EU Employment Chief Hails Italy Labor Reforms
‘Important objectives’ says Andor
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 16 — The European Union Employment Commissioner hailed Italy’s labor-market reforms on Monday. “Their objectives are very important,” said Lazslo Andor.
The endorsement is a boon to Premier Mario Monti’s emergency government which is currently trying to push the reforms through parliament and make it easier for firms to fire workers.
Monti says the measures will boost growth and productivity and reduce unemployment because companies will be more inclined to hire workers if they know they can dismiss them if they need to.
Before presenting the bill to parliament earlier this month, the government reinstated the possibility of rehiring, and not just compensation, for workers deemed to have been unfairly dismissed for business reasons under Article 18 of the labour code. Monti apparently bowed to pressure from the centre-left part of the government’s broad coalition and the change has angered employers who, despite other changes to Article 18, believe it will still continue to be tough to shed workers in hard times.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Spain Prompts Leaders to Seek Bigger IMF Support
Brussels, 16 April (AKI/Bloomberg) — European officials travel to Washington this week seeking a bigger global war chest to combat the debt crisis as Spain’s government battles to quell renewed market turmoil over its finances.
Three weeks after European leaders unveiled emergency euro- area funding exceeding the symbolic $1 trillion mark, concerns about Spain’s position have ratcheted the nation’s borrowing costs to the highest levels this year. Crisis-fighting resources will dominate talks at the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting in Washington from April 20-22.
While the U.S. insists that Europe can overcome the crisis using its own financial firepower, euro-area officials say they’ve done enough to trigger additional global assistance. The urgency was underscored last week as Spanish and Italian yields jumped, challenging assumptions among the region’s leaders that the worst of the fallout was behind them.
“After three months that were calmer than expected, the euro crisis is back,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London. “The speed of the recent surge in yields has elements of a renewed market panic.”
Spain’s 10-year bond yield climbed 19 basis points last week to 5.98 percent, while similar-maturity Italian yields increased seven basis points to 5.52 percent. The euro declined to a one-month low against the dollar today. The 17-nation currency fell 0.4 percent to $1.3022 at 2:05 p.m. in Tokyo, after touching $1.3009, the lowest since March 15.
The surge in borrowing costs prompted one of Spain’s deputy economy ministers, Jaime Garcia-Legaz, to call on the European Central Bank to resume its direct intervention in the markets.
Increase Bond Purchases
“They should step up purchases of bonds,” Garcia-Legaz said in an April 13 interview, wading into a debate that has split the ECB. While Executive Board member Benoit Coeure signaled April 11 the ECB may buy up Spanish bonds, his Dutch colleague Klaas Knot said two days later that the ECB is “very far” from reactivating the measure.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is pushing through an austerity agenda targeting spending on health and education, won backing from his party’s regional leaders over the weekend. People’s Party chiefs from regions including Madrid, Valencia and Galicia agreed to streamline bureaucracy and write deficit targets into budget laws.
“We need to manage a reality that is very tough,” Maria Dolores Cospedal, the deputy party head and president of Castilla La Mancha, told reporters after a party meeting. Rajoy’s government has struggled to convince investors after last month saying it would not meet budget deficit targets set by the European Commission and the previous government.
Spanish Auctions
European governments are banking on a bigger safety net to soothe markets as the crisis continues to simmer, with Spanish borrowing nearing the level that prompted Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts. Sentiment will be gauged again on April 19, when Spain auctions two- and 10-year debt.
The Europeans’ appeal for funds may find more success after IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde last week scaled back her request for $600 billion in new contributions. Lagarde said April 12 that she is hoping to make “real progress” at this week’s meetings. She has also said the IMF needs more cash to quell economic risks separate from Europe’s woes, such as higher oil prices and slowing U.S. growth.
Her retooled strategy reflects international and particularly U.S. reluctance to deliver more cash amid suspicion Europe isn’t doing enough to save itself. The IMF has less than $400 billion available to lend.
‘Non-European Friends’
Bowing to international pressure to do more while stopping short of a bolder proposal, European governments agreed last month that 500 billion euros ($654 billion) in fresh money would be placed aside 300 billion euros already committed to create an 800 billion-euro defense against contagion.
By also offering to give the IMF 150 billion euros, “European governments have done their part,” ECB Executive Board Member Joerg Asmussen said April 13. “I would now expect our non-European friends and partners to contribute their part to IMF resources.”
Foreign governments have been slow to rally, although emerging markets including Brazil and Mexico have indicated they are willing to participate.
Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said April 11 that “if we’re asked if we’re 100 percent satisfied with Europe’s efforts, I would say they need further efforts.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has already ruled out more support for the IMF from its largest shareholder, saying last month the lender already has “substantial financial resources.”
French Elections
After spending or committing at least 386 billion euros to bailing out Greece, Portugal and Ireland, Europe now has the money to fully finance Spain through the end of 2014 if needed, according to Schmieding at Berenberg Bank. Italy — with a sovereign debt of 1.9 trillion euros — is not so easily saved and would require the ECB to intervene if faced with an investor revolt, he said.
Added to the mix are the looming French presidential elections, with the first round due on April 22. EU officials and investors will be looking to see how the Franco-German partnership could be altered if Socialist candidate Francois Hollande beats President Nicolas Sarkozy in the second-round vote on May 6.
Both candidates addressed supporters in Paris yesterday after Hollande extended his advantage in a possible head-to-head race by two points to 56 percent against 44 percent, according to a TNS Sofres survey published April 13.
“France faces a highly intriguing election, which could add to market woes,” Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, wrote in an e-mailed note to clients.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Healthcare Assistance Now a Privilege
After years of recession, huge cuts to state budget
(ANSAmed) — ATENE, APRIL 16 — Four years of a recession and two years of wide-ranging cuts to the state budget to reduce expenditure and balance accounts is making healthcare in Greece into ever more a luxury for the privileged few. With public healthcare spending at around 10 billion euros, 25% less than in 2009, staying healthy “risks becoming a privilege”, said Haralambos Economou, who teaches sociology at Athens’ Panteion University. Two years of harsh austerity have led to over a million officially unemployed people in Greece, over 20% of the workforce. Sector experts say that up to 10% of the population, when in need of treatment, are now forced to dip into their steadily-diminishing savings.
In the past, most Greeks (whenever possible) made use of private healthcare facilities, even if they had to pay almost 40% of the total treatment costs out of their own pockets, one of the highest rates in developed countries. Now, however, the demand for treatment in public hospitals has risen by 20-30%, with expenditure once again falling on a state system already suffering due to a cut in costs. However, even worse, many people try to get round the system (and reduce costs) by showing up at the emergency room in order to get immediate treatment instead of requesting an appointment in advance for which they would need to pay. Hospitals are trying to do their best to deal with the situation. “After the recent reforms forced us to request money from patients who are not covered by health insurance, ever more people avoid making appointments because they do not have the money for them,” said Dr. Meropi Manteou, specialist in pneumology at Athens’ Sotiria hospital. “They come here with the flu and try to pass it off as an emergency. We do what we can to help the poorest, but I don’t know how long we will be able to close a blind eye.” However, the problems are not only for the less well off, with the situation now difficult even for those who have made contributions into the healthcare system for years, since — due to the crisis — the health ministry has reduced the list of medicines and medical tests that can be reimbursed by the social security institute, which is going through a very difficult period due to bad past financial management as well as chronically low contributions, a problem now worse due to growing unemployment levels. Public hospitals are every day having to fight against reduced financing, doctors’ salaries cut by a quarter, a chronic lack of nurses and no payment of overtime hours since December. This is also a reason why many Greeks have begun to go to the centre run by Doctors of the World NGO, which have been working in the country for over 20 years and which until recently worked almost exclusively with immigrants and emarginated groups. “Since the end of 2010 ever more Greeks, and not only immigrants, are coming to us,” said Christina Samartzi, spokesperson of the NGO, “and now they number more than 100 per day, the people who are requesting assistance solely in Athens.
This is a new phenomenon, and is a consequence of the economic crisis.” Most Greeks requesting assistance from the NGO are unemployed, pensioners or families that can no longer afford the compulsory vaccinations for their youngest children. “We are seeing a lot of elderly people suffering from high blood pressure or diabetes who cannot buy the medicines that they need every month,” said Giorgos Papadakis, a young diabetologist. “They come to us and ask whether we can give them to them.” But the worst thing, as many of the volunteers from the NGO confirmed, is that ever more Greeks are asking not only for medicine but also for food.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Pins Recovery Hopes on Solar Energy
Economically depressed Greece is working to become the EU’s largest exporter of solar-generated electricity, the Greek energy minister said. Talks with investors from Italy and Luxembourg are already underway. The planned state-sponsored project “Helios” is expected to pour annual revenues to the tune of 15 billion euros ($19.5 billion) into empty Greek state coffers and create 60,000 jobs, Greece’s Energy Minister George Papakonstantinou said on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greeks Oppose EU-IMF Economic Programme
A majority of Greeks is against the EU-IMF austerity programme being imposed in return for bailout money, a poll showed Saturday, reports Ekathimerini. The MRB poll found 66% favoured Greece staying in the eurozone but adopting an alternative recovery plan, while 13.2% said the country should drop the euro.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Complains of EU ‘Blackmail’ On IMF Loan
Imposing political conditions on a desperately needed EU-IMF loan is unfair, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. “Creating political conditions — for example over the justice system — would amount to blackmail, which is unacceptable within the European Union,” Orban told national radio MR.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Announces More Hard-Hitting Labour Reforms
(AGI) Rome — Mario Monti has said the labour reform bill is “much broader and more incisive than the November proposal.” Speaking after his meeting with the Emir of Qatar, he said “this bill is much more far-ranging than the one I outlined to the Chamber during the 17th November planning session. I spoke then about greater flexibility for new employees only, and on a trial basis, but this latest bill, which was drawn up just a few days ago, applies to all workers, not just new employees.
It is a definitive bill, not an experimental one.” It is significant that Monti should have added “some people felt that this bill did not go far enough.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Moody’s Sees Nokia on the Wane, Cuts Rating
International ratings agency Moody’s has cut the credit rating of mobile phone maker Nokia, describing an investment in the Finnish firm as speculative. The move comes in anticipation of ‘disappointing’ sales. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the creditworthiness of Nokia from “Baa2” to “Baa3,” meaning that the Finnish mobile phone maker has fallen to the bottom of the agency’s “speculative, non-investment” category.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Plan to Set Up European Rating Agency Under Threat
The project to set up a European rating agency to challenge the dominance of American firms is at risk of collapsing, the German business daily Financial Times Deutschland reported on Monday. International consulting firm Roland Berger can’t find enough investors for its plan, the report said. But it hasn’t completely given up hope.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rising Interest Rates: Spain Slides Further Into Crisis
The situation on the financial markets is getting tougher for Spain. The interest rates the country must pay on longer-term, 10-year bonds rose on Monday to over 6 percent for the first time this year. The government in Madrid is also warning that Spain has fallen back into recession.
Spain is once again experiencing tremendous pressure from the financial markets. With the economy sliding and Spanish banks no longer able to finance themselves independently, doubts are growing among investors that the country can service its debts without outside help. Some are already speculating that Spain will have to request aid from the European Union’s euro rescue fund.
On Monday, the interest rate on 10-year government loans rose for the first time this year to over the 6-percent mark, increasing by 0.13 points to 6.12 percent. Investors are demanding increasingly higher risk premiums in order to buy Spanish bonds.
The cost for credit loss insurance also rose to a record high. For securities with a five-year term and a face value of $10 million, insurers are demanding an annual premium of $520,000.
“We’re back in full crisis mode,” Rabobank strategist Lyn Graham-Taylor said, according to Reuters. “It is looking more and more likely that Spain is going to have some form of a bailout.” For weeks now, markets have been rife with speculation that Spain may have to borrow money from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in order to shore up its foundering banks. Figures ranging from €50 billion to €100 billion are being bandied about.
The Spanish banks are so saddled with a mountain of non-performing real estate loans that few other European banks are willing to continue to lend them money. Instead they must rely on the European Central Bank (ECB) for fresh infusions of cheap money. In March, the banks borrowed a record €316 billion from the ECB — close to twice the amount borrowed in February.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy Wants New Role for Euro Bank
With just a week to go until the presidential elections, French incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday (15 April) said the European Central Bank should get a new mandate on reviving economic growth — a no-go area for Germany.
“On the question of the ECB’s role in boosting growth, we French are going to open the debate,” Sarkozy told supporters in central Paris during the biggest rally of his re-election campaign to date.
He said that there must be “no taboos” in discussing the rules of the eurozone, including a more growth-oriented role for the ECB: “We cannot have taboo subjects. We cannot have banned debates.”
