Italy: Household Savings Drop to 17-Year Low
National Statistics agency Istat says
(ANSAmed) — ROME — Household saving in Italy has dropped to its lowest level since 1995, national statistics agency Istat said Thursday. In 2011 families set aside 12% of household income, down 0.7% on the year. Domestic buying power dropped in the same period by 0.5%.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pensioner Suicide Shocks Greece
BRUSSELS — A pensioner committed suicide in the centre of Athens Wednesday (4 April) giving a public face to the hardship endured by many Greeks as the country slashes spending to satisfy international creditors.
The man, a 77-year-old pharmacist, shot himself in Syntagma Square with some reports saying that he had shouted that he did not want to leave debts to his children.
It later emerged that he had left a suicide note.
“I can’t find another way to react apart from putting a dignified end to things before I start looking through garbage in order to survive and before I become a burden for my child,” said the note according to Greek paper Ekathimerini.
His exact financial situation remains unclear but reports say he was seriously ill and was struggling to pay for medicine. His suicide prompted a spontaneous gathering of around 2000 people in Syntagma Square later on Wednesday.
Peaceful at first, demonstrations turned during violent during the evening, as activists threw rocks and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and flash grenades.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rajoy Says Spain in ‘Extreme Difficulty’ As Bond Demand Drops
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Spain’s situation is one of “extreme difficulty” and signaled that his budget cuts are less painful than a bailout would be, as demand for the nation’s debt slumped at an auction. “Spain is facing an economic situation of extreme difficulty, I repeat, of extreme difficulty, and anyone who doesn’t understand that is fooling themselves,” Rajoy told a meeting of his People’s Party today in the southern coastal city of Malaga.
Rajoy raised the threat of an international bailout for the second time this week as he sought to defend the deepest austerity moves in at least three decades. While “no one likes” the budget presented last week, he said “the alternative is infinitely worse.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Madrid’s Mayor Chips Away at Debt and Tradition
Spain is frantically trying to reduce its debts. While conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is doing so at the national level, Ana Botella is slashing away at spending in Madrid, Spain’s most heavily indebted city. In the process, the mayor is blazing her own path.
When Ana Botella looks up from the files in her office on the fifth floor of Madrid’s city hall, she sees the crown of a fertility goddess. The marble statue of Cibeles standing in a chariot being pulled by lions is the centerpiece of a busy plaza in the Spanish capital. On good days, the players and fans of Real Madrid, the city’s league-leading soccer club, celebrate their victories in the square in front of the Cibeles Fountain.
Last Thursday wasn’t one of those days. Instead of jubilant soccer fans, there were tens of thousands of protestors waving red flags in front of the fountain just below the balcony of Botella’s office. They were protesting against the fact that over 5 million of their fellow citizens are unemployed and against the austerity measures imposed by the conservative federal government, which are plunging many families into poverty.
That morning, inside city hall, Botella and the city council had decided to free up about €1 million ($1.3 million) in funds so that rents could be reduced for the city’s poorest residents living in subsidized housing.
Indeed, these are hard times on Cibeles Square. Madrid’s mayor still has to pay over €1 billion for 16,712 outstanding bills from 2011 as well as try to get the finances of Spain’s most heavily indebted city under control. And she needs to do so as quickly as possible.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: PM Erdogan Unveils Economic Stimulus Package
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 5 — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday announced a fresh set of measures to encourage new investments in the country which he said was aimed at reducing dependency on imported intermediate goods and country’s current deficit as well as at contributing to the structural reformation of the country industrial sector and balancing regional differences. Erdogan, as Anatolia news agency reports, said the package would include stimulus programs on general, regional, large-scale and strategic bases, adding that the package also included measures to encourage investments that involved high and medium-high technology use. Erdogan said the package divided Turkey into in six regions where each region will receive varying amounts of incentives in line with their level of development to cancel out regional socio-economic differences.
Erdogan said the program placed special importance on strategic investments in defense, aviation and aerospace industries as well as in biochemical industry, which he said would receive a standard stimuli program designed for the fifth least developed region in the country. The Turkish premier said the package was also aimed at drawing foreign investors. Erdogan said the new stimulus package would be effective as on January 1, 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
World’s Largest Solar Plant, With Second Largest Ever Department of Energy Loan Guarantee, Files for Bankruptcy
Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world’s largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America (“STA”), filed for bankruptcy. And while one could say that the company’s epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE’s Stephen Chu.
