Italy: Monti Meets President for Urgent Talks on Sicily, Bills
Premier said region risks default
(ANSA) — Rome, July 18 — Premier Mario Monti met President Giorgio Napolitano in Rome on Wednesday for what the head of state described beforehand as “an urgent meeting”.
ANSA sources said the two men were having talks on the situation on heavily indebted Sicily and on government bills in parliament regarding economic reforms to help Italy haul itself out of the debt crisis.
On Tuesday Monti sent a letter to Sicilian Governor Raffaele Lombardo asking him to confirm his plans to resign by the end of this month, stressing the urgency of the situation as the region risks defaulting.
Italy’s Audit Court said the region has debts of 21 billion euros. Lombardo is facing charges of colluding with the mafia and announced in May that he was resigning. Prosecutors in April presented a request to try Lombardo and his brother Angelo, an MP for Lombardo’s Movimento per l’Autonomia (MpA) party, for allegedly swapping votes for favors with Vincenzo Aiello, a prominent member of the powerful Catania-based Santapaola clan. Lombardo, who is set to meet Monti next Tuesday, has denied the accusations.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Euro Graph of Doom
by Jeremy Warner
Graphics can often tell a story better than words. For those who think the euro already doomed, the following graphic, drawn from the International Monetary Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability Report, tells it all. What it shows is the now extreme flight of foreign capital from Spain and Italy. As you can see, the graph only goes up to the end of January, but we know that the phenomenon has got, much, much worse since then.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Arpaio: Obama Birth Record ‘Definitely Fraudulent’
PHOENIX (AP) — Investigators for an Arizona sheriff’s volunteer posse have declared that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is definitely fraudulent.
Members of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse said in March that there was probable cause that Obama’s long-form birth certificate released by the White House in April 2011 was a computer-generated forgery.
Now, Arpaio says investigators are positive it’s fraudulent.
Mike Zullo, the posse’s chief investigator, said numeric codes on certain parts of the birth certificate indicate that those parts weren’t filled out, yet those sections asking for the race of Obama’s father and his field of work or study were completed.
Zullo said investigators previously didn’t know the meaning of codes but they were explained by a 95-year-old former state worker who signed the president’s birth certificate. Zullo said a writer who published a book about Obama’s birth certificate and was aiding investigators let them listen in on an interview he conducted of the former state worker.
The Obama campaign declined to comment on Arpaio’s allegations…
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Bachmann Defends Her Witch Hunt
The Minnesota representative offers “evidence” of Islamic infiltration of the U.S. government in a 16-page letter
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Rep. Michele Bachmann defended her attempt to root out “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government Friday, writing a 16-page letter explaining and expanding on her initial charges against Huma Abedin and others of being terrorist sympathizers. Bachmann’s letter came in response to a challenge from a fellow Minnesota lawmaker, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison last week asked Bachmann for evidence to support a series of letters the Republican sent to five national security agencies demanding investigations into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in their ranks.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bachmann and West, The New Joe McCarthys
by Linda Carbonell
Huma Abedin is an educated, accomplished, intelligent, elegant, beautiful wife and mother. She is also Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s good right arm. Scores of photographs of Secretary Clinton have Ms. Abedin in the background. She has logged almost as many airmiles as Secretary Clinton in the past three and a half years, taking time off briefly to give birth to her son, Jordan Zain Weiner, last December. She is married to disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, and has stayed with him through the texting scandal that effectively ended his career last year, quietly going on with her work, avoiding the limelight, and not being dragged in front of the press in a skin-tight leopard print dress like Mrs. David Vitter.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Colorado State Sen. Says Banning New Mosques is Something to Think about
DENVER (CBS4) — In light of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders recent remarks calling Islam “a totalitarian ideology striving for world dominance,” Colorado State Sen. Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, expressed support for considering regulations on the construction of new mosques. Wilders sparked controversy during a recent appearance at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver by warning audiences of the rising Islamic threat and hailing a stop to the “islamization process.” “More Islam means more intolerance, more Sharia and less freedom,” said Wilders at the event. “We must stop immigration from Islamic countries, we must expel criminal immigrants, we must forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in the West already.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islam and Our Schools: Will We Follow the UK by Capitulating?