The Frankfurt-based ECB was a political target for Sarkozy five years ago during the 2007 presidential election campaign. Since then he has regularly spoken out in favour of a more active role by the bank in saving ailing governments in the eurozone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Soros Calls on Germany to Pay or Leave Euro
US billionaire investor George Soros called on Germany to contribute more or leave the eurozone. “The Germans should decide if they want the euro or not. If so, they have to carry out financial transfers. If not, they should leave the eurozone,” he told Welt am Sonntag in an interview.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced
The New York Times won two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, one for its reporting on Africa and another for an investigative series on obscure tax code provisions that allow wealthy corporations and citizens to avoid paying taxes. But the bigger surprise this year came from new media. Online news outlets The Huffington Post and Politico both won their first Pulitzer Prizes, a sign of the changing media landscape.
Also notable this year was the lack of prizes in some categories. The Pulitzer Prize board did not name a winner in the editorial writing category and more notably declined to name a winner in the coveted fiction category for the first time in 35 years.
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Caton: Tampa ‘At Risk’ Of Islamic Takeover
The head of a Florida-based pro-family organization is deeply concerned that the “Islamization” of Tampa is not far behind that of Dearborn, Michigan. The Florida Family Association (FFA) has been instrumental in warning parents that a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had been invited several times to Steinbrenner High School in Tampa to indoctrinate children with Islamic propaganda, including sharia law. But The Tampa Tribune has criticized the family group for doing so and supported CAIR, whose Florida office is located in Tampa.
David Caton, president of the FFA, says there is a reason the radical Islamic group has taken up residence in the area. “Tampa has a very large population of Muslims,” he explains. “We’ve had numerous public officials embrace various political aspects of Islamist extremism and changes of policy that trend more toward sharia. Tampa is at risk; it’s one of the top five cities at risk.” And the pro-family advocate warns that the Islamization of the city is not far behind that of Dearborn, Michigan, which Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries has nicknamed “Dearbornistan.” “Dearborn is almost lost because 50 percent of their population is Arabic-Muslim,” Caton reports. “They can elect and dominate the government there. But we have a smaller population [of Muslims] in Tampa than Dearborn, and we’re already having non-Islamic leaders embracing their progressive agenda.” So he contends that the Islamization of Tampa must be brought to a halt.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Charlottesville’s First Constructed Mosque Has Its Ribbon Cutting
A Charlottesville Muslim group finally has a home of its own. The Islamic Society of Central Virginia had been fundraising for a dozen years to make the new mosque a reality. Of the three stories in Charlottesville’s first purpose-built mosque, one is complete, the other two remain largely in the rough. “If you go inside, you’ll see a lot of it’s unfinished, but we still have a place to call our own,” Irtefa Binte-Farid, who will soon be entering graduate school, said. Emaad Abdel-Rahman cited help from people in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. in raising funds for the building. He joked that people now develop sudden allergies whenever he brings up fundraising, but said efforts will have to continue to finish the inside of the building. The Quran forbids borrowing money at interest, which means the group has to have all the money in hand before it can undertake a given piece of work.
Among those in attendance for the building’s ribbon cutting Saturday were Charlottesville Mayor Satyendra Huja and City Councilor Kristin Szakos. “Things don’t happen by themselves,” Huja said. “People make it happen.” City Councilor Dave Norris was unable to attend, but sent a message. “I am thrilled, as I know you are,” he wrote. Members of the Islamic Society of Central Virginia did express happiness at their new facility, which replaces a home that had been housing the program while members raised money for the new Pine Street mosque. “The ISCV and this mosque, for us, is really a grounding point,” said University of Virginia fourth-year Mohib Tora of the Muslim Students Association. The group works closely with the MSA, and the new facility will also mean more space for students. The mosque will offer five daily prayers, including the especially important Friday prayers. The new facility, which will eventually include a kitchen in the basement, will also have enough capacity for big holiday events, said Khan Hassan, the group’s treasurer and a member of its board of directors. The society lists spreading the word of God and correcting misperceptions about Islam among its missions
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Forgerygate: Demand a Special Counsel Appointment
Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetoro aka Barry Dunham aka Barack Dunham — all known aliases of the occupant in the White House. I will refer to him as Barry Soetoro since that appears to be the last known legal name of the mystery man.
Over the past four years I have followed every case filed, read every brief submitted and a million words on the constitutional meaning of ‘natural born citizen’. Only those in denial or whose ideological agenda depends on Barry staying in office refuse to acknowledge that Soetoro was born with dual citizenship. He was ineligible in 2008 and he’s still ineligible in 2012.
In the only oral arguments to actually take place out in Georgia, the end result has been the same. Two weeks ago, the Georgia Supreme Court checked their manhood at the door and ruled against all the plaintiffs. Those judges followed the cowardly path taken by Judge Mahili in his original decision to allow Barry on the Georgia ballot despite the undeniable legal facts presented by plaintiffs during the original hearings. However, what the Georgia Supreme Court did was even more reprehensible according to Van Irion, Liberty Legal Foundation, who represented David Welden:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hacking Expert David Chalk Joins Urgent Call to Halt Smart Grid
“100% certainty of catastrophic failure of energy grid within 3 years”
The vulnerability of the energy industry’s new wireless smart grid will inevitably lead to lights out for everyone, according to leading cyber expert David Chalk. In an online interview for an upcoming documentary film entitled ‘Take Back Your Power’ ( www.ThePowerFilm.org ), Chalk says the entire power grid will be at risk to being taken down by cyber attack, and if installations continue it’s only a matter of time.
“We’re in a state of crisis,” said Chalk. “The front door is open and there is no lock to be had. There is not a power meter or device on the grid that is protected from hacking — if not already infected — with some sort of trojan horse that can cause the grid to be shut down or completely annihilated.”
“One of the most amazing things that has happened to mankind in the last 100 years is the Internet. It’s given us possibility beyond our wildest imagination. But we also know the vulnerabilities that exist inside of it. And then we have the backbone, the power grid that powers our nations. Those two are coming together. And it’s the smart meter on your home or business that’s now allowing that connectivity.”
Chalk also issued a challenge to governments, media and technology producers to show him one piece of digital technology that is hack-proof.
“The computer companies that are involved, the manufacturers that are involved, bring forward a technology and I will show you that it’s penetrable,” said Chalk. “I’ll do it on national TV, I’ll do it anywhere. But I can guarantee you 100% that there is nothing out there today — nothing — that can’t be penetrated.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Open Mic Comment
Believing himself off the record, President Obama, then in Russia, leaned over to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and said in reference to prospective negotiations on reduction of American missile defenses: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” In response, Medvedev replied in English, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladmir,” meaning to incoming President (and de facto Russian dictator) Vladmir Putin.
The comment is problematic for at least five reasons. First, President Obama is revealing to the Russian president that Obama will act after his re-election in less of a representational capacity, but more on his own behalf as if he too were a dictator. Second, President Obama is signaling that he presently maintains a public position that will change after the election albeit the intended change is one not to be revealed to the American public. Third, President Obama is suggesting that he will move to reduce American missile defenses, thus making the United States more vulnerable to nuclear attack. Fourth, President Obama’s statement in this instance suggests that he may well have a hidden agenda on a host of other vital issues that will become apparent only after he is re-elected. Fifth, the President is confiding in an enemy of the United States in a rather casual manner, revealing that he fails to recognize that when he appears abroad he represents at all times and in all places the United States of America.
The fickle statement of the President is an embarrassment for the entire nation. It proves once again that President Obama cannot be trusted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Occupy: New Violent Phase Begins to Use Germany’s Black Bloc Tactic
A black bloc is a protest tactic where the point is to cause destruction and chaos to the system with organized violence. It was named in Germany where Anarchists developed the tactic. The protesters wear black clothing and mask their faces to make it harder for police to pick out individuals.
This weekend in New York where the Occupy movement began the tactic was employed for the first time. New York Times reported a long-time Occupy organizer was one of those arrested for attacking a NYPD officer with a metal pipe. 41-year-old Alexander Penley, is an attorney and has been an Occupy Wall Street organizer since the movement began in the fall. The group tried to use eight-foot-long galvanized metal pipes to smash windows.
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Oklahoma City Bombing Anniversary
Hamas comes from the MB, and in Steven Emerson’s American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, he listed Hamas as having groups and conventions in Oklahoma City. Relevant to the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 (anniversary this coming Thursday), Jim Crogan in “An Oklahoma Mystery: New hints of links between Timothy McVeigh and Middle Eastern terrorists” (L.A. Weekly, July 24-30, 2002) wrote that “an undated intelligence report by [Director of the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Yossef] Bodansky discusses alleged terrorist training inside the U.S. that included some ‘Lily Whites.’… Bodansky states the training was ordered by Iran and conducted by Hamas operatives… Bodansky’s sources also report that at least two of the 1993 participants came from Oklahoma City.”
[…]
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s alleged bombing partner, Terry Nichols, first met Ramzi Youssef (Al Qaeda 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind) in the Philippines on December 17, 1991. The FBI could have prevented the 1993 bombing, because the bomb designer asked his FBI contact to give him fake bombmaking material, but the contact didn’t. The FBI also could have prevented the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, but it prevented the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) from its planned raid of Elohim City to arrest Andreas Strassmeir, described as the bombing “instigator.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Stakelbeck: Elites Failing America in Battle Against Jihadists
It’s the first rule of war: know your enemy. Yet the U.S. government refuses to use terms like “jihadists” or “radical Islamists” to describe the terrorists who attack us.
My new report examines how America’s “elites” in government, academia and the mainstream media are misleading the American people about the threat we face—and endangering our national security as a result.
Click the link above to watch the report, which features interviews with Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Israeli govt. advisor Michael Widlanski.
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
Trayvon Case Unlikely to Change US Gun Laws
In February, an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer. The man has been charged with second-degree murder, but the incident is not likely to change liberal gun laws in the US. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black American, was on his way home when he became a target of George Zimmerman.
Because the youth seemed “suspect” to him, Zimmerman, a member of an armed neighborhood watch group, decided to follow him. The situation then apparently escalated, and Zimmerman and shot and killed Martin.
Police summoned to the scene first checked whether the victim had a criminal record. Zimmerman, who claimed to have acted in self-defense, was allowed to walk free, in accordance with Florida law, as gun laws in the state are — even by American standards — particularly “generous.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Physician Kim Voted World Bank Head
The World Bank has chosen public health expert Jim Yong Kim of the US as its new president. The South Korean-born physician will assume the top post at the international development agency in July. The World Bank announced on Monday that Kim had been chosen to lead the Washington-based institution. Kim, 52, will replace Robert Zoellick, who is stepping down after a one five-year term. He is currently head of Dartmouth College in the US state of New Hampshire.
His nomination by President Barack Obama came as a surprise. As a physician and pioneer in HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis treatment in the developing world, he was an unorthodox choice. In the past, political, economic and legal figures have led the bank. The choice of Kim cements the tradition of an American leading the 187-nation development agency. Developing countries had unsuccessfully lobbied to have one of their own named president.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Vigilant in Fight Against Chocolate Eggs
Bringing Kinder Surprise eggs into the US can incur a fine of hundreds of dollars because the famous chocolates with toys inside are illegal there under a 1938 law. Seizures of the eggs have doubled since 2010, but egg-lovers are now petitioning for the ban to be lifted.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands Visit New Mosque
Thousands of Hamiltonians, most Muslims but many not, came out to celebrate the city’s newest and largest mosque Friday. And as the guests flooded into the main prayer hall at the Hamilton Mountain Masjid, Kamran Bhatti was especially emotional. This mosque — the first in the city to be built from the ground up — had been a dream of his father’s, who moved to Hamilton from Pakistan in the 1970s. Looking around the room, he said his story is special but not unique. “There are 3,000 owners of this place, 3,000 personal connections to this place,” said Bhatti, a spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Hamilton. Last Friday, it was a full house. More than 3,500 took advantage of the statutory holiday to come out for prayers at the mosque. This week, more curious faces — many from outside the Muslim community — gathered to celebrate the milestone. Worshippers and visitors alike strolled around, admiring the finished product.
Sabeeha Quader was just thrilled. The 29-year-old woman has called Hamilton home for two years, and has seen how much this project means to the city. “It’s just a really nice feeling to have a facility that can accommodate so many people,” she said. “Just the diversity of this community … so many new faces coming in and out of these doors.” In his sermon Friday, Imam Hamid Slimi spoke of the undeniable excitement in the air. “No one doubts there is a mood in this masjid today … a spirit of happiness, of celebration … a spirit rarely seen except on these occasions like Ramadan, weddings and new birth.” The mosque fell silent only for the sermon and prayers, and then a buzz quickly filled the space as people toured the new facilities.
The old Stone Church Road East mosque was based in a former racquetball club on the site that held 500 people. Now, thousands can worship there. A special mezzanine was built upstairs for the women with additional areas for children. On the main floor are a ‘wadou’ or washing area, conference and board rooms, a community centre and a kitchen.
But beyond the physical improvements, Friday was all about community. Hamilton is home to 30,000 Muslims from 35 nationalities. There are seven mosques across the city. Khadija Krichel moved to Hamilton from Morocco in 1978. She was thrilled to see the new space, but more than anything, “I’m just so happy because everyone is here to share it.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
British Library Buys $14.3m Ancient Gospel
The British Library has paid 9 million pounds (US$14.3 million) to acquire the St. Cuthbert Gospel, a remarkably well-preserved survivor of seventh-century Britain described by the library as the oldest European book to survive fully intact.