[…]
And while we do not know just how much the government will have to pay out of pocket, we do know that STA had at least $50 million in debt at filing.
What we do know for sure is that at least the firm’s financial advisors made money on the deal. From the company’s Investors page:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Confirmed: Muslim Brotherhood Group Meets With U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Reports of a meeting between representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and members of the Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, were confirmed today. According to information provided by Bobby Maldonado, Manager of Media Relations for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S.-Egypt Business Council hosted members of the Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt including Dr. Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, FJP’s Member of Parliament serving on their Foreign Relations Committee. The meeting was held at the Chamber offices in Washington, DC.
Origins of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP)
The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was founded in Egypt on 30 April 2011 by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the ideological forefather of al Qaeda and Hamas, supporter of Sharia law, and an advocate of terrorism against Israel and the West.
The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was created by the Muslim Brotherhood following the “Arab Spring” uprisings that toppled Hosni Mubarak. According to a February 2012 report in USA Today, “[t]he newly politically empowered Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic organization that supports religious law and opposes Western influence, has supported a crackdown on those who disagree with them, including the very activists who helped bring about the free elections that the Brotherhood dominated.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Exposing the Obama-Soetoro Deception
Most people following this issue are aware of the irregularities surrounding Obama’s selective service registration. Yet few appear to be aware that detectives from the Arizona investigative team have been methodically securing affidavits documenting alleged criminal activity by the Obama campaign during the 2008 Democratic Party primary.
“Something” happened during the latter portion of the campaign that involved Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama. Recall that Obama and Clinton ditched the press and their respective staff members to meet in secret during the late night hours of Thursday, June 5, 2008, at the home of Senator Dianne Feinstein. The meeting lasted about an hour, and what was discussed was never publicly disclosed.
The expansion of the official investigation is being deliberately ignored by the mainstream media, including outlets often identified with the conservative agenda. Evidence suggests that this deliberate media “blackout” is being orchestrated and ordered at the highest levels of the American government.
[…]
If the issue of Obama’s legal identity seems trivial and a fringe issue in the scheme of things, consider the path this country has taken over the last three-and-a-half years. Even more frightening, consider the path not yet taken. A window into that path was opened by a “hot” microphone that captured Obama’s utterances to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on March 26, 2012. The world heard Obama say that he would have more flexibility in his second term to adjust our missile defense program to the better liking of the Russians.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hutaree Militiamen Cleared in Court
Much to the chagrin of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a federal judge has cleared the members of a Michigan militia who were accused by federal law enforcement agents of conspiracy to commit sedition. Since you didn’t hear much about this ruling from the national press corps, here is one online version of the report:
“Seven members of a Michigan militia have been cleared of plotting to overthrow the U.S. government as a judge dismissed the most serious charges against them.
“In a shock defeat for federal authorities, District Judge Victoria Roberts said the group’s expressed hatred of law enforcement did not amount to a conspiracy.
“The FBI secretly planted an informant and an agent inside the Hutaree militia in 2008 to collect hours of anti-government audio and video that became the cornerstone of the case.
“Senior officials had insisted they had captured homegrown rural extremists poised for war.
“But the judge said: ‘The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lies and Doublespeak of American Planning Association
So, the exact words “Sustainable Development” come from UN documents and its exact policies are imposed at the local level — yet, we are told by its proponents, none of these development plans have anything to do with UN policy. It’s an amazing tap dance.
[…]
So, since they can’t beat us with strong arms, the Sustainablists are rushing to change the entire playing field, changing tactics, re-educating their storm troopers to employ non- confrontational new-speak, and rewriting the dictionary to “avoid polarizing jargon.” In an attempt to neutralize their opposition they seek to lull us all into believing the policies they continue to enforce aren’t Agenda 21/Sustainable Development. There is no hidden agenda, they now promise. It’s just local planning by local officials, so they claim with a straight face.
Hiding their agenda in “new speak”
The worst of the worst of the Sustainablists is the American Planning Association (APA). So panicked is this American Trojan Horse over growing opposition to its policies that APA has organized a “Boot Camp” to teach its operatives how to counter our opposition. Recently APA released a memo entitled “Glossary for the Public.” It is quite telling on how an organization that is supposed to be one of the most respected planning groups in the nation, operating in nearly every city, will teach its people to lie at all costs in order to maintain their power and influence in our communities.
