Sunday, January 12, 2003

News Feed 20120815

Financial Crisis
»Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive ‘Death Spiral’
»Toxic Loans in European Banks Hit Record High
»Wave of Suicides Shocks Greece
 
USA
»Admitted: Christian Cop Punished Over Beliefs — ‘Creeping Shariah’ Hits City in American Heartland
»An Army Colonel’s Report Describing Civil Unrest in 2016 With U.S. Military Officers Going to War With Americans
»Confronting the Myth of Gun Control
»Connecticut Town Which is 94% White ‘Deliberately Kept Ethnic Minorities Out by Denying Them Housing Benefits’
»Hero Guard Shot Thwarting Attack at Family Research Council HQ
»New York Times Names Cost-Cutting BBC Chief Thompson as New CEO
»US Army Tactical Manuals Describe How to Control Domestic Insurrection
 
Europe and the EU
»French Jews: No Future
»Hamburg Signs Historic Deal With Muslims
»Ikea to Open 100 Budget Hotels Across Europe
»Mohammed Retakes Top Spot in English Baby Names
»‘Quiet Night’ In Amiens After Riots
»The London Olympics — After the Euphoria, Where Do We Go From Here?
»The Sun May be Setting on German Solar Research
»UK: Child Sex Brothers Face Jail
 
Middle East
»Iran’s Nuclear Program Designed to ‘Finish Off’ Israel, MP Says
»Islamic Revolutions Devour Their Own Children
»Israel PM Believes Iran’s Regime Aiming to ‘Destroy the Jewish People, ‘ Obama Will Abandoned Jews, Nuclear Drive ‘Further Ahead’ Than Previously Thought
»U.S., Israel at Odds Over Iran Nuke Program Intelligence
 
Far East
»Japan Arrests Chinese Activists Disputed Island
 
Australia — Pacific
»Australia Upholds Logo Ban on Cigarette Packs
»Tobacco Giants Fail to Overturn Landmark Australian Laws
 
Immigration
»Mississippi: Mexican Inmates Start Riot Over Prison Treatment
»Violence Threat on Asylum Seeker Rescue Ship

Financial Crisis

Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive ‘Death Spiral’

Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America’s $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a “death spiral, “as he told CNBC.

And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn’t “think our civilization could survive it.”

And Duncan is not alone in warning that the U.S. economy may go into a “death spiral.”

Since the recession, noted economists including Laurence Kotlikoff, a former member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, have come to similar conclusions.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


Toxic Loans in European Banks Hit Record High

European banks have accumulated a record number of loans for which repayment is highly uncertain. A study by a renowned auditing group says the situation is particularly precarious in the southern eurozone nations.

The total value of toxic loans in European banks has doubled since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported on Wednesday. It said lenders on the continent currently held non-performing loans to the tune of 1.05 trillion euros ($1.85 trillion), not knowing how much of would ever be paid back by debtors.

The situation appeared worst in the eurozone’s southern European nations which had been worst hit by a bursting real-estate bubble and the ensuing debt crisis, PwC claimed.

In Greece alone, the nominal value of toxic credits rose by almost 50 percent to 40 billion euros last year, compared with 2010 levels. Spain saw a 2011 rise in bad loans by 23 percent to reach 136 billion euros, while neighboring Italy logged a 37-percent increase to 107 billion euros.

“The poor economic development in southern Europe led to more payment defaults last year, and that was to be expected,” PwC’s Markus Burghardt said in a statement.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Wave of Suicides Shocks Greece

Greece has always had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, but its economic crisis has triggered a disturbing increase in the number of people killing themselves. Are the deaths the result of personal desperation or are people making a political statement with the only thing they have left to sacrifice?

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]

USA

Admitted: Christian Cop Punished Over Beliefs — ‘Creeping Shariah’ Hits City in American Heartland

In a case spotlighted as an example of “creeping Shariah” in the United States, attorneys for a Tulsa, Okla., police officer have asked for a summary judgment because a police official inside the department testified the officer was punished for exercising his rights.

