France-Germany: We Will Do Everything to Protect Euro Zone
Merkel and Hollande see eye to eye
(ANSAMed) — BERLIN, JULY 27 — France and Germany are determined to defend the euro zone, according to a communique from the Elysee Palace released on Friday.
“France and Germany are committed to preserving the integrity of the euro zone, and will do everything possible to protect it. Member states and European institutions must fulfill their obligations to this end, according to their own prerogatives.
France and Germany reaffirm the need to rapidly enact the decisions taken by the European Council on June 28 and 29,” the communique said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Galicia to Cut 14 Regional MPs
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 27 — The president of the government of Galicia, Alberto Nunez Feijo of the Pardido Popular, announced that the regional Parliament will lower by 14 the number of lawmakers, from 75 to 61, to cut public spending.
Feijo was quoted by the local press as assuring that the PP would approve the reform regardless of the opposition’s stance on the issue thanks to its absolute majority in the chamber. He said however that he hoped for an accord “at least with the PSOE”.
Lowering the number of MPs will not “totally change the rules of the game”, said the president, as it will maintain the minimum number of representatives per province, 10 MPs, under Galicia’s electoral law. Opposition groups, the Socialists and Galician National Bloc, oppose the reform.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Treasury Sells €8.5bln of Bills as Rates Decline
Rome, 27 July (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italy sold 8.5 billion euros of Treasury bills, the maximum planned for the auction, as rates dropped after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said officials will do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.
The Rome-based Treasury today sold the 184-day bills at 2.454 percent, down from 2.957 percent at the last sale of similar-maturity debt on June 27. Investors bid for 1.61 times the amount offered, the same as last month.
A bigger test for the Italian treasury comes on July 30, when Italy sells 5-year and 10-year debt. Stocks surged Thursday after Draghi signalled central bank officials are prepared to do whatever is needed to ensure the euro’s survival and act on surging bond yields.
“Draghi’s verbal intervention yesterday has had its intended effect,” Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London said in a statement. “Yet the stakes have been raised: if the ECB does not intervene in Spanish and Italian bond markets should market conditions deteriorate once again, its credibility will suffer”.
Italy’s 10-year yields fell below 6 percent for the first time in a week after Le Monde reported that the European Central Bank is preparing to buy debt in the secondary market. Italy’s 10-year yield was at 5.98 percent, down 7 basis points, at 12:16 p.m. in Rome.
No country has called for a bond- buying programme by the European rescue funds, the European Commission said. “This instrument can only be used based on a request by a member state, and to date there is no request,” commission spokesman Antoine Colombani told reporters in Brussels Friday.
Both Colombani and an ECB spokeswoman declined to comment on the Le Monde report.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal: OECD: Recession Worsens, GDP -3.2% in 2012
debt over 120% of GDP in 2013
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JULY 26 — In Portugal “restricted credit access and a worsening external context are contributing to deepen the recession in 2012”, the OECD wrote in its report on the Portuguese economy. The report also estimated GDP would fall 3.2 percent this year and 0.9 percent in 2013. Portugal’s deficit will continue to diminish this year and the next but the det-to-GDP ratio will continue to grow in 2013, the OECD wrote.According to estimates by the Paris-based organization, Portugal’s debt will be 114.5 percent of the GDP in 2012 and 120.3 percent in 2013. The deficit will be 4 percent of GDP in 2012 and 2.2 next year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Rato Blames Ex Central Banker for Bankia Failure
Ordoniez knew, and pushed the merger through anyway, Rato says
(ANSAMed) — MADRID, JULY 26 — Former Bankia chairman Rodrigo Rato defended his and the bank’s conduct at a Congressional economics committee hearing on Thursday. “We acted in compliance with the law and at no cost to taxpayers,” Rato, also a former head of the International Monetary Fund, told committee members.
Reminding them that he was appearing “voluntarily,” Rato blamed the ill-fated merger between Caja Madrid, Bancaja, Caja de Canarias, Caixa Laitana and the banks of Avila, Segovia and Rioja, on Spain’s central bank. Rato said the former governor of the Bank of Spain, Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordoniez, called him into his office on June 2, 2010, and urged him to go ahead with the deal in spite of experts’ warnings that the merger would create an overload of risky real estate credits.
The former governor “had detailed knowledge of the lenders’ true situation,” but told him “to be more ambitious about the upcoming stock exchange listing,” and to try to raise double the projected figure of 2 billion euros, Rato said.
The listing took place in July 2011, with the bulk of shares sold to ordinary Spaniards. Ordoniez denied such a meeting took place in a Congressional hearing on Tuesday. Rato also told committee members that on May 4 he went to the government with a restructuring plan that would have required a public bailout of 6 billion euros, or a fourth of the total his successor, Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, eventually asked for.
Rato left the chairmanship when his plan was not approved, and he found that “there no dialogue with the authorities, at a difficult time when dialogue would have been of the essence.” Rato resigned from Bankia in May, barely two weeks before the lender asked for a 19 billion euro rescue that has pushed Spain to the brink. Spain’s rescue fund FROB had already pumped 4.5 billion euros into Bankia before it asked for a further 19 billion euros. Spain’s High Court opened the investigation on July 5 into whether Rato and 32 other former board members of Bankia and its parent group are guilty of fraud, price-fixing and falsifying accounts.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Spread Drops After Draghi’s Comments
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 27 — Market pressure on Spain’s debt continued to lower today thanks to the positive effect of comments supporting the euro by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. After rising 6.6 percent when markets closed yesterday, the Ibex-35 index grew 0.67 percent to 6.412 points.
