within the community. And given that even one successful terror attack in New York City could claims tens of thousands of lives, the NYPD cannot afford to decrease its intelligence-gathering activities. THE TIMES omitted any discussion of the thesis of The Third Jihad. Jasser holds up a 15-page document at the beginning of the film, which we eventually learn is a Muslim Brotherhood manifesto for “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” through use of front groups, mosques and Islamic centers. The document was uncovered by the FBI in the course of its investigation leading up to the government’s successful prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation terrorist funding case. Terrorism, intones Jasser, is only one tactic toward the Islamists’ goal of imposing Shari’a across the globe — a goal shared by many groups who are not themselves involved in terrorist activity. CAIR, which is specifically mentioned in the document, is one such group. CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, and the FBI broke off all relations with the group at the time.
Abdul Rahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, who was invited to speak at an ecumenical service in the National Cathedral after 9/11, is another so-called “moderate” Muslim. He is shown in The Third Jihad boasting, “Either we do it now or we do it in a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country.” The current controversy could itself be a chapter in The Third Jihad, which discusses the manner in which Islamist front groups constantly raise the specter of Islamophobia to suppress discussion of radical Islam. And it works. Paul Berman writes in The Flight of the Individuals about how Western intellectuals have been induced to remain silent on such awkward matters as the historical link between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazis, and the Nazi inspiration for present-day Islamists.
Concern for Muslim sensitivities prevents government officials from acknowledging the obvious. After uncovering a plot to blow up the Canadian parliament and behead the prime minister, a police spokesman described the plotters as being drawn from a wide cross-section of society, while neglecting to mention that all were Muslim. Similarly, those plotting to blow up 10 commercial aircraft over the Atlantic were described only as British nationals of southeastern Asian descent. Political correctness skews analysis. Dr. Walid Phares, formerly of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, laments in The Third Jihad that policymakers treat every issue as discrete and independent while failing to connect the dots. President Obama’s anti-terrorism advisor John Brennan, for instance, rejects any discussion of worldwide jihad. He speaks only of the battle against al-Qaida and its affiliates, while failing to recognize that al-Qaida is but one of many Muslim Brotherhood offshoots that share a command ideology, not a single command structure.
The 2010 National Security document pointedly omits any reference to radical Islam and speaks instead only of “violent extremists.” The 80-page government report on the Fort Hood massacre laughably made no mention of the religious beliefs of Dr. Nidal Malik Hassan, who murdered 13 while shouting “Allahu Akhbar.” It concluded that “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor.” In congressional testimony, Attorney-General Eric Holder repeatedly refused to acknowledge any connection between the Islamic religious beliefs of the Fort Hood assassin, the Times Square Bomber, and the Christmas airplane bomber. THE THIRD JIHAD details numerous ways in which America is being softened up for Islamic advance. In his interview, Kelly states that 18% of the prisoners in the New York State prison system convert to Islam while in prison. Prison chaplains receive little screening. One Muslim former chaplain is filmed telling prisoners, “Brothers, be prepared to die, be prepared to kill. [T]his is history, this is the Koran, nobody can deny it… Read it in… the Koran… When you fight, you strike terror into the heart of the disbeliever.” At least 30 compounds associated with Jamaat ul Fuqra, a radical Pakistani organization, mostly populated by converts to Islam while in prison, dot the American landscape. In a video obviously not made for public consumption, we watch practice in ambush tactics and bomb-making in one such compound.
Perhaps most chilling is the penetration of the American educational system from the top down. The Saudis have provided $20 million apiece to Georgetown University and Harvard. Many of the Saudi gifts to prestigious universities are styled as promoting Islamic-Christian understanding, which is ironic given that churches are banned in Saudi Arabia and even the possession of a Christian Bible is forbidden.
Saudi money funds many American mosques. According to a 2005 report of the Center for Religious Freedom, “Wahhabism [an extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism and the official religion of Saudi Arabia] is dominant in many American mosques.” Much of the official Saudi-supplied literature could be considered hate speech. A Saudi-sponsored Islamic academy in Virginia, for instance, used textbooks that promote violence against Christians, Shi’ite Muslims, and Jews.
Even more frightening is what is happening in American schools. Daniel Pipes told me three years ago, “Among [the Islamists’ techniques] is manipulation of textbooks at both the high school and college level. They play on the politically correct impulse to say nothing negative about non-Western cultures to achieve an air-brushed picture of Islam.” Last October, Tony Pagliuso, a parent in upscale Newton, Massachusetts, complained that the following statement in a text called The Arab World Notebook was pure propaganda: “Over the past four decades, women have been active in the Palestinian resistance movement. Several hundred have been imprisoned, tortured and killed by Israeli occupation forces since the latest uprising, ‘intifada,’ in the Israeli occupied territories.”
The school principal replied to Pagliuso’s complaint, “Next year we are planning to teach material that will be even more inflammatory to your sensibilities.” And the classroom teacher noted proudly that the Notebook had been supplied by the Outreach Workshop of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard. The Outreach Center, which is recognized as a National Resource Center by the US Department of Education, trains high school teachers on Middle East issues and provides free materials. Both the center and the outreach program are heavily funded by the Saudis. The outreach program is headed by Paul Beran, a prominent supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Among other whoppers in the Notebook was this one: “There is no basis in Islam for the subjugation of women or their relegation to a secondary role.” Textbooks dealing with Islam regularly cite Islamic doctrine as if it were factual, omitting such qualifiers as “Muslims believe.” Schools bend over backwards to show Islam in a favorable light, often spending two weeks of a world religions unit on Islam and a day each on Christianity and Judaism. Fortunately, we do not have to follow The New York Times‘s politically correct evasion of the issues raised by The Third Jihad. The documentary can be accessed for free at www.thethirdjihad.com.
The writer is director of Jewish Media Resources, has written a regular column in The Jerusalem Post Magazine since 1997, and is the author of eight biographies of modern Jewish leaders.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Who the Hell Do These People Think They Are?
I can hear you saying that this is only about some tiny little islands and that they are closer to Russia than the US — why should we care? These islands are not tiny. And the true issue here is that they have a wealth of oil and resources on and around them. That’s the big deal. Plus, they’re ours — not Russia’s.
Why now, when this treaty has languished for 22 years? Well… Why not? It accomplishes a number of things for Obama. It takes a slap at the conservative state of Alaska and attempts to put her high-profile residents such as Sarah Palin and Joe Miller in their collective places. It caves to one of our biggest enemies, Russia, and weakens the US even more in their eyes. It gives precious energy resources away for nothing, thereby ensuring that energy prices will skyrocket even more in the US when that energy is needed. And who knows what other nefarious goals the deed accomplishes. Progressives are always figuring an angle and it never benefits US citizens — just the elite and powerful.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Endures ‘Unorthodox’ Custody Battle After Leaving Strict Community
Pearlperry Reich, 30, a stunning mother of four, said she’s done with the Hasidic community after it fought tooth-and-nail against her repeated attempts to end her rocky marriage — despite her claims of emotional and physical abuse.
“It was an arranged marriage,” she said of her betrothal at the tender age of 18. “We got married and right away we had issues.”
Now, after 12 years of “war zone” living, she wants custody of her kids, is trying to launch a career in acting and modeling, and no longer plans to follow the Hasidic teachings she was raised with in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Her husband, Sinai Susholz, wants his children to remain within the faith.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Young Muslim Woman Breaks Ground in Fencing, Olympics
Ibtihaj Muhammad
Age: 25
Place of Residence: Maplewood, N.J.
Why she is a local hero: Muhammad, a fencer and a Muslim, could become the first American woman to compete in the Olympics with a hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women. Muhammad is the first to admit how badly she wants to make it to the Olympics in London later this year, and as one of the top-ranked female sabre fencers in the world, she has an excellent chance of making the team. Though no official records have been kept, U.S. officials believe Muhammad would be the first American woman to compete in the hijab.
[…]
[JP note: The 2012 London Olympics are for multiculturalism, what Hitler’s 1936 Berlin jamboree, Games of the XI Olympiad, were for Aryanism with probably equally disastrous consequences.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
British Freedom Party Leader to Speak at Jewish Defense League Meeting in Toronto
Security will be tight on Monday as a controversial leader of a far-right British Freedom Party (BFP) talks to supporters in Toronto about his tough stand against immigration and spread of radical Islam. Toronto Police officers will be on hand as Paul Weston is expected to draw a large crowd at the Toronto Zionist Centre, on Marlee Ave. The BFP was formed in Oct. 2010 and features a 20-point platform with a priority to “stop immigration to Britain from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.” Other points of the platform include abolition of the human rights of foreign criminals and terrorists; deport dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants and stop or turn back all aspects of the Islamisation of Britain. “We have witnessed the spread of fundamentalist Islam across Europe and are witnessing the same trend in North America,” Weston stated in party literature.