[…]
In every one of those canned descriptions of the “planning process” you will find the tenets of Agenda 21. The use of the word we is the standard “Delphi technique” of the consensus process they are trying to hide. The reference to the future for the children is right out of the UN Agenda 21 definition: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Of course, as we have learned, that to accomplish such an innocent-sounding goal, means locked away lands and resources. Agenda 21.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Murder of Iraqi-American Woman May Not Have Been a Hate Crime
Search warrants in the case of Iraqi-American woman who was beaten to death last month suggests that there may be more to the story than just a case of anti-Muslim violence. According to court records obtained by the San Diego Union Tribune, the victim, Shaima Alawadi, was looking to divorce her husband and move to another state, while her 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, was also distraught about being forced to marry her cousin. Fatima Alawadi also reportedly received a cryptic text message shortly after the attack saying, “The detective will find out tell them (can’t) talk.”
Investigators also learned of another incident that adds to the portrait of a family in trouble. Fatima was picked up by police last November after they responded to a report of two people having sex in a car and found the daughter in a car with a 21-year-old man. Her mother came to pick her up, but while driving home, Fatima threw herself out of the moving car at 35 m.p.h., breaking her arm. She reportedly told hospital staff that she was upset about the arranged marriage.
Finally, police have determined that the key piece of evidence — a threatening note found next to the body telling the family to go back where they came from — was a photocopy and not the handwritten original. (The family did say they previously found a similar note outside their home, but did not save it.)
While none of these details directly contradict the original theory that the killer was an outsider targeting the family because of bias against Muslims, they do suggest a wider range of other motives and the possibility that the note may have been a attempt to distract police from the real killer. Local police and the FBI have not commented on the ongoing investigation or these latest revelations, but have said that there are no suspects at the moment. They also wouldn’t change the fact that there is real anti-Muslim hatred in this country and particularly in El Cajon where the crime occurred. But this is yet another reminder that as with many crimes, particularly those that play out in the public eye, it may difficult to ever piece together what really happened — and the truth is rarely what it first appears to be.
| — Hat tip: Qualis Rex | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Brotherhood Officials Aim to Promote Moderate Image in Washington Visit
Members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood began a week-long charm offensive in Washington on Tuesday, meeting with White House officials, policy experts and others to counter persistent fears about the group’s emergence as the country’s most powerful political force. The revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak has rapidly transformed the Brotherhood from an opposition group that had been formally banned into a political juggernaut controlling nearly half the seats in Egypt’s newly elected parliament.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Storm Chaser Catches Terrifying Dallas Tornadoes
An estimated 10 to 18 tornadoes plowed through the Dallas metropolitan area yesterday afternoon (April 3), tossing semi-trailers high in the air, destroying homes and pelting the region with hail the size of golf balls.
The storms sent thousands of people scurrying for cover. But Brandon Sullivan was hurrying in the opposite direction — straight toward the Dallas twisters. He’d been watching radar and weather reports all morning, and drove all the way from his home in Oklahoma City in search of the telltale rotating clouds.
His chase was rewarded. Just outside Forney, Texas, a town about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Dallas, Sullivan stopped his car along a tiny dirt road as a furious tornado churned in a field just about 200 yards (180 meters) away.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Democratic Party and Jewish Anti-Semitism
There’s a thin line between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism. That’s true of Muslims and the left, but it’s also true specifically of the Jewish left, whose hatred for Israel manifests itself in a general contempt for Jewish religion, culture and tradition.
[…]
Jewish Anti-Semitism is a very real phenomenon, but it’s not self-hatred, no more so than Bill Ayers’ desire to destroy America is self-hatred. The essence of the left is the rejection of the past in a perpetual war for a better future. The very nature of Jewish identity is built on a continuity of tradition and the nature of the left is to fly its progressive colors by showing contempt for tradition. There can be no balance between the two because to choose the one is to reject the other.
The more the Democratic Party moves in tune with the left, the more it mirrors the bigotry of European leftist parties toward Jews and Israel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
When is Global Warming Enough?
It depends who you ask. Professor Kari Norgaard from Oregon University thinks, “If you don’t believe in climate change you must be sick.” If you are a skeptic of global warming, you are a racist. Overcoming this challenge, she continued in a paper presented at the Planet under Pressure Conference in London, March 24-29, 2012, is similar to overcoming “racism or slavery in the south.”
Yale University Professor Karen Seto, who also attended the conference, told MSNBC: “We certainly don’t want them [humans] strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely [together.] In her view, humans are foreign to nature, we pollute it, we corrupt it, and eventually destroy it.