The palm-sized book, a manuscript copy of the Gospel of John in Latin, was bought from the British branch of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), the library said Tuesday.
The book measures 96 mm (3.8 inches) by 136 mm (5.4 inches) and has an elaborately tooled red leather cover. It comes from the time of St. Cuthbert, who died in 687, and it was discovered inside his coffin when it was opened in 1104 at Durham Cathedral.
The British Library said the artifact is one of the world’s most important books.
“To look at this small and intensely beautiful treasure from the Anglo-Saxon period is to see it exactly as those who created it in the seventh century would have seen it,” said the library’s chief executive, Lynne Brindley.
“The exquisite binding, the pages, even the sewing structure survive intact, offering us a direct connection with our forebears 1300 years ago,” she added.
Cuthbert’s coffin arrived in Durham after monks had removed it from the island of Lindisfarne, 330 miles (530 kilometers) north of London, to protect the remains from Viking raiders in the ninth and 10th centuries. The book will be displayed at the British Library in London and then in Durham, northeast England, next year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Authorities Accused of Blindness on ‘Counter-Jihad’
Security services in Europe have neglected the kind of right-wing extremism which inspired Norway’s Anders Behring Breivik to commit mass murder, a UK-based rights group has warned.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Pledges Extra Funds for Energy in Developing Nations
(BRUSSELS) — The European Union vowed fresh funds Monday to help developing nations provide sustainable energy to 500 million people by 2030.
“Today, while one part of the planet lives in the digital era and in the times of digital communication, the other part has still no access to basic electricity, power or energy,” said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
“Being in the dark every day is the tragic reality of 1.3 billion people in the world today.”
Speaking at a sustainable energy summit attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Barroso pledged 50 million euros ($65 million) over two years for technical assistance and said EU nations would seek hundreds of millions of euros more to support investments in sustainable energy for developing countries.
“With today’s strong pledge that we will assist developing countries in providing energy access for 500 million people by 2030, we are demonstrating our own commitment and hope that others will join us in making sure that by 2030, energy access is no longer a privilege but the right of all.”
The UN chief welcomed what he described as “a very ambitious initiative” in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fuels From Waste: A New EU Project
(AGI) Brussels — Reducing the quantity of waste sent to European dumps is the aim of a new project on bioenergy, that has just started and is funded by the Eu. The project ‘BioenNW’ (‘Delivering Local Bioenergy to NW Europe’), puts together researchers from Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands and UK, who will study how waste materials, like straw, wood, algae and sewage could become sources of biofuels, calcelling out the dependance on the production of food crops to be used for producing fuels. The details nof the initiative were published in the Cordis newslatter. BioenNW is partly funded, with 4 million Euros, as part of the INTERREG IVB North Western Europe of the European fund for regional development (EFRD) .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Vegan Sex Shop Offers Responsible Romping
A Berlin sex shop has taken clear-conscience consumerism to an intimate new high, with organic, vegan sex aids. “Other Nature” a women-orientated eco-friendly sex shop offers organic lubricants, silicon vibrators, and whips recycled from old bike tyres as an alternative to mainstream sex shop wares.
Their manifesto is a brave one — to bring customers away from big name sex shops, which they believe sell poor quality, potentially hazardous sex toys. They say fun, healthy sex can be environmentally responsible.
A wide range of dildos, hand selected in every for colour and size are set out across the counter and they all have one thing in common — nothing was created using animal products, nor was any ingredient tested on animals. Because, unlike organic foods, there is no official framework for assessing intimate toys, the women check personally that everything they sell passes strict guidelines.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Kurds Try to Hijack Rhine Pleasure Boat
Ten members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) attempted to hijack a pleasure boat on the Rhine in Cologne, western Germany, on Sunday, hoping to use loudspeakers to propagate their manifesto. The pleasure boat was on a tranquil, Sunday afternoon cruise when suddenly half the approximately 20 passengers turned out to be Kurdish activists in disguise.
Some of the group shoved the boat’s captain and driver to one side. “They demanded that the crew steer the boat along the bank, and wanted to read out their manifesto through loudspeakers,” police spokesman Bruno Ethen told Der Spiegel magazine.
No-one was injured in the incident, and the activists, who were unarmed, have been interviewed and are expected to be released on bail, according to police.
In September last year more than 30 PKK sympathizers briefly occupied the studios of commercial TV channel RTL in Cologne. They tried to get the broadcaster to air a report on captive PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan who was arrested in Germany in 1999 and deported to Turkey.
The PKK is fighting an armed struggle in eastern Turkey in an attempt to establish an autonomous Kurdistan and greater rights for Kurds in Turkey. It is listed as a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Chinese Names in Top Ten of Milanese Surnames
(AGI) Rome — Brambilla is no longer synonymous with being Milanese, which has been replaced by Hu. Rossi still sits at the top of the list, but Hu now comes second in the register.
That is not the only surprise. The first ten most common names at the Municipality of Milan’s registry are Chinese, which shows how the demographics of the city are changing. The Milanese name Brambilla has slipped to 9th place and Fumagalli to 30th. It was very different 25 years ago with not a single foreign name among the top 30 names against 4 today. The only name that still dominates is Rossi. The top ten Milanese names are; 1) Rossi 4,379, 2) Hu 3,694, 3) Colombo 3,685, 4) Ferrari 3,568, 5) Bianchi 2,784, 6) Russo 2,337, 7) Villa 1905, 8) Chen 1,625, 9) Brambilla 1,536, 10) Zhou 1,439.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rome’s Famous Gelato Finds New Ways to Tease the Tastebuds
Italian capital is heaven for ice-cream lovers
(ANSA) — Rome, April 13 — Dripping with chocolate, covered with strawberries or laden with cream, there is a gelato to tease the tastebuds of every ice-cream lover. It’s no surprise to learn that thousands of foreign tourists who come to Rome take time out to scour the cobbled streets of the Italian capital in search of the perfect gelato.
Historians seem to be divided about whether it was the Greeks or the Egyptians who pioneered the icy delight. Some even claim that Alexander the Great had holes dug along his ancient battle routes that were then filled with snow and fruity flavours, while the Chinese are rumoured to have had their own version of flavoured ice. But most experts agree that the Italians have perfected the art of gelato making and have exported their expertise around the world. Giolitti (Via degli Uffici del Vicario 40, near the Pantheon) was established in 1890 by Giuseppe and Bernadina Giolitti and is a Rome institution. After three generations it still delivers the same authentic flavours today and attracts thousands of children and adults. Among the gelateria’s legendary ice creams is the Coppa Giolitti, a sinful blend of chocolate ice-cream, custard and chilled zabaglione, all topped off with cream and hazelnut shavings. The more eclectic customers can be seen mixing classical flavours such as rich stracciatella with a scoop of lemon or chocolate combined with strawberry. Across town exhausted tourists leave the Vatican Museum and line up outside The Old Bridge (Viale dei Bastioni di Michelangelo 5, just off Piazza Risorgimento). This tiny gelateria makes truly delicious ice-cream, dishes out generous, creamy portions of caramel, nutella, coffee, pine nuts and refreshing fruit — all for less than two euros. And, since it’s made with cream and not milk, it won’t even drip. The highly-recommended La Gelateria dei Gracchi (in Via dei Gracchi 272), offers luscious combinations such as peach and fig, apple and cinnamon as well as pear and ricotta cheese. An alternative to the traditional aperitivo is their popular Cubano, made with rum and chocolate ice-cream. The popular Italian food guide, Gambero Rosso, recommends La Gelateria del Gracchi as well as Il Gelato (Viale dell’Aeronautica 105) in the EUR distric in the south of Rome.
The latter offers over 100 flavours, even catering for those with more exotic taste, offering eccentric tastes such as celery and peperoni or an espresso and sambuca ice cream. In the trendy San Crispino (Via della Panetteria 42) back in Rome’s historic centre tourists will find no cones as the ice cream is always served in coppe, or cups. Service isn’t always with a smile and it’s a little more expensive, but it is a still a legend and prides itself on its quality and home-made ingredients. Established in the 1800s, it is said that the preparation of the ice-cream still follows the secret traditions of an ancient recipe once popular with the 16th-century Italian noblewoman and French Queen consort, Catherine de Medici. Al Settimo Gelo (Via Vodice 21, close to Piazza Mazzini) produces a range of exceptional ice creams and sorbets. Sorbet flavours include chestnut, date, mandarin and even hibiscus flavours. Apart from their popular tiramisu and a Sicilian cream gelati, this gelateria creates chilli chocolate, bergamot, ginger and cardamom flavours and an unusual Iranian ice-cream, made with saffron and rose water. The Gelateria Artigianale Corona (Largo Arenula 27, Piazza Argentina) is also regarded as an ice-cream innovator serving refreshing scoops of lemon and basil and even biscuit flavours.
For a taste of Brazil, you can try their Pitanga, made from bittersweet Brazilian fruits or their dark chocolate gelato, made from Amazon nuts. Others popular gelaterie include: Vice (Via Gregorio VII 385) specialising in ricotta, orange and chocolate mixes and Fata Morgana (Via Lago di Lesina 9) with its irresistible Muller Thurgau wild strawberry and Kentucky chocolate (sprinkled with coffee, liquorice and tobacco) flavours. According to the Istituto del Gelato, a staggering 95% of Italians have a soft spot for their national dessert, and 56% confess they eat it at least once a week in summer. In 2010 some 589 million portions of take-away cups and cones were sold throughout Italy (an average of around 4 kilos of ice cream for every Italian), with more ice-cream sold on Sunday than any other day of the week
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Stripper ‘Nuns’ Danced for Berlusconi: Trial Witness
Strippers in nun costumes danced in front of Silvio Berlusconi at his villa, a witness told a Milan court where the former Italian prime minister is on trial for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute.
Model Imane Fadil said today that the first time she went to a party she was given 2,000 euros ($2,600) in cash by Berlusconi, who told her: “Don’t be offended.”
That night she said she saw two young women in nun costumes with “black tunics, white veils and crosses” stripping in front of the then prime minister.
One of the two was Nicole Minetti, now a regional councillor for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in Milan, Moroccan-born Fadil said.
She said Minetti and the other woman ended up staying the night at the villa near Milan and alleged that women who stayed were paid more for sex.
Fadil said she had heard of Berlusconi having sex for money with at least two of the women invited to his parties, Italian media reported.
Fadil also said she had come under pressure from a mysterious man to go back to the villa last year when the Berlusconi trial had already started.
“A man stopped near my house and gave me an untraceable phone to organise a visit to Arcore. But I didn’t want to,” she told the courtroom.
Berlusconi is charged with having sex with an underage prostitute, Karima El-Mahroug, and then allegedly abusing his powers by getting police to release her when she was arrested for theft so that his crime would not be revealed.
El-Mahroug, a dancer who was 17 when she allegedly had sex with the then prime minister, is better known by her stage name of “Ruby the Heart Stealer”.
Berlusconi rejects all charges and El-Mahroug denies having sex with him.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Witness Tells of ‘Incriminating’ Berlusconi Sex Tape
‘Ruby could have taken revenge’
(ANSA) — Milan, Aril 16 — A new witness told a Milan court Monday she had heard that Karima ‘Ruby’ El Mahroug, the underage Moroccan-born runaway accused of taking money for sex with Silvio Berlusconi, has compromising photographs and videos of the former premier. “(Ruby) could have taken revenge,” said Imane Fadil, a Morroccan model who says she refused offers to attend Berlusconi’s alleged ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties. Fadil said in a deposition that Barbara Faggioli, another guest at Berlusconi’s home, told her that Ruby “had very compromising videos and photos of the parties”. Berlusconi is currently on trial for allegedly paying for sex with Ruby after several of the parties at his villa at Arcore outside Milan and allegedly coercing police into releasing her after an unrelated theft claim to hush up the fact. Fadil, who is listed as an injured party in a separate case involving three people who allegedly provided Berlusconi with prostitutes, is the first witness to testify that she turned down offers to participate in the parties. She told the court she first heard of Ruby two years ago from Faggioli, who “was nervous about this girl who could get Berlusconi and all of us in trouble”. Fadil said that Berlusconi personally offered her an envelope with four 500-euro notes inside to “stay over” the first time she visited his villa in Arcore north of Milan. “There were specific handouts for girls who stayed the night. They got the most. They did everything they could to stay,” she said. Fadil recalled one evening in which Faggioli allegedly engaged in a strip-tease while dressed as a nun along with Nicole Minetti, Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist who is now a Lombardy regional councillor for his People of Freedom (PdL) party and is one of the three people accused of supplying the premier with prostitutes. “Minetti organized the evenings,” said Fadil, who described the performance as a sort of “sexy dance in the bunga-bunga room,” with Minetti and Faggioli both dressed in “black habits with a white cross on the headdress”. The other two accused of supplying prostitutes are bankrupt talent scout Lele Mora and long-time Berlusconi news anchor Emilio Fede, a close friend of the media magnate’s.
