A Top Conservative Think Tank Embraces Islamophobia
by Nathan Lean
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is one of the nation’s oldest and most influential conservative think tanks. It is a bastion of Republican values and has, since its founding in 1943, had its finger on the pulse of mainstream issues that have united the GOP. A number of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates have relied on the work of its scholars, and its board reads like a Who’s Who of red-state leaders.
But recently the AEI took a broad step to the right and firmly planted its feet on the other side of the line that divides the sensible Republican Party from fringe extremists. It announced that its resident scholar Michael Rubin would join blogger Robert Spencer, who is a vitriolic critic of Islam, and writer Claire Berlinski to lead a 10-day tour of Turkey. The excursion (whose participants must cough up more than $4,500 each) is being organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a right-wing activist group named for its founder, who in addition to being Spencer’s sugar daddy (Horowitz funds Spencer’s blog Jihad Watch and publishes his articles on FrontPage Magazine) has led campaigns against the Muslim Student Association and said such things as Islam is a religion of hate and Palestinians are “morally sick.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
American Muslims: New Kids on the Block
Glenview Patch is talking to local religious leaders and involved community members throughout June. Here, meet Glenview resident and Pakistani-American Musilim K. Rizwan Kadir.
During the month of June, Patch will be chatting with religious leaders and community members. This week, we caught up with K. Rizwan Kadir, a Pakistani-American Muslim who worships at the Muslim Community Center in Morton Grove and was recently appointed chairman of MCC’s full-time school board. In addition to his involvement with the local community, Kadir is also President of Pakistan Club at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and serves on the board of several Islamic organizations in the U.S. A senior consultant to Fortune 100 firms, Kadir specializes in strategic planning, governance, and financial management.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Grand Forks Church Selling Building to Muslim Group
Grand Forks’ most liberal Protestant Christian church, the United Church of Christ, is selling its building to a local Muslim group and will continue to share the space on alternate days. It’s an historic move: Grand Forks has never had an Islamic center with its own building.
Local Muslims, most of them connected to UND, have met for decades for Friday prayers in UND’s Memorial Union and in the Lotus Meditation Center, a private nonprofit group on campus. Now, a group of Muslims that has been renting the UCC space for the past year for Friday prayers is planning to buy the space, according to UCC Council Chairman Don Medal.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Man Jailed for Threatening South Park Writers
Jesse Curtis Morton and another man encouraged attacks on show’s writers over episode depicting Muhammad in a bear suit
A Muslim convert from New York has been sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison after admitting threatening the writers of South Park over their depiction of the prophet Muhammad. Jesse Curtis Morton, 33, alias Younus Abdullah Muhammed, ran a website that encouraged Muslims to engage in violence against perceived enemies of Islam.
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President Barack Obama Must Do More Than Manage America’s Decline
by Charles Moore
In the face of Obama’s timid foreign policy towards Russia and the Arab world, Republican challenger Mitt Romney is offering real hope
Why was Barack Obama so popular globally when he ran for the US presidency four years ago? Because people believed that an eloquent and charismatic first (half-) black president of the United States could do good in the world. The retro-chic poster with a picture of Mr Obama and the single word “HOPE” on it conveyed the entire message. Four years on, Mr Obama remains eloquent, charismatic and (obviously) 50-per-cent black. He still has considerable global prestige, but his career exhibits a contradiction which, over time, tells against him. He has used that prestige to tell us, in effect, that the president of the United States cannot do all that much good in the world. His message is that American power has lessened, that America is not a special place.
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France: Najat Vallaud-Belkacem — the New Face of France
Minister for women’s rights — who has brief to tackle sexism and harassment post-DSK — speaks to Angelique Chrisafis
Under the chandeliers of a historic mansion on Paris’s left bank, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem closes the double-doors to her gilded office to lessen the sound of power-drills. Workmen are turning the building into a new ministry headquarters. In the corridors, talk is of the election results: after Socialist François Hollande’s presidential win, his party secured an absolute majority in parliament. The left now has the biggest concentration of power in recent French history: both houses of parliament, most regions and big cities. Now it faces the massive task of trying to drag France, and Europe, out of dire economic crisis, resisting the one-size-fits-all austerity mantra, while promising to mend France’s social, class and race divide. “We musn’t disappoint,” says Vallaud-Belkacem.