The statement was included in a motion for summary judgment in the case brought by Capt. Paul Campbell Fields against the city of Tulsa, Chief Charles Jordan and Deputy Chief Alvin Webster.

Fields sued when he was punished with a two-week unpaid suspension and a demotion for refusing department orders to attend an event at an Islamic mosque in which officers observed Islamic worship services, heard an explanation of Islamic beliefs and were proselytized.

As a Christian, Fields believed the order violated his rights to freely exercise his own faith, but the department determined he was refusing a lawful order and punished him.

A hearing is set for later this year in the case, but lawyers with the American Freedom Law Center and the Thomas More Law Center, who launched the case, have filed for the judgment.

Find out what other plans there are for the U.S., in “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America

In the brief, they point out that Maj. Julie Harris, Fields’ immediate supervisor, “candidly admitted during her sworn testimony that the police department retaliated against [Fields] for exercising his constitutional rights.”

She told the department’s internal affairs investigation looking into Fields’ actions, “If somebody had some deep, deep, deep religious conviction, and as long as there was no crime that they needed to investigate, there’s no need for me to force this (Islamic mosque attendance) on anybody.”…

           — Hat tip: TV[Return to headlines]


An Army Colonel’s Report Describing Civil Unrest in 2016 With U.S. Military Officers Going to War With Americans

Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles. At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” It was written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It posits an “extremist militia motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement” seizing control of Darlington, S.C., in 2016, “occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.” The rebels set up checkpoints on Interstate 95 and Interstate 20 looking for illegal aliens.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


Confronting the Myth of Gun Control

“Democide,” a term coined by RJ Rummel, refers to acts of intentional killing of unarmed people by their own governments. 4 Rummel’s extensive cataloguing of mass murders by governments of their own people provides a sobering reality check of the destructive power of the most prolific megamurderer of all time—the state. Government is force, as George Washington once cautioned, “Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Consequently, in addition to sanctifying the individual’s natural right to defend himself, the second amendment to the United States Constitution was also meant to preserve the balance of power between the overweening state and its subject populace. This insight stems from the history of wrongs perpetrated by totalitarian regimes.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that tyrants throughout history—from Adolf Hitler to Joseph Stalin, from Mao Tse Tung to Benito Mussolini, from Ferdinand Marcos to Idi Amin, from Pol Pot to Fidel Castro—have monopolized the state’s control of weaponry while removing any obstacles to effective resistance by disarming their populace. The following quote by Adolf Hitler is a glaring reminder of this historical condition:…

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


Connecticut Town Which is 94% White ‘Deliberately Kept Ethnic Minorities Out by Denying Them Housing Benefits’

A town in Connecticut deliberately tried to keep out non-white residents from settling in the area, according to a lawsuit. Winchester, a rural town with a population of just 11,000, is 94.4 per cent white, and official statistics show that it contains no African-American families. The lawsuit launched last week argues that town officials directed housing subsidies to white families to avoid an influx of ethnic minorities.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Hero Guard Shot Thwarting Attack at Family Research Council HQ

A security guard at the Family Research Council’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. is being hailed as a hero after he stopped a gunman posing as an intern, taking a bullet in the arm before wrestling the suspect to the ground.

The gunman, identified as 28-year-old Floyd Lee Corkins II, entered the lobby of the organization’s Chinatown headquarters around 10:45 a.m. and expressed disagreement with the conservative group’s policy positions, sources tell Fox News.

When the guard, who was not identified, asked him where he was going, he opened fire, according to police.

“The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said. “He did his job. The person never made it past the front.”

The guard, who was not identified, was shot in the arm and was conscious after the shooting and in stable condition. Corkins was being questioned by the FBI, sources said. Sources said he lives in Herndon, Va.

The suspect “made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard,” a source told Fox News.