The Spanish 10-year national bono fell to 6.85 percent compared to the record 7.74 percent registered on Wednesday. The 10-year bono-bund risk ratio lowered to 550 points compared to the 565 registered at last night’s stock markets closure.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Taxi Drivers in Madrid Against Liberalization
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 27 — Taxi drivers in Madrid are protesting today against a government plan to liberalize public transport. The protest kicked off at 11 local time this morning in front of the Infrastructure Ministry with 50 taxis followed by a group of workers with their families, some 3,000 people according to organizers.
The protesters carried a banner saying “For a high quality taxi service, No to deregulation”.
The march brought protesters along the Paeseo de la Castellana towards the Industry Ministry and blocked traffic for half an hour on the road connecting the northern part of Madrid to the south.
Demonstrators chanted slogans including “the reform will ruin the sector” and “they will make us all unemployed” and some threw eggs against taxi drivers who were working.
Among the associations which organized the protest are the Union of Madrid’s taxis, Aemt Uniatrampa and several other companies against the sector’s liberalization announced by the government of Mariano Rajoy as part of anti-deficit measures. Taxi drivers fear the proliferation of private taxis after the current limit of one private vehicle per 30 taxis will be lifted.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Economy Slowed to a Tepid 1.5% Rate of Growth
The United States economy grew by a tepid 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, losing the momentum it had appeared to be gaining earlier this year, the government reported Friday.
Growth was held back as consumers curbed purchases and business investment slowed in the face of a global slowdown and a stronger dollar. Analysts had expected a 1.4 percent rate.
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Area Muslims Reflect on Meaning of Ramadan
By Shahid Abdul-Karim, Register Staff
As Muslim communities around the world celebrate and embrace the monthlong observance of Ramadan, members of the Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center in Hamden shared experiences of what fasting means to them and how the impact of the Ramadan will carry over into their personal lives once the month ends. “Ramadan is a cleansing time for growth and improvement,” said Mikaeel Abdullah Qadeer 49, the mosque treasurer. “I reflect on what I do and how I handle myself. It’s a reminder of how I should behave year round.” At 10 a.m. today, certified quality food operator Khadijah Muhammad and public health nurse Tanya Abdul-Karim of the Abdul Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center’s Health Awareness Advisory Council, will participate in a live online chat on Ramadan and health and the status of women in Islam at www.newhavenregister.com. Yahya Abdul Shakoor, 66, who serves as one of the assistant imams of the mosque said, “The beauty of reading the Quran and becoming closer to Allah is always a blessing.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Bachmann Affair’ Against Clinton Aide Huma Abedin is a Wake-Up Call
By John L. Esposito
Michele Bachmann has stirred up a storm. Bachmann has been criticized on the floor of the Senate and denounced in the media, and inspired a petition calling for her resignation or removal from the House Intelligence Committee. Facts have never been her strong suit, but this time Bachmann stepped into a hornet’s nest. What is different about this firestorm and its outcome and why is it significant?
Bachmann and four other House Republicans wrote a letter asking the Department of Defense, the State Department, and other departments to investigate whether the U.S. government is being infiltrated by Muslim extremists. In particular they said that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “has three family members-her late father, her mother, and her brother-connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position provides her with routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Muslim Brotherhood’s American Defenders
On Wednesday, John Brennan, US President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah’s massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week.
Hopefully it was an instructive meeting for the senior US official, although his Israeli interlocutors were undoubtedly dumbstruck by how difficult it was to communicate with him. Unlike previous US counterterror officials, Brennan does not share Israel’s understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism.
Brennan’s outlook on this subject was revealed in a speech he gave two years ago in Washington. In that talk, Brennan spoke dreamily about Hezbollah. As he put it, “Hezbollah is a very interesting organization.”
He claimed it had evolved from a “purely terrorist organization” to a militia and then into an organization with members in Lebanon’s parliament and serving in Lebanon’s cabinet.
Brennan continued, “There are certainly elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern for us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Combating Islamophobia: At Last, A Sense of Decency
by Charles C. Haynes
Last week Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took to the Senate floor to defend Huma Abedin-a Muslim American who serves as an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Although a small blip in the news cycle, McCain’s speech may ultimately prove to be a turning point in the struggle to combat Islamophobia in the United States. Witch-hunts, history teaches, cease only when witch-hunters go too far-and some courageous soul dares to cry “enough.” McCain was responding to accusations from Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and four other members of Congress that Abedin has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and influences Clinton on its behalf. “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit,” said McCain. “And they need to stop now.” Other voices joined in defending Abedin, including Bachmann’s former campaign manager, Ed Rollins, who described the charges as “wild and unsubstantiated” and called on Bachmann to apologize. But it was John McCain-a leader of his party and a war hero-who may finally have done to the anti-Muslim crusade of the 2000s what Joseph Welch did to the Red Scare of the 1950s.
[…]
Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. Web: firstamendmentcenter.org. Email: chaynes@freedomforum.org.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘I Am a Joker and I’m Gonna Load my Guns and Blow Everybody Up’: New Massacre ‘Foiled by Police After They Seize Terrifying Arsenal of Weapons From Man Who Threatened to Shoot Ex-Coworkers’
Suspect: Neil Prescott phoned in the threat to software and mailroom supplier Pitney Bowes near Washington, D.C.