Meir Weinstein, of the Jewish Defense League, an organizer of the event, said security will be high when Weston takes to the stage to bash immigration and Muslims. “We are very excited to have him (Weston) here,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “His party wants more stringent rules for people coming from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.” He said police have been notified of the event and private security will be on hand to prevent possible disruptions by protestors. “There has been some chatter on the Internet about protests,” Weinstein said. “We are not taking any chances.” He said Weston is following in the footsteps of powerful anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, of the Freedom Party of the Netherlands, who holds similar views. “There has to be a change to our immigration policy,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “One of our goals is to stop the spread of Muslim fundamentalism.”
Officials of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said Weston has no criminal convictions to bar him from entering the country.
Toronto Sun, 17 February 2012
Last year the JDL organised a meeting in solidarity with the English Defence League which was addressed by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) by video link.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Foreign Cash Funding Radical Mosque
TORONTO — A mosque known for radical views on Islam has received extensive foreign investment from the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia and other unknown donors. Documents show the Jeddah-based bank has fronted the mosque $650,000 since 1999.
But it’s controversial imam Aly Hindy’s recent comments before his congregation — that homosexuality was “invented” and is “garbage” — that has the phone at Salaheddin Islamic Centre ringing off the hook. But the Muslim cleric, who is known for contentious vernacular, was not around Friday morning to pick it up. “For sure, there have been a lot of calls,” a man at the east-end mosque said, though he declined to identify himself. “Lots of people have called.” But, he said, Hindy has no plans to deal with any of the queries today. “He is out of town,” he said, adding he wasn’t sure where other than it is somewhere in Canada.
Meanwhile, the latest comments by Hindy, an engineer who came to Canada in 1975 and once worked for Ontario Hydro, have stirred the pot. “He’s always saying something,” said one mosque member who also chose to remain anonymous. He added that Hindy’s criticisms of homosexuality and Canada’s laws pertaining to sexuality are his alone and don’t reflect the attitude of the mosque. “We don’t have to answer to it. He does.” Same goes, the member said, for reports that the mosque received hundreds of thousands of dollars from unnamed foreign donors.
Hindy has been under fire before for his expressed support of known terrorists in this country, for his refusal to sign condemnation letters against terror attacks and for suggesting 9/11 was a conspiracy assisted by the CIA. So far, the Government of Canada has not commented on the out-of-country investment. Immigration and Public Safety officials have been deporting known war criminals in Canada illegally and have cited concerns about young Muslim students being recruited at high schools into the world of radical Islam. Hindy’s mosque has been described in an RCMP report as “a focal point for Toronto-area Islamic radicals” and a place where many polygamist marriages have been performed. Hindy in the past has accused CSIS of bullying young Muslim people and told the youth they have “no legal obligation” to talk to authorities. However, it’s Hindy’s latest comments that have people upset Friday. When will Hindy answer to the comments about homosexuality and explain who exactly from out of country is financially supporting his mosque? Said the man answering his phone: “Try next week.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Angry Over Funeral Delay
The body of a Winnipeg trucker who died in a crash Jan. 11 remains in a Kenora, Ont., funeral home while his widow in Vietnam tries to get into Canada. “She applied to the Canadian Consulate for a visitor’s visa in order to come to Canada to see her husband for the last time,” said the woman’s lawyer, Victor Libitka. Meanwhile, the body of Amir Mohammadi has been denied religious burial rites and desecrated, say Muslim friends in Winnipeg. They were shocked to learn the Kurdish Canadian was killed in a highway accident east of Kenora last month. They were shocked again when they set about planning his burial and discovered his body was claimed by a woman he wed in Vietnam last year. They couldn’t give him religious burial rites — promptly cleaning and wrapping the corpse in a shroud then burying it facing Mecca. His remains were kept in a funeral home for 33 days then embalmed as his wife applied to get into Canada.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
T.O. Mosque Gets Thousands From Foreign Donors
Imam known for radical views
TORONTO — Imam Aly Hindy did not come out from his east-end mosque Friday to talk about foreign donations or to defend his bizarre comments that homosexuality is “invented” and “garbage.” Media coverage revealed his mosque has received extensive foreign investment from the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia and other unknown donors. Documents show the Jeddah-based bank has fronted the mosque $650,000 since 1999. But Hindy, an engineer who came to Canada in 1975 and once worked for Ontario Hydro, chose to remain silent Friday and leave the talking to some of his loyal parishioners. Like Tahmina Chowdhury. She says the cleric at Salaheddin Islamic Centre was merely expressing what is also her own understanding of Islam and the Koran. “I know people who chose to do it (form homosexual relationships) for fun,” she said. Coming from Friday prayer sessions, she said she has been taught if someone is homosexual it’s best to keep it to themselves. “In Islam it’s about a man and a woman being able to procreate,” she said.
Hindy is also reported to have performed dozens of illegal polygamist marriages in Canada, a concept Bangladeshi-born Chowdhury and her new husband say they have discussed themselves. “I originally told him that it would be OK if he took a second wife, but now I think I would be too jealous,” she said, adding however perhaps in time “I think it would be OK for him to do that.” As for hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations and direct funding coming from offshore patrons, she said, “I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Libyan immigrant Tarek Ayoubi said he did not know of any of the controversies but vouched for Hindy and the teachings at the mosque, where he regularly brings his young sons Saman and Mohammad. “It’s very good,” he said of the Kennedy Rd. mosque and cultural centre. “This is a place where they get a foundation in Islam.”
While the mosque was teeming with people Friday — most friendly and happily coming and going from worship — Hindy was conspicuously absent. Unnamed attendants said he was “out of town.” Egypt-born Hindy’s contentious comments in the past have sparked plenty of passionate debate. He has previously been under fire for his friendship with the Khadr family, calling some of the alleged Toronto 18 “good people,” refusal to sign condemnation letters against terror attacks, and for suggesting 9/11 was a conspiracy assisted by the CIA. His mosque has been described in a previous RCMP report as “a focal point for Toronto-area Islamic radicals.” But the question for Canadian authorities comes down to two main areas: Is what is being taught falling within Canadian laws, and what countries is the foreign financing coming from?
So far, the Government of Canada has not commented on the out-of-country investment. Money coming from outside Canada being used for political purpose could violate tax laws, Muslim Canadian Congress founder Tarek Fatah said. The concern has not been tested against the Salaheddin Islamic Centre. But Fatah said more transparency of what is going on inside the mosque and in its funding is vital.
“There are a number of people with this mosque who are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the government here should be concerned about fronts for foreign politics being used inside mosques,” Fatah said. He said there is a “$20-billion fund in Qatar” used to spread fundamentalist Islam around the world and “I can guarantee you they can afford to buy any academic they want.” Fatah called it a “full-fledged racket” that should be investigated and discontinued. “If money is coming in from Qatar for scholarships or travel trips for young people, a mosque involved in such a thing its charitable status should be taken away because our taxpayers should not be funding anti-Canadian hate,” he said. Calls to Hindy, as well as to gay rights advocates, were not returned Friday.
[JP note: Like Berlin’s Schererstraße Leftists, Toronto’s gay rights advocates are probably waiting for instructions on what to do.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
10 East Europe Countries Slam Dutch Xenophobic Website
(AGI) The Hague — Ten Eastern European countries have officially voiced their dissent at Geert Wilders’s “xenophobic” website. In an official letter sent to the Dutch Parliament and signed also by the ambassadors of Bulgaria, Hunagry, Poland and Romania, the ten nations expressed “concern” and called for a “common response” to the proposal made by Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV party to create a website where all European citizens can express their discontent at immigrant workers from eastern Europe. Wilders’s proposal had not been criticized by Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, who defined it a “political” initiative. European institutions, however, were critical of the proposal. The EU Commission called the initiative completely contrary to the principles of liberty and free movement of people across Europe.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hitler Had Son With French Teen
Adolf Hitler had a son with a French teenager while serving as a soldier during the First World War, according to new evidence.
Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War. His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris’s Le Point magazine. Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret’s mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917.