The scientists attending the Planet under Pressure conference in London “put out a statement calling for humans to be packed into denser cities so that the rest of the planet can be surrendered to Mother Nature.” (UK Daily Mail)
“Cultural resistance to accepting humans as being responsible for climate change must be recognized and treated as an aberrant sociological behavior.” (UK Daily Mail)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Government Moves to Tackle Islamophobia
LONDON: 12 months after Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative Party chairman argued that Islamophobia has “passed the dinner-table test” and had become socially acceptable in Britain, the UK Government has established a cross-government working group to tackle anti-Muslim hatred.
The News/Jang has learnt exclusively that the group is modeled on the hugely influential cross-government working group on anti-Semitism, set up by the previous Labour government for the Jewish community.
The Group is chaired by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) and will have representatives from across government including the Cabinet Office, the Department for Education, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. This scribe understands that the group will include leading UK academics, Dr Chris Allen from Birmingham University and Dr Matthew Goodwin from Nottingham University.
Imam Qari Asim from Leeds Makkah Masjid, Akeela Ahmed from Muslim Youth Helpline and Fiyaz Mughal of Faith Matters has also been chosen as key members of the group.
In January 2011 Baroness Warsi, the UK’s first Muslim Cabinet Minister, used a speech at Leicester University to raise the alarm over the way in which prejudice against Muslims is now seen by many as normal. Warsi was criticized by many in the press for raising this issue in a forceful manner but the concerns she raised about the prejudice against Muslims on the basis of their faith became a talking point for many days and she won over the backing of many influential political and social figures, including Daily Telegraph’s Peter Oborne who has co-authored with James Jones a pamphlet called Muslims Under Siege, and produced and presented a Channel Four Film on Islamophobia. Baroness Warsi previously raised the issue of Islamophobia with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Britain in 2010, where she urged him to help “create a better understanding between Europe and its Muslim citizens”.
Islamic communities and other vulnerable groups have become targets of increased hostility since 11 September. Pakistanis in Britain have become the biggest victim of this bias and the areas where they live have been under attack from the racists and Islamophobes. Britain’s far in particular has switched from attacks on its traditional targets — blacks and Jews — to Muslims instead. They have organized large rallies against Muslims and have developed networks across Europe.
In February this year, Faith Matters, a non-profit group, developed and launched a system called MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks). The new service will produce statistical data on the nature of Islamophobia in Britain. Victims will be able to classify their experiences as one of six types: extreme violence, assault, damage of property, threats, abusive behavior, and propagation of anti-Muslim literature. Details will also emerge of where in the country Islamophobia is most prominent so authorities can concentrate their campaigns most effectively.
Fiyaz Mughal, founder director of Faith Matters, told The News/Jang: “The group which is meeting on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim attacks is looking at developing a work programme around further possible research that can be done in these areas. For far too long Muslim communities have said that they have been subject to these social issues and therefore the government wants to address these concerns. This is to be warmly welcome and this Government is making strides to counter hate crime in general and this is extremely positive.”
| — Hat tip: Frontinus | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Pensioner’s Death Sparks Clashes in Athens
Violent protests have erupted in Athens following the public suicide of a 77-year-old retired man. A note he left behind accused the Greek government of impoverishing him with its debt crisis austerity measures, a message that resonated with demonstrators. Many are blaming the state for his death.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Almost a Fifth of Fuel Adulterated, Survey
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 5 — Almost a fifth of fuel on the Greek market is adulterated, according to checks carried out by a state body and reported by daily Kathimerini. The General Chemical State Laboratory, which operates under the auspices of the Finance Ministry, conducted almost 1,900 checks on fuel samples in 2010. According to a report published on Thursday, 17% of these samples were found to contain adulterated fuel. The most common way of tampering fuel was to mix heating oil, which is currently taxed less, with diesel. The state scientists found that a third of diesel samples had been adulterated. The Finance Ministry announced plans on Tuesday to raise the tax on heating fuel, mostly in an attempt to combat this practice and tax evasion. However, the move will raise heating fuel prices substantially as the ministry aims to tax diesel and heating oil equally. Currently the going rate for heating oil averages at 1.046 euros per liter, according to the Development Ministry’s price observatory, while the equivalent rate for diesel stands at 1.591 euros/l. Last October a liter of heating oil cost 90 cents, while a year ago it was around 65 cents.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mother Earth and the Fatherland: Germany’s Far-Right Turns to Environmentalism
Environmentalists are often associated with the political left. But now neo-Nazis have discovered nature’s charms too. In addition to selling organic vegetables and publishing a magazine on the environment, Germany’s far-right NPD party has co-opted green campaign issues. Party members use it as a dubious means to make the NPD more socially acceptable.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nobel Laureate Under Fire: Grass Says Campaign Against Him ‘Injurious’
German Nobel laureate Günter Grass has taken to the airwaves to address the raging controversy surrounding his new poem, which is sharply critical of Israel. Yet the debate continues to broaden, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining the fray on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Romanian Gang Targeting Elderly Women: Police
A gang of Romanian women is targeting elderly women across Norway in a series of often brutal jewellery robberies, with 20 such crimes reported in Oslo alone over the last two week, police have said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik: Mental Ward a Fate ‘Worse Than Death’
Anders Behring Breivik, who is set to go on trial on April 16th for killing 77 people in Norway last July, said in a letter published on Wednesday that being sentenced to psychiatric care would be the worst fate imaginable.