Police have foiled what they believed could have been another Aurora-scale massacre after a man who called himself ‘a joker’ and had an arsenal of semi-automatic rifles threatened to shoot up the business from which he was being fired.
Neil Prescott, of Crofton, Maryland, was wearing a T-shirt that read ‘Guns don’t kill people. I do,’ when first confronted by officers on Thursday, police revealed today.
The man, identified in a search warrant, told a supervisor at software and mailroom supplier Pitney Bowes that, ‘I’m a joker and I’m gonna load my guns and blow everybody up,’ and that he wanted to see the supervisor’s ‘brain splatter on the floor.’
The threats were made multiple times in separate phone calls this week, and investigators who searched the 28-year-old’s apartment this morning found several thousand rounds of ammunition and about two dozen semi-automatic rifles and pistols.
The arsenal of weapons included one assault rifle, two shotguns, nine handguns and three rifles, according to the search warrant.
Prescott is receiving a psychiatric evaluation at a hospital and charges are still pending.
‘We can’t measure what was prevented here, but was going on over the last 36 hours was a significant incident in the county. And we think a violent episode was avoided,’ said Prince George’s County Police Chief Mark Magaw.
It was not immediately clear when the threat was to be carried out or how seriously it was meant to be taken, but last week’s mass shooting at a Colorado theater — coupled with the ‘Joker’ reference — put police especially on edge and gave the comments extra urgency, officials said.
James Holmes had his hair dyed reddish-orange as if out of a comic book, and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said he also called himself the Joker, when he allegedly shot dead at least 12 people and wounding 38 others during a late-night screening of the new Batman movie in Aurora.
‘In light of what happened a week ago in Aurora, Colorado, it’s important to know, (for) the community to know, that we take all threats seriously. And if you’re going to make a threat, we will take action,’ Magaw said.
Though there is no other indication of a link to the Colorado shooting, police believe the joker comments made by Prescott were a ‘clear reference’ to the killings, according to the warrant.
A police officer told ABC7 that they believe the foiled shooting ‘could have been another Aurora.’
Neighbor Wilbert Brinson, who lives in a building across from Prescott’s but did not know him, said he was alarmed by the alleged threats.
‘It’s an awakening, you know, after hearing what happened in Colorado,’ he said.
Police would not confirm the man’s identify on Friday because charges are pending. He was receiving an emergency mental health evaluation at a hospital and was taken into custody on Friday morning at his apartment in Crofton, near Annapolis, after a supervisor reported the threat.
Police checked in Thursday at Prescott’s home, where he was wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘Guns don’t kill people. I do,’ authorities said.
Police served the search warrant Friday morning and took him into custody without a struggle, police officials said…
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Gives Murfreesboro Mosque More Time to Build
A federal judge agreed Thursday to give the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro more time to complete construction and occupy its new building on Veals Road on the southeast side of town. U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp extended a temporary restraining order until Aug. 15 after another federal judge last week ordered Rutherford County to restart the inspection process for the mosque in time for Ramadan, which began a week ago.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Michele Bachmann’s Muslim Brotherhood Claims Condemned by Catholic Bishops, 41 Other Groups
Forty-two religious and secular organizations united on Thursday in condemning conservative lawmakers’ allegations that Muslim-American individuals connected to the U.S. government may be trying to spread the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. They directed their criticisms at Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who recently wrote to various government agencies and asked them to investigate the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. In their letters, the lawmakers targeted top State Department official Huma Abedin and several advisers to the Department of Homeland Security.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Mark Ramadan With Compassion, Discipline
by Mary Klaus
One week into their observance of the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, midstate Muslims are adjusting to their Ramadan practices. Their bodies have become used to rising before the sun for a predawn breakfast, then doing a total fast from all food and beverages until after sunset. Their minds and souls are adjusting to the extra spiritual purification and self-restraint that are part of the month in which Muslims believe the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. It’s a time for Muslims to read the Quran, pray, give food to the poor and fast from sunrise to sunset except for the very young, very old, pregnant women, sick people and those making long journeys. It’s a time for compassion and discipline through self-restraint.
[…]
[JP note: That’ll be the day.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
New York’s New Mosque Fight
by Alex Seitz-Wald
Developer Ahmed Allowey wanted to build a modest house of prayer on a vacant lot in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. For years, growing numbers of Muslims had been immigrating to the neighborhood and lacked a nearby mosque. Allowey’s plan was hatched over five years ago, but construction at 2812 Voorhies Avenue is still not complete, thanks to vociferous opposition from local residents backed by opportunistic politicians.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Names Salvatore Cordileone Archbishop of San Francisco
Bishop helped create prop. 8 anti-gay-marriage amendment
(ANSA) — Vatican City, July 27 — Pope Benedict XVI named Father Salvatore Cordileone the new archbishop of San Francisco on Friday. The decision came as Father George Niederauer retired after serving as the San Francisco archbishop since 2006.
Theologically conservative, Cordileone was a creator of Proposition 8, a 2008 amendment to the California constitution which provides that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized”.
In 2011 he was named chairman of the US bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, which works against the legalization of same-sex marriage. photo: a supporter of Proposition 8
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Updated! MB Influence: Where Does Your [Congressional] Member Stand?
UPDATE JULY 27! Andy McCarthy “Huma Abedin’s Brotherhood Ties Are Not Just a Family Affair” (PJMedia) here: “The question is not whether the five House conservatives were off-base in asking for an investigation into ties between administration officials and Islamist organizations. The question is why the other 430 members of the House haven’t joined them — and why John McCain, John Boehner, and other Republican establishment luminaries are championing the Muslim Brotherhood’s side of the dispute.”(Underscoring Forum’s.)