Loret’s own children might now be in a position to claim royalties from Mien Kampf (‘My Struggle’), Hitler’s famous book which has sold millions of copies around the world.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Pecorino’ Mistranslated as ‘Doggy Style’ In Tender Notice
(AGI) Rome — In a tender notice issued by the University of Florence the word ‘pecorino’ was mistranslated as ‘doggy style’. The Education Ministry laughed off the mistake in a post on its official website and thanked Internet users for always being careful readers and attentive observers. A passage from the post, jokingly entitled ‘The slips of an ‘infallible’ Ministry’, reads: “Dear friends of the Web, we have recently entertained you with some unintentionally comical mistakes”.
The word ‘pecorino’ actually refers to a kind of cheese made from sheep milk.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ENI Profits Up 9% in 2011
‘Great success’ says Scaroni
(ANSA) — Rome, February 15 — Italian fuels giant Eni closed 2011 with net profit up 9% to 6.89 billion euros, the group said Wednesday.
Eni posted a net profit of 1.32 billion euros in the last quarter of 2011, up 141%.
“2011 was a year of great success in exploration but with a difficult situation in Italy and Europe,” said CEO Paolo Scaroni.
Eni shares moved little in early trading.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Naples Police Make Massive Tax-Evasion Sweep
Over 80% of businesses delinquent
(ANSA) — Naples, February 15 — A wide-scale police raid in Naples Wednesday found four out of five businesses investigated were dodging taxes. The sweep zeroed in on 386 shops, pizzerias and other companies, 317 of which had not properly declared revenue, while others were cited for safety hazards and employing workers without papers. Of the 50 street vendors who were checked, only 10 had declared any sales at all, and two owners of luxury cars — a Porsche and an Audi — said they had no income. With cash needed to balance the budget by 2013 and emerge from the debt crisis, Premier Mario Monti has launched a drive against tax cheats, who he recently said “are giving poisoned bread to their children”.
The campaign has featured a number of headline-grabbing operations among rich tourists in Cortina d’Ampezzo and the Ligurian Riviera, shoppers at exclusive stores in Rome and nightclub owners in Milan.
Italy’s internal revenue agency has said that it will ramp up the pressure further by introducing a new system to find evaders by cross-checking incomes and spending by the end of June.
The tax agency last year estimated that around 120 billion euros’ worth of undeclared business was done on the Italian underground economy each year.
Over the last two days in Naples, roughly 250 officers have spanned out through the city to crack down on counterfeit merchandise, unsafe products and contraband cigarettes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Little Progress Seen in Italy, 20 Years After Clean Hands
Former graftbuster Di Pietro says corruption worse now
(ANSA) — Rome, February 17 — Most commentators said on Friday that Italy has made little progress in cleaning up its public life on the 20th anniversary of the first arrest of the ‘Clean Hands’ corruption probes.
Some said the situation had actually gotten worse.
The ingrained graft uncovered by the Clean Hands probes caused a storm that swept away the political establishment which had ruled Italy for most of the post-war period, causing the demise of the once-dominant Christian Democracy party.
Clean Hands still sharply divides public opinion.
Some considering it a worthy crusade while others claim it was a witch-hunt perpetrated by left-wing magistrates who only targeted parties on the other side of the political spectrum.
But there seems to be a consensus that the country has failed to fix the weaknesses of its political system or slash corruption since the scandal erupted.
“The situation has got worse,” said Antonio Di Pietro, the former Clean Hands magistrate who is now head of the Italy of Values anti-graft party.
“We had a country that was ill with a serious tumour 20 years ago. Now we have a metastasis”. Stefania Craxi, the daughter of former premier and Socialist party leader Bettino Craxi who died a fugitive of justice in Tunisia in 2000 after being implicated in the corruption, said Cleans Hands harmed the country.
“The effect of Clean Hands was that we experienced a civil war instead of the normal alternation of reformist and conservative political parties,” said Craxi, an MP who was a member of former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party until December. Remarks by the head of Italy’s audit court on Thursday supported the arguments of those who say there has been little or no improvement.
“Lawlessness, corruption and malfeasance are phenomena that are still largely present in the country,” said Audit Court President Luigi Giampaolino in a speech inaugurating the judicial year. “Their dimensions far exceed what is often brought to light with great difficulty”. photo: Italy of Values leader Antonio Di Pietro when he was a magistrate working on the Clean Hands probes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ferrari Posts Record Sales in 2011
Revenue up 17% to 2.3 billion euros
(ANSA) — Rome, February 17 — Ferrari posted record sales for 2011, with revenues of 2.3 billion euros, the luxury automaker announced Friday. “We couldn’t be more satisfied,” said Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo. “Despite the economic difficulties in Europe, it’s thanks to strong investments and a culture of 360-degree innovation”. Total revenue was up 17% from sales of 7,195 sports cars worldwide. Ferrari has expanded sales to 58 countries spanning from Asia to Latin America, which has made up for slumping revenue in traditional markets such as Europe and North America amid the economic crisis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norweigan Mass Killer Anders Breivik Says he is Sane
THE man who has admitted to killing 77 people in bombing and shooting attacks in Norway last year has instructed his defence to argue that he was accountable for his actions at his trial, his defence team says.
Anders Behring Breivik is “convinced that he is sane and is adamant that he does not agree with the assessments in the first (psychiatric) report”, lawyer Geir Lippestad told Oslo newspaper Dagbladet yesterday.
“We have to act according to his instructions,” Lippestad said.
In November, two court-appointed psychiatrists concluded that Breivik was legally insane and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
They were later backed by a panel of psychiatrists and psychologists from the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine. But other experts have questioned the diagnosis, sparking a national debate.
Earlier this week Norway’s supreme court upheld a ruling that Breivik should undergo a new psychiatric assessment. Oslo district court judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen on January 13 said a second opinion on Breivik’s mental health was needed.
The new assessment was to be completed before the trial started on April 16.
Breivik was prepared to co-operate with the new experts, another of his lawyers said.
He has requested that, before meeting him, they should read transcripts of the police interviews and the 1500-page tract he posted on the internet before the attacks.
This would ensure that they have “the necessary background”, lawyer Tord Jordet said.
“He wants to prove he is sane and wants a thorough assessment,” Jordet said, adding that Breivik wanted the new sessions to be taped.
Breivik has said his actions were designed to punish the government for its pro-immigration policies.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
One in 4 Children Born Outside of Marriage in Italy
(AGI) Rome — In 2010, 562,000 children were born in Italy and of these 25.4% were born outside of marriage, double the number of 10 years ago. This is one of the statistics contained in the second report on social cohesion from INPS, ISTAT and the Labour and Social Policy Ministry. Of every births recorded in 2009, 18 have at least one foreign parent and of these 14 have two foreign parents. The number of children per woman is 1.41, with 2.23 for foreign women and 1.31 for Italian women.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Being Raped by a Gang is Normal — it’s About Craving to be Accepted’
Former gang member reveals how women suffer shocking sexual abuse in return for ‘status’
A female former gang member has exposed the growing levels of sexual violence against young women who join them, saying that many are willing to risk being raped in return for the status of membership.
Isha Nembhard, who was part of an 80-strong gang in Peckham, south London, said some girls readily accepted that they would be sexually abused when associating with male gangs.
The 20-year-old said that the problem had reached a point where being raped was becoming “normalised” among many young women. “Girls who are getting treated very badly know what they are getting into. They sleep with a boy and the boy asks if she will sleep with all his friends.
“It’s about low self-esteem and a craving for attention. Even if they know it’s wrong, they will do anything to get acceptance,” she said.
“A lot of girls are sort of prostituting themselves to have sexual relationships within a gang and get treated in a bad way. For example, she might know about what happens to girls in the gang but still sleeps with all of them just for the status.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Braintree: Concerns Over Mosque Relocation Proposal
Major housing proposals and plans to move a mosque have left Muslims feeling anxious for the future. Braintree Council’s development aspirations for the town include dozens of new homes in the South Street area, as well as the relocation of the district’s only mosque.
At a recent council meeting, there was talk of regenerating the council-owned area of Silks Way and has also moving the mosque.