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British schools are increasingly dropping the Jewish Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, according to a report entitled, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills.”
…Mark Tapson revealed in his “Muslim Congressman: Islam in America Must Not Retreat” (FrontPage Magazine) —
“In a May 26 address before the Islamic Circle of North America/Muslim American Society (ICNA/MSA), both Muslim Brotherhood front groups, André Carson commiserated with his audience over how difficult things have been for them since the World Trade Center attacks at the hands of al Qaeda jihadists: ‘9/11 was tough on Muslims.’
Carson is America’s race-baiting, confirmed socialist and second Muslim Congressman (Keith Ellison is the first), who had a lot of interesting things to say at this event. In video clips surfacing on the internet, Carson made the above comment as well as this eyebrow-raising pronouncement, to the applause of his Muslim-American audience:
‘America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Koran. And that model that we are pushing in some of our schools meets the multiple needs of students… America must understand that she needs Muslims.’“
Conservatives themselves in Maryland and Virginia must become vigilant about the curricula in taxpayer-supported schools.
We have noted how unrealistic it is to expect the GOP to do so, and the Left as we have written sees public education as a sovereign way to transform America.
[see URL links at orignal]
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Peace Walk Doesn’t Make it to Final Destination …
NEW HAVEN — IWagePeace founder Bruce Barrett is so crazy about the concept of peace that he says it on billboards, made a documentary and brings former combatants from Israel and the Palestinian territories to speak in the area each year. So it was quite the irony that Barrett upset his own IWagePeace walk and had to announce Monday evening to the hundreds who had gathered that they wouldn’t be stopping by a mosque on George Street as planned.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Planners Ask for Revisions on Mosque Expansion Plans
Planning Board’s 1999 resolution of approval called into question
MIDDLETOWN — The Islamic Society of Monmouth County’s plans to expand the parking lot of its mosque on Red Hill Road will have to wait at least another three weeks. Following nearly two hours of testimony in front of more than 100 people at the July 11 Planning Board hearing in Middletown, Patrick Healy, the attorney for the society’s application, asked the board to delay making a decision until the next meeting on Aug. 1. “If the application were to be denied, the process would have had to start all over again,” Healy said in an interview after the hearing. “And it’s an expensive process.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Right’s Anti-Muslim Crankery Has Real Consequences
by Adam Serwer
For years, a segment of the conservative movement has trumpeted the conspiracy theory that Muslim radicals have infiltrated the US government. Although the right’s anti-Muslim voices were marginalized during the Bush administration, their ideas moved into the mainstream when Barack Obama took office, as crank theories about the president’s faith and alleged “Muslim sympathies” gained traction.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
When in Doubt, There’s Always Islamophobia
by Steve Benen
How can one tell for sure that there’s an election coming up? Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is busy trying to generate new fears about Muslims. Alex Seitz-Wald took a look at the right-wing lawmaker’s new conspiracy theory, which is every bit as ridiculous as the previous ones.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Who is Telling the Truth About Islam?
by Wolff Bachner
Once again, Americans are being told they have nothing to fear from Islam. Unfortunately, these reassuring words do not come from prominent Islamic clerics or the Qur’an. They come from American academics. On July 9, 2012, several “highly respected” researchers at the University of Arizona released a Defense Department funded study of Islamic violence. The study concluded that Muslim extremists are seeking social justice, not world domination. The authors of the study want us to believe that Muslim violence against non-Muslims has nothing to do with making Islam supreme over all other religions, as Muslims are commanded in the Qur’an. It is only a natural reaction to poverty, political oppression and lack of opportunity. Muslims are victims of hostile, outside forces and only seek to protect their own families, homes and nations.