UPDATE JULY 26! Patrick Poole reveals (Breitbart-Big Peace) “Pentagon Islamic Adviser Reappears as Political Leader for Syrian Muslim Brotherhood- Dominated Group.” Don’t we have some Maryland and Virginia GOP House Armed Services Committee members who should be supporting the Bachmann-Franks-Gohmert-Rooney-Westmoreland requests for IG probes of Brotherhood influence in our national-security agencies?
[See important URLs at original link, above]
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France: Muslim Woman Arrested for Covering Her Face in Public, Released for Ramadan
Police were injured on Friday while arresting a woman who was wearing a niqab, which violates French laws against covering the face in public. The 18-year-old woman was fully covered except for her eyes when police approached her to ask for identification. She allegedly bit one of the officials, reported the Telegraph, and refused to cooperate with their request.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Mob ‘Attacks’ Police During Islamic Veil ID Check
In the restive port city of Marseille, police fear that the release of four people arrested for allegedly attacking officers during an ID check on a woman wearing an Islamic veil will undermine their fight against violent crime in the city. Marseille police say three of its officers were injured in the early hours of July 25 when a mob of some 50 people tried to prevent them from checking the identity of a woman who was wearing a full Islamic veil. Under a controversial law passed in 2010, wearing a full veil or covering one’s face in a public place is illegal in France and offenders must submit to ID checks. According to the police, the woman was stopped just after midnight near a city mosque and refused to cooperate with the officers. A man accompanying her as well as a large group of bystanders came to her aid and three officers were “lightly injured” in a scuffle.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
French Police Injured in Row Over Burka
Police unions in France are furious after three officers were injured trying to check the identity of a woman flouting the country’s burka ban and who was later released to “appease tensions during Ramadan”.
The officers ordered the 18-year-old called Marie-Louise to produce her identity card around midnight outside a mosque in the southern French city of Marseille, which has a large Muslim population. She was wearing the niqab that leaves all but the eyes covered in contravention of a 2010 law banning wearing any face-covering veil in public. The woman refused, saying: “I don’t obey the laws of the French Republic” and allegedly bit one of the officers. Scuffles then broke out with around 50 people present including the woman’s partner. Three officers were lightly injured. Reinforcements arrived and four people, including the woman and her partner, were arrested and taken to a police station. But they were released shortly afterwards “in a gesture of appeasement during Ramadan”, according to the public prosecutor. The officers involved, however, now face an administrative inquiry after people present during the incident complained they had used “illegal force”.
Police unions were furious. “Nobody can understand how police officers can be attacked…and in the end the people arrested are released before the officers themselves,” said David-Olivier Reverdy, of the local Alliance union. The niqab, according to laws that we enforce but don’t make, is forbidden. We are simply applying the law,” he told France Info. Yannick of the Unité SGP-Police union, said: “This affair underlines the difficulty we have in applying the law. We get the feeling that many would prefer us to shut our eyes to avoid any incidents. “In short, you can make police checks but don’t make waves, otherwise you’ll carry the can. It all smacks of hypocrisy and doesn’t make police work in the field any easier.”
Marseille’s deputy mayor Nora Présozi, supported the police, saying: “If we want to avoid an explosive situation, the police must imperatively enforce the law. “Many women wearing the burka are looking for confrontation with the police. By doing so, they are conveying a poor image of Islam.” But Muslim website aijib.fr claimed the officers were being over zealous as an interior ministry circular advises police not to intervene in or around “places of worship”. Around 300 women have been issued fines of up to 150 euros since the face veil ban took effect on April 1, 2011. Anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a full veil faces a 30,000-euro fine and a year in prison. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy who backed the ban described the full veil as a “sign of enslavement”. Police estimate that around 2,000 women among France’s five-million strong Muslim population wear the full Islamic veil.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Regional Governor May Face Trial for Misuse of Public Funds
Errani denies any wrongdoing
(ANSA) — Bologna, July 26 — Public prosecutors are seeking a trial for Vasco Errani, the president of the Reggio-Emilia region, on charges he favored his brother in a business deal that made use of public funds.
According to prosecutors, in 2005 Errani helped his brother, Giovanni, obtain one million euros in regional funds used to pay for the building of a new winery in the Terremerse cooperative, in the town of Imola. Errani stands accused of having concealed information in order to help the deal go through.
The investigation into the loan began in 2009, after Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale suggested there may have been irregularities in the issuing of the funds. Vasco Errani — who stands accused along with two other regional government administration officials — was first interviewed by prosecutors one month ago, but the meeting went unreported. His brother was first investigated in the summer of 2010.
Responding to the accusations Thursday, Errani said, “I will appear before the judge in full confidence and I will prove that I committed no crime. I am certain of what I did and do as president of the region and I never favored or acted against anyone”.
The prosecutors’ actions unleashed comments from across Italy’s political spectrum, including calls for his resignation.