“To send a political activist to an asylum is more sadistic and more evil than killing him! It is a fate worse than death,” the 33-year-old right-wing extremist wrote in a 38-page letter, of which the Verdens Gang (VG) daily published a few extracts.
The letter aims to discredit, point-by-point, a report by two psychiatric experts, Synne Sørheim and Torgeir Husby, who concluded late last year that Behring Breivik was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was therefore criminally insane.
If the Oslo court judges reach the same conclusion at the end of his 10-week trial, the confessed killer will be sentenced to a locked psychiatric ward, possibly for life, rather than prison.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Man Beaten and Shoved Into Car Boot in Oslo
A number of witnesses have reported seeing a man being beaten up and bundled into the boot of a car in Oslo’s Grønland district on Thursday morning. Police said three men shoved the victim into the luggage compartment of a black Mercedes before driving away from the scene shortly after 7am, broadcaster NRK reports.
“We have good contact with the owner of the car, and our preliminary assessment is that this an internal dispute in a criminal environment,” Oslo police investigator Finn Belle told news agency NTB. He added that the owner of the vehicle is known to the police, though they have not yet found the victim of the abduction.
Police have spoken to several witnesses, one of whom reported shouting at the men to stop before they quickly closed the boot of the car and drove away. “I heard hysterical screams from the man who was kidnapped. I saw that they beat him and forced him into the boot,” one witness told NRK.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovars Hurl Stones at Serbian Delegation
Stones were thrown at a Serbian delegation in Pristina on Wednesday as it headed to a meeting with Kosovo officials. “Two cars of the delegation were slightly damaged, while there were no injuries,” police spokesman Baki Kelani said in a statement. Belgrade, however, said one person was slightly injured.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
From a Prison Cell to the Egyptian Presidency
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood decided to field its own candidate in presidential elections in May. Khairat el-Shater is considered pragmatic, influential and media-savvy. But which direction will he steer Egypt if he wins? Candidates from the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, won the largest share of seats in Egypt’s parliamentary elections in December. But the party’s program still remains vague, and the Muslim Brotherhood has not indicated which ideological direction it aims to steer the country in and what consequences it could have for Egypt’s political, social and culture future. Recent plans by the Muslim Brotherhood’s to field one of its own candidates in the country’s presidential election in May have come as a surprise to many as it reverses an earlier pledge by the group to stay out of the presidential race.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Presidential Candidate Cheered as He Registers for Election
The man chosen by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to run for president in next month’s election has officially registered as a candidate. He has pledged to introduce sharia law to the country if elected. Khairat el-Shater, a leading figure in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, formally registered himself as a candidate in the presidential election on Thursday amid cheers from supporters. “The people want Shater for president,” the group of about 2,000 supporters chanted. Shater, 61, a millionaire businessman and leading strategist in the Brotherhood, is now a seen as a leading contender for the presidency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Tunisians Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison for Posting Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed Online
The Court of First Instance of Mahdia sentenced two men to seven years of prison for charges relating to their posting of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed on Facebook. The decision is subject to appeal.
According to an extract of the decision, which was posted online, Jabeur Mejri and Ghazi Beji were sentenced to five years in prison for “troubling the public” order and “transgressing morality” by posting the images of the Prophet and an additional two for “bringing harm to others” across “networks of public communications.” The two men were each levied a fine of 1,200 dinars as well.
Beji has fled to Europe to avoid facing charges while Mejri is currently in jail in Mahdia and studying his appeal with his legal representation.