Fadil, who said she did not come forward sooner out of fear, said Fede told her to keep quiet. “Fede told me that I could not speak about what I had seen at Arcore. He told me ‘I’ll take care of it’,” she said. Fadil also testified that she was “pressured” to go back to Arcore as recently as May and June of last year, after the current trial of the former premier had begun. “A man met me close to my home to give me an untraceable telephone in order to organize meetings in Arcore, but I didn’t want to,” she said. Prosecutors say Berlusconi had sex with 33 prostitutes at his villa over the course of several evenings. Berlusconi, who says his parties were innocent and “elegant” affairs, has stressed that both he and Ruby deny having sex, and has quipped “33 women in two months is too many even for someone who likes pretty girls, like me”.
He claims to be the victim of biased prosecutors who have allegedly been conducting a witch-hunt against him since he entered politics in 1994.
The charge of having sex with an underage prostitute carries a jail term of up to three years, and abuse of office 12 years.
The Ruby trial, which opened last April , is expected to run for years, with dozens of witnesses called by the prosecution and defence including George Clooney and soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fugitive in Berlusconi Sex Scandal Arrested After Months on Run
Rome, 16 April (AKI) — A fugitive accused of involvement in corruption and a sex scandal involving billionaire Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi was arrested Monday after six months on the run.
Ex-director and editor of Socialist newspaper Avanti! Valter Lavitola at 6:40 am local time was arrested at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci airport upon the arrival of his flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina before being transferred to a prison in Naples.
Prosecutors in September issued an arrest warrant for Lavitola for suspicion of having the job of passing hush money from Berlusconi money to Bari businessman Giampaolo Tarantini and his wife Angela Devenuto. The couple allegedly were blackmailing the former prime minister over a sex scandal involving prostitutes investigators say Tarantini provided for Berlusconi’s sex parties.
On 24 August Lavitola allegedly telephoned Berlusconi from Sofia , Bulgaria to ask him if he should come home to answer prosecutors’ questions.”What should I do, return and clear everything up?” he said, according to excerpts of wiretaps released Thursday by left-leaning weekly L’Espresso magazine and republished on the front page of many of Italy’s major newspapers . “Stay where you are,” Berlusconi advised him, according to the published transcripts.
Blackmail charges against Tarantini and Devenuto have been dropped. Prosecutors now say Berlusconi paid money to Tarantini to offer false testimony that Berlusconi didn’t realize the women were prostitutes.
Berlusconi is on trial in Milan for allegedly paying a minor for sex.
All the accused say they have done nothing wrong.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Lega Nord Money Used to Buy Diamonds, Investigators
(AGI) Milan — Rosy Mauro, Piergiorgio Stiffoni and Belsito may have used Lega Nord money to buy 400,000 euro worth of diamonds. It emerges from ongoing investigations into the Lega Nord’s alleged financial misdealing. Investigators said 200,000 euro of party money were also spent to buy 5 kg of gold ingots.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: De Gregorio’s Accountant, He Was Paid to Defect to the PDL
(AGI) Naples- De Gregorio’s defection from the IDV, for which he was first elected in 2006, to the PDL, was “handsomely rewarded”. The senator’s accountant, Andrea Vetromile, who was heard on 29 February this year as a person informed of the facts, revealed this to Naples’ magistrates. “It was Lavitola who endorsed Sergio De Gregorio with Berlusconi. De Gregorio is a former socialist like Lavitola”. The Senator was due to stand in 2005 on the Forza Italia lists, but Fulvio Martusciello, “didn’t think well of him and managed to exclude him.” De Gregorio stood with Di Pietro and was elected with about 80,000 votes. “Once elected he went over to the ranks of the centre-right. So it was Lavitola, with his strong personal relationship with Berlusconi, who made this agreement happen. I heard Lavitola endorsing the defection operation … I would also like to point out that the defection agreement was very ‘lavishly remunerated …. (omitted). Also it was the job of Lavitola like De Gregorio to ferry many more possible MPs from the centre-left to the centre-right.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mentally-Disabled Boy in Italy Denied Communion for “Not Understanding” Rite
Near the northern city of Ferrara, a priest has denied communion to a mentally-disabled child, saying that it can only be offered to those who “understand the mystery” of the rite. The parents are taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights — and the Vatican.
Giacomo Galeazzi
Controversy has erupted both inside and outside the Catholic Church after a parish priest in northern Italy refused to offer communion to a disabled child. Father Piergiorgio Zaghi of the Immaculate Conception church in Porto Garibaldi, a village near Ferrara, denied the sacrament at Easter mass, saying that the mentally-disabled boy was unable to “understand the mystery of the Eucharist.”
The parents of the boy in the Emilia-Romagna region have taken their case both to the European Court of Human Rights and to the higher authorities at the Holy See in Rome. Antonio Marziale, a sociologist and head of the Children’s Rights Observatory as well as a consultant for the Italian Parliamentary Committee for Childhood, denounced the denial of the rite as “cultural obscurantism from the Middle Ages.”
Parishioners are divided between those who share the priest’s view and those who disagree, and are calling for Pope Benedict XVI to weigh in and defend the right of the mentally disabled to receive the sacrament. A boy who attends catechism classes with the disabled child wrote a letter to the priest: “If he was with us, it would be a great joy for him, and we would see the actual value of Communion.”…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Muslims Being Discriminated in UK’
London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has called on the Londoners to be united after stressing that it is the Muslims’ turn to be discriminated against. Labour party’s candidate for mayor of London declared that he would like to see Muslim residents of the capital be represented in a “better balance.” Livingstone, who is competing to take back his former post from Conservative mayor Boris Johnson, said that Britain’s “right-wing politicians pander to bigotry.” He insisted that in 1906 Daily Mail’s front pages mostly covered the headlines about “Jews bring crime and disaster to Britain.” However the headlines then were about the blacks, Irish and later the lesbians and gays. He accused the right-wing politicians of aiming to show that there has always been an enemy in the society. “I remember the deputy leader of the Tory group at the GLC, when we launched our lesbian and gay policies, said to me ‘Every time I make a homophobic speech in Ruislip-Northwood I get an extra 1,000 votes’. It is the Muslims’ turn now. Don’t be divided,” he said. “No Muslims ever came to me and said ‘I want homosexuality banned’. Muslims came to this city to flee oppressive culture. They came here so their children could have democracy, that they could achieve their best.” Meanwhile, while visiting Finsbury Park Mosque last month, Livingstone promised to turn the capital into a “beacon” for the words of the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him.) he considered Prophet’s last sermon as “an agenda for all humanity.” He insisted that he wanted to spend the next four years ensuring that “every non-Muslim in London knows and understands [its] words and message.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nordic Populists Search Souls After July Attacks
Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s deadly attacks in Norway sent shock waves through the serene Nordic lands, rocking their populist parties and prompting at least one to clean up its act. In the nearly nine months since Breivik massacred 77 people on July 22nd, such parties have experienced several setbacks amid accusations their criticism of immigration and Islam helped pave the way for the tragedy.
“There has been a very infected debate. It is a very uncomfortable feeling to be accused of such a thing,” Mattias Karlsson, party secretary for the Sweden Democrats, told AFP.
In the 1,500-page manifesto he published online shortly before the attacks, Breivik claimed to be on a crusade against multi-culturalism and the “Muslim invasion” of Europe.
He hailed the sentiments expressed by Norway’s Progress Party, the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party (DPP) and members of the Finns Party.
Horrified to find themselves mentioned in the document and to find the confessed killer voicing support for some of their cherished ideas, the parties immediately distanced themselves from Breivik.
“I resent everything that he stands for. I resent his actions and will not be associated with this guy. Really, I will not,” Progress Party chief Siv Jensen told AFP shortly after the attacks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Anders Behring Breivik: The Boy Next Door Turned Serial Killer
Anders Behring Breivik came across as your average guy but behind his courteous exterior lurked one of history’s most gruesome killers, fuelled by a hatred of multiculturalism and Islam.
Tall, blond and with piercing blue eyes, the 33-year-old right wing extremist has confessed to killing 77 people on July 22, 2011, when he gunned down youths attending a Labour party camp after setting off a bomb outside the government offices in Oslo. The massacre was “a preventive attack against state traitors” guilty of “ethnic cleansing” due to their support for a multicultural society, Breivik told a court hearing in February. His trial opens in Oslo on Monday.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Terror Trial Gets Underway in Oslo
WITH VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL: Confessed Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik showed predictable disregard for the Norwegian court system when his trial began on Monday, leading off with a Nazi salute and objecting to the court’s legitimacy. Many of those involved otherwise praised the “quiet, dignified” nature of proceedings on opening day, while Breivik showed no emotion when forced to listen to the details of all 77 of the murders he committed last summer.
Breivik, well-groomed and wearing a dark suit and tie, was handcuffed when he entered the Oslo City Court Monday morning. Police removed his handcuffs just before the trial began, and Breivik immediately made a Nazi salute to those assembled in the packed courtroom. When the court took a break, Breivik refused to stand when the judicial panel hearing his case left the courtroom.
Judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen began by introducing the prosecution and defense counsel, the judiciary panel hearing the case (two professonal judges including herself, three lay judges and two reserve lay judges), the court-appointed psychiatrists and, finally, the defendant. Breivik immediately objected, saying he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court because its “mandate” comes from “political parties that support multi-culturalism” in Norway.
Breivik formally identified himself by name and birthdate and corrected Arntzen when she suggested he was unemployed. He claimed he was a skribent (writer) and was working from prison.
Breivik also objected to Arntzen herself, claiming she is a “personal friend” of Hanne Harlem of the Labour Party, a former Norwegian justice minister and younger sister of former Labour Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The party and Norway’s Labour-led government were Breivik’s foremost targets when he bombed government headquarters and carried out a massacre at Labour’s youth summer camp on July 22.
Breivik’s objections were, however, deemed “informal” by his own defense counsel and thus merely taken under advisement by the court. He then had to listen, along with everyone else, to the formal reading of the charges against him. It took prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh nearly 90 minutes to name all 77 of his victims, where they were when attacked, and how they died. While some family members of the victims quietly cried in their seats inside the courtroom, Breivik showed no emotion, refusing to look at the prosecutor as she spoke and demonstrably fixing his gaze on the table in front of him.
When asked by Arntzen whether he would plead guilty to all or any of the charges, Breivik responded by saying he acknowledged the factual evidence but declared himself innocent of punishable crimes, adding that he acted out of necessity and could justify his attacks.
Breivik will be allowed to defend and explain his attacks over the next five days starting on Tuesday. Many Norwegians, including the head of the Labour youth organization AUF and the spokesman for a victims’ group, have complained that Breivik will be given a public platform to spread his anti-Muslim ideology. Others, from legal experts to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, agree that Breivik’s testimony will be difficult to hear but that it’s “absolutely necessary” he be accorded the same rights as all other criminal defendants in the Norwegian legal system.
“I can understand that many feel he’s getting too much attention,” Stoltenberg told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) early Monday morning. “But it’s important that a full court case moves forward.” Stoltenberg and other state officials argue Breivik’s trial “must be as normal as possible.”
It continued Monday with introductory remarks by the prosecution and defense counsel, including an overview of the events of July 22 and an overview of Breivik’s life from 1995 to 2006 and then from 2006 to 2011. The trial is scheduled to run until June 22.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Film Unleashed Tears From Breivik
SEE THE VIDEO: Terror defendant Anders Behring Breivik displayed little if any emotion when his trial started in the Oslo City Court on Monday. He broke into tears, though, when prosecutors showed the court a 12-minute propaganda film Breivik had made about his own battle against multi-culturalism.
Breivik earlier in the day had been stoic, showing no emotion at all when prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh spent around an hour-and-a-half reading off the names of all his victims and how they died during his attacks of July 22.
On a few occasions he smiled, otherwise he barely flinched when legal proceedings got underway.
Just before the court recessed for lunch, however, Engh’s co-counsel Svein Holden made introductory remarks including an overview of Breivik’s life from 1995 until last year, when he bombed government headquarters and massacred 69 persons attending a Labour Party summer camp. He killed a total of 77 persons.
Breivik has repeatedly said he has no regrets, and he showed no remorse at his custody hearings either. But when Holden thought the court should see a short propaganda film Breivik made that was related to his fears of Muslim dominance in Norway and Europe, Breivik started to cry.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK), one of two broadcast outlets allowed to air Monday’s proceedings, had opted against showing the propaganda film itself. NRK cut back in with video from the courtroom, however, when Breivik’s eyes welled up with tears.