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As long as non-Muslims cling to their false and misguided definition of Islam, there is no hope that Jews, Christians and Muslims will be able to co-exist as true equals. Instead, the West will be seen as weak, spineless and faithless and that certainly makes us an appealing target for Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, who are convinced “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands so that God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘It’s So Surreal’: Victims’ Families Struggle to Cope in Scarborough Shooting’s aftermath
Some 16 hours after gunfire at a Scarborough block party spilled fresh blood on city streets, one family’s private horror became a public reality during a televised news conference Tuesday afternoon. “They just released my brother’s name on TV. It’s so surreal. I can’t believe this is happening,” whispered Jennilyn Yasay, whose 23-year-old brother, Joshua Yasay, was among two people killed in the crossfire on Danzig St. The other, 14-year-old Shyanne Charles, was also identified by homicide investigators, following what Police Chief Bill Blair called the “worst incident of gun violence” in Toronto’s history. Families of both victims were left struggling for answers Tuesday as news of the brazen shooting rippled across Toronto.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels’ Smothering Embrace
Die Welt Berlin
In the name of serving the greater good of the EU, Brussels claims it is forced to strong-arm its members. Examples from Romania, Hungary and Italy, however, reveal something quite different: civil society and local cultures are sometimes being sacrificed.
Thomas Schmid
Going into debt today means a poorer tomorrow. That’s why austerity is the alpha and omega of a policy that is meant to ensure the continued survival of that half-freewheeling, half-iron-clad grouping of states that we have somewhat hastily called the European Union. This priority is perceived in some states of the EU as a diktat from Germany. That’s not fair.
And yet, if we’re to tell the whole truth, we have to admit that the new European austerity policy is also doing some damage. As nice as the talk about federal Europe (including its supposedly subnational structure) sounds, the reality is that it’s not just the financial crisis but the overall interests of the Union that can have a serious impact on sovereignty.
Neither Italy nor Greece’s new government would have come into office without pressure from the EU. As long, however, as the individual countries of Europe do not really conceive of the EU as a community, such steps are rightly grasped by the citizens as disenfranchisement and expropriation. To some that may even be welcome.
A recent example of this is an EU member state that was allowed to join the club too early and in too unsettled a state: Romania. There a violent battle is presently raging between cliques from the former socialist era, embodied by Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and the not exactly unblemished Conservatives, over President Traian Basescu, who has been cashiered by Parliament.
In Romania, rotten with corruption, the various political forces view the state as their looting ground. And those who want to put an end to this state of affairs, like the courageous former Justice Minister Monica Macovei, lack the tools to tackle it effectively.
Austerity fiat
They place their hopes on Romania’s becoming enmeshed in the EU — that is, that the EU will not accept the practice of perverting justice. For those who want a democratic Romania, this is a plus, because without the EU’s contractually stipulated power to intervene they would be even more isolated than they already are.
That’s the good part of being bound to the EU. The bad part is that the power to enforce the rule of law does not come from within a country — and in a way, it does not even need to. The safety net that comes from being within the EU can indeed enforce certain standards, but it does not necessarily bolster the democratic forces in such states.
Hungary furnishes an example of this paradoxical effect. The national conservative government under Viktor Orbán, in seeking to place the power of the ruling party Fidesz above state institutions, is very consciously obstructing the counterbalancing force of those institutions. This the EU cannot allow.
Again and again they force major or minor retreats on Orbán, on media policy or on the status of the central bank. When the EU puts its foot down, Orbán gives way with operetta-like gestures: he obliges — and with an ironic twinkle in his eye signals at the same time that he is doing so only under compulsion and that he will always find ways of properly watering down the Brussels “dictate”. In this game of ping-pong between Orbán and the EU, Hungary’s domestic opposition plays no decisive role.
To put it bluntly, having the moral police of democracy sited in Brussels is sapping the Hungarian opposition of its meaning. In any case, the game between Brussels and Budapest is not necessarily appropriate for promoting in Hungary what must never be left out of almost any EU communiqué: the self-confidence of civil society — and its capability to intervene.