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[JP note: Soft jihad.]
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Italian Beekeepers Battle Virus-Spreading Mites
Beekeepers in Italy are joining forces in the fight against varroa mites. The mite is blamed for spreading a virus that has decimated hives around the world.
Bees are essential to our ecosystems. Through pollination, they sustain 84 percent of all plant life. Over the past decade, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has decimated bee populations worldwide. A colony usually collapses when its adult bees disappear, destroying the perfectly balanced structure of the hive and leaving the young bees to die.
Causes of CCD include pesticide exposure, lack of food caused by monoculture farming and climate change. But, researches are now concerned about the presence of parasites, in particular the varroa mite.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘My Only Crime Was to be a Muslim’
DESPITE being warned by trial judge Mushtaq Khokhar not to reveal his previous convictions to the jury, Shabir Ahmed ignored the advice. Throughout the trial Ahmed ranted at jurors that his convictions in the child sex scandal had been a “conspiracy by the police, English Defence League (EDL), British National Party (BNP) and social services” and added that he had instructed his barrister, Simon Nichol, to appeal the sentence. Ahmed said: “I will never accept that verdict here or tomorrow. Myself along with my countrymen were convicted — this was conspiracy by the police. It had nothing to do with justice. Let’s pick on the weakest segment of the community — the Asian community. We were all innocent. This was the Rochdale grooming case. The girls were already selling their bodies. No Pakistani went knocking on the doors in Heywood saying ‘have you got any young girls, can we have sex with them?’“
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Music Mogul Russell Simmons Urges Peace in Israel
To hip hop and fashion mogul Russell Simmons, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like “a rap beef” that can be resolved through dialogue and understanding. “A little trust, and it’s over,” he said. The cofounder of the pioneering Def Jam Recordings record label, which has represented such artists like the Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, LL Cool J and Kanye West, is in Israel on the invitation of Israeli President Shimon Peres.
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[JP note: One a minute.]
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Vilnai: Israel Cannot Remain Silent in Face of Escalation
50-year-old Sderot resident suffers moderate-to-severe injuries; other civilians suffer shock; 20 rockets fired into southern Israel; Home Front defense minister: We hold Hamas fully responsible.
Israel cannot remain silent in the face of continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i said Saturday morning. Vilnai visited the afflicted areas of Sderot and Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, as rockets continued to rain down in the region leaving one man moderately-to-severely injured Saturday morning in the Sderot area. Two other residents suffered shock in the Palestinian attack, and a factory sustained some damage.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ankara Warns of Response After Syria Downs Turkish Jet
Ankara has warned it will respond decisively to the shooting down of one of its warplanes by Syria. Damascus has said the plane was flying low over Syrian territorial waters.
“Turkey will present its final stance after the incident has been fully brought to light and decisively take the necessary steps,” the office of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said late on Friday.
The statement, read on Turkish state news channel TRT Haber, said that joint efforts were underway between Syria and Turkey to locate the wreckage of the F-4 Phantom jet and two missing pilots.
It came after a two-hour emergency meeting between prime minister and top defense and intelligence officials.
Meanwhile the state-run Syrian news agency SANA quoted a Syrian military spokesman as saying that “an unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters.”
“Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly as it was one kilometer away from land, causing it to crash into Syrian territorial waters west of Om al-Tuyour village in Lattakia province.”