A psychiatrist following the proceedings was surprised by the first sign of emotion from Breivik, but suggested it indicates that he is “extremely pre-occupied with himself and his own cause.” She also believed the video showed signs of narcissistic tendencies. An NRK commentator notes that Breivik’s tears were among the “most dramatic” events to come out of Monday’s proceedings.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik’s Tears Flow on First Day of Trial
Anders Behring Breivik, whose trial opened on Monday for the killing of 77 people in Norway’s twin attacks last July, welled up in tears as the court viewed a film he posted online the day of the attacks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Police Arrest Three Over Slain Malmö Teen
Three teenagers have been arrested in Malmö, in southern Sweden, under suspicion of the murder of 15-year-old Ardiwan Samir in the Rosengård district on New Year’s Eve. “We are happy that the police have arrested them, but it isn’t going to bring Ardiwan back,” said his cousin Catrin Fadhul, to daily Aftonbladet, when she heard of the arrest.
According to the police, all the suspects are under 18 but over 15 years old. A warrant had been issued for their arrest a few days ago and they were brought in by police on Monday morning. All three are under suspicion of murder or accessory to murder, according to a police statement.
Samir died shortly after arrival at the hospital after having sustained gunshot wounds to the head and chest while out enjoying the fireworks. Despite a number of revellers being out and about at the time of the shooting, it was initially difficult for investigating officers to find witnesses willing to come forward to discuss the incident.
“We have interrogated a large number of people in this case. Motives have been investigated. We have now arrested three people and they have been taken to the police station at Davidshall,” said Bertil Isberg of the police during a police press conference on Monday.
The murder, the fourth to be committed in Malmö over the course of a month, was followed by two additional shootings in a wave of violent crime that hit the city. There were also several demonstrations in Malmö against the growing violence in the area following the incidents, one of which was held in connection to the funeral of the dead 15-year-old.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tax Deal Rewards Germans With Swiss Bank Accounts
Berlin wants to make life easier for German tax evaders. Under a new agreement, those who have hidden their assets in Switzerland can now make them legal while remaining anonymous. But some experts question whether the move is constitutional.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Taxes Never So High in Germany Since 1995, 10,000 Eur. Each
(AGI) Berlin — The German Revenue system is ever more greedy.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Work, an average German worker paid around 9,943 Euros in personal income tax and social contributions in 2011, 553 euros more than the previous year, an absolute record since 1995. The heaviest rise was for the personal income tax, which increased 300 Euros for each German taxpayer, while the average net income was 17,650 Euros, 16 Euros less compared to the previous year 2010.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: “If You Look at What Labour Did to Our Country Why on Earth Would You Let Them Anywhere Near Your Council?”
by Tim Montgomerie
Back from his overseas trip (for which the Prime Minister made an excellent defence in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph) David Cameron will today launch the Conservative Party’s local election campaign. His key message is the one at the top of this post:
“If you look at what Labour did to our country why on Earth would you let them anywhere near your council?”
A very, very good question.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin Faces Death Penalty in Bangladesh
Andrew Gilligan, in the Daily Telegraph reports:
Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, director of Muslim spiritual care provision in the NHS, a trustee of the major British charity Muslim Aid and a central figure in setting up the Muslim Council of Britain, fiercely denies any involvement in a number of abductions and “disappearances” during Bangladesh’s independence struggle in the 1970s.
He says the claims are “politically-motivated” and false. However, Mohammad Abdul Hannan Khan, the chief investigator for the country’s International Crimes Tribunal, said: “There is prima facie evidence of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin being involved in a series of killings of intellectuals. We have made substantial progress in the case against him. There is no chance that he will not be indicted and prosecuted. We expect charges in June.”Mr Mueen-Uddin could face the death penalty if convicted.
Readers of Harry’s Place will be well aware of the nature of the evidence against Mr Mueen-Uddin, which has been extensively covered on this and other blogs. It was the subject of a documentary on Channel 4, and has also been reported on by The Guardian. On each occasion that such allegations were reported, Carter Ruck would swoop, and the offending article swiftly removed, pending litigation.
It is an inevitable peculiarity of any system of libel law that, the more serious the allegation, the more serious the potential libel. Where facts are easily proved, that is no deterrent to reporting of the evidence. But where the alleged wrong-doing has taken place overseas, the costs of defending any litigation make such matters effectively unreportable. It is, perhaps, for that reason that Mr Mueen-Uddin managed to establish, in the United Kingdom, a British ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’: the organisation which ran death squads in Bangladesh in the 1970s, that murdered intellectuals, patriots and democrats. Here is a snapshot of the organisational reach of the man:
Since moving to the UK in the early 1970s, Mr Mueen-Uddin has taken British citizenship and built a successful career as a community activist and Muslim leader.
In 1989 he was a key leader of protests against the Salman Rushdie book, The Satanic Verses. Around the same time he helped to found the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe, Jamaat-e-Islami’s European wing, which believes in creating a sharia state in Europe and in 2010 was accused by a Labour minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating the Labour Party. Tower Hamlets’ directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was expelled from Labour for his close links with the IFE. Until 2010 Mr Mueen-Uddin was vice-chairman of the controversial East London Mosque, controlled by the IFE, in which capacity he greeted Prince Charles when the heir to the throne opened an extension to the mosque. He was also closely involved with the Muslim Council of Britain, which has been dominated by the IFE. He was chairman and remains a trustee of the IFE-linked charity, Muslim Aid, which has a budget of £20 million. He has also been closely involved in the Markfield Institute, the key institution of Islamist higher education in the UK.
Here, from the Daily Mail, is a photograph that says it all [Mueen-Uddin with Prince Charles]
It goes without saying that Mr Mueen-Uddin’s lawyer is Toby Cadman, who will also be familiar to readers of this site as a speaker at Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood dominated rallies. In this instance, however, his activities are entirely respectable. He is representing a man who is awaiting charges on a serious criminal matter. Moreover, the criticisms that Toby Cadman makes of the conduct of the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh are wholly proper and, indeed, correct. There is no way that Mr Mueen-Uddin should be extradited to Bangladesh, and I would oppose and indeed campaign against any such extradition myself, despite what I know about this man. It is fair to say, sadly, that Bangladesh has pointlessly and stupidly vandalised a process which ought to have brought justice and closure to the victims of the Bangladesh genocide.
Notwithstanding the dismal failure of the Bangladesh process, it does appear to be the case that it is now possible to write about, and discuss, the evidence against Mr Mueen-Uddin. I encourage you to do so. If these allegations are true, they throw a stark light on this man’s legacy in the United Kingdom. He left his home country, wrecked by religious extremism, sectarianism and bloodsheed. So we should be wholly unsurprised at what he has achieved, here.
[Reader comment by billy on 15 April 2012 at 10:18 pm.]
The New York Times wrote about him in 1972
“to his fellow reporters on the Bengali-language paper where he worked, Chowdhury Mueenuddin was a pleasant, well-mannered and intelligent young man…there was nothing exceptional about him except perhaps that he often received telephone calls from the leader of a right-wing Moslem political party. But, investigations in the last few days show that those calls were significant. For Mr. Mueenuddin has been identified as the head of a secret, commando like organization of fantatic Moslems that murdered several hundred prominent Bengali professors, doctors, lawyer and journalists in a Dhaka brick yard. Dressed in black sweaters and khaki pants, members of the group, known as Al-Badar, rounded up their victims on the last three nights of the war…Their goal, captured members have since said, was to wipe out all Bengali intellectuals who advocated independence from Pakistan and the creation a of a secular, non Moslem state.” More here: www.genocidebangladesh.org/fact-sheet-on-chowdhury-mueen-uddin/
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Evils of Secrecy in Our Family Courts
by Bruce Anderson
A few days ago, I was feeling complacent. Although I wrote that there were moments when we all felt that the country was going to the dogs, I was in too mellow a mood to mean it. A few hours later, no more complacency, and forget about moments. It was as if the United Kingdom had been renamed the United Kennels. Five fire engines and 25 firemen arrive at a pond to rescue a seagull. Why does it take 25 men to rescue one bird? I refer my honourable readers to the renaming of the UK, as mentioned above. There used to be some not especially funny jokes about how many Jewish American princesses it took to switch on a light-bulb. But there is a difference. In those jokes, the light bulb was turned on. In this true joke from the fire service of the United Kennels, 25 firemen stood there. For an hour. And did nothing. They decided that health and health and safety would not like it. Water can be wet.
[…]
Then we come to another story, where the mockery has to end. In the last few days, there has been a lot of debate about the question of secret trials for terrorist suspects, to protect intelligence sources. As usual, the argument comes down to the two contending Latin tags. Fiat justitia, ruat coeli and salus populi, suprema lex. “Let justuce be done, even if the heavens fall” and “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. In the course of that recent dispute, we have overlooked the fact that secret trials are already taking place in Britain: over 200 of them every week, in our so-called “family courts”. As a result of the trials, parents can be sentenced to lose their children: innocent children can be parted from their parents.
The defendants are denied many of the normal safeguards which they would enjoy if they were merely charged with armed robbery or murder. Hearsay evidence is admissible, which it would not be in a criminal trial. The prosecution — social services departments — can spend large sums on expert witnesses. Not only are the parents unable to counter this; there is the suggestion that in many cases, these experts have never actually seen the children concerned, and are simply relying on social workers’ reports. Expert witnesses are well paid.
It is easy to understand why this has happened. Those heart-rending photographs of Baby P, in the days when he could still stretch out his arms in the expectation of a cuddle, rather than to ward off a beating; none of us wants to think about the tortures which that little boy endured. All of us want to ensure that there will never be another Baby P. But safeguarding the innocent must not mean punishing the innocent. In order to prevent a repetition, social workers are seeking twice as many care orders as in 2008. Is this to protect children, or to protect themselves?
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Anna Lindh Foundation: Deadline 2012 Call Extended
A total of 1.35 million funds, 50 projects to finance
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 12 — The deadline for application to the Anna Lindh 2012 Call for project proposals has been extended to Thursday 19 April 2012 (16.00 Egypt time), to take into consideration the timing of local religious festivities.
The Call, worth a total of 1.35 million euros, is aimed at supporting projects that promote the mobilisation and empowerment of civil society. According to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu), around 50 projects are expected to be awarded through this call.
The duration of the project must be between a maximum of 12 consecutive months and a minimum of 8 consecutive months, and the duration of the implementation must fall within the period between 18 July 2012 and 18 October 2013. Applicants can download the guidelines of the call at http://grants.annalindh.org/guidelines. To apply for the Call for Proposals: http://grants.annalindh.org.
The Anna Lindh Foundation for Inter-Cultural Dialogue promotes knowledge, mutual respect and inter-cultural dialogue between the people of the Euro-Mediterranean region, working through a network of more than 3,000 civil society organisations in 43 countries. Its budget is co-funded by the EU and the EU member states.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Interview With German Intelligence Chief: ‘We Must be the First to go in and the Last to Leave’
The new head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service, Gerhard Schindler, 59, tells SPIEGEL he wants the agency to become more willing to take risks. He also says al-Qaida is becoming more influential in northern Africa and that the killing of Osama bin Laden hasn’t significantly weakened it.
SPIEGEL: A year ago a US special forces unit killed Osama bin Laden. What impact did that have on al-Qaida?
Schindler: That was definitely a blow to the structure of the core group. But we don’t have the impression that the terrorism network or its structures have become significantly weaker.
SPIEGEL: The Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri has officially claimed to be the successor to bin Laden. Is the doctor now the uncontested Number One?
Schindler: According to what we know, yes. Zawahiri had very much influence within the network even while Bin Laden was alive. Its structure hasn’t changed since then: with the core al-Qaida at the top and many branches for example in Iraq, in Yemen or in the Maghreb. They remain closely connected with each other.
SPIEGEL: So the fragmentation of al-Qaida is not a weakness but a strength?
Schindler: This network is highly flexible. Where the pressure becomes too great, al-Qaida withdraws. Where conditions are more favorable, it expands its activities. The terrorist threat has definitely increased in North Africa in recent months. In Nigeria the terrorist group Boko Haram has joined al-Qaida. In Somalia it’s the Shabab militia.
SPIEGEL: So the Islamist terrorist scene has moved?
Schindler: There are indeed signs of a relocation towards Somalia and into Yemen. We are also observing that al-Qaida is reorientating itself in North Africa. I think there are good conditions for a terrorist oreganization there: We have high unemployment in these countries, in some areas the population isn’t being provided with basic services and there aren’t proper security structures based on the rule of law .
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: EU, Nine Energy Efficiency Projects Launched
Challenge will be responding to a new demand by 2020
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 12 — Nine energy efficiency pilot projects for buildings in the social housing and tourism sector were launched in Morocco. The projects are funded by the European Union, in partnership with Morocco’s National Agency for Development of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ADEREE), for a total amount of 83.5 million dirhams (around 7.5 million euros).