“If Vasco Errani is put on trial, he will have to resign,” commented a local councilor of the Movimento 5 Stelle, an increasingly popular fringe movement founded by Italian comic Beppe Grillo which recently has been making electoral inroads, including winning the mayoralty of Parma in recent, national administrative elections. Errani’s lawyer, meanwhile, accused local prosecutors of making a “serious mistake”. In a statement, Alessandro Gamberini said, “The request of a trial for Vasco Errani in absence of elements that justify it arouses surprise and bewilderment”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Partial Shutdown and 8 Arrests in Taranto’s Ilva Steelworks
Thousands of workers protest
(ANSA) — Taranto, July 26 — A judge ordered the partial shutdown of Italy’s largest steelworks, the ILVA plant in the southern port of Taranto on Thursday. The judge also authorized the house arrest of eight ILVA managers and ex-managers after magistrates found the plant’s fumes and dust endangered the heath of thousands of workers and residents nearby. The arrests ordered by judge Patrizia Todisco included the owner, Emilio Riva, chairman of ILVA until May 2010; his son Nicola Riva, who took his father’s place as chairman until a few weeks ago; the ex-director of the Taranto plant, Luigi Capogrosso; the current head of the plant’s coke ovens, Ivan Di Maggio; and the supervisor for the agglomeration area, Angelo Cavallo. The partial shutdown closes ILVA’s mineral park, coke ovens, agglomeration area, blast furnaces, steel mills and iron materials management. The steelworks owned by the Riva family is under legal pressure as the result of a drawn-out investigation lasting more than a decade. Expert epidemiological and chemical assessments this spring concluded that the ILVA plant was responsible for an environmental disaster causing 386 deaths over the last 13 years and a range of illnesses in neighborhoods near the plant.
Workers and labor unions have denounced legal action for fear of losing a major employer and a regional economic engine.
On receiving news of the shutdown Thursday, 2,000 workers streamed out of the plants and into the streets. The protest followed another on Wednesday, in which thousands of workers blocked a highway.
The steelworks is one of southern Italy’s few large industrial plants, producing 30% of Italy’s steel, and employing more than 11,000 workers. Italy’s environmental minster Corrado Clini met with Puglia Governor Nichi Vendola and other officials in Rome on Thursday seeking an agreement on how to clean up the environmental damage and also salvage industrial production at the plant.
Vendola said that if the case reaches trial, the Puglia region will join as a civil party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Historic $77,500 Bottle of Cognac Broken by Mistake
Talk about a mistake of historic proportions.
A customer at London’s Playboy Club accidentally broke a bottle of 224-year-old cognac wroth more than $77,000 that was slated to be featured in the world’s most expensive cocktail and mixed in front of judges from Guinness World Records.
The U.K.’s Evening Standard reports that the Coganc, a Clos de Griffier Vieux from 1788, was smashed after a businessman, who had ordered two glasses of the brandy at $7,800 a pop, asked to look at the bottle. But the bottle accidentally went sailing and smashed the floor when the customer stood up.
World renowned mixologist Salvatore Calabrese was to mix the potentially record-breaking cocktail.
“We all just froze, then it sunk in. I’ve been heartbroken. Not because of the value of the bottle, but because it is a piece of history that has been lost,” Calabrese told the Standard.
The bottle had previously been in the cellars of Paris restaurant La Tour d’Argent before appearing on the menu at the Playboy Club, reports The Drinks Business, and was once part of a record-breaking auction in 2009.
As for the businessman, he surprisingly has not been banished from the Playboy Club for good. The Standard reports that he is a regular at the club, so all has been forgiven. But the bottle was not insured because it had been opened.
In this case, there might be just cause to bawl over spilt brandy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lady Warsi Cleared of Expenses Irregularities
House of Lords investigated allegations Warsi claimed for accommodation while staying at a friend’s house rent-free
Lady Warsi has been cleared of expenses irregularities by a Lords investigation but found in breach of its code of conduct over her failure to properly register a property with the Lords. The findings of the Lords standards commissioner, Paul Kernaghan, were confirmed after the Tories announced the key part of the findings — but made no mention of the breach. The party said later this was because Warsi had already publicly acknowledged the lapse. Warsi, the party co-chair, said she now intended to “get on with the job” — a sentiment echoed by David Cameron.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London: Not Alive With the Spirit of the Olympics
by Andrew Gilligan
In a story on its website, the BBC proclaims that “the capital has come alive with the spirit of the Olympics.” Apart from reading like it was copied from a London 2012 press release, it’s just not true. Small parts of the capital have come alive with the spirit of the Olympics. Crowds turned out today in parts of central London to greet the torch. I passed the South Bank yesterday — and there were, as the BBC journalist says, plenty of people having themselves photographed with the mutant Olympic mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville. But the truth is that across most of the capital, you’d hardly know the Games existed.
[…]
The emperor’s-new-clothes brigade is out in force tonight — the Guardian newspaper, for instance, has excoriated Olympisceptics as “at the margins, out of touch and just plain wrong,”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslims Can be Change Makers Too
By Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP
We all remember the famous Barack Obama campaign lines in 2008 such as “Change we can believe in” and “change we need”. Change is inevitable; it can be a change for the better or a change for the worse, either way it’s constant in life and we need to embrace it. I know change has become a bit clichéd, especially from politicians, but it still remains an important concept. When FOSIS was established, in 1963, JFK was American President, Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I have a dream’ speech, and the Beatles were an ‘up and coming’ band — and there were a little over 100,000 Muslims in the UK (that’s 0.2% of the population). Back then, I doubt whether our predecessors could have imagined the progress our community would make, the challenges future Muslims would face or more importantly how much change would take place.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sayeeda Warsi “To be Cleared” By Lords Commissioner on Expenses
By Paul Goodman
The Evening Standard’s excellent Joe Murphy is sometimes a means for politicians to get out news that helps them as quickly as possible. So it may be in this case. The paper’s Political Editor has tweeted that Baroness Warsi has been cleared by the Lords Commissioner over allegations made about her expenses. This is a good example of the way Twitter now breaks news. I would usually be wary of reaching a conclusion before the relevant sections of the report have been published. But Mr Murphy is a very reliable fellow, and both Sayeeda Warsi and David Cameron have rushed out statements, as follows:
Lady Warsi: “I have always maintained that the allegations surrounding my expenses were untrue and I am delighted that Sir Paul Kernagan has dismissed them. His report and the report by Sir Alex Allan — two independent enquiries — have now drawn a line under these matters and my only focus now will be to get on with my job”
David Cameron: “I am pleased that these allegations have been dismissed by the Lords Commissioner. With elections for police and crime commissioners this autumn, this will be a big summer of campaigning for the Conservative Party. As Co-Chairman, Sayeeda will be leading that campaign.”