Sources also said the gunman may have been carrying a bag from Chick-fil-A, the embattled fast-food restaurant whose president came under fire from gay activists after he said he did not agree with same-sex marriage.

Sources told Fox News that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”

Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism, although James McJunkin, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said authorities do not yet know the gunman’s motive.

“We don’t know enough about him or his circumstances to determine what his connection is to this group [the research council] or his mental state, or what he was doing or thinking of doing,” McJunkin said. “So we’re going to try to sort this all out, pull the evidence together, do all the interviews we can.”

The FRC is a conservative nonprofit that seeks to advance “faith, family and freedom in public policy and public opinion,” according to its website. The group weighs in on policy, and has often sent representatives to Congress to weigh in on the social effects of policy matters.

“The police are investigating this incident,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said. “Our first concern is with our colleague who was shot today. Our concern is for him and his family.”

[Return to headlines]


New York Times Names Cost-Cutting BBC Chief Thompson as New CEO

New York Times Co. (NYT) named Mark Thompson as its next chief executive officer after a nine-month search, turning to a leader who steered the British Broadcasting Corp. through belt tightening and job cuts.

Thompson, who was the BBC’s director general, will relocate to New York and report to Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in his new role, the company said yesterday in a statement. Thompson, 55, started at the BBC in 1979 as a production trainee.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


US Army Tactical Manuals Describe How to Control Domestic Insurrection

In 2010, the US Army’s Operating Concept 2016-2028was published and explains how armed forces in the US and overseas will behave in the future. Specific tactical operations, special “theater”, and organized forces are outlined along with the capabilities and priorities of the US armed divisions. In simple terms: a full spectrum operations manual that details stratagems both domestic and foreign. Presidential administrative National Security Strategy documents explain how to defend the Republic within domestic borders with suggested scenarios where a group of political reactionaries commandeer a prominent area of a town or city which requires that the US Army support local law enforcement in conjunction with state officials — including local government representatives.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU

French Jews: No Future

The Toulouse massacre did not bring French anti-Semitism to a halt. It actually increased.

By Michel Gurfinkiel

“Any time young people approach me in order to get married, I ask them various questions about their future. Eighty percent of them say they do not envision any future in France.” This is what one rabbi in Paris told me last week. I heard similar statements from other French rabbis and lay Jewish leaders: “We have a feeling the words are on the wall now,” one leader in the Lyons area confided to me. “It is not just our situation in this country deteriorating; it is also that the process is much quicker than expected.”

Even the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, may be sharing that view now. A philosopher (holding a prestigious French agrégation degree in philosophy), a graduate of the French Rabbinical School in Paris, and a former student at some of the most orthodox yeshivoth (Talmudic academies) in Jerusalem, Bernheim was until recently very eager to reconcile traditional Judaism with Europe’s “open society.” He has just devoted a book to France as a nation and how Jews can contribute to France’s public debates (N’oublions Pas De Penser La France), and in 2008, the year he was elected chief rabbi, he coauthored a book on Judeo-Christian dialogue (Le Rabbin et le Cardinal) with Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

Despite all that, Bernheim suddenly warned Jewish leaders a few weeks ago about a growing “rejection” of Jews and Judaism in France, something he linked to the global passing of “Judeo-Christian values” in French society as a whole.

The immediate reason for Jewish pessimism in France and for Bernheim’s change of heart may be the Toulouse massacrelast March: the murder in cold blood of three Jewish children and a Jewish teacher by Mohamed Merah, a Muslim terrorist, on their school’s premises. This crime, instead of instilling more compassion and understanding towards the Jewish community, has actually generated more anti-Jewish violence and hate talk, as if Merah was not seen as a vile thug but rather as a model by parts of the population.

There were no less than six cases of aggravated assault on Jewish youths or rabbis in France from March 26 to July 5, including one case in Toulouse again. According to the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations (CRIF), anti-Semitic incidents of all sorts have increased by 53% compared to the same period last year.