According to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu), the energy sector plays a very important role in the partnership of the European Union with the Southern Mediterranean countries, and particularly Morocco, said a press release on the EU Delegation’s Facebook page. One of the biggest challenges that Morocco is facing now is a demand for energy that will double by 2020, which can be tackled by a rapid increase of its production capacity in renewable energy, and by adopting large-scale measures of energy efficiency to curb the growth of energy demand. Therefore, the promotion of pilot initiatives that will stimulate the interest of the players and test the results before applying them on a larger scale is essential. These nine projects “show that it is possible to make interesting energy savings with relatively small investments” said Ambassador Eneko Landaburu, Head of Eu delegation to Morocco. This launch fits into a larger partnership of the EU with Morocco, and in particular in a support programme to the national energy strategy that has been running since 2008 and that covers electricity, renewable energy, energy efficiency as well as the oil and gas sectors.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
IDF: Attack on Activist Doesn’t Represent Army Conduct
The IDF on Monday condemned an officer filmed striking a pro-Palestinian activist, but stated that the incident should not be taken out of context to misrepresent the values of the Israeli army.
According to a video, posted on YouTube by the International Solidarity Movement, Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade is seen taking his M-16 and slamming it in the face of a blond-haired activist. The demonstrator, a Danish national, falls to the ground and is carried away by fellow activists.
The protester, named as Andreas Ias, was treated in a Palestinian hospital for light injuries and told Israeli media on Monday that he was well.
“We were just walking slowly towards the soldiers, we were chanting Palestinian songs calling for the liberation of Palestine. I don’t believe that is a provocation,” he told Israel’s Channel 10 television.
Related: •Israel pleased ‘flytilla’ fails to disrupt airportSpeaking to Israel Radio, IDF Spokesman Brig.- Gen. Yoav Mordechai said that “these are harsh pictures, but I still can’t divorce the filmed episodes from the incident that lasted over an hour and which included violence by the anarchists and Palestinians.” At one point there were over 200 demonstrators, he said, indicating that the video was being taken out of context.
Nevertheless, Mordechai called the event “grave” and said it could not be taken as a representation of the values of the IDF.
The IDF’s OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Nitzan Alon ordered the opening of an investigation into the incident. Upon receiving the preliminary results of the investigation Sunday night, Alon suspended Eisner until the completion of the probe.
In addition, the Military Advocate-General’s office decided to open a criminal investigation into the incident, which IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said Sunday evening was not representative of the IDF’s ethics and morals and would be fully investigated and treated with the utmost gravity.
Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan on Monday condemned what he termed an “overwhelming hysteria” in Israel over the incident. Speaking to Israel Radio, Dayan said that the officer who struck the activist should not have been judged by a 7-second video from an incident that lasted two hours. Moreover, the fact that the IDF had already condemned the officer just hours after the incident displays a loss of control on the part of the IDF and an irresponsible course of action taken by Israeli political leaders.
Dayan called the pro-Palestinian activist an enemy of Israel and implied that the Jewish state is more concerned with its image abroad than protecting its soldiers.
Dayan also condemned the Israeli political and military establishment for its “hysteria” over the incident, saying there was no reason for the prime minister, the defense minister, and other high-ranking political authorities to be involved.
Such violence by a senior officer is rare in the West Bank and soldiers serving in the West Bank are generally trained to show restraint during demonstrations or civil disturbances.
According to the Palestinians, the incident took place on Saturday during a cycling tour around the Jordan Valley by European, Israeli and Palestinian activists.
The Wafa news agency said that the IDF stopped the 250 participants along Road 90 near the West Bank village of al Ouja and refused to allow them to continue. When the cyclists refused, scuffles broke out. A number of the participants in the demonstration were injured and taken to hospital in Jericho. The IDF arrested a number of the activists.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Israel’s Other Temple: Research Reveals Ancient Struggle Over Holy Land Supremacy
The Jews had significant competition in antiquity when it came to worshipping Yahweh. Archeologists have discovered a second great temple not far from Jerusalem that predates its better known cousin. It belonged to the Samaritans, and may have been edited out of the Bible once the rivalry had been decided.
Clad in a gray coat, Aharon ben Ab-Chisda ben Yaacob, 85, is sitting in the dim light of his house. He strikes up a throaty chant, a litany in ancient Hebrew. He has a full beard and is wearing a red kippah on his head.
The man is a high priest — and his family tree goes back 132 generations. He says: “I am a direct descendent of Aaron, the brother of the prophet Moses” — who lived perhaps over 3,000 years ago.
Ab-Chisda is the spiritual leader of the Samaritans, a sect that is so strict that its members are not even allowed to turn on the heat on the Sabbath. They never eat shrimp and only marry among themselves. Their women are said to be so impure during menstruation that they are secluded in special rooms for seven days.
Outside, on the streets of Kiryat Luza, near Nablus, a cold wind is blowing. The village lies just below the summit of Mount Gerizim. There’s a school, two shops and a site for sacrifices. This is home to 367 Samaritans. It’s a small community.
Everyone here is required to attend religious services in the synagogue on Saturdays. “Every baby boy has to be circumcised precisely on the eighth day,” says the high priest — not beforehand, and not afterwards.
Most important of all: the sect only believes in the written legacy of Moses, the five books of the Pentateuch, also commonly known as the Torah. They reject all other scripture from the Bible.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ashton Says Iran Nuclear Talks ‘Constructive’
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton over the weekend said talks with Iran on its nuclear programme had been “constructive and useful.” She is due to meet the Iranian delegation again in Baghdad on 23 May, with Iran recently subject to a series of EU-imposed economic sanctions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Both Sides Must Move or There Will be War’
Amid ongoing tension about Iran’s nuclear program, representatives from Tehran and six global powers held talks in Istanbul on Saturday. Despite cautious optimism from diplomats, German commentators warn on Monday that the specter of war still haunts the region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar: Multimedia Plan for Arab and Western Mutual Understanding
Sheikha Mozah presents Loghati (‘My language’) project
(ANSAmed) — ROME — To preserve and promote Arab cultural heritage and lead to greater mutual understanding between it and the West is the purpose that characterises much of the activity of Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser, president of the Qatar Foundation, who at Rome City Hall this afternoon presented the ‘Loghati’ project, which will share the rich heritage of the Arab world using multimedia and multilingual formats. This is an electronic communication platform developed by the Scientific and Technological Park of Qatar (STPQ), which is part of the Foundation chaired by the second wife of the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is on an official visit to Italy. “At such a delicate and complicated time in relations between the West and the Arab world — said Sheikha Mozah — the dissemination of knowledge and mutual understanding are much needed to break down mistrust and fears.” Loghati (in Arabic, my language), allows the construction of virtual libraries, including ancient and modern texts, where each document contains information that can be multi-dimensional exploited, corrected and instantaneously translated from Arabic and vice versa. Moreover Loghati can contain audio and video, thus creating a multimedia interface for knowledge of texts and documents of different cultures, previously inaccessible to millions of people.
The project may be an unprecedented cross-cultural exchange and can contribute to the emergence of new forms of collaboration between academics, researchers, and institutions. All this is to make a positive contribution to the development of relations between countries based on knowledge.
At the presentation of the project followed by the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the STPQ were a number of Italian partners including Giunti Editori, In Lucina Associati, the European Norman Study Centre and the Oriental University of Naples. The purpose of the agreement is to undertake a series of projects to demonstrate the influence of Arab culture on Western culture. “It takes intelligence — said the Sheikha on the sidelines of the ceremony — to seize new opportunities for collaboration and Italy has this intelligence.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Modern Turkish Designs Spread Across Globe
Zeynep Fadillioglu is one of a new breed of Turkish designers unafraid to embrace their country’s heritage.
When we hear the word “Ottoman” in Britain, we can’t help but think of luxurious furniture and lavish fabrics, with an exotic flavour. But in Turkey it doesn’t just conjure up a design aesthetic, but an entire period of history. While most leading cities have been the centre of a great cultural empire, Istanbul has been the heart of two. As Constantinople it was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and as Istanbul it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire. This history has made the country rich with different textures, styles and interiors. Sumptuous palaces sit next to modern offices and condominiums. There are malls and all the usual international chains, but there is still little to rival the bustle of the hawkers in the Grand Bazaar, whose haggling can hardly have changed in 500 years. In other words you might think it was the perfect place for architects and interior designers to create their own striking idiom. Until recently they have been surprisingly slow on the uptake. This is all changing now. As Turkey’s economy steams ahead (growth was 6.6 per cent last year), its designers are too. Design shows and exhibitions abound, and striking new buildings are shooting up all over the city. In October, a literary festival launched on the banks of the Bosphorus, at the Ciragan Kempinski hotel, will become the latest affiliate of the Telegraph Hay brand. Modern Turkish culture is spreading itself globally.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UAE: Islam is Key to Peace, Convention Concludes
DUBAI — Concluding three days of lectures and activities, the second edition of the Dubai International Peace Convention affirmed that Islam is the key to peace much sought after these days.
Altogether 150,000 people of different nationalities and religions attended the 16 lectures delivered by 12 scholars and spiritual gurus during the event. The world congress, held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, is aimed to create a climate of intellectual cooperation and share the teachings of Islam in order to guide the world towards peace. Dr Hamad Al Shaibani, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for World Peace, said the convention has been a wonderful platform for leading thinkers in the Muslim world to come together. ‘They have had a massive impact in raising awareness of our main objective, and we are delighted to have brought together different races and religions under one roof to create an interactive environment that perpetuates our vision of peace.’ ‘Brotherhood in Islam’, the ‘status of women in Islam’, ‘Muhammad (PBUH) — the ambassador of peace’, ‘One world… One way… One God’, ‘action plan to achieve world peace’, the ‘role model for peace’, ‘how to build a peaceful family’, ‘the solutions for global crisis’, ‘peace in the light of the Holy Quran’, and ‘Peaceful coexistence… myth or reality’ were some of the issues spotlighted during the convention.
Some of the prominent figures who participated include Dr Zakir Naik, an internationally respected scholar in comparative religions, and Shaikh Yusuf Estes, prominent in the Islamic community in the United States; Shaikh Abdur Raheem Green from the UK; Shaikh Tawfique Chowdhury from Australia; Shaikh Muhammad Alshareef from Canada; Shaikh Hussein Yee from Malaysia; Advocate Mayan Mather from India; Said Rageah from Somalia; Dr Muhammad Salah and Abdul Bary Yahya, both from America.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
We Want to Invest in Italy, Emir Says
Sovereign meets Napolitano and Monti. Friendly ties says PM
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 16 — The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is looking for ways and methods to invest in Italy: these are the words of Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani after meeting the Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Rome today.
“It has been an important visit which has consolidated the friendship between the two countries” commented Monti after a meeting with the Emir in which numerous deals were struck extending the countries’ bilateral economic cooperation.
The Emir was also received by the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata was also present as pointed out by a statement issued from the Presidency of the Republic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
European Court Faults Russia Over Katyn Massacre
Russia has been reprimanded for its ‘inhuman’ handling of a 1940 massacre of thousands of Poles. The European Court of Human Rights said it was unable to issue a complete ruling, because Moscow failed to cooperate.
In the case brought by 15 relatives of people killed in the 1940 Katyn massacre, the Strasbourg court said Russia violated its commitments to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Moscow’s “response to most victims’ relatives’ attempts to find out the truth about what happened … amounted to inhuman treatment,” the court stated.
However, it said it could not rule on a further charge — that Russia had allegedly failed to properly investigate the 1940 massacre — because the Kremlin had not made vital documents available.
Russia, a successor state that emerged from the Soviet Union, had rebuffed the 15 plaintiffs in their efforts to get information from a probe into the massacre.
The Soviet secret police killed around 22,000 Poles in the Katyn forest near Smolensk and other places in April and May 1940. The massacre, in which Poland’s intelligentsia was virtually wiped out, is viewed as a national tragedy by Poles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Taliban ‘Spring Offensive’ Dampens Optimism
Not for the first time on Sunday, official optimism on the future of Afghanistan came face-to-face with the remorseless nihilism of the Taliban suicide bomber.
Even as the attacks began, Afghan officials and their American allies were congratulating themselves on the progress made in establishing order in the country.
A statement issued by the interior ministry on Sunday morning praised the outcome of a mission over the previous three days to deter the annual “spring offensive” it knew would come.
Nearly 100 opposition fighters had been “taken out” in operations across the country, it said — 47 killed, 31 wounded and 21 captured. Quantities of arms had been seized.
It took less than two hours from the release of that statement for the reality of the “spring offensive” to overtake expectations, optimistic or otherwise.
The first indication of what was to come was a roadside bomb in Mahmud-i-Raqi, capital of the eastern province of Kapisa. With telling accuracy, it hit the second car of a police convoy which contained the city’s police chief, named as Jan Agha Faizi, killing him and three others.
The full assault — a combined attack on Kabul and three other major cities without parallel in the 11 years since the Nato invasion —began at about 1.30pm local time, when the sound of automatic gunfire and explosions rang out across the capital.
The initial target came as no surprise: the central and diplomatic triangle district of Wazir Akbar Khan, home to major embassies, including those of Britain and the US, the local United Nations headquarters, and a Nato base.
Insurgents stormed a half-finished tower block and made it their base for an aggressive operation that used rocket-propelled grenades and bombs to attack the symbols of Afghanistan’s backing in the West.