This latest crisis will likely inflame relations already strained over Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s outspoken condemnation of Damascus and its handling of the Syrian uprising.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Aleppo: Syria Has Always Been an Example of Conviviality
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Aleppo Monsignor Antoine Audo affirmed that Syria has always been an example of conviviality, and that western media must be more careful and discerning when dealing with the Syrian issue. In statements to the Vatican news service Agenzia Fides, Audo said that Syria has always been an example of conviviality and today must find its peaceful face of Arab, Christian and Muslim land, adding “Urgency for us is national reconciliation. The situation is serious, it is necessary to re-establish dialogue.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Baghdad Bombs Kill 17 Mostly Shia Muslims, Wound Over 100
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — At least 17 people, including three policemen, have been killed and more than 100 others injured in separate attacks across the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Friday morning, a twin bombing left 14 people dead and 106 others injured in an open-air market in the mostly Shia neighborhood of the al-Husseiniyah neighborhood of northeast Baghdad, the Associated Press reported. On the same day, gunmen opened fire on a police checkpoint in the Bayaa district of western Baghdad, killing three policemen.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Plans to Fund Syria Rebel Army
Exclusive: Command centre in Turkey organising weapon supply to opposition
Saudi officials are preparing to pay the salaries of the Free Syria Army as a means of encouraging mass defections from the military and increasing pressure on the Assad regime, the Guardian has learned. The move, which has been discussed between Riyadh and senior officials in the US and Arab world, is believed to be gaining momentum as a recent flush of weapons sent to rebel forces by Saudi Arabia and Qatar starts to make an impact on battlefields in Syria.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Turkey Promises ‘Decisive’ Action After Syria Shoots Down Its Fighter Jet
Turkey threatened to take “decisive” action last night after Syria shot down one of its fighter jets, sparking fears that Nato could be drawn into a major confrontation with the Assad regime.
The loss of one of the Turkish Air Force’s F-4 Phantom marked the most dangerous development yet in Syria’s 15-month uprising and left Western powers scrambling over how to respond. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, flew home from Brazil to hold an emergency briefing with his intelligence and military chiefs after radio and radar contact was lost with the aircraft as it conducted a mission close to the Syrian coast.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Help Pakistanis Help Themselves, And the War on Terror Will Fight Itself
Pakistani schemes which enlist the local populations are ending poverty — and reducing radicalisation, writes Muddassar Ahmed.
What does Rory Stewart’s superfast broadband initiative in Penrith have in common with rural development in Pakistan? Both are models of community organising, focused on shifting power away from the Government and towards local communities. Stewart, the Conservative MP in Penrith, has been championing an unusual approach in his constituency to acquire the high speed internet broadband that much of rural England lacks. Faced with the reluctance of telecommunications companies to invest in the region because of doubts about broadband uptake, the local community in Penrith began investing their own resources and ‘sweat equity’ to meet them halfway.
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[Reader comment by oneaminute on 22 June 2012 at 08:39 PM.]
Pakistan’s problem is Islam, the religion/legal-political system of ignorance, poverty and blaming others for it. It needs to be banished from Europe before being rolled back throughout the rest of the world for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India: CBI Not Probing Gopalgarh Riot Fairly, Victims Hopeless: Muslim Forum
Jaipur: A joint delegation of leaders of prominent Muslim organizations of Rajasthan under the banner of Rajasthan Muslim Forum (RMF) recently visited Gopalgarh again after nine months of the tragic massacre of 10 Muslims in a joint operation by police and the rioters. RMF leaders made the visit following the continuous request of the families of the victims complaining the ‘prejudiced’ role of CBI and the state government.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Long-Serving Royal Anglian Soldiers Remember Comrades Lost in Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan has taken a painful toll on the East Anglian regiments who have fought for the freedom of the country. In the final part of a week-long series, CHRIS HILL talks to experienced soldiers about the legacy of those sacrifices.
Last Friday, 37-year-old Cpl Alex Guy became the 16th Royal Anglian soldier to be killed in action since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan. His sacrifice underlines the painful cost borne by this region’s regiments for the progress which they have undoubtedly made in securing freedom and safety for the population in large parts of battle-scarred Helmand province.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: America’s First Lady of Islamabad
by Rob Crilly
It can’t be easy for a successful career woman to give it all up for a life standing in the shadow of her husband, passing around the Ferrero Rocher. It is even more difficult when your husband happens to be the US ambassador to Pakistan, one of the toughest jobs on the planet. Not only is the country famed for its rabid band of hardline clerics with a hatred of all things American, the difficult security conditions mean the embassy does not allow husbands or wives to accompany diplomats to Islamabad.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Debenhams Among British Invasion of Karachi’s High Street
British high street stores are flocking to the sprawling, chaotic megacity of Karachi eager to cash in on a growing middle class with money to spend, according to ministers and business leaders.