The austerity fiat of the EU, however, can also impact the inner social clockwork of individual countries pieced together over many centuries. This is happening right now in Italy. Since Italian unification came so late in European history, Italy is a difficult and shaky nation-state. More than almost any other country in Europe, it thrives on the diversity of its regional and especially local identities.
Little homelands
That is what the Italians prize (as we do) about their country: a diversity that is as stamped by the landscape as it is by the architectural traditions, and not least by the varying cuisines…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bus Explosion Targets Israeli Tourists in Bulgaria
A bus carrying mostly Israeli youth in a Bulgaria exploded near an airport Wednesday, killing 7 people, according to local media reports, and wounding at least 27 others, police and hospital officials say. Witnesses told Israeli media that the huge blast occurred soon after someone boarded the vehicle.
The incident took place in the Black Sea resort city of Burgas, some 250 miles east of the capital, Sofia. Images shown on Israeli media showed smoke billowing from the scene — a parking lot at the area’s airport where tourists had apparently just landed.
Burgas Mayor Dimitar Nikolov told Haaretz that explosives were placed in the back of the bus…
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Italy: How to Move Away From a Technocratic Government
Corriere della Sera Milan
Last year, to calm the markets, Italy resorted to a government of unelected technocrats. But with elections coming up in 2013, one columnist writes, the only way for political parties to regain public confidence is to propose public works projects.
Angelo Panebianco
We are living a phase of chronic tension between democracy and the European Union, between the aspirations of the electorate and the need to safeguard the European project. Sometimes we succeed in controlling that tension, and at other times it degenerates into open conflict. The fracture, which crosses the eurozone, between the countries in the North and those along the Mediterranean, is in the form of expression.
To keep the markets at bay, reassure public opinion in the northern countries and save its place in the euro club, Italy has invented a stop-gap, an emergency workaround: the government called “technical”. But the hourglass knows no pity, and no one can halt the countdown. As paradoxical (and “politically incorrect”) as it may seem, almost everyone in Italy and elsewhere is dreading the moment when “democracy” will rediscover its rights — that moment, when, in less than a year, voters will make their voices heard.
Why such fear of democracy? Because, rightly or wrongly, it’s widely believed that the political formations the Italians will vote for, or against, are all inadequate, constitutionally incapable of persevering in the clean-up policies that the crisis has made necessary.
The parties supporting the Monti government are promising that they will not unravel the reforms that have already been committed to. But why should anyone believe them? Who says that the Right, on returning to power, won’t immediately repeal the Spending Review [Law on the rationalisation of public expenditure] to resume managing public funds the way it always has?
And why should we believe the Left when it says it will not stray from the path laid down by the Monti government when we know very well that this path does not have the backing of the unions and it is unthinkable for the Left to set out on anything without their approval?
A rocky road
The fact that it brings up the possibility of a “grand coalition” (that is to say, yet another Monti government) after the elections shows that these same political forces are fully aware of their inadequacies.
How to leave that all behind? There’s one way out: a rocky road, one alien to our traditions. For the first time since the birth of Italian democracy, the political forces that matter should work through the instructions in “The Manual of a Good Democrat”. These state that the electoral campaigns should lead not to a rain of vague promises, but to specific projects.
A project can be called specific when it is clearly announced who will be rewarded and who will be penalised. A project is called specific when it is applauded by some and makes others hit the roof. A political organisation could announce possible examples of specific projects to its constituents: if we win the election, within thirty days after taking office we will slash public expenditure on such and such a sector by so much, and we will lower the tax burden by the same amount.
Or: if we win the elections, we will halve the North-South transfers, except for essential services, and along with it we’ll abolish business taxes for so many years.
The parties should propose projects on all the major topics of general interest. In health, for example, what has been the impact of bringing in the “standard cost” of services [which compares costs and outcomes]? Or, in education, who would dare to propose a detailed roadmap (as opposed to the usual blah-blah) to inject a bit of meritocracy? Indexing wages to the quality of teaching is possible, technically, if the political will is there.