Within minutes, smoke was rising from the German embassy, while the streets were raked with gunfire, causing passers-by to dive for cover.
A house used as a residence for British embassy officials was the next target, hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, though the Foreign Office later said all British diplomats “had been accounted for”.
Then the US embassy and the Japanese embassy compound — which was hit by three rockets — came under fire. Smoke billowed from the windows of the nearby newly opened Kabul Star hotel as it was targeted.
Camp Eggers, headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the Nato-led coalition army backing the Afghan government, came under rocket attack.
As the terror unfolded in Kabul’s most exclusive district, about a mile to the south west, the Afghan president Hamid Karzai had been holding a routine meeting to discuss the government budget with a group of MPs inside his presidential palace. Upon hearing the gunfire, his bodyguards put the palace into lockdown, moving him into what was described as a “secure area”.
Among the meetings he had to cancel was one with a delegation from the Hezb-i-Islami, the militant insurgents led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan’s most feared warlords, which is discussing peace terms with the government.
Twenty years ago, in a previous round of Afghanistan’s long civil war, Mr Hekmatyar’s artillery pounded Kabul.
Meanwhile, security forces near the home of one of Mr Karzai’s two deputies, Mohammad Karim Khalili, managed to stop three would-be attackers who were heading there armed with suicide vests, guns and other explosives, a spokesman for the main intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said. On the western side of town, rockets were fired at the Russian embassy and the parliament, prior to a full-blown assault.
In a development that gave some comfort to Mr Karzai’s Western allies, parliament’s guards, helped by some MPs who took to the rooftops with their own weaponry, managed to beat the attackers off, forcing them to take refuge in a building, where they came under sustained assault. “I shot up to 400 or 500 bullets from my Kalashnikov at the attackers,” Mohammad Nahim Lalai Hamidzai, an MP for Kandahar, told reporters. “They fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the parliament.”
Then on the Jalalabad Road, to the south east, another ISAF base, Camp Warehouse, came under mortar attack.
By this time, the Taliban was already crowing about its responsibility for the onslaught. Zabiullah Mujahid sent a text message to reporters saying “a lot of suicide bombers” were involved.
While Kabul has come under sustained and multi-pronged attack before, most recently last September, on Sunday the Taliban were able to launch raids on major targets elsewhere in the country.
In Pul-e-Alam, in Logar province, south of Kabul, suicide attacks and gun battles hit the provincial governor’s office, the police headquarters, and a US military base.
In Jalalabad, a major city in the east, three suicide bombers were shot dead at the gates of the military airport, and two more at the nearby Nato base. Others managed to cause an explosion inside the base. In Gardez, south of Kabul, bombers hit a police training facility, while last night a number of suspected suicide bombers were being surrounded in a building near the university.
In the northern city of Kundoz, 15 suspected militants were arrested over an alleged plot to launch attacks.
By last night, fighting was continuing in parts of Kabul, with militants still occupying the half-built tower block that had served as a base.
“They’re still resisting in two areas, one near parliament and the other close to the Kabul Star hotel,” Kabul police chief Gen Ayoub Salangi told Reuters.
The attacks come just a month before a Nato summit at which the US and its allies are supposed to put finishing touches on plans for transition to Afghan security control.
Western leaders will now have to consider whether the withdrawal of all international forces can realistically go ahead in 2014, as planned, without leaving the country at the mercy of Sunday’s attackers.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Himalayan Glaciers Are Not Melting, Study
(AGI) Paris — French researchers claim that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are not being affected by global warming.
Unlike glaciers in the Alps, Himalayan glaciers are not melting, despite the effects of global warming. A team of French researchers came to this surprising conclusion after studying 3-D satellite pictures of the Himalayan mountains between 2000 and 2008. According to the study, whose results were published on Nature Geoscience, glaciers there are actually growing by 0.11mm a year. They studied a 5,615 sq. km area on the Karakorum mountain range, between the Yarkant river, in China, and the Indus river, in Pakistan. “The situation in the Karakorum seems to be different (from the situation elsewhere), which means that glaciers are stable here”, said Julie Gardelle of the University of Grenoble, without rejecting the global warming theory.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Chandy’s Communal Card Will Kill Kerala’s Political Culture
by G Pramod Kumar
For students of international development, Kerala has been an exceptional case study for human development: unparalleled social and land reforms, human development indicators comparable to western nations, the first democratically elected communist government and spontaneous community movements. Plus the verdant nature, high-brow literature, art-house cinema and performing arts that brought laurels from all over the world. But, under Oomen Chandy, the present Congress chief minister leading a United Democratic Front (UDF), the state adds one more to the list of its exceptions: outrageous communal appeasement for political expediency.
The source of outrage is the recent cabinet reshuffle in which Oomen Chandy had to yield to the blackmail and threats of pullout by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) for a fifth cabinet post. Chandy and the Congress have been resisting it for almost a year, ever since the UDF came to power, but finally gave up to save his government. Traditionally, the Muslim League, a formidable Congress ally in north Kerala, gets four ministers; but this time, the helplessness of the Congress in running a government with a thin majority has emboldened them to ask for more, even if it meant blatantly open brinkmanship. In fact, they not only have asked for five ministers, but also went ahead and announced their names and portfolios, a prerogative of the chief minister.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Jakarta: Hundreds of Christians Ask President for Justice on Places of Worship
“Peaceful” protest launched by the faithful of the Yasmin Church and Hkbp Philadelphia joined by human rights activists and parliamentarians. The faithful ask for enforcement of law on protection of religious freedom. Protests provoked by the seizure of places of worship by local officials and inertia of institutions.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — More than 200 Protestant Christians, belonging to two different communities for a long time victims of persecution, gathered yesterday in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta — the seat of the Head of State Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — to demonstrate “peacefully” against the expropriation of places of worship and seek the application of laws on “religious freedom”. In particular, the faithful denounce the abuses and violations of dozens of Islamist groups, the manipulation of the law to their liking and the inertia of the state and institutions, including the same Yudhoyono, who have not taken steps or concrete measures to restore legality. A battle supported by many human rights activists and local NGOs, concerned by the continuing deterioration of the situation.
The protest march held yesterday (pictured) was attended by the faithful of the Gki Yasmin Church (YC), from the Bogor regency in West Java, and Christians from Hkbp Filadelfia, also in Bekasi regency in West Java. For three years the faithful of YC can not access the place of worship, sealed at the behest of local authorities and the Mayor Diani Budiarto, who has denounced alleged irregularities in the release of IBM, the necessary building permit to build in Indonesia. A similar situation to that of the faithful of Hkbp Filadelfia, who for years fought in vain against the officials of Bekasi.
The Christians who gathered in front of Merdeka Palace — the Presidential Palace, — were given the full support of the President of the World Council of Churches, Reverend SAE Nabadan, solidarity was also expressed by Eva Sundari, the Indonesian parliamentarian, who attended the event and Sites Musdah Mulia, prominent figures in the struggle to defend human rights.
However no significant official position was taken by President Yudhoyono, who months ago had stated that he could not “interfere” in the “internal affairs” of Bogor. A position criticized by activists, who claim the head of state does is afraid of “alienating” the Islamic fringe in the fear of losing votes and support.
The Yasmin Church, a Protestant church, is the victim of an apparent violation of the law and religious freedom perpetrated by the local mayor Diani Budiarto that, contravening the dictates of a constitutional court ruling in favor of Christians, has banned all religious celebrations on the site. The building was designed according to the criteria established by law and has the building permit (IMB) required for the construction of places of worship. Last October, the mayor deployed security forces against the faithful, who can no longer use the place of worship and can not even pray in public.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Marines’ Incarceration Extended by Two More Weeks
Anti-piracy servicemen accused of killing Indian fishermen
(ANSA) — New Delhi, April 16 — The detention in prison in southern India of two Italian anti-piracy marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen was extended by two more weeks by a magistrate on Monday.
Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between the countries since being detained in February after an incident that took place while they were guarding an Italian merchant ship.
The pair are being held in a special section of a jail in the city of Thiruvananthapuram.
A separate court is considering Italy’s claim that it should have jurisdiction for the case, not India, as the incident took place aboard an Italian vessel in international waters.
The Italian government also believes that, regardless of who has jurisdiction, the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India as they were military personnel working on an anti-piracy mission.
Italy has said the marines fired warning shots from the merchant ship they were guarding, the Enrica Lexie, after coming under attack from pirates.
It said they followed the proper international procedures for dealing with pirate attacks, which are frequent in the Indian Ocean.
The Indian authorities, on the other hand, said the marines failed to show sufficient “restraint” by opening fire after mistaking the fishermen for pirates.
Indian ballistic experts said earlier this month that the bullets recovered from the bodies of fishermen are compatible with Beretta rifles confiscated from the Enrica Lexie.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Karzai: NATO Failings Led to Attacks by Taliban
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused NATO of failing to prevent the multiple attacks staged by the Taliban insurgents across Afghanistan on Sunday. NATO says the attacks will not affect its long-term exit planning.
The Taliban’s coordinated attacks that gripped Afghanistan on Sunday lay bare intelligence failures by both NATO and Afghan troops, Afgan President Hamid Karzai said Monday.
“The terrorists’ infiltration in Kabul and other provinces is an intelligence failure for us and especially for NATO and should be seriously investigated,” said Karzai in a statement.
But Karzai lauded what he called the “bravery and sacrifice of the security forces who quickly and timely reacted to contain the terrorists.” “Afghan security forces proved to the people that they can defend their country successfully,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Leading British Muslim Leader Faces War Crimes Charges in Bangladesh
by Andrew Gilligan
One of Britain’s most important Muslim leaders is to be charged with war crimes, investigators and officials have told The Sunday Telegraph
Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, director of Muslim spiritual care provision in the NHS, a trustee of the major British charity Muslim Aid and a central figure in setting up the Muslim Council of Britain, fiercely denies any involvement in a number of abductions and “disappearances” during Bangladesh’s independence struggle in the 1970s. He says the claims are “politically-motivated” and false. However, Mohammad Abdul Hannan Khan, the chief investigator for the country’s International Crimes Tribunal, said: “There is prima facie evidence of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin being involved in a series of killings of intellectuals. We have made substantial progress in the case against him. There is no chance that he will not be indicted and prosecuted. We expect charges in June.” Mr Mueen-Uddin could face the death penalty if convicted. Bangladesh’s Law and Justice Minister, Shafique Ahmed, said: “He was an instrument of killing intellectuals. He will be charged, for sure.”
For 25 years after independence from Britain, the country now known as Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, even though the two halves were a thousand miles apart with India between them. In 1971, Bangla resentment at the “colonial” nature of Pakistani rule broke out into a full-scale revolt. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred by Pakistani troops. Mr Mueen-Uddin, then a journalist on the Purbodesh newspaper in Dhaka, was a member of a fundamentalist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which supported Pakistan in the war. In the closing days, as it became clear that Pakistan had lost, he is accused of being part of a collaborationist Bangla militia, the Al-Badr Brigade, which rounded up, tortured and killed prominent citizens to deprive the new state of its intellectual and cultural elite.
The widow of one such victim, Dolly Chaudhury, claims to have identified Mr Mueen-Uddin as one of three men who abducted her husband, Mufazzal Haider Chaudhury, a prominent scholar of Bengali literature, on the night of 14 December 1971. “I was able to identify one [of the abductors], Mueen-Uddin,” she said in video testimony, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, which will form part of the prosecution case. “He was wearing a scarf but my husband pulled it down as he was taken away. When he was a student, he often used to go to my brother in law’s house. My husband, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, we all recognised that man.” Professor Chaudhury was never seen again.
Also among the as yet untested testimony is the widow of another victim, who claims that Mr Mueen-Uddin was in the group that abducted her husband, Sirajuddin Hussain, another journalist, from their home on the night of 10 December 1971. “There was no doubt that he was the person involved in my husband’s abduction and killing,” said Noorjahan Seraji. One of the other members of the group, who was caught soon afterwards, allegedly gave Mr Mueen-Uddin’s name in his confession. Another reporter on Purbodesh, Ghulam Mostafa, also disappeared. The vanished journalist’s brother, Dulu, said he appealed to Mr Mueen-Uddin for help and was taken around the main Pakistani Army detention and torture centres by Mr Mueen-Uddin. Dulu Mostafa said that Mr Mueen-Uddin appeared to be well known at the detention centres, gained easy admission to the premises and was saluted by the Pakistani guards as he entered. Ghulam was never found.
Mr Mueen-Uddin’s then editor at the paper, Atiqur Rahman, said that Mr Mueen-Uddin had been the first journalist in the country to reveal the existence of the Al-Badr Brigade and had demonstrated intimate knowledge of its activities. After his colleagues disappeared, he said, Mr Mueen-Uddin had asked for his home address. Fearing that he too would be abducted, the editor gave a fake address. Mr Rahman’s name, complete with the fake address, appeared on a Al-Badr death list found just after the end of the war. “I gave that address only to Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, and when that list appeared it was obvious that he had given that address to Al Badr,” Mr Rahman said in statements given to the investigators. “I’m sure I gave the address to no-one else.” Mr Rahman then published a front-page story and picture about Mr Mueen-Uddin, who had by that stage left the city, naming him as involved in “disappearances.” This brought forward two further witnesses, Mushtaqur and Mahmudur Rahman, who claim they recognised the picture as somebody who had been part of an armed group looking for the BBC correspondent in Dhaka during the abductions. The group was unsuccessful because the BBC man had gone into hiding.