President François Hollande and Minister of the the Interior Manuel Valls must be credited for taking the present anti-Semitic crisis seriously, a noted departure from the ambivalent attitude of the last socialist administration of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin ten years ago. On July 22 — on the seventieth anniversary of the “grande raffle” (“great round-up”) of Jews by the Vichy government police in 1942 — Hollande drew a parallel between the Toulouse massacre and the deportation and mass murder of Jewish children during the Holocaust. As for Valls, he not only repeatedly acknowledged that “there was an upsurge of anti-Semitism in France,” but on July 8 went so far as to stigmatize the “most stupid, most dangerous new anti-Semitism” brooding among “young and not-so-young people” in the “neighborhoods” (a code word for Muslim enclaves). Quite a bold statement, since the Socialist party and the Left at large primarily derive their present electoral edge in France from the Muslim vote. Valls and his staff may also have inspired several no-nonsense reports on anti-Semitism that were recently published in the liberal, pro-socialist press.

The connection between Muslim immigration — or Muslim-influenced Third World immigration — and the rise of a new anti-Semitism is a fact all over Europe. Muslims come from countries (or are culturally attuned to countries) where unreconstructed, Nazi-style Jew-bashing dominates…

[Return to headlines]


Hamburg Signs Historic Deal With Muslims

Hamburg authorities have signed a deal with the city’s Muslim community groups guaranteeing Islamic holidays, school religion lessons, and burial rights. It’s the first agreement of its kind in Germany.

“Something that should be taken for granted has gained a lot of attention,” Hamburg’s centre-left mayor Olaf Scholz said as he presented the new agreement on Tuesday. It is the first ever deal between a German state and its Muslim community, Scholz said — “a signal that we’re ready and willing to cooperate.”

The 11-page agreement, which still has to be approved by the city parliament, is meant to regulate religious freedoms, school lessons, burial rituals, and recognition of Germany’s constitution, the taz newspaper reported.

The deal, which has been in negotiations since 2007, was signed by the council of Islamic communities (Schura), the Turkish-Islamic Union (Ditib), the association of Islamic cultural centres (VIKZ), as well as the city’s Alevi community.

These community groups, representing the Hamburg’s 120,000 Muslims, have agreed to recognize the “basic values of constitutional order,” to reject “violence and discrimination based on origin, sexual orientation, and faith” and “religious and political viewpoints,” and to recognize “equality between genders.”

In exchange, Hamburg city authorities will declare Eid al-Adha (“Festival of Sacrifice”), Eid ul-Fitr (the end of Ramadan), and the Day of Ashura (“Day of Mourning”), officially recognised holidays.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Ikea to Open 100 Budget Hotels Across Europe

Swedish furniture giant Ikea is planning to build 100 budget hotels around Europe in its most recent push to join the property market.

The hotels will be opened with the budget traveler in mind, with the first hotel set to open its doors in Germany soon. “We will announce the first location for our budget hotel in Germany in the next few weeks and we are in talks with hotel operators to rapidly implement our concept,” said Harald Müller of Inter Ikea to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper (SvD).

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Mohammed Retakes Top Spot in English Baby Names

Mohammed reclaimed its place as the most popular name for baby boys born in England and Wales in 2011 — convincingly ahead of Harry, in second place, according to data released by the government this week.

The government declared that Harry was the most popular boy’s name, but if you add up the five most popular different spellings of Mohammed, that name comes top.

Mohammed is also the most popular boy’s name of the past five years for England and Wales, ahead of Oliver and Jack. It came first or second every year since 2007, the only name to do so.

And it could become even more popular in 2012, given the adulation around long-distance runner Mo Farah, who won two gold medals for Britain at the Olympics.

The popularity of the name comes as Britain’s Muslim population is expected to double in the next 20 years.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


‘Quiet Night’ In Amiens After Riots

Police in the northern French city of Amiens have reported that Tuesday night was “very quiet”, with no repeat of Monday nights riots that left 16 police officers injured, a school severely damaged by fire and a sports centre destroyed.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


The London Olympics — After the Euphoria, Where Do We Go From Here?