Debenhams is the latest household name to enter the market and will become Pakistan’s first international department store when it opens next month. It means braving a city notorious for corruption, power cuts, strikes, extortion rackets and repeated bouts of bitter ethnic violence. The rewards more than make up for the risks, according to Yasin Paracha, the man behind Team A Ventures, which is the franchisee for five British stores which have already opened their doors.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: New Muslim Party Opposed
THE Kenya Muslim National Advisory Council has opposed the creation of the Unity Party of Kenya as a Muslim political party. Kemnac chairman Sheikh Juma Ngao said the creation of such a party will divide Muslims. Sheikh Ngao said the party is the creation of two Coast MPs who want to use it as a vehicle to retain power. “There are Muslims in all other political parties including ODM, PNU, URP, DP and others. There is no need to create another party for Muslims,” he said.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Police Avert Explosion in Kano Mosque
… arrest three
The prompt intervention of the anti-bomb squad drafted from Bompai Police headquarters averted what could have been the most deadly attack in the ancient city of Kano as police arrested three suspected terrorists for planting explosives inside a mosque on Friday. The suspected terrorists had concealed the high volume Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in a plastic bag and neatly planted it inside the Fagge Mosque which has a capacity of about 15, 000 worshipers. Speaking on the incident on phone, Kano State Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim K. Idris, confirmed that three people suspected to be terrorists were arrested within the mosque premises.
[Reader comment by Anesmore on 22 June 2012 at about 9 pm.]
The story has no substance. It is a fake one
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: Farm Attack Victim Fighting for Her Life
Johannesburg — A 65-year-old woman who was shot three times in a farm attack in which her husband was killed, is fighting for her life in a Polokwane hospital. Beeld reported that doctors said Gloudien van Rensburg would probably be paralysed if she survived. She was shot as she lay sleeping next to her husband, Johan van Rensburg, 77, on their game farm Cosmopolite near the Botswana border. Her husband was shot dead by the four men who cut the electric fence and bent back burglar bars in the bathroom to get into the house. The couple were attacked early on Wednesday morning. American tourists, who had come to hunt on the farm, were woken up by the shots and raised the alarm. The Americans were apparently too shocked to talk to reporters. Firearms were stolen from the house but the couple’s cellphones had not been taken. They celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary in January.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Should ‘Undermine National Homogeneity’ Says UN Migration Chief
The EU should “do its best to undermine” the “homogeneity” of its member states, the UN’s special representative for migration has said. Peter Sutherland told peers the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural.
He also suggested the UK government’s immigration policy had no basis in international law. He was being quizzed by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration.
Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas.
He told the House of Lords committee migration was a “crucial dynamic for economic growth” in some EU nations “however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states”.
An ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the “key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states”, he added.
“It’s impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.”
The UN special representative on migration was also quizzed about what the EU should do about evidence from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that employment rates among migrants were higher in the US and Australia than EU countries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ed Miliband is Right to Tackle the Toxic Immigration Debate
by Jonathan Freedland
It is possible to get a consensus on immigration. With proper borders and worker protections, Britain can keep its door open
Perhaps no topic in British politics is more poisonous. Just ask Gordon Brown, who saw Labour’s 2010 election campaign crumble as the nation heard him brand Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” after she had collared him to ask why her native Rochdale was now home to so many eastern Europeans. The emotive power of the subject was clear againtoday, as Ed Miliband discovered that a speech by the leader of the opposition can, after all, gain serious media attention — just so long as it’s about immigration.
Part of that power lies in the polarised nature of the debate. In one corner stand the likes of Migration Watch, Ukip and the Daily Express, trenchantly arguing that there are too many foreigners here and it’s time we closed the borders. Opposite stand what one expert calls “Guardian liberals”, who recoil from any such talk, hearing in it an ugly xenophobia.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ed Owns Up
As apologies go, it rings pretty hollow.