Toby Cadman, Mr Mueen-Uddin’s lawyer, said on Saturday: “No formal allegations have been put to Mr Mueen-Uddin and therefore it is not appropriate to issue any formal response. Any and all allegations that Mr Mueen-Uddin committed or participated in any criminal conduct during the Liberation War of 1971 that have been put in the past will continue to be strongly denied in their entirety. For the Chief Investigator to be making such public comment raises serious questions as to the integrity of the investigation. The Chief Investigator will be aware that the decision as to the bringing of charges is made by the Prosecutor and not an investigator. Therefore, the comments by the Chief Investigator are highly improper and serves as a further basis for raising the question as to whether a fair trial may be guaranteed before the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. The statement by the Bangladesh Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs is a clear declaration of guilt and in breach of the presumption of innocence.”
Since moving to the UK in the early 1970s, Mr Mueen-Uddin has taken British citizenship and built a successful career as a community activist and Muslim leader. In 1989 he was a key leader of protests against the Salman Rushdie book, The Satanic Verses. Around the same time he helped to found the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe, Jamaat-e-Islami’s European wing, which believes in creating a sharia state in Europe and in 2010 was accused by a Labour minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating the Labour Party. Tower Hamlets’ directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was expelled from Labour for his close links with the IFE. Until 2010 Mr Mueen-Uddin was vice-chairman of the controversial East London Mosque, controlled by the IFE, in which capacity he greeted Prince Charles when the heir to the throne opened an extension to the mosque. He was also closely involved with the Muslim Council of Britain, which has been dominated by the IFE. He was chairman and remains a trustee of the IFE-linked charity, Muslim Aid, which has a budget of £20 million. He has also been closely involved in the Markfield Institute, the key institution of Islamist higher education in the UK.
The International Crimes Tribunal, a new body set up to try alleged “war criminals” from the 1971 war, has already begun trying some Bangladesh-based leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Trials were originally supposed to start soon after the war but were cancelled by the military after a coup. The new tribunal was welcomed by most Bangladeshis and international human rights groups as finally bringing justice and closure for the massive abuses suffered by civilians in 1971. However, it is now subject to growing international criticism. Human Rights Watch said that the ICT’s proceedings “fall short of international standards” with a “failure to ensure due process” and “serious concerns about the impartiality of the bench.”
“The chairman of the tribunal was formerly one of the investigators,” said Abdur Razzaq, lead counsel for the defence. “As chairman, he will be pronouncing on an investigation report he himself produced.” The law minister, Mr Ahmed, denied this. Mr Razzaq described the tribunal as “vendetta politics” by Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League against its political opponents.
Any trial of Mr Mueen-Uddin would also be fraught with practical difficulties. There is no extradition treaty between Britain and Bangladesh and the UK does not extradite in death penalty cases. Many of the witnesses are elderly and some have died. However, Mr Hannan Khan said that Mr Mueen-Uddin was likely to be tried in absentia if he did not return.
“We have a duty to bring alleged perpetrators to justice,” he said. “They must know the fear, however long ago it was. What happened here forty years ago is on the conscience of the world.” “I have waited 40 years to see the trial of the war criminals,” said the widow, Noorjahan Seraji. “I have not spent a single night without suffering and I want justice.”
[JP note: See also Martin Bright: “The Foreign Office is not aware of any alleged war criminal from Bangladesh living in the UK. I wonder if anyone out there can help out here.” at http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/6489248/the-foreign-office-responds.thtml ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
British Businessman’s Death Spurs Probe Into Murder, Greed and China’s Leadership
A British businessman was murdered after he threatened to expose orders from a Chinese leader’s wife to move money abroad, sources close to a police investigation tell Reuters. Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai — who was hoping to expand his power in the Communist Party during a leadership transition this fall — asked Neil Heywood to help her move a large sum of money abroad.
But after Heywood, 41, saw the size of the transaction and demanded to keep a bigger portion of cash as part of the deal, Gu became outraged. Heywood responded by threatening to expose her actions, Reuters reports.
“Heywood told her that if she thought he was being too greedy, then he didn’t need to become involved and wouldn’t take a penny of the money, but he also said he could also expose it,” the first source told Reuters.
Heywood’s body was found Nov. 15, 2011, at the mountaintop Nanshan Holiday Hotel on the southern outskirts of Chongqing, according to people briefed on the investigation. The body was cremated without an autopsy being performed, and the hotel’s remote location adds to the mystery surrounding Heywood’s final hours.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Eases Currency Controls in Long-Awaited Move
China has doubled its currency’s trading band against the US dollar for the first time since 2007. From Monday, the yuan’s exchange rate with the dollar will be allowed to fluctuate by 1 percent, up from 0.5 percent.
China’s central bank will allow its currency to fluctuate twice as much against the US dollar in daily trading, starting on Monday.
The yuan’s trading band with the dollar will rise from 0.5 percent to 1 percent from Monday, which will allow the currency’s value against the US currency to trade a little more freely.
The long-anticipated move came a week before of the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, where pressure is usually stepped up for China to loosen its currency controls.
Although the increase is small, it may indicate Beijing is willing to make concessions to the US and other western nations, who have long argued that China’s currency controls mean that their currency is so weak it gives China a competitive edge by making their exports cheaper abroad.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Global Nuclear Production Dropped After Fukushima, IAEA
(AGI) Vienna — The global quantity of electricity produced by nuclear plants dropped around 4% in 2011. The main reason has been of switching off of the Japanese reactors, following the disaster at the Fukushima plant and the subsequent German decision to dismantle its own oldest nuclear plants. The total production of electricity from nuclear plants in 2011 was 2518 TWh, 4.3 less compared to 2630 TWh generated in 2010, according to data provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As a direct consequence of the March 2011 tsunami, 13 Japanese reactors were closed. Moreover, by the end of 2011, 31 of the 54 Japanese reactors were still switched off, due to inspections or replacements of equipments and have not been restarted yet. As a consequence, the production of nuclear energy in Japan dropped 44.3% in 2011, going down to 152.6 TWh, compared to 280.3 TWh in 2010.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Woman Kidnapped in Timbuktu: Confirmed
Switzerland on Monday confirmed that a female national had been kidnapped in Mali’s Timbuktu, the fabled city seized by Islamists after a coup in the west African nation. A statement by the federal department of foreign affairs (FDFA) in Bern said that authorities were in contact with the woman’s family and “were making every effort to ensure the kidnap victim is released unharmed,” but did not identify her.
Local reports said she was a Christian woman in her 40s named Beatrice who had lived in the ancient city for years and was active in the local community. Officials at the Swiss government’s Agency for Cooperation and Development office in Bamako and at the Swiss embassy in Dakar, which is also responsible for Mali, are in touch with local authorities, the FDFA said.
The government said it had advised its nationals to leave the country temporarily following the March 22nd coup and had been advising against travelling to Mali since December 2009 because of a higher risk of kidnappings.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US, Haiti Kick Off Vaccination Campaigns
Haitian and U.S. officials are launching a nationwide vaccination campaign that seeks to curb or prevent the spread of infectious diseases in the impoverished Caribbean nation. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the effort to vaccinate Haitians is critical because the country remains vulnerable to infectious diseases brought from outside.
The campaign seeks to vaccinate Haitians for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio and other diseases. Sebelius kicked off the campaign Monday after she toured a hospital in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Asylum Requests Surge in Switzerland
Some 7,150 people sought asylum in Switzerland in the first three months of the year, up 63 percent from a year ago, according to data released Monday by the Federal Migration Office. Eritreans made the biggest number of requests with 1,151 applications, 336 more than in the previous quarter.
They were followed by Nigerians with 677, up 55 from the previous quarter and Tunisians with 664, 215 fewer than in the last three months of 2011. Despite ongoing unrest in Syria, asylum applications made by that country’s nationals rose by just 20 from the previous quarter to 296 during the first three months of 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Mayoral Elections Gay Hustings: Ken Livingstone Urges Muslims to be Treated Fairly
Ken Livingstone has called for Londoners to be united after claiming that it is “the Muslims’ turn now” to be discriminated against. Mr Livingstone said he would like to see Muslims depicted in a “better balance”. Labour’s London mayoral candidate, who is competing to take back City Hall from Conservative Boris Johnson, also claimed that right-wing politicians “pander to bigotry”. He said: “In 1906 the front page of the Daily Mail’s headline was ‘Jews bring crime and disease to Britain’. “Then it was the blacks, then it was the Irish, then it was the lesbians and gays — there has always got to be an enemy. Right-wing politicians pander to bigotry. I remember the deputy leader of the Tory group at the GLC, when we launched our lesbian and gay policies, said to me ‘Every time I make a homophobic speech in Ruislip-Northwood I get an extra 1,000 votes’. It is the Muslims’ turn now. Don’t be divided. No Muslims ever came to me and said ‘I want homosexuality banned’. Muslims came to this city to flee oppressive culture. They came here so their children could have democracy, that they could achieve their best.” Mr Livingstone was referring to comments he made while visiting Finsbury Park Mosque on March 16. He is reported to have said he wants to make London a “beacon” that demonstrates the words of the Prophet Mohammed — particularly his last sermon, which preaches equality.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A Brave Telling of the Koran’s Human Stories
Charles Moore reviews In the Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland (Little, Brown) .
Most of the attention given to this book so far has, rightly, been favourable. But it has skirted round the key point. Tom Holland is attempting to show that much of what Muslims believe about the Koran is incorrect. Since their belief is rigorously literal — they hold that the Koran is the uncreated word of God recited (the word Koran means “recitation”) directly through the mouth of Mohammed — any Muslim who accepted Holland’s evidence would have to reconsider many aspects of his faith. This painful process of textual inquiry into scripture has been well known to Christians since the 19th century, when the Bible came under similar scrutiny. It has caused anguish, but many have been able to reconcile their faith with the discoveries of scholarship. No such process has taken place in Islam. Indeed, the suppression of questioning has actually got worse. Until 1924, for example, seven different versions of the text were considered canonical, so areas of doubt were implicitly acknowledged. Now there is only one normative text, and it is inconsistent in many particulars, but Muslims dare not say so. Holland is being brave.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Best Evidence Yet That a Single Gene Can Affect IQ
A massive genetics study relying on fMRI brain scans and DNA samples from over 20,000 people has revealed what is claimed as the biggest effect yet of a single gene on intelligence — although the effect is small.
There is little dispute that genetics accounts for a large amount of the variation in people’s intelligence, but studies have consistently failed to find any single genes that have a substantial impact. Instead, researchers typically find that hundreds of genes contribute.
Following a brain study on an unprecedented scale, an international collaboration has now managed to tease out a single gene that does have a measurable effect on intelligence. But the effect — although measurable — is small: the gene alters IQ by just 1.29 points. According to some researchers, that essentially proves that intelligence relies on the action of a multitude of genes after all.
“It seems like the biggest single-gene impact we know of that affects IQ,” says Paul Thompson of the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the collaboration of 207 researchers. “But it’s not a massive effect on IQ overall,” he says.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Blind Hydra Relies on Light to Kill Prey
THE blind hunter sees. It may not have eyes, but the hydra — a centimetre-long relative of the jellyfish — still senses light to detect and kill its prey. This finding is part of efforts to uncover the evolutionary origins of sight.
Two years ago, David Plachetzki of the University of California at Davis showed that Hydra magnipapillata has genes that are involved in light detection. These include the gene coding for opsin, a protein that is key to all animal vision. To find out how the hydra uses these genes, Plachetzki and his colleagues looked at which cells expressed them. This pointed to a complex of cells that is connected to the hydra’s hunting equipment.
The hydra kills its prey with stings that are propelled like harpoons. When Plachetzki’s team exposed tanks of hydra to periods of bright and dim light, the hydra ejected twice as many stings under dim conditions. This, the team says, shows that hydra use light levels to hunt (BMC Biology, DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-10-17).
H. magnipapillata may have been one of the first creatures to develop sensitivity to light. Possible explanations for this sensitivity could be that the hydra hunts at dusk when food is more plentiful or by sensing changes in light intensity — releasing stings when the shadows of prey pass overhead.
Dan-Eric Nilsson, whose group studies the evolution of vision at Lund University in Sweden, says: “This light sensitivity must have evolved very early among the first primitive animals, and then become incorporated into many different functions, eyes being just one of them.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Salt Levels in Fast Food Depend on Where You Buy it
An order of Chicken McNuggets in Europe might be slightly healthier than one in the United States, in terms of the salt content, a new study suggests.
In general, salt levels were higher in the United States and Canada than in the United Kingdom and France.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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