Discredit suffered by the political class
If the electoral campaigns were well conducted, it would, in a sense, be a posthumous victory for Ugo La Malfa (substance over ideology lay at the heart of the political creed of the Republican). A “LaMalfa-isation” of political groups would be a radical break with tradition. In Italy, election campaigns have always been conducted by combining ideological stances against the “enemy” with vague promises.
Ideology (the series of ‘isms’: anti-communism, anti-Berlusconism, etc.) serves to close up the ranks, while the vague promises displease no one and cast a wide net. Moving on from using “ideology + vague promises” to the “specific projects” method would be a revolution that would translate into drastic changes in political style and communication…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Seven Killed in Attack on Israeli Tourists Bus in Bulgaria
(AGI) Jerusalem — At least 7 people were killed and over 20 others wounded in a bomb attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists. The explosion (possibly a suicide attack, although it is not yet clear) targeted a bus at the Sarafovo airport in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, as Israeli tourists were boarding the vehicle. It was reported by newspaper Haaretz. According to the website of Yediot Ahronot, the explosion occurred outside the airport terminal.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anti-Muslim Reporting Fuelling Hate Crimes
‘Anti-Muslim reporting’ has led to an increase in hate crimes against Muslims a report says. Journalists and media experts have submitted recommendations to Leveson Inquiry to address racist media portrayal of Muslims and it’s wider social impact. The report ‘Race and Reform: Islam and Muslims in the British Media’ draws on first-hand interviews with 16 journalists, media experts, community representatives and politicians and aims to address inaccurate anti-Muslim narratives in British media and their social impact, from the 1990s to 2011.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Green Road Mosque Land Claimed Back
Land sold by the council to a Muslim group “incapable of doing anything properly” to build a mosque has been rescinded after the group failed to build within a time limit or even raise the money to do so. Reading Borough Council sold the freehold on a patch of land in Green Road in Earley to the trustees of the Jamme Masjid Mosque in 2004 for a knockdown price of £150,000 on the condition a mosque for the whole Muslim community be built within five years.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Human Rights and Culture Wars in the New Tunisia
by Eric Goldstein
The fate of two very different prisoners in Tunisia — one Muammar al-Qaddafi’s former prime minister, the other an unknown and irreverent cartoonist — hints at the future course of this country that initiated the Arab Spring. The public outcry over the first case showed that many Tunisians consider respect for human rights to be integral to Tunisia’s post-dictatorship identity. The relative silence over the second case shows that the strength of that human rights identity remains hostage to a difficult national conversation that has not taken place yet about free speech and religion.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israel to Respond Forcefully to Iranian Terror, Netanyahu
(AGI) Jerusalem — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel will respond forcefully to Iranian terror”.
Benjamin Netanyahu made the statement referring to a bomb attack that targeted a group of Israeli tourists at the Sarafovo airport, in the Bulgarian city of Burgas, today.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Vows Tough Response to Iran After Deadly Bus Attack Kills 7 in Bulgaria
SOFIA, Bulgaria — Israel vowed to strike back at Iran for a brazen daylight bombing Wednesday that killed at least seven people on a bus full of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria.
The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks attributed to Iran that have targeted Israelis and Jews overseas and threatened to escalate a shadow war between the two arch-enemies. Iran has denied involvement in the past but did not comment on Wednesday’s attack.
President Barack Obama termed it a “barbaric terrorist attack” and called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pledge U.S. help in finding the perpetrators.
The blast gutted the bus at the airport in the quiet Black Sea resort city of Burgas, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital, Sofia, where the Israelis had just arrived on a charter flight from Tel Aviv carrying 154 people, including eight children.
Black smoke billowed into the sky from the stricken bus after the bomb exploded. Young Israelis said they were just boarding when the blast ripped through the white vehicle in the airport parking lot. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at least seven people were killed.
“We were at the entrance of the bus and in a few seconds we heard a huge boom,” said Gal Malka, an Israeli teenager who was slightly wounded.