Secretary of the Al-Falah Braintree Islamic Centre Sikander Sleemy said: “We’re quite anxious with regards to what will happen. “We’re happy for any area to be regenerated to boost the local economy, as long as the council doesn’t forget we’re an integral part of the community.” Chairman Abdul Gafoor added: “This is the only place we have in the area. The next nearest mosque is Chelmsford.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Traveller Jailed for Claiming £100k in Benefits While She Had £180k Savings (That She Said She Was Keeping for Her Children as Part of ‘A Gypsy Tradition’)
A mother-of-six who was jailed yesterday for claiming more than £96,000 ($151,680) in benefits while she had an ‘eye-watering’ £173,000 ($273,340) in the bank was following a traveller tradition, a court heard.
Helen Ryan, 40, from Cardiff, Wales, pleaded guilty to the fraud at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday and was jailed for 24 weeks.
Over a 10-year period, the out-of-work traveller had claimed around £88,000 in income support and £8,000 in council tax benefits.
But when the Department For Work and Pensions (DWP) looked into her accounts in 2009 they found £173,000 of savings.
Defending barrister Peter Davies said: ‘In the travelling community value is put in saving money for the children. This is a simple case of a parent putting money aside for when the children are older.’
The court heard that Ryan had told officials she was ‘minding’ a large proportion of the cash for her brother, who had supposedly struck it rich following a series of gambling sessions.
It had been claimed his biggest win was an £11,000 windfall from a flutter at Chepstow Races.
But during a police interview, the court heard her brother James Ryan could not remember the name of the horse or what race it took part in.
Mr Ryan’s account was initially subject to a money laundering investigation, but he was never charged and police decided not to take the matter any further.
Judge David Wynn Morgan said he was not concerned where the money had come from — or who it was claimed to have belonged to.
He told the defendant: ‘These offences you have pleaded guilty to, only a custodial sentence can be applied.
‘Over a 10-year period, £96,479 was dishonestly obtained from the taxpayer.
‘From time to time you tried to disguise the existence of this money [the savings].
‘Whether it is lawful or not does not matter.
‘And irrespective of whether you were holding that money for someone else, it should have been declared.’
Prosecuting barrister Carl Harrison said the defendant had been claiming income support since 1990, but the period of her offending was limited between 2001 and 2010.
Mr Harrison detailed how Ryan had two bank accounts — one with the Post Office and another with the Principality.
The Post Office account was said to be for normal day-to-day usage, while The Principality account was for savings — and had large sums of money deposited in it.
Following an investigation, it was later found Ryan had used her parents’ address in order to open the Principality account.
Mr Harrison argued this had been done in order to try and hide her tracks.
It was also discovered Ryan was the signatory on her children’s accounts — which the most had around £10,000 in — though she had denied their existence to DWP officials.
But Mr Davies said the money in the children’s accounts was ‘consistent’ with someone who had saved over a long period of time.
Mr Davies also said while his client was from a traveller background, she was now living at a fixed address.
And more important, he added, was that Ryan had pleaded guilty to the offences and the money she had wrongly claimed had now been paid back in full.
‘It’s not a case of ‘I can buy my way out of trouble’,’ he said.
‘It is a readiness to give back what was owed.
‘It would perhaps be fair to describe these amounts as eye-watering, but there were relatively few withdrawals made and my client or her family have not lived a lavish lifestyle.
‘She seems to be living a very simple and ordinary life.’
Mr Davies also argued that the offence was not as serious as someone who had claimed dole money while being in employment — but said his client accepted she should have declared her savings and was also wrong to make false representations.
Judge Morgan said she will serve half of her 24-week sentence in prison, with the remainder spent on licence.
DWP Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud said: ‘Benefit thieves are costing the taxpayer almost £1 billion per year.
‘This money is intended to help those most in need, not line the pockets of criminals.
‘We will continue to tackle this problem at the front-line, but also at the root by reforming the benefits system to make it less open to abuse.’
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Albania: Gender Imbalance Due to Sex Selection
The Council of Europe has revealed that sex-selective abortion is widely practiced in Albania and the result is a growing gulf between the numbers of boys and the number of girls. Recent statistics show that for every 100 Albanian girls 112 boys are born. In natural demographic growth, the number of girls usually slightly exceeds the number of boys.
The Council of Europe warns that sex-selection, once associated mainly with Asian countries, has become popular in Europe, particularly in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
“Traditionally Albanian families have favoured boys over girls for two main reasons: the inheritance of the family name and the prospect of boys growing up to become breadwinners,” a 2005 report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said.
Abortion in Albania was legalized in 1995 after the fall of the communist government. It is now available on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Parliament Commission Overturns Coptic Eviction Decree
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — A public meeting was held on February 16 in Alexandria, after the fact-finding commission delegated by parliament went to investigate the facts surrounding the decision made on February 1 by a village tribunal, composed of villagers and parliamentary members, mostly from Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood parties, to forcibly evict eight Coptic families from Sharbat village (Ameriya), in Alexandria, and seize their property, based on allegations of a video clip of an illicit relationship between a Coptic man and a Muslim woman (AINA 2-9-2012).
The fact-finding commission, made up of two Copts, two Liberals and the Salafi members of parliament, Shaikh Sherif Hawary, who was responsible for the tribunal of February 1, met with representatives of the evicted Coptic families, the tribunal’s members and two priests.
The commission issued a statement at the public meeting, which was attended by village residents, that all Coptic families are to return to their homes, and nullified the rulings of the tribunal of February 1.
The commission asked for the safe return of the Abaskhayron Suleiman families to their homes, stressing their legal rights and the rule of law, which does not conflict with Sharia. The committee said the Suleimans have the right to reside in their own village. The Suleimans were not involved in any way with the alleged video clip, but were still evicted.
The commission deferred a decision on the return of the three families of the Coptic man Mourad Girguis, accused of having the video clip in question, and the Muslims who burned down the homes of Christians, leaving these matters for the judiciary to decide.
Attorney Marian Malak, a member of the commission, said the purpose of the meeting was to set a date for the return of the Christian families back to the village, through a consensus among the people of Ameriya, but the issue of compensation to affected Copts have not yet been resolved.
Sherif Hawary, member of Parliament for Ameriya, said there was a split among the members of the commission about the term “eviction,” pointing out that members of the tribunal described the departure of some Christian families to be for security reasons and fear for their own lives, while a number of other members insisted on describing what happened as eviction. Hawary prevailed and the committee statement said the Christians left the village for security reasons.
After the reading of the statement, heated arguments broke out between some members of the delegation of the Maspero Coptic Youth Union and the parliamentary commission regarding the failure of the police to arrest the perpetrators and instigators of the torching and looting of Coptic homes during the violence on January 27th and 30th (AINA 1-28-2012). The commission said that prosecution had issued arrest warrants for some of the defendants. The Maspero delegation also asked about the woman accused of having a relationship with Mourad Girguis, as records of the prosecution investigations failed to identify her, as well as the absence of photos to prove the incident actually took place.
A question during the meeting was raised regarding whether the return of the families includes also the Mourad Girguis family, but Sheikh Sherif Hawari said that they will not come back, since what Mourad did was an “outrageous act.”
Mourad Girguis was released on bail on February 15, after having been charged with spreading false rumors. Mohammad Toema, the barber who started the rumor, was also released on bail.
“The video about a Muslim woman was not found,” said member of Parliament Dr. Emad Gad, “and there is no evidence of the woman having existed. This proves that, as suspected, the accusations were fabricated in order to forcibly evict Mourad Girguis and his family from the village.”
The commission will present its findings to Parliament on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
ENI Profit Hurt by Libyan Civil War
Rome, 15 Feb. (AKI) — Italian oil giant Eni said fourth-quarter profit fell 10 percent after it stopped pumping oil in Libya because of last year’s civil war.
Adjusted net income declined to 1.54 billion euros from 1.72 billion euros during the last three months of 2010, Rome-based Eni said Wednesday in a statement. Oil companies generally adjust their profits to reflect the change of value of inventory.
Before the civil war Eni was the largest oil company operating in Libya and Italy was Libya’s biggest trading partner.
For 2011, Eni said adjusted net profit rose 2 percent to 6.97 billion euros.
The Italian-government-controlled company led by chief executive officer Paolo Scaroni produced some 280,000 barrels a day from Libya’s rich oil fields before Italy joined Nato bombing operations that eventually helped rebels oust and kill Muammar Gaddafi.
It resumed Libyan operations in September with 80 percent of back in operations. The rest should be restored in the second half of this year, Eni said in its statement.