The theme of the games has been ‘inspire a generation’, i.e. future gold winners and there has been a lot of talk about legacy, but the reality is likely to be different. When the flags are folded away and the post Olympic blues set in, we will be back to dealing with serious debt, ill fated policies conjured up by an increasingly corrupt and morally depleted political class, and the continuing struggle to ascertain what the UK now is and stands for.

[…]

Britain now puts a celebration of humanism and its attendant materialism above altruism. The left has eaten away at traditional British values, relegating our way of life to the whims of a politburo of pan European socialism courtesy of the EU. The failed Labour experiment of multiculturalism is wearing on the British psyche. It demands a moral equivalency of cultures where values are often diametrically opposed and impossible to reconcile.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


The Sun May be Setting on German Solar Research

Germany’s solar industry is in a deep crisis, which threatens the country’s leadership in photovoltaic research. Could the industrial crisis slow innovation?

Ralf Preu couldn’t be busier. The director of the silicon solar cell technology at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) feels particularly good when his pilot system spits out one solar cell after the other. The shimmering blue solar cells are the result of a complex production process at a high-tech factory on the Fraunhofer Institute campus in Freiburg.

Preu and his 200 employees are busy further developing solar cell technology — now a global standard. Their goal is to increase the efficiency of silicon solar cells from 18 percent today to more than 20 percent in the future. Higher efficiency translates into lower costs for electricity generated from solar cells.

The Fraunhofer researchers still hold the world efficiency record for this type of solar cell. But to remain at the top, they need to continue researching. That means not only increasing the efficiency of solar cells but also reducing their material costs in production.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


UK: Child Sex Brothers Face Jail

Girls raped and sold for vice

TWO evil brothers face long jail terms after they were yesterday convicted of grooming schoolgirls for sex and selling them as prostitutes. Ahdel Ali, 24, groomed a 13-year-old girl from the day he met her and later raped her.

He also had sex with two other 15-year-old girls who he later pimped out with his brother Murbarek Ali, 29.

A court heard the teenagers were driven to the rear of a shop and forced to climb through a window “because they were white white girls”. Murbarek got one of them to have sex with two restaurant workers when she was four months pregnant.

The brothers links with Asian restaurants and fast food shops provided them with a network of punters who paid £20 to £50 for sex, Stafford Crown Court heard. The girls, from Telford, Shropshire, regularly failed to attend school or went missing from home and were “easy prey” for the brothers, who are both married.

The pair controlled their victims by offering them lifts and mobile phone top-ups, urging them to drink vodka and smoke cannabis and giving them fags and food.

The brothers, also from Telford, who denied a total of 26 charges involving sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, will be sentenced in October.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]

Middle East

Iran’s Nuclear Program Designed to ‘Finish Off’ Israel, MP Says

Hezbollah MP Walid Sakariya told Lebanese television this week that the nuclear weapon Iran is allegedly developing is intended to annihilate Israel. In a segment recorded and translated by MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), Sakariya, also a retired general, told his interviewer on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV Tuesday that should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon it would serve Syrian as well as Iranian interests, namely the eradication of the Jewish state. “This nuclear weapon is intended to create a balance of terror with Israel, to finish off the Zionist enterprise, and to end all Israeli aggression against the Arab nation,” Sakariya said. “The entire equation in the Middle East will change,” he asserted.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


Islamic Revolutions Devour Their Own Children

While Morsi was somewhat more discreet, the Muslim Brotherhood announced, “this crime may well be the work of Israel’s Mossad” as part of an international conspiracy to destabilize their revolution. On the other side of the border, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh offered a more open-ended explanation. “Israel is responsible, one way or another.”