Bochra Belhaj Hmida, lawyer, activist, and ex-president of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, is currently involved in an effort to rally civil society against the decision. She stated that she found the decision shocking, particularly, “when one considers the fact that those in Tunisia who committed terrorist acts are free and those two men are being prosecuted for publishing such insignificant things.”
According to Belhaj Hmida, the case was brought by a lawyer in Mahdia, who complained directly to the public prosecutor in the district.
Belhaj Hmida stated that she had informed Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki of the decision and that he requested her to prepare a dossier in which all the facts of the case are contained.
“He was very interested [in the case],” she said.
The Tunisian Secretary-General of the International Federation of Human Rights (IFHR), Khadira Cherif, also expressed outrage at the judgment.
“It’s scandalous that they’ve arrested these men. We are against [the decision],” stated Cherif.
She went on to say that the IFHR would soon make a formal announcement of their position on the affair.
While the public prosecutor of Mahdia was not available for comment, a clerk at the Court of First Instance in Mahdia, Nourredine Waja, gave his personal decision on the validity of the decision.
“Freedom of expression shouldn’t go that far. It’s a more serious affair than freedom of expression. It’s an attack on our religion,” said Waja.
Waja stated that all religions should be protected from such attacks and that the same standard would be upheld for images mocking holy symbols of Christians or Jews.
A spokesperson at the Ministry of Justice was unaware of the case when contacted by Tunisia Live, and no other representative of the ministry was available for comment at the time.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Has Few Options for Rocket Fire From Egypt
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister on Thursday warned that Egypt’s Sinai desert is becoming a “terror zone” and vowed to strike at militants there after a rocket fired from the area hit a southern Israeli resort town.
The tough talk, however, was tempered by Israel’s desire not to disturb the already fraught relationship with Egypt. Israeli officials acknowledged their options are limited as the new government in Egypt — one of Israel’s few allies in the Arab world — tries to secure its sovereignty over the mountainous Sinai Peninsula.
Thursdays’ rocket attack, the first on Eilat in nearly two years, raised new Israeli concerns about militant activity in Sinai, particularly since the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime last year. Israeli security officials have repeatedly warned of a power vacuum in Egypt and say that Islamic militants, including al-Qaida, have stepped up their activity in Sinai and are now active on Israel’s doorstep.
“We are seeing now with Eilat that the Sinai Peninsula is turning into a terror zone,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will strike at those who attack us. There can be no immunity for terrorism; it must be fought and we are doing so.”
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened to “strike those responsible for firing (the Grad rocket) at Eilat.”
No injuries were reported in the overnight strike against Eilat, a normally tranquil Red Sea vacation spot that is set to welcome thousands of visitors this weekend for the Passover holiday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and Egypt denied the attack was launched from its territory. “The chief of security of southern Sinai has already denied that the rocket was fired from the Sinai territory,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr told reporters in Cairo.
But Israel military officials, citing intelligence, said all signs were that the rocket had been fired from Egypt. It would be the third such time since 2010 that militants in Egypt have fired rockets toward Israel.
Israel has warned of growing lawlessness in Sinai following the uprising last year that overthrew Mubarak’s regime…
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Rocket Fired From Egypt Hits Israeli City of Eilat
A Grad rocket has landed in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, but has caused no damage or injuries, Israeli security officials said.
District police chief Ron Gertner told Israeli radio the rocket had been fired from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
He said it struck a construction site close to a residential area shortly after midnight (21:00 GMT).
The blast took place as thousands congregated in the resort town for the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Rocket attacks from Egyptian soil are uncommon. Attacks on Eilat and the nearby Jordanian town of Aqaba in 2010 killed one person and injured another four.
Sinai unrest
Eilat Mayor Meir Yitzhak-Halevy told the Jerusalem Post that the city would function as normal despite the attack.
A wave of unrest has hit the restive Sinai peninsula recently.
Israel says militants have become active in the region since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Günter Grass Specializes in ‘Self-Righteousness’
In his poem about Israel and Iran published on Wednesday, German Nobel laureate Günter Grass expressed the fear that he would be labelled anti-Semitic for his anti-Israeli stance. Some commentators in Germany on Thursday say that the fear was more than justified.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gulf: Efforts for Artistic Freedom, Islamists on the Attack
Storm at Bahrain Culture Festival, Kuwait show closed
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, APRIL 5 — With the curtain coming down in the United Arab Emirates on a month of art characterised by great turn-out and participation, bitter controversy has exploded in neighbouring Bahrain, where the Culture Festival is currently being held, hot on the heels of another storm over artistic expression, this time in Kuwait.