During the fourth quarter Eni’s overall oil production fell 14 percent to 1.68 million barrels a day.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Defence: Turkey’s Industry Makes Highest Exports to Saudi
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 13 — Turkey’s defense industry made the highest exports to Saudi Arabia in 2011, as Anatolia news agency reports quoting figures of Defense Industry Exporters’ Association. Turkey’s overall defense industry exports were around 414.8 million USD in 2011, and Turkey made one-third of overall exports to Saudi Arabia. Turkey earned 108.3 million USD from its defense industry exports to Saudi Arabia, with a 162.8% year-on-year rise. This figure was around 41.2 million USD in 2010. The United Arab Emirates, the United States, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Italy followed Saudi Arabia in Turkey’s defense industry exports.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Halts Oil Sales to France, Britain
(TEHRAN) — Iran announced on Sunday it halted its limited oil sales to France and Britain in retaliation for a phased EU ban on Iranian oil that is yet to take full effect. “Oil sales to British and French companies have ceased,” oil ministry spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad Rahbar said in a statement on the ministry’s official website. “We have taken steps to deliver our oil to other countries in the place of British and French companies,” he said.
The decision was not expected to have a big impact. France last year bought only three percent of its oil — 58,000 barrels a day — from the Islamic republic. Britain was believed to be no longer importing Iranian oil. But it was seen as a warning shot to other EU nations that are bigger consumers of Iranian oil, including Italy, Spain and Greece.
Although those countries were not affected by Iran’s announcement on Sunday, they are included in an EU decision to stop buying Iranian oil that was announced last month and which will take full effect from July.
The EU move was part of a ratcheting up of Western economic sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme. Many Western nations fear the programme masks a drive to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran denies that.
According to the International Energy Agency, Italy sourced 13 percent of its oil, or 185,000 barrels per day, from Iran, while Spain imported 12 percent of its oil needs, or 161,000 bpd, and Greece bought 30 percent of its needs, or 103,000 bpd.
Iran, OPEC’s second-biggest exporter after Saudi Arabia, pumps 3.5 million bpd of which it exports 2.5 million bpd. Seventy percent of the exports go to Asian countries, China and India especially. More than 20 percent, or around 600,000 bpd, go to the European Union.
Iran has been threatening for weeks to cut all oil exports to Europe because of the EU ban, but has thus far held off. Ceasing all exports to the EU would harm its own economy unless it had Asian buyers ready to pick up the contracts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran’s Ability to Make Nuclear Warheads Poised for Expansion, Diplomats Say
VIENNA — Iran is poised to greatly expand uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker to a point that would boost how quickly it could make nuclear warheads, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
They said Tehran has put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous facility — machines that can produce enriched uranium much more quickly and efficiently than its present machines.
While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to.
Still, the senior diplomats — who asked for anonymity because their information was privileged — suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them. They spoke in recent interviews — the last one Saturday.
The reported work at Fordo appeared to reflect Iran’s determination to forge ahead with nuclear activity that could be used to make atomic arms despite rapidly escalating international sanctions and the latent threat of an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities.
Fordo could be used to make fissile warhead material even without such an upgrade, the diplomats said.
They said that although older than Iran’s new generation machines, the centrifuges now operating there can be reconfigured within days to make such material because they already are enriching to 20 percent — a level that can be boosted quickly to weapons-grade quality.
Their comments appeared to represent the first time anyone had quantified the time it would take to reconfigure the Fordo centrifuges into machines making weapons-grade material.
In contrast, Iran’s older enrichment site at Natanz is producing uranium at 3.4 percent, a level normally used to power reactors. While that too could be turned into weapons-grade uranium, reassembling from low to weapons-grade production is complex, and retooling the thousands of centrifuges at Natanz would likely take weeks.
The diplomats’ recent comments came as International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are scheduled to visit Tehran on Sunday. Their trip — the second this month — is another attempt to break more than three years of Iranian stonewalling about allegations that Tehran has — or is — secretly working on nuclear weapons that would be armed with uranium enriched to 90 percent or more.
Diplomats accredited to the IAEA expect little from that visit. They told the AP that — as before — Iran was refusing to allow the agency experts to visit Parchin, the suspected site of explosives testing for a nuclear weapon and had turned down other key requests made by the experts.
Iranian officials deny nuclear weapons aspirations, saying the claims are based on bogus intelligence from the U.S. and Israel.
But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano has said there are increasing indications of such activity. His concerns were outlined in 13-page summary late last year listing clandestine activities that either can be used in civilian or military nuclear programs, or “are specific to nuclear weapons.”
Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, as well as computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead. The report also cited preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test and development of a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate range missile — a weapon that could reach Israel.
Iran says it is enriching only to make nuclear fuel. But because enrichment can also create fissile warhead material, the U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on Tehran in a failed attempt to force it to stop.
More recently, the U.S., the European Union and other Western allies have either tightened up their own sanctions or rapidly put new penalties in place striking at the heart of Iran’s oil exports lifeline and its financial system.
The most recent squeeze on Iran was announced Friday, when SWIFT, a financial clearinghouse used by virtually every country and major corporation in the world, agreed to shut out the Islamic Republic from its network.
Diplomats say the choke-holds are being applied in part to persuade Israel to hold off on potential military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — among them Fordo, a main Israeli concern because it is dug deep into a mountain and could be impervious to the most powerful bunker busting bombs.
Diplomats told the AP earlier this month that Iran had added two new series or cascades of old-generation IR-1 centrifuges to its Fordo operation, meaning 348 centrifuges were now operating in four cascades.
Olli Heinonen, who retired last year as the IAEA’s chief Iran inspector, recently estimated that these machines, and two other cascades at Natanz can produce around 15 kilograms (more than 30 pounds) of 20-percent enriched uranium a month, using Iran’s tons of low-enriched uranium as feedstock.
The low and higher enriched uranium now being produced “provides the basic material needed to produce four to five nuclear weapons,” Heinonen said.
But he suggested “an altogether different scenario” — a much quicker pace of enrichment to levels easily turned into weapons-capable uranium if Iran starts using newer, more powerful centrifuges at Fordo. That, said the diplomats, is exactly what Iran appears to be on the verge of doing by finishing preparatory work recently for new centrifuge installations.
Just three days ago Iran’s semiofficial Fars agency reported that a “new generation” of Iranian centrifuges had gone into operation at Natanz, in central Iran.
A diplomat accredited to the IAEA, which monitors Iran’s known nuclear programs, said the “new generation” of centrifuges appeared to be referring to about 65 IR-4 machines that were recently set up at an experimental site at Natanz.
Fordo, which can house 3,000 centrifuges, was confidentially revealed to the IAEA by Iran in 2009, just days before the U.S. and Britain jointly announced its existence.
Iran announced last year that it would move its 20-percent uranium production to Fordo from Natanz and sharply boost capacity. It started making higher grade material two years ago saying it needed it to fuel a research reactor.
But the U.S. and others question the rationale, pointing out that Iran rejected offers of foreign fuel supplies for that reactor and is making more of the higher-enriched material than that small reactor needs.
While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to.
Still, the senior diplomats — who asked for anonymity because their information was privileged — suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them. They spoke in recent interviews — the last one Saturday.
The reported work at Fordo appeared to reflect Iran’s determination to forge ahead with nuclear activity that could be used to make atomic arms despite rapidly escalating international sanctions and the latent threat of an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities.
Fordo could be used to make fissile warhead material even without such an upgrade, the diplomats said.
They said that although older than Iran’s new generation machines, the centrifuges now operating there can be reconfigured within days to make such material because they already are enriching to 20 percent — a level that can be boosted quickly to weapons-grade quality.
Their comments appeared to represent the first time anyone had quantified the time it would take to reconfigure the Fordo centrifuges into machines making weapons-grade material.
In contrast, Iran’s older enrichment site at Natanz is producing uranium at 3.4 percent, a level normally used to power reactors. While that too could be turned into weapons-grade uranium, reassembling from low to weapons-grade production is complex, and retooling the thousands of centrifuges at Natanz would likely take weeks.
The diplomats’ recent comments came as International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are scheduled to visit Tehran on Sunday. Their trip — the second this month — is another attempt to break more than three years of Iranian stonewalling about allegations that Tehran has — or is — secretly working on nuclear weapons that would be armed with uranium enriched to 90 percent or more.
Diplomats accredited to the IAEA expect little from that visit. They told the AP that — as before — Iran was refusing to allow the agency experts to visit Parchin, the suspected site of explosives testing for a nuclear weapon and had turned down other key requests made by the experts.