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Three Convicted Murderers Hanged in Gaza
GAZA CITY // The Hamas government in Gaza yesterday executed three men convicted of murder, the interior ministry said. It identified the men, who were hanged, only by their initials and said it had offered the families of their victims the opportunity to seek “blood money”.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists Urge All Syrians to Fight
BEIRUT // Fighting between rebels and government troops was reported in parts of Damascus for a third day yesterday as the Muslim Brotherhood called on the Syrian people to back the opposition. The Islamist group urged Syrians to support rebel fighters in the capital and to hold demonstrations against the regime of Bashar Al Assad. “Prepare to become soldiers in the decisive battle. You will secure victory with your own two hands,” said the Brotherhood, which is banned in Syria. “Our battle is now in Damascus … and this requires that we mobilise all the forces and all our efforts to secure victory.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon’s Salafi Scare
by Geneive Abdo
Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, a self-proclaimed religious authority with a bushy long beard, is no stranger on the Lebanese scene. His latest incarnation, from his mosque in the coastal town of Sidon, is as a firebrand political Salafist whose objectives transcend the confines of Lebanon. He is part of a growing movement in Lebanon and other Arab countries in which the Salafists — acting as guardians for Sunni interests — are using the civil war in Syria to gain political power and revive the sectarian conflict with their historical foes, the Shiites. In Lebanon, sectarianism has been a primary feature of the country’s politics for decades.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
More Islamists Held in UAE Plot
DUBAI, July 17, (Agencies): Three Emirati Islamists including a prominent lawyer were arrested in the UAE on Tuesday as part of a widening clampdown on Islamist dissidents, relatives and activists said. The arrests brought the number of detained Emirati dissidents, most of them Islamists, to 10 since Sunday, when the Gulf Arab state said it was investigating a foreign-linked group planning “crimes against the security of the state”.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Crisis: ‘Operation Damascus Volcano’ — Live Updates
- Clashes in Damascus continued overnight
- Russia drafts an ‘enhanced’ UN security council resolution
- Manaf Tlass calls for ‘constructive transition’
10.37am: Syria: The journalist Zaid Benjamin, who claims to have been the first to report the start of the rebel’s ‘operation volcano’ assault, now says the Free Syrian Army is discussing withdrawing from Damascus.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Damascus Hit by Another Night of Violence
BEIRUT // Columns of black smoke rose over the Syrian capital this morning after the city was hit by another night of clashes between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad, activists groups said. The Local Coordination Committees, which organises anti-regime protests on the ground, reported fighting in several districts of the city, and said the Qaboon neighbourhood was bombarded.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama Names New Envoys to Afghanistan and Pakistan
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday named veteran diplomats to be the next ambassadors to Afghanistan and Pakistan, two highly sensitive positions vacated when envoys recently resigned.
Mr Obama named Richard Olson, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, to serve in Pakistan and James Cunningham, the number two at the US embassy in Kabul, to be the ambassador, a White House statement said. The two men will need confirmation by the Senate. They would serve as the United States prepares to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan in 2014, a transition that profoundly impacts rocky relations with Pakistan. “I am grateful that these talented and dedicated men and women have agreed to take on these important roles and devote their talents to serving the American people,” Mr Obama said in a statement announcing several new postings.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Concerns Grow Over Post-2014 Afghanistan
by Taro Ichikawa
Japan is Afghanistan’s second largest donor behind the United States. Since the Tokyo Conference in January 2002, it has provided $ 3.3 billion till the end of 2011, to support political processes, assist infrastructural, agricultural and industrial development, help meet basic human needs, and promote Afghan culture that has profoundly suffered in the past about three decades. Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba announced at the Tokyo Conference 2012 — convened to chart future assistance for Afghanistan, ahead of the withdrawal of 100,000 foreign combat troops stationed in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 — that Japan will provide “up to around three billion dollars of assistance to Afghanistan in about five years from 2012 in the field of socio-economic development and enhancement of security capabilities”.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India: ‘Boycott Anti-Muslim Israeli Dates’
During the month of Ramzan, the sale of dates in the City [Hyderabad] sees an increase. Muslims who observe Roza during this period, break their fast by eating dates with a glass of water. Growing dates is one of the major agricultural activities carried out by Israel. Every year, Israel exports dates worth millions of Israeli pounds across the world. But this year the special dates from Israel will be missing in the City markets. Many muslim organisations and community workers had urged people to boycott Israeli dates when breaking their fast during Ramzan.