The Prime Minister isn’t going to confirm details of his reshuffle now, so not too much should be read into his use of “during the summer” (with no mention of the autumn). All the same, he could used a more bland form of words, such as “am very pleased that she will now be able to carry on with her work as Co-Chairman. These allegations were always more simple to understand than different, complicated allegations involving a visit she made to Pakistan (which have also been dismissed). Claims about expenses misuse have a deadly simplicity, made more simple by one person claiming that she claimed some illegitmately and her completely denying it. I am assuming that Mr Murphy is correct. The news will therefore help to support the position of the Party Co-Chairman, who has strongly maintained her innocence throughout.
[Reader comment by niconoclast on 26 July 2012 at about 6 pm.]
This is like the mafia investigating themselves for corruption.The parasitic political elite will not go quietly.The system itself is endemically corrupt and moribund.These people do not do anything creative at all.They exist in a bubble of unearned privilige and prey on the productive with onerous taxes. We now have government as mafia. Welcome to the necrocracy — rule by the living dead.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: What’s Wrong With America Having Anglo-Saxon Heritage?
by Ed West
Mitt Romney has distanced himself from the comments made by an adviser, who told this paper that “We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special.” Such was the scale of the outrage that even the vice president was moved to criticise the comments, calling them “beneath a presidential campaign”, while various lesser Democrat supporters described it as dog-whistle racism or historical absurdity. Many of the jokes seem to concern the irrelevance of mentioning an early medieval barbarian people, but what upset people was that Anglo-Saxon seems synonymous with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or just “white”. In England the term has less of a dog-whistley sound, meaning simply of English heritage, whether by blood or political tradition. Describing America as such does not seem especially strange, and to get angry at an assertion is vaguely insulting to us.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
1972 Monaco Slaughter, PNA-Israel Controversy
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JULY 27 — Just a few hours before the Olympic games are scheduled to open, the Palestinian National Authority and Israel are squabbling over the refusal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to observe a minute of silence tonight to commemorate 11 Israeli Olympic athletes killed in Monaco in 1972 by a Palestinian commando.
Speaking on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian soccer association, sent a letter to the IOC president Jacques Rogge expressing his satisfaction for the refusal.
“Sport should act as a bridge to foster love, connection and friendship among the people and should not be used as a means of separation and to spread racism”, he wrote.
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dany Ayalon immediately replied questioning how Israel’s request to commemorate the athletes could be descrined as “racist”. “They were killed as Israelis and that is racist”, said the deputy foreign minister, according to whom Palestinian media have in the past exalted the militants responsible for the attack.
The Israeli athletes were commemorated by British Premier David Cameron in the House of Commons and by Rogge yesterday in London.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Modest Request But Leaves a Bitter Taste
by Martin Bright
This week the London Olympics will finally begin and the organisers will hope the carping of the naysayers will be drowned out in a rush of national pride and sporting excellence.
But long after memories of the G4S security fiasco and the “Zil lanes” and the Olympic branding-police have faded, there will still be a bitter taste left in the mouth over a modest request for an overdue tribute to the Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics in 1972. A minute of respectful silence: that is all the widows and relatives of the 11 athletes and coaches are asking for. A minute of sobriety out of this two-week carnival.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Policemen Rape Filipina in Patrol Car
Two policemen violated the sacredness of the holy month of Ramadan and disgraced their military honor when they kidnapped a Filipina expat at noon in Farwaniya then raped her in their patrol car. A security source said the victim told Farwaniya police station officers that two policemen stopped her and asked for her ID. They then told her she was wanted and took her to an area in South Surra where they raped her in the back seat of the patrol car. Officers there told her to go to south Surra to file a complaint. She went to south Surra police station and the case was sent to Hawally detectives. The victim said she did not pay attention to the patrol’s color or number, because “she trusted the police”. The suspect police later told her to leave the car and sped away, leaving her in a hysterical state. Investigations are underway.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Security Forces Arrest Qatif Protesters
Saudi security forces have arrested a number of protesters in the eastern city of Tarot, after accusing them of throwing Molotov bombs at a police station. The town, in the Qatif province, is largely inhabited by Shia Muslims who have been protesting for democracy in recent months. Police spokesperson lieutenant Ziad Alriqaiti said in a statement late on Wednesday that a “number of anonymous individuals threw Molotov bombs at the police station in Tarot this morning, in the wake of the arrest of a suspect involved in drug trafficking.” He added “the incident caused no injuries and a number of suspects have been arrested for questioning,” without revealing their number.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Moscow to Rebels, Do Not Attack Our Tartus Base
‘We have the means to respond’
(ANSAMed) — MOSCOW, JULY 27 — Moscow on Friday warned insurgents from the Free Syrian Army against attacking its military base in the Mediterranean port city of Tartus, according to Interfax news agency.