Iranian officials deny nuclear weapons aspirations, saying the claims are based on bogus intelligence from the U.S. and Israel.
But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano has said there are increasing indications of such activity. His concerns were outlined in 13-page summary late last year listing clandestine activities that either can be used in civilian or military nuclear programs, or “are specific to nuclear weapons.”
Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, as well as computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead. The report also cited preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test and development of a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate range missile — a weapon that could reach Israel.
Iran says it is enriching only to make nuclear fuel. But because enrichment can also create fissile warhead material, the U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on Tehran in a failed attempt to force it to stop.
More recently, the U.S., the European Union and other Western allies have either tightened up their own sanctions or rapidly put new penalties in place striking at the heart of Iran’s oil exports lifeline and its financial system.
The most recent squeeze on Iran was announced Friday, when SWIFT, a financial clearinghouse used by virtually every country and major corporation in the world, agreed to shut out the Islamic Republic from its network.
Diplomats say the choke-holds are being applied in part to persuade Israel to hold off on potential military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — among them Fordo, a main Israeli concern because it is dug deep into a mountain and could be impervious to the most powerful bunker busting bombs.
Diplomats told the AP earlier this month that Iran had added two new series or cascades of old-generation IR-1 centrifuges to its Fordo operation, meaning 348 centrifuges were now operating in four cascades.
Olli Heinonen, who retired last year as the IAEA’s chief Iran inspector, recently estimated that these machines, and two other cascades at Natanz can produce around 15 kilograms (more than 30 pounds) of 20-percent enriched uranium a month, using Iran’s tons of low-enriched uranium as feedstock.
The low and higher enriched uranium now being produced “provides the basic material needed to produce four to five nuclear weapons,” Heinonen said.
But he suggested “an altogether different scenario” — a much quicker pace of enrichment to levels easily turned into weapons-capable uranium if Iran starts using newer, more powerful centrifuges at Fordo. That, said the diplomats, is exactly what Iran appears to be on the verge of doing by finishing preparatory work recently for new centrifuge installations.
Just three days ago Iran’s semiofficial Fars agency reported that a “new generation” of Iranian centrifuges had gone into operation at Natanz, in central Iran.
A diplomat accredited to the IAEA, which monitors Iran’s known nuclear programs, said the “new generation” of centrifuges appeared to be referring to about 65 IR-4 machines that were recently set up at an experimental site at Natanz.
Fordo, which can house 3,000 centrifuges, was confidentially revealed to the IAEA by Iran in 2009, just days before the U.S. and Britain jointly announced its existence.
Iran announced last year that it would move its 20-percent uranium production to Fordo from Natanz and sharply boost capacity. It started making higher grade material two years ago saying it needed it to fuel a research reactor.
But the U.S. and others question the rationale, pointing out that Iran rejected offers of foreign fuel supplies for that reactor and is making more of the higher-enriched material than that small reactor needs.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Mosque Has World’s Largest Quran
Moscow: The Quran kept at Russian city of Kazan’s Qolsharif mosque has been awarded a Guinness World Records certificate for being the world’s largest, Tatarstan’s state councillor Mintimer Shaimiyev has said. Printed on Scotland paper, this Quran edition is 150x200 cm, has 632 pages and weighs 800 kg. The cover is made of malachite and semi-precious stones and is encrusted with phyanite, jade, gold and silver leaf.
“We have received a Guinness World Records certificate saying that our Quran is the largest printed version in the world,” Shaimiyev said. The holy book was placed at Qolsharif mosque last November. Kazan is one of the largest and ancient cities in Russia and the capital of Republic of Tatarstan. In June, the Quran will be transferred to Bolgary city in Tatarstan, a federal subject of Russia, and will be deposited in a building erected to commemorate the adoption of Islam as the state religion of Volga Bulgaria in 922.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Mob Attacks Mosque
Jakarta, 17 February (AKI/Jakarta Post) — No one was injured after a group attacked an Ahmadiyah mosque, in Cipeuyeum in Cianjur, West Java in Indonesia, on Friday. “The attack occurred at around 8 a.m. No one was there. The mob tore down the roof, glass windows and damaged the library, as well as a television. There were no casualties,” Hafid, the head of the local Ahmadiyah community, told The Jakarta Post over the telephone on Friday. After the police told him that demonstrators planned to protest at Nur Hidayah mosque on Friday, Hadi said he asked the 200 members of the community not to hold Friday prayers at Nur Hidayah. “We are very disappointed. We built this mosque on our own,” he said. Cianjur Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Tri Heriyanto said that the mayhem occurred when the mob arrived before his planned visit to the mosque to remind the congregation of a decree banning the propagation of Ahmadiyah belief.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Tajikistan Has More Mosques Than Schools
The deputy chairman of Tajikistan’s State Committee for Religious Affairs said Friday the country has more mosques than schools. Mavlon Mukhtorov said official figures show there are 3,425 regular mosques, 344 cathedral mosques, and 40 central cathedral mosques.
Mukhtorov said on February 16 his ministry issued permits for 45 new mosques to be built in different parts of the country. Tajikistan’s Education Ministry reports there are 3,793 schools, most of them overcrowded, and in many cases one classroom has up to 40 students.
Hikmatullo Saifullozoda of the Islamic Renaissance Party said there was no need for concern at these figures. “People need both schools and mosques,” Saifullozoda said, adding that decisions on building new schools were made by the government whereas mosques were built “with donations from common people.” Tajik authorities have been alarmed at the proliferation of extremist Islamic groups and have sought since 2010 to close illegal or underground mosques. That followed a suicide bombing on a police station in Khujand and an attack on Tajik soldiers in September 2010, which Tajik authorities blamed on Islamic extremists. The Tajik government also ordered all its citizens studying Islam at universities abroad to return to Tajikistan and later passed a law making parents responsible for the children’s actions.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Immigrants Targeted by Far-Right Groups in Greece
Far-right groups in Athens have been patrolling certain neighbourhoods and beating up immigrants they accuse of taking work away from Greeks. Police have so far been reluctant to pursue the attackers.
Reza Jholam is a 16-year-old from Afghanistan living in Athens. In October, he was walking home alone when he had the misfortune of crossing paths with a far-right group called “Chryssi Avyi” (“Golden Dawn”) terrorising certain neighbourhoods in the Greek capital. Their target: immigrants.
“There were twelve of them. First, someone threw a bottle of water at my back, so I started running. But I couldn’t get away,” Reza said. “They grabbed me and hit me in the head with a bat. When I was on the ground, they continued to hit me until I was no longer moving.”
Last December, the vice president of the Afghan Community of Greece, Safar Haydary, was also beaten by extremists.
“This type of violence has become a very common phenomenon here, especially since the beginning of the crisis,” Yunus said. “Some people accuse us of taking jobs from Greeks and hold us responsible for the security problems here.”
Yet another attack on February 16 hospitalised three Bangladeshi immigrants.
“It’s getting worse and worse,” Yunus said. “The most worrying is that it’s spreading throughout the whole city and even around the country. A few days ago, there was a report of a similar attack on one of the Greek islands.”
Eva Cossé, a reasearcher at Human Rights Watch, condemns the recent pattern of abuse of immigrants in Greece.
“These attacks mainly target people of colour; few of the victims have been immigrants from Eastern Europe,” Ms Cossé explained. “It’s an extremely upsetting phenomenon, especially since the authorities are hesitant to admit there’s a problem.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Office of Refugee Resettlement: Where is the Annual Report?
Here we go again, BY LAW (here) the Office of Refugee Resettlement is required to send to Congress an annual report three months after the close of the previous Fiscal Year on September 30th—that means by January 31st of the next year.
The last annual report prepared by ORR (Department of Health and Human Services) and available to the public is for FY 2008, here. That means that ORR is now BEHIND FOR THREE YEARS! They owe Congress the reports for 2009, 2010 and 2011.
What that says to me, is that the ORR doesn’t want Congress and the public to know how bad things are—how few refugees are employed and how many are on welfare.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Alabama Supreme Court in Landmark Ruling: ‘Each Person Has a God-Given Right to Life’
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, February 17, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) — In a landmark legal case that established the right of a mother to sue if her unborn child wrongfully dies before viability, today the Alabama State Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “each person has a God-given right to life.”
Amy Hamilton sued after doctors repeatedly failed to administer ultrasounds. When an eventual ultrasound showed her child was unusually small and had developed a small fold at the back of his neck — a possible sign of severe anemia and hydrops, which can cause congestive heart failure — she requested to be referred to a perinatologist at another clinic but was refused.