Tension between intellectuals and conservatives in Bahrain exploded in the country’s Parliament on Tuesday with a severe attack by the Culture Minister, Sheikha Mai bin Mohammad al-Khalifa, on Islamist deputies, who in turned demanded the minister’s resignation.
Sheikha Mai and the spring culture festival , the oil-rich island’s most significant cultural event, of which she is a patron, had earlier been the target of criticism from Islamists for failing to cancel the event out of solidarity with victims in Syria, and later for incident during the festival itself.
The mosque located across the road from the building where the cultural events were being held, including a concert by Andrea Bocelli, is said to have been asked not to issue the call to prayer and not to use loud speakers so as not to disrupt the festival. In response, it was claimed that “youngsters were sent” to throw rocks and cause a nuisance at the event.
The Sheikha, a leading figure of some standing in the Gulf’s artistic and cultural landscape is well-known and liked for her efforts to promote culture in Bahrain and that of Arab countries in the region abroad. She is also no stranger to controversy. In 2007, before she became a minister, she clashed explosively with some of the country’s most conservative groups for staging a show by a Lebanese dance group, which was slammed as “obscene and depraved” on account of the sexual allusions in the choreography.
Amid the current rift between culture and tradition, however, intellectuals, writers and non-Islamist deputies have rushed to support the minister.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar: 41 Bln Dollar Contract for Underground Lines Ready
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, APRIL 4 — The tenders for the contract regarding the first stage of the Doha underground project will be presented within a few weeks, Qatar Railways announced. The 41 billion dollar project includes a length of 85 km of underground line, divided in four different lines: red, green, blue and orange. More than 20,000 workers will be hired to carry out the project, one of the crucial infrastructures for the 2022 World Championship Football. In 2009 Deutsche Bahn and Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. signed an agreement on the design of the underground. The first stage includes the construction of 45 underground stations. The small state of Qatar is a gas giant and is investing in infrastructure. The emirate is in fact spending 11 billion USD on the new international airport of Doha, 5.5 billion on a new port in Doha, which will be the deepest in the world, and another 20 billion on its road infrastructure.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan Sees Rise in ‘Dancing Boys’ Exploitation
The 9-year-old boy with pale skin and big, piercing eyes captivated Mirzahan at first sight. “He is more handsome than anyone in the village,” the 22-year-old farmer said, explaining why he is grooming the boy as a sexual partner and companion. There was another important factor that made Waheed easy to take on as a bacha bazi, or a boy for pleasure: “He doesn’t have a father, so there is no one to stop this.” A growing number of Afghan children are being coerced into a life of sexual abuse.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Withdrawal From Afghanistan Continues to Raise Doubts
NATO troops are due to hand over responsibility for preventing the Taliban’s advance in Afghanistan to local police and soldiers after 2014. Observers fear the country could descend into civil war
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 Times Greater Than at Chernobyl Accident
Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s Erdogan Makes Landmark Visit to China
Turkey seeks to develop ties with China. On the first visit of a Turkish prime minister in 27 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also try to convince Chinese leaders to pressure Syria to put an end to violence. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to make a landmark visit to China on Sunday. His first stop is expected to be Xinjiang province in western China, which is dominated by the Uighur people. China’s crackdown on this predominantly Muslim minority during the riots in 2009 damaged bilateral relations between China and Turkey. Three years after the crisis, Erdogan’s visit is seen as a sign of stronger dialogue and growing confidence between the two countries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Book: Civilization: The Six Ways the West Beat the Rest, By Niall Ferguson
Reviewer: Dr Ricardo Duchesne
Niall Ferguson is known in leftist circles as a ‘right winger,’ even a ‘super-conservative’. He has always resisted this characterization: ‘I’m just a doctrinaire liberal at heart. Quite why I keep getting called rightwing is only mysterious to me’. True; he is not a conservative. He is a liberal right winger, a neoconservative. Wikipedia’s entry on neoconservatism correctly includes him as one of its proponents. The Western world has moved so far left that a committed believer in the spread of individual rights, free markets, enlightenment values around the world, including feminism and gay rights is now seen as a conservative.
Ferguson handles immigration in the mannerism one is expected to in polite liberal society — lest one faces illiberal reprisals. He eulogizes over the fact that with mass migration ‘a single American civilization is finally emerging’ (p. 139) — a mixed-race species. Why ‘finally emerging’? Because both left and right liberals believe that the mass influx from Africa, Latin America and Asia represents the fulfillment of Western egalitarianism. The emergence of a ‘homogenized humanity’ (p. 198) fabricated through the ‘democratic’ blending of races, religions and cultures is the end of history. Ferguson thus notes that the number of mixed-race couples in the United Sates ‘quadrupled between 1990 and 2000’, and that ‘whites will probably be a minority of the US population’ (pp. 138—9).