“If the armed opposition in Syria were to carry out their threat of an attack, the Russian military fleet has all the means at its disposal in place to respond adequately,” said a source from Russia’s military high command. “We strongly advise any hotheads within the Syrian opposition against doing so.” Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance base under a 1971 agreement with Syria, which is still staffed by Russian naval personnel. It is the last Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union, and its only Mediterranean fueling spot.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: US Warns of Potential Massacre in Aleppo
The United States warned Thursday that the Syrian regime may be preparing to carry out a massacre in the city of Aleppo, but stuck by its position that there would be no US military intervention.
“This is the concern, that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that’s what the regime appears to be lining up for,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. She pointed to “credible reports of columns of tanks” waiting to attack Syria’s second city, where fighting has raged between regime troops and rebels seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad. A Syrian security source told AFP that the army was preparing for an all-out assault in densely-populated Aleppo as clashes shook parts of Damascus and other areas.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UAE: Ask Ali: Shariah Law, Free Housing and Ramadan Football
Ali Al Saloom
Dear Ali: Where does the UAE court system and Sharia come from? AA, Abu Dhabi
Dear AA: The UAE is an Islamic country but is very much open to all religions and faiths. All seven emirates have a Sharia court. Sharia law is a way of life; it comes without country borders and applies to Muslims where they live.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Russia to Launch New Islamic TV Channel
Russia plans to establish a new Islamic television channel for the country’s Muslims in August.
The deputy chairman of the Russian Muslim’s Religious Directorate for European Regions, Damir Mukhitdinov, told RFE/RL that the new channel’s name will be Al-TV. He said it would be dedicated to broadcasting in the Russian language about Islamic topics for Russia’s Muslim population. A public religious council consisting of leading Kremlin-backed Islamic clerics will oversee the channel’s activities. The plans for the new Islamic television channel were announced a week after Mufti Ildus Faizov of Russia’s mainly Muslim republic of Tatarstan was injured in a car bombing and his former deputy and close associate Valiulla Yakupov was shot dead near his house in Kazan.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Bomb Kills 7 Children
Seven children have died after their local water spring was booby trapped with a bomb aimed at Afghan police. They were grazing farm animals when the device went off in the Taywara district of western Ghor province, said provincial police chief Dilawar Shah. He said the spring was located in an area that has seen recent fighting between insurgents and police forces, and added that the children accidentally triggered the device as they were grazing cattle. He said the bomb was intended for security forces that use the same spring as a water supply. President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing. In other violence, the US military said that one of its troops had been killed in western Afghanistan. The death brings the number of foreign troops killed this month to 36, and the total for this year to 251. Of those, at least 155 have been Americans.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Roadside Bomb Kills 2 Coalition Service Members in Afghanistan
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) — A roadside bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing two coalition service members, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. It raises the number of foreign troops killed so far this year in Afghanistan to 260.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ramadan: A Month of Fasting and Friends
- Ramadan is celebrated by 1.6 Muslims worldwide
- Most people fast from dawn to sunset each day
- Each evening, friends and family gather to celebrate
Meet Atish Moin, a 31-year-old Australian man, married with two children, who works as an audio visual consultant in Sydney.
Moin is also a Muslim, one of 497,230 Australians and 1.6 billion people worldwide currently observing Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. It’s a commemoration of when Allah sent the Archangel Jibril to the Prophet Mohammad to convey to him the first verses of the Quran, nearly 1400 years ago. Amazingly, the rules have changed very little since that time. Muslim people are required to fast between sunrise and sunset, as well as adhere to a strict code of behaviour.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Neanderthal-Type Species Once Roamed Africa, DNA Shows
The human family tree just got another — mysterious — branch, an African “sister species” to the heavy-browed Neanderthals that once roamed Europe. While no fossilized bones have been found from these enigmatic people, they did leave a calling card in present-day Africans: snippets of foreign DNA.
There’s only one way that genetic material could have made it into modern human populations.
“Geneticists like euphemisms, but we’re talking about sex,” said Joshua Akey of the University of Washington in Seattle, whose lab identified the mystery DNA in three groups of modern Africans.
These genetic leftovers do not resemble DNA from any modern-day humans. The foreign DNA also does not resemble Neanderthal DNA, which shows up in the DNA of some modern-day Europeans, Akey said. That means the newly identified DNA came from an unknown group.
“We’re calling this a Neanderthal sibling species in Africa,” Akey said. He added that the interbreeding probably occurred 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, long after some modern humans had walked out of Africa to colonize Asia and Europe, and around the same time Neanderthals were waning in Europe.
The find offers more evidence that for thousands of years, modern-looking humans shared the Earth with evolutionary cousins that later died out. And whenever the groups met, whether in Africa or Europe, they did what came naturally — they bred. In fact, hominid hanky-panky seems to have occurred wherever humans met others who looked kind of like them — a controversial idea until recently.
In 2010, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany announced finding Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of modern Europeans.
Barrel-chested people whose thick double brows, broad noses and flat faces set them apart from modern humans, Neanderthals disappeared about 25,000 or 30,000 years ago.
Another mysterious group of extinct people recently identified from a 30,000-year-old finger bone in Siberia — known as the Denisovans — also left some of their DNA in modern-day Pacific Islanders.