On March 10, 2005, her son was stillborn.
A lower court had ruled that, since the child had not yet reached the stage that it could survive outside the womb, she could not pursue a wrongful death claim “for the death of [her] non-viable fetus.”
Today, the Alabama Supreme court’s Hamilton v. Scott ruling rejected that understanding, which was based on Roe v. Wade. Instead, it cited the 1973 Alabama Supreme Court decision Wolfe v. Isbell, which ruled “that from the moment of conception, the fetus or embryo is not a part of the mother, but rather has a separate existence within the body of the mother.”
In his concurring opinion joined by three fellow justices, Justice Tom Parker stated, “I write separately today…to emphasize the diminishing influence of Roe’s viability standard,” which he described as “arbitrary,” “incoherent,” “based on inaccurate history,” and “mostly unsupported by legal precedent.”
“Medical advances since Roe have conclusively demonstrated that an unborn child is a unique human being at every stage of development,” he wrote.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Creeping Religion, Crouching Secularism
It’s an old beast which the secular establishment simply cannot put down — the question of a people’s religious identity. This week a British Muslim MP reopened the wounds caused by “militant secularism” by asking for a return to her country’s Christian past
As Western Europe flounders on the soft sands of secularism, and in the face of threats and dares from aggressive Islamists who challenge the political class to take them on, we now hear in Europe what was taboo for nearly five decades: that Christianity is under threat and “Western values” are being weakened in a “multicultural” and secular society. So it is that Lady Warsi, a Muslim Tory of Pakistani heritage, proclaimed recently that “militant secularisation” had taken hold of British society, and that Britain should be proclaimed a Christian country. Lady Warsi, the first female Muslim to serve as a cabinet minister, said at the Vatican that “intolerant secularism” should be fought and religion should have a seat at the political table. She has said that the best way to encourage social harmony in Britain is to put Christianity at the centre of public life.
Warsi, playing to the Vatican gallery, said that interfaith dialogue failed when “faiths are dumbed down in order to find common ground”, blaming a “well-intentioned liberal elite who are trying to create equality by marginalising faith in society”. Warsi is echoing in her own way Chancellor Angela Merkel’s assertion that multiculturalism has been a failure in Germany. Warsi, cleverly, made no mention of the aggressive Islamists trained in Pakistan and shipped to Britain to sow conflict, nor of the 56 countries which are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, not one of whom provide equal rights to their non-Muslim citizens. In the US itself, the recent and aggressive comments by Republican politicians against the Sharia, and worries about a “war on religion” supposedly being waged by the Obama administration, show that the European malaise and worries have crossed the Atlantic.
These worries, even in a very religious and very Christian-majority America, have emerged in reaction to the 9-11 events as well as the growth of radical Islam around the world, and somewhat weakly in reaction to generic multiculturalism and globalisation. Two of the big, recent sports sensations in the United States — one involving football quarterback for the Denver Broncos, and the other a Chinese-American basketball player for the New York Knicks — have not just secured victories in the face of defeat but have done it all in the name of Jesus. Tim Tebow, the Denver quarterback, has his name verbed “Tebowing” — the act of kneeling to pray oblivious to happenings around you — has become a rage among religiously inclined American schoolchildren and college athletes, even as it is parodied by some comedians and social commentators.
Jeremy Lin, the Harvard graduate who plays basketball for the New York Knicks, is an evangelical Christian who would one day want to be a pastor. Though having heard racist jeers from supporters of the opposing teams during his college sports career, the fact that he is a fervent Christian has won him new and more fans in the US, which for many Americans, not just jingoist Republicans, is a “Christian country”. Some historians have pointed out that America is a Christian nation not only because at the time of writing of the Constitution most of the state constitutions sought Christian qualifications for office-holders. They point out that while the Constitution prevents people from making the US a Christian nation, the foundational was evangelical Protestantism.
When I ask my students in my intercultural communication class if America is a Christian nation, most keep silent knowing that it is a politically loaded question, and that engaging a Hindu-American professor on this matter may be tricky. I raise the question in the context of Samuel Huntington’s thesis of “The Clash of Civilizations”, and some of the claims made in their textbooks about science and democracy as Western cultural products because “equality” and “freedom” are both “Christian values” propounded by Jesus. It is not just politicians like the Republican candidate, Rick Santorum, who was castigated recently for claiming that it is only Christianity that promotes equality, but some academics too who believe in and propound the notion of America as a Christian country. And despite many millions who now do Yoga in the US, a 2007 survey showed that a majority of Americans believed the nation’s founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation.
India, considered by Huntington as a “cleft nation” because it has large groups of people identifying with separate civilisations, is an “integrally pluralist country”, whereas others have argued that there is an uneasy coexistence between a Hindu nationalism, a secular nationalism, and separatist nationalisms — examples of which include Kashmir and Punjab and states in the North-east. Secular nationalists seek to preserve the geographical unity of India, though that proclaimed ideal is suspect in the eyes of Hindu nationalists who see the weakness of Nehru in negotiating the Kashmir transfer, the special autonomous status granted to Kashmir under Article 370, and the lack of a Uniform Civil Code as evidence for the potential vivisection of India.
Indian secularism, as Ashis Nandy and TN Madan have argued, is intrinsically unsuited to India. For Nandy, Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, and is secularist bogey against Hinduism. He believes that the spirit of democracy that liberal Hinduism has nurtured and cherished would be the first victim of Muslim conservatism and a Muslim majority. This is not hypothetical since a quick look across India’s borders into Pakistan, and another quick look at the 55 other OIC countries should rid any rational person of any visions of inclusiveness in Muslim majority countries. Nandy points out that liberal Muslims recognise this fact but can’t or won’t do much about it. What happened when Muslim groups and leaders threatened to beat up organisers and create mayhem if Salman Rushdie was invited to the Jaipur Literature Festival last month? What was the reaction of Indian secularists when Taslima Nasreen’s book could not be released at the recent Kolkata Book Fair?
Indian secularists continue to write reams condemning what they call “Hindu fundamentalism”, but when it comes to the hijacking of the secular ethos by radical Muslims and proselytising Christians they do nothing. None of them has the courage of their convictions to say that countries which discriminate against minorities should not be allowed as members of the United Nations. None of them dare stand up and say that in India it is the Hindu majority that is discriminated against by the “radical secularists” whose description of India as a “composite” nation can only become true if Hinduism and the Hindu ethos is whittled down to the size and status of a “minority”.
We live on the cusp of major changes across the world. Chinese clout, the Arab spring, the collapse of European economies, a struggling America, a messy India, and a plutocratic Russia are all ingredients in a new witches’ brew. Which God will prevail in which public square is therefore not easy to determine. One doubts if God can save us all!
Ramesh Rao is with the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, Longwood University, Virginia, USA
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Schools’ Catholic Ethos Open to Challenge
Schools which do not accommodate Muslim students in a system dominated by Church control remain open to legal challenges despite moves towards reforms, a legal expert has warned. There have been few legal challenges to school policies in relation to enrolment or accommodating religious practices of Muslims. Claire Hogan, a barrister, says this is largely because of compromises reached in schools where issues have arisen. She examined the issue from a legal perspective in a doctoral thesis that also looked at freedom of religion in employment and healthcare. In a research paper to be discussed at a conference on Islam in Ireland at University College Cork today, Ms Hogan says the Catholic monopoly of schools should not be allowed to continue. About 96% of the country’s 3,200 primary schools are in denominational control, including 89% which are Catholic.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Public Gay Affection is Like ‘Peeing in the Street’
Rome, 13 Feb. (AKI) — The public display of homosexual affection is like urinating in the street, according an ally of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
“How does it make you feel when someone goes pee? If they do it in the bathroom it’s fine but if they pee in the street in front of you it can be bothersome,” Carlo Giovanardi, junior minister in charge of family affairs in Berlusconi’s conservative government said in an interview Monday with Italian radio station Radio24.
Giovanardi, a conservative Catholic politician known for his outspoken views in favour of so-called family values has come out against legislation categorizing attacks on gays as hate crimes. He also labelled those critical of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s well-publicised sex parties as wrongly “moralistic.”
To explain his views on homosexuality, Giovanardi during the Monday interview gave a biology lesson.