These ideas have little in common with the same Burke that Ferguson otherwise defends against the singular and abstract citizen of the French Revolution. Calling for the merging of races, the dissolution of the age-old European ethnic character of the West, and the imposition of universal citizenry across the Islamic world, is a revolutionary idea drastically at odds with Burke’s emphasis on the particular customs and folkways of different cultures, and the ‘ancient liberties’ of Englishmen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Massive Illegal Alien Election Fraud Detected in Florida
Many of you will remember that I told America on Fox News on Election Day 2010 that the Democrats planned to use illegal alien voters to save themselves from the Tea Party revolution. We believe we saw that with illegal alien voters saving Harry Reid in Nevada.
Now we have more evidence and we need you to take swift action to make this count.
Florida now joins the states of Georgia and Colorado where we have solid evidence of massive illegal alien voter registration and stolen American votes in elections.
Take the following important steps.
Step 1: Watch, rate, and comment on this copy of the video. Each time you watch it and comment you will help the video make it other people…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy: EU Needs to Protect Itself
Or walls will be built, warns French president
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 5 — “A society without frontiers is a society with no respect. A country without borders is a country without an identity. A continent without frontiers is a continent which will have to raise walls to protect itself. Help me to construct a strong France”. These are some of the words contained in the letter which the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, running for re-election to the Élysée Palace on April 22 and May 6, will send out to the French people.
Contained in the missive which is being handed out at the press conference attended by Sarkozy in Paris, the current President points out that “in democracy there’s nothing better than the love for our country” The letter, which will be printed in six million copies and delivered throughout the whole of France is made up of thirty-four pages divided into small chapters. Among the priorities set out by Sarkozy is the need to “live in security in an open world”, but also taking a zero-tolerance stance against the “ideologies of hate”. The latter being a clear reference to the recent tragedy in Toulouse and Montauban carried out by the young Islamic terrorist Mohammed Merah. With regards to Europe instead, Sarkozy adds, “it’s an open continent but at the same time it cannot become a colander”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What’s Missing From This Easter Message?
The Episcopal Church has sent me a copy of the annual Easter Message from Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. It’s 383 words long, in eight paragraphs.
Not once in this message has the Presiding Bishop seen fit to mention the name of Jesus Christ.
[…]
I’m going to quote Paragraph 6 in its entirety, verbatim—otherwise you might accuse me of having made it up as a satire. Here it is.
“As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millenium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the UN report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rate of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.”
Does this tell us why the bishop doesn’t mention Jesus? Who needs Jesus Christ? We’ve got the UN and its Millenium Development Goals!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Life on Jupiter Moon Europa May Hide in Depths to Survive
Considered one of the best potential sources for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, Jupiter’s moon Europa may host life in the ocean deep beneath the moon’s icy crust.
Some organisms could even travel to Europa’s surface through cracks and instabilities in the crust, some researchers speculate. But radiation from Jupiter’s magnetosphere constantly bombards the moon and could annihilate life at shallow depths, making it difficult to detect with an orbiter or lander.
So scientists are seeking to determine experimentally just how deep organic life on Europa needs to hide in order to avoid being destroyed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Closing in on Black Hole at Center of Our Galaxy
Though scientists have suspected for a while that a giant black hole lurks at the center of our galaxy, they still can’t say for sure it’s the explanation for the strange behavior observed there. Now researchers are closer than ever to being able to image this region and probe the physics at work — potentially shedding light on the great conflict between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics.
At the heart of the Milky Way, astronomers see some wacky things. For example, about a dozen stars seem to be orbiting some invisible object. One star has been found to make a 16-year orbit around the unseen thing, moving at the hard-to-imagine speed of about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) a second. By comparison, the sun moves through space at a comparatively glacial 137 miles (220 kilometers) a second.
Based on the laws of motion, these dozen stars’ orbits should be caused by the gravitational pull of some massive object in the center of the galaxy. Yet telescopes observe nothing there.
“The really important thing is that all the orbits have a common focus,” astrophysicist Mark Reidof the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said during the recently concluded April 2012 meeting of the American Physical Society.”There’s one point on the sky, and there’s nothing you can see on images at this position.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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