And while modern humans and the newly found “archaic” Africans might be classified as distinct species, they produced viable offspring. Likewise, donkeys and horses, lions and tigers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: With New Inventions, Army Aims to Check Terror Attacks
There is no better proof of the fact that necessity is the mother of invention than the effort by the Nigerian Army to find local solutions to the scourge of Boko Haram, which has unleashed terrorism on Nigeria. The army has become ingenious in designing and creating counter tools and equipment to stave off Boko Haram terrorist attacks. Thursday, the army authorities unveiled the new anti-bombing device, which it manufactured locally as part of its efforts to tackle the internal security challenge confronting the nation. The army had recently also built Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) locally as well as other war protective gear like bulletproof vests, among other devices.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Hard Line on Immigrants ‘Holds Back the UK’
Tough stance worries investors and makes it harder to beat recession, says leaked report
The Home Office’s tough stance on immigration is harming Britain’s efforts to win foreign investment and pull out of recession, according to a government report leaked to The Independent. The Coalition has been warned by UK Trade & Investment, the body which tries to woo foreign companies to Britain, that migration is by far their No 1 concern.
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
4 comments:
It is a horrible mixture of metaphors to say <200-proof treacle>, but that was the Olympic opening ceremony, whose very first piece of music was that wretched Jerusalem, by William Blake.
-- Robert Pinkerton
I am afraid that I did not watch the opening ceremony. The news that the fireworks alone were going to cost £50m when we have families relying on food parcels to eat just staggered me. From what I hear from that naughty conservative mp and his tweet, it was, as anticipated, a celebration of Britain's "vibrant multicultural society". Forget the 10,950 years at least when Britain was a white country, all we care about now is the 50 to 60 years since it ceased to be so. In view of the fact that much of the spectacle of opening ceremony of the modern-day Olympics dates from the 1936 Berlin games, including the Olympic flame and the torches (the Nazis were fackel-mad) I reached the conclusion that the London Olympics were going to be the biggest Anti-nazi rally the world has ever seen and it looks as if I was right. I was pleased to see that Andrew Gilligan still does not believe Pravda (i.e. the BBC ) and other state propaganda organs when they claim that at the last minute Britons have suddenly gone bananas over the Olympics. Boris Johnson was still castigating us for our scepticism and cynicism ( not hard to be cynical in Europe today since we have been lied to and manipulated into becoming citizens of a totalitarian Marxist multicultural superstate that none of us bar the ageing Marxist students of the
1960s and 1970s and the third world colonisers ever wanted or thought would ever happen to the ancient civilisation we called Europe ). They could be called the red games, red for Marxism and red for bloody Coca Cola which is telling us how we are to celebrate them. The facist left and facist big money joining forces again and nobody gives a hoot about the English of course. I have just discovered that nobody in the third world has an iq above the
80s compared with the Chinese, Japanese and Europeans where iq hovers around the 100 mark. If the Marxist aim is for Europeans to interbreed to extinction with the third world then yes civilisation is probably finished as nobody will have the brains to keep it going. Doubtless this is total heresy in today's Europe, North America or Australasia. The Marxists are probably aware of it but it does not fit their ideology and so they ignore it. After all ideology should ride roughshod over every ounce of common sense ( that's the province of those of us who think that Marxism is something dreamed up by a six-year-old ).
I suppose that Europeans have shown a bit of arrogance in the colonial centuries but this is matched or exceded by the arrogance of people from the Indian Sub-continent who have settled in England only over the last 50 years. I remember how many Pakistani muslims were in my home town in Lancashire when Martin Luther King spoke and now they are edging towards the majority. So this is progress but where there is progress of this sort there must be regression. And who are regressing, the indigenous English of course. When I was at primary school in the 1950s the pupils were 100% ethnic English, most of them from local families. Now the primary school is 90% Pakistani muslim. Thank you Mr Khan, your fellow countrymen's colonising progress has been such a boon to us ( can we forget about the proxy votes that are sent from Pakistan to ensure a pro-Pakistani Labour MP is always in power there?). Progress for you is from third world to third world. Your progress for us is from first to third. And what do you think the indigenous people of England should make of your comments? As if you or anybody who has streamed into this country without our consent or without democratic mandate over the last 60 years really cares one iota about us. You smile at us but you hate us, dismissing us as naive fools. I fear the converse may be true, we smile perhaps but you will never really know what is going on inside because we are not allowed to utter it.
I suppose that Europeans have shown a bit of arrogance in the colonial centuries but this is matched or exceded by the arrogance of people from the Indian Sub-continent who have settled in England only over the last 50 years. I remember how many Pakistani muslims were in my home town in Lancashire when Martin Luther King spoke and now they are edging towards the majority. So this is progress but where there is progress of this sort there must be regression. And who are regressing, the indigenous English of course. When I was at primary school in the 1950s the pupils were 100% ethnic English, most of them from local families. Now the primary school is 90% Pakistani muslim. Thank you Mr Khan, your fellow countrymen's colonising progress has been such a boon to us ( can we forget about the proxy votes that are sent from Pakistan to ensure a pro-Pakistani Labour MP is always in power there?). Progress for you is from third world to third world. Your progress for us is from first to third. And what do you think the indigenous people of England should make of your comments? As if you or anybody who has streamed into this country without our consent or without democratic mandate over the last 60 years really cares one iota about us. You smile at us but you hate us, dismissing us as naive fools. I fear the converse may be true, we smile perhaps but you will never really know what is going on inside because we are not allowed to utter it.
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