“There are some organs made to receive and some to expel. Men’s and women’s organs were created to perform certain functions and relations between two women or two men are unnatural.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Performing Abortions is ‘Extremely Gratifying’ — Leading UK Abortionist
LONDON, February 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Killing children by abortion is “extremely gratifying” according to a leading UK abortionist. Dr. Patricia Lohr told an audience of abortion advocates meeting in London in September that she could never have fully understood or agreed with the abortionist philosophy until she actually started committing abortions herself.
Lohr said that abortion is “self-evidently” moral and explained that she began to conduct 2nd trimester surgical abortions during her training as a physician. She said that she performs abortions “as early as possible and as late as necessary” and that she was unapologetic about being “pro-choice, pro-child and pro-abortion.”
Dr. Lohr, the medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), one of the UK’s busiest abortion organizations, said that all medical practitioners should be willing to refer for abortions, even if they would not conduct the practice themselves for moral reasons.
“It’s crucial for abortionists to talk about abortion as a good thing,” she said, speaking of her personal enthusiasm for the abortionist ideology since encountering it first in New York as a teenager and later as the founder of a “pro-choice” group in medical school.
Dr. Lohr, who has pressed for making abortion training mandatory for all medical students, is a long-time abortionist and dedicated agitator for restriction-free, legal abortion, paid for by the state. In July last year as medical director of BPAS, she reiterated her demand that all medical students be required to participate in abortion.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Pediatricians Want to Make the Circumcision of Boys Illegal
[Translated by Freedom Fighter]
Circumcision of boys for religious reasons should eventually be abolished in Sweden. Says the Swedish children Medical Association, BLF, in a letter to the National Medical Board.
“It is a violation of the rights of children”
“We consider it a violation of these boys,” says Staffan Janson, President of the BLF’s Commission on Ethics and the Rights of the Child.
Removing the foreskin of boys for religious reasons is controversial, at least in Sweden. After several years of discussion, writes BLF to the custom of the term should be abolished in Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Freedom Fighter | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Atheist Crank Condemns Muslim ‘Brainwashing’
Under the headline “Muslims more successful at enforcing their religion from generation to generation”, the National Secular Society offers its take on the recently published study of Religious nurture in Muslim families carried out by the School of Social Sciences and Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK at Cardiff University. The BBC report pointed out that the authors of the study “said research suggested religion helps minority communities”. They were quoted as stating that “for minority ethnic populations, religion can be an important resource in bolstering a sense of cultural distinctiveness” and that it “can have an especially important role for minority communities in keeping together the bonds between families from the same ethnic background”.
So, not a study whose conclusions would find favour with the National Secular Society, you might think. The response of the NSS, however, is to ignore the Cardiff researchers’ positive assessment of the impact of Islam on Muslim communities and dogmatically reassert their own uniformly negative view of the role of faith in society. NSS president Terry Sanderson declares: “When one is raised to believe that a particular religion is your whole identity and this idea is heavily reinforced in childhood by constant indoctrination in mosques and madrassas as well as at home by parents who have been similarly brainwashed, then there is little wonder that most Muslims cannot think outside a religious box.”
Of course, this is what we have come to expect from the National Secular Society. The NSS is not an organisation which is secularist in the legitimate sense of campaigning for the separation of church and state. It is a cranky atheist sect whose main target is not the privileges of the established church but the beliefs and religious practices of minority communities of migrant origin.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: East London Gay Pub Isn’t at Risk, So Why Smear Ken Livingstone?
by Tom Copley
It looks looks like the Conservative Party is stepping up its smear campaign against Ken Livingstone following the evaporation of Boris Johnson’s poll lead. Today it’s the turn of Conservative businessman Ivan Massow to attack Ken with an article in the Evening Standard that attempts to tarnish Ken’s name within the gay community. Massow claims that Tower Hamlets council is deliberately attempting to close down historic gay pub the White Swan by designating it as a “sex establishment” on the grounds that it holds an amateur strip night. Attempting to associate Ken Livingstone to this via the elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, Massow wants to tarnish Ken’s standing with LGBT Londoners.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Government ‘Restores’ Council Prayers
The government has moved to bring in a legal basis for local councils to hold prayers at meetings, saying it can effectively overturn a High Court ruling against them that sparked claims of creeping secularism in Britain’s public life. Communities secretary Eric Pickles said late Friday he would fast-track a section of the Localism Act passed last year that gives councils a “general power of competence” to do anything individuals can do that is not illegal. “By effectively reversing (the High Court’s) illiberal ruling, we are striking a blow for localism over central interference, for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism, for parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism, and for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness,” Pickles said. “Last week’s case should be seen as a wake-up call. For too long, the public sector has been used to marginalise and attack faith in public life… But this week, the tables have been turned.”
Last week the High Court ruled that Bideford Town Council in Devon lacked the power to hold prayers “as part of a formal local authority meeting”, in a test case brought by the National Secular Society and an atheist former councillor. But Pickles has signed a parliamentary order bringing in councils’ general power of competence — which had been due to start in April as the Localism Act is implemented in stages — with immediate effect.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Show Where You Really Stand on Gay Rights, Ken
I recently received an email from Peter Tatchell which was simply entitled “Ken Livingstone is not Homophobic”. Peter sends a lot of emails, so many in fact that I asked Josh at my office to create a little “redirect” folder for them. But this one caught my eye because it was a little prescriptive, even for Peter. Since my days of providing modest financial support for Peter’s campaign Outrage, I couldn’t help thinking just how grand he’s become. No longer “Peter Tatchell, gay rights campaigner”, the words on his website read “Human Rights Campaigner”. No longer plugged into fun little direct action groups like Outrage with their jolly “MP outing” antics or arresting Robert Mugabe, his new emails come from the slightly aggrandised “Peter Tatchell Foundation”. Similarly, this email announced that Ken Livingstone, who accused the Tory party of being “riddled with gays” in an interview with the New Statesman, was not a homophobe, as if that was the end of the matter. Peter the gay had spoken.
A bit of me wondered what Peter’s “human rights” response would have been if Ken had said riddled with blacks or riddled with Jews or riddled with Muslims. The fact is that Ken would never make such an awful electoral mistake. If he lost the support of, say, one of his biggest supporters, Lutfur Rahman, the directly elected Muslim mayor of Tower Hamlets, Ken’s rather slim chances of regaining ground on the huggable Boris would turn to dust. What’s slightly odd about Britain today is that if a Tory had made such a statement, Peter wouldn’t have needed to hunt him down. Our man at the top, Dave Cameron, would have fallen on it like a ton of bricks. No such leadership from a slightly lost Labour party over Ken, I notice.
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[JP note: Like Toronto’s gay rights advocates, British gays are still waiting for instructions, or running interference for Islam — see Tom Copley, East London gay pub isn’t at risk, so why smear Ken?]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: To Defend the Church’s Role is to Defend Faith as a Whole
by Charles Moore
The Queen is right — our national religion is a force for unity and a channel of peace.
William Blake famously asked “And did those feet, in ancient time, / Walk upon England’s mountains green?” The short, factual answer is, almost certainly, “No.” There is no evidence that Jesus ever made it to these shores. If you have the cast of mind of Richard Dawkins, that’s it, end of subject. Jesus didn’t come here, and it is pernicious to have silly fantasies about it. Anyway, you say, Jesus is not the Son — or, as Blake’s next lines state, the Lamb — of God. It’s all a delusion, and the Professor Richard Dawkins Foundation for Enlightening People Stupider Than Professor Richard Dawkins has just proved by statistics that people calling themselves Christians know little about their faith and don’t believe most of what it teaches. But of course this sort of approach does not satisfy most people. England, Britain, Jesus, God, poetry, identity, truth, faith — they are all mixed up somehow, and we care about them, even if it is hard to express why.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Trevor Phillips Stands by ‘Ridiculous’ Sharia Comparison
Trevor Phillips is standing by his claim that Christian groups seeking exemptions from equality laws are like Muslims who want sharia rule in parts of Britain, despite criticism that his comments were “strange” and ridiculous”.
He was criticised by senior religious figures, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, who said his comments were “ridiculous”. Legal specialists said Mr Phillips’s comparison was “inflammatory” because Islamic sharia law was associated with draconian punishments in some parts of the world, such as stoning and amputation of limbs for crimes including theft and adultery. However, Mr Phillips dismissed the criticism, insisting his comments should not be seen as controversial. “You would have to really work hard to make what I said ‘inflammatory’,” he said.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Whats is there to return if the islands never were Argentina's. Mr.Penn should be careful not to start another war. silly man
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