Ed Miliband says he’s sorry Labour got it wrong on immigration. Yet he was in Government while his party dismantled our borders and invited the world to come and stay. Won’t voters think the Labour leader is only saying sorry because he knows the nation continues to see immigration as a crucial election issue? If Mr Miliband really does have regrets, good. But his half-baked new ideas, such as restrictions on foreign workers hired by agencies, look unworkable.
Foreign workers themselves aren’t the problem. They tend to be enthusiastic and conscientious, and the economy would be in trouble without them. But the vast number brought in by Labour has distorted the jobs market and lowered wages. Mr Miliband was right about one thing. It is not racist — or bigoted, as Gordon Brown infamously said of pensioner Gillian Duffy — for the nation to debate immigration.
The central issue is the sheer scale of Labour’s influx, which has overwhelmed public services. Labour’s policy, which Ed Miliband has taken nearly two years to disown, was to abandon controls in favour of a free-for-all that has changed Britain for ever.
So why would anyone trust Labour on immigration again?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How London’s Latin Americans Are Fighting Back
As one of London’s most invisible communities, Latin Americans say lack of official recognition as an ethnic minority prevents them from integrating further into mainstream society
Aleyda Aránzazu stopped practising law the night she returned to find her office had been ransacked by a former client who suspected he may have been too truthful with her about the extent of his criminal activities. But neither the mess nor her ex-former client’s reputation for kidnappings, robberies and violence worried her quite as much as what a policeman said to her as she left the office. “Doctora,” he began politely, “you should get out while you can. Otherwise your baby isn’t going to be born.”
Aleyda, who was then eight months pregnant, knew a bought official and a serious threat when she heard one, so she and her husband borrowed the dollars they needed to get out of Colombia, risked the long flight and eventually arrived in London, via Paris, in April 1991.
Aránzazu is a member of one of London’s invisible communities — one of the tens of thousands of Latin American immigrants who have come to the UK in the hope of picking up lives that were interrupted by violence at home, or of building new ones in a more prosperous country.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Labour Knew Immigration Was Out of Control Seven Years Ago, Says Former Minister
Labour knew that immigrants were flooding into Britain in far higher numbers than anticipated by 2005, former home office minister John Denham admitted today.
Mr Denham, who is now permanent private secretary to Ed Miliband, the Labour Leader, said it was clear seven years ago that estimates for migrants were ‘vastly wrong.’ The Labour MP for Southampton said: “We were advised about 15,000 and about that came to Southampton alone in the first 18 months.” Asked when he was first aware of the problem he added: “I think for me in really 2005. It was then it became clear that the estimates we relied on were vastly wrong.
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[Reader comment by tedsanityville on 23 June 2012 at 07:36 AM.]
I used to be English but now I’m just ‘a member of the white community’ in what I considered to be my country.
[Reader comment by LewisDuckworth on 22 June 2012 at 05:25 PM.]
“The aim of Labour’s immigration strategy was to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’ [Andrew Neather, former government adviser and speech writer to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett].
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jihadists’ Twitter Presence Becomes More Sophisticated
By Murad Batal al-Shishani Islamic Groups Analyst, BBC Arabic
Jihadists and their sympathisers’ presence on Twitter is limited, rather sophisticated and increasing.
That’s what I found after spending more than a month-and-a-half following their tweets. The micro-blogging website Twitter, which attracts more than 100m users, allows people to create a list of Twitter users they follow. You can observe a stream of tweets for people in that list. I created a list for more than 35 accounts which explicitly affiliate themselves with jihadist movements. Some of these Twitter accounts have thousands of followers. By the end of May, Shabakat Ansar al-Mujahideen (Partisans of Mujahideens’ Network) had announced its presence on Twitter. The web forum is a famous site that disseminates jihadist propaganda and serves as a means of communication for jihadist sympathisers. Also the al-Midad Network of Yemen-based Ansar al-Sharia joined Twitter recently. But these were not the only official incidences of jihadists on Twitter; the Taliban in Afghanistan, and al-Shabab in Somalia also have a strong presence on the site.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
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