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Many NGOs in the City are using social networking sites to spread the message. Text messages are also being sent out. The campaign is not only directed towards the buyers or consumers but also the wholesalers and small retailers. “We are being told not to sell Israeli dates in the City because of their anti-Muslim attitude. So we have decided to scrap them, however Israeli dates are better in taste and more in demand,” said Abdul Razaaq, a wholesale dry fruit dealer from Begum bazaar.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Islamic Terrorists Suspected in Yogyakarta Bank Robbery
The robbers planted skillfully built homemade explosive devices to gain access to the building. The loot is around 15 thousand Euros in cash. The police so far deny the involvement of terrorist groups. Troubling links with other robberies carried out by Islamic extremists to fund attacks.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — The whole country is shocked by the RPI Bank robbery in Yogyakarta (Java), yesterday by an unknown group with weapons and explosive devices. The police fear a change of tactics by Islamist terrorist groups, who use robberies to finance their attacks. The theft took place yesterday in the Bri offices located within the Rsup Dr. Sadjito Hospital. According initial reports the robbers broke into the bank wearing masks stole 15 thousand dollars in cash and left the scene after planting the bombs, which later had to be detonated by the bomb squad.
For the moment police have excluded the track terrorist, however, Gatot Sudibyo, a veteran of the Jakarta police says that the explosives placed by the robbers were made by expert hands. The bomb squad were forced to explode the devices planted in the bank.
In recent days, another robbery occurred at Sewon Bantul regency within the most important school complex in the area. The robbers attacked the school seized the staff, getting away with around 17 thousand euros.
In August 2011, the sensational robbery at Niaga Cmib Bank, in the province of Medan (North Sumatra), which cost several casualties among security personnel and police officers, revealed the terrorists new methods of self-financing. As for these two robberies, at the time the police downplayed any link to avoid speculation. Later it was discovered that the 16 robbers were linked to a major terrorist group. After the events of Medan, the organization has continued to strike at other places, including a jewelry store in Bali in March 2012.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Magnetic Bomb Explodes, Destroys 22 NATO Supply Trucks in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials say a magnetic bomb placed on a truck exploded and destroyed 22 NATO supply vehicles in northern Afghanistan. Ghulam Sakhi Baghlani, deputy governor of Samangan province, says many of the fuel tankers and semi-trailers caught fire after the bomb went off around 2 a.m. Wednesday. All the trucks were parked in the Rabatak area of the province where the truckers had stopped to rest. The tankers in the convoy were transporting fuel south into Afghanistan from neighboring Uzbekistan to the north.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Military Professionals Discussing the Medevac Dilemma: Armed or Escorted?
Increasing numbers of high-ranking military officers and veterans agree that the time has come for change. Support from lawmakers continues to grow. Army helicopter medical evacuation (Dustoff) polices are outdated and costing lives. Our current polices even violate the Geneva Conventions. The Dustoff Association is seeing this for what it is, and has featured the matter in their latest “The DUSTOFFer” newsletter.
Note: The military recently completed its investigation into the loss of Chazray Clark in Afghanistan last September. The Pentagon now admits that it took 69 minutes from time of injury until Chazray was delivered to the hospital. With better policies, that evacuation could have been completed in about 24 minutes. We lost Chazray. Let’s stop this now.
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Pakistan: Drawing Parallels Between the Jamaat-E-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood
KARACHI: The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) maintains close ties with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a religious party which has recently found its voice again in mainstream Egyptian politics, and a group that the JI claims it has a lot to learn from.
The leadership of the two parties met at the Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo in June last year and decided to join hands to solve issues faced by Muslims all over the world and to promote the true image of Islam, according to a press release issued in the aftermath of the meeting. In a sign of budding relations, when Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Mursi was declared the first president of Egypt since a popular uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak, a special ceremony was held in Karachi by JI’s local chapter. “Congratulations to Ikhwane Muslameen (Egyptian Brotherhood) on their glorious success. The sacrifices of the martyrs Imam Hasan al Banna, Syed Qutb and thousands of activists have borne fruit in the shape of the revolution in Egypt. God willing, an Islamic revolution is Pakistan’s destiny too,” said a JI leader at the event.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Roadside Bomb Kills 12 Shiite Muslims in Northwest Pakistan
PARACHINAR, Pakistan — A minibus carrying Shiite Muslims hit a roadside bomb in northwestern Pakistan today, killing 12 of them in the country’s latest apparent sectarian attack.
The incident took place shortly after the victims left Spai, a predominantly Shiite village in the Orakzai tribal area. A local government official said they were headed for the nearby district of Kohat.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Phyllis Chesler & Nathan Bloom: A Study: Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings
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While India is indeed a striking exception to Islam’s near monopoly on contemporary honor killings, the following preliminary statistical survey shows Hindu honor killings in India to be different in form and commission from those of Muslims in neighboring Pakistan. Though no less gruesome, the Hindu honor killings seem largely confined to the north of India and are perpetuated by sociocultural factors largely specific to India. The millions of Indian Hindus who have immigrated to the West do not bring the practice along with them.
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Two Troops Injured as NATO Helicopter Crashes in Western Afghanistan
A Nato helicopter crashed on Wednesday in western Afghanistan, injuring two troops serving with the US-led military coalition, Nato said.
No other information was disclosed about the crash in the relatively peaceful west. The crash is under investigation. Separately, Nato reported that a service member was killed on Tuesday during an insurgent attack in the south. Insurgents are trying to regain territory they’ve lost during the past two years when tens of thousands of coalition and Afghan forces routed them from their strongholds in the south. The trooper’s nationality has not yet been released. So far this year, 238 coalition service members have been killed in Afghanistan, including at least 172 Americans.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US Military Deaths in Afghanistan at 1,910
As of Tuesday, July 17, 2012, at least 1,910 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count. The AP count is nine less than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT. At least 1,593 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China Shifts to More ‘Authentic’ Arabian-Style Mosques
BEIJING //The casual observer would probably not realise Niujie Mosque in the south-west of the Chinese capital was a Muslim place of worship.
With its two-storey pagoda-style tower in place of a minaret, and ceramic animals on the ridges of its elaborately sculpted roof, it has few of the architectural flourishes, such as domes and pointed arches, characteristic of mosques. Indeed, without seeing the Arabic lettering on parts of the complex, a visitor might mistake the mosque, which dates back to 996, for a Chinese temple. While there are other Chinese-style mosques in China, in recent decades an increasing number of mosques built using the domes and minarets typically found in the Middle East have appeared.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union Bid to Import US Workers
ONE of the nation’s biggest unions is negotiating to import up to 2000 skilled workers from the US on temporary visas, declaring unions will be unable to “hold back the tide” of foreigners needed to plug skill shortages on multi-billion-dollar resources projects.
The Australian can reveal that a company directly related to the union has been approved by the federal government to assess the overseas workers and is setting up facilities in Las Vegas and the states of Maine and Pennsylvania for offshore testing from October.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Where Are the Children?
by Daniel Hannan
Comment on the census data has tended to focus on sheer numbers, and you can see why. Few Britons, least of all my Home Counties constituents, need official data to tell them that they are overcrowded. They have to get up earlier and earlier to drive to work; if they take the train, they pay higher fares for standing room. If they fly to Heathrow or Gatwick, they often find their plane circling in a stack, giving them plenty of time to look down at a landscape visibly less green than it used to be. When they do land, they face vast, looping queues.
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[Reader comment by palookaville on 18 July 2012 at about 09:50 am.]
If we had experienced mass immigration of pro-British, hard-working people with skills we actually need, the country might have benefited.
Instead Labour deliberately imported unemployable people from backward countries in huge numbers; many of whom are hostile to western democratic culture.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
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