One way or another, Israel usually ends up being responsible for everything. Meanwhile Egypt has quietly asked Hamas to turn over a few of its terrorists who might have been involved. Because, while Israel is responsible for everything in the philosophical sense of being an omnipotent force of evil, when 16 Egyptian soldiers are killed, it becomes necessary to find the people who actually did it.

Turkey’s Islamist rulers who are facing the threat of an independent Kurdish nation rising out of the ruins in Syria and Iraq also have an explanation for the situation. Turkey’s Interior Minister stated that most Kurdish PKK guerrillas are not Turkish citizens and that quite a few are actually Israelis. So in between somehow recruiting multiple Egyptian Muslims willing to die for Israel, Avi and David took a trip to Kurdistan to take potshots at Turkish soldiers.

Western journalists try not to report on such embarrassing outbursts because it makes their favorite Islamists look like loony bigots who can’t deal with a problem without finding some byzantine way to blame it on their least favorite minority group. The Islamists in Cairo and Ankara know better, but their ideology makes it impossible to fight other Muslims without first declaring them to be heretics or pawns of heresy.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


Israel PM Believes Iran’s Regime Aiming to ‘Destroy the Jewish People, ‘ Obama Will Abandoned Jews, Nuclear Drive ‘Further Ahead’ Than Previously Thought

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have “almost finally” decided on an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities this fall, and a final decision will be taken “soon,” Israel’s main TV news broadcast reported on Friday evening. Channel 2 News, the country’s leading news program, devoted much of its Friday night broadcast to the issue, detailing the pros and cons that, it said, have taken Netanyahu and Barak to the brink of approving an Israeli military attack despite opposition from the Obama administration and from many Israeli security chiefs. Critically, the station’s diplomatic correspondent Udi Segal said, Israel does not believe that the US will take military action as Iran closes in on the bomb.

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]


U.S., Israel at Odds Over Iran Nuke Program Intelligence

The White House expressed confidence Friday that American intelligence will know if Iran escalates its nuclear program in a sprint to build an atomic bomb —a day after Israel’s defense minister warned that the allies might not know “in time” to prevent it. “We have eyes, we have visibility into the program,” press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. “We feel confident that we would be able to detect a break-out move by Iran towards the acquisition of a nuclear weapon.” But Carney’s professed confidence about the quality of the information regarding Iran’s nuclear program, widely seen by American and Israeli officials as an attempt to acquire the ability to build a nuclear weapon, appeared to conflict sharply with Israeli Defense Minister .

           — Hat tip: JD[Return to headlines]

Far East

Japan Arrests Chinese Activists Disputed Island

Japan has arrested five pro-China activists accused of landing on a Japanese owned island. Taiwan, China and Japan all claim sovereignty over the uninhabited island.

Japanese police arrested five activists on Wednesday who had sailed from Hong Kong for violating immigration laws.

Seven pro-China protestors landed on one of the chain of islands in the East China Sea known as Diaoya in China, Senkaku in Japan and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan.

All three countries claim sovereignty over the unoccupied islets, situated near rich fishing waters and large oil reserves.

The men, all belonging to the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, sought to declare China’s territorial claim to a group of Japanese-controlled islands, said the protest group’s leader.

The men swam to the island from their Chinese-flagged fishing vessel despite coming under water cannon fire and were apprehended shortly after making their way to shore.

“The Okinawa prefectural police arrested five men for violation of the immigration control law on Uotsuijima island,” a police spokesperson told AFP.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific

Australia Upholds Logo Ban on Cigarette Packs

The highest court in Australia upholds the world’s toughest ban on cigarette promotion despite protests from tobacco companies.

Australia’s highest court has upheld a government plan to force tobacco companies to sell their products in plain packets with no logos or branding. From December 1, all cigarette packets sold in Australia will be a drab olive colour, with uniform lettering and large graphic photographs showing the effects of smoking — such as diseased lungs and mouth cancer.

Major global tobacco companies had been fighting the new law which is a world first.

Australia’s attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, said the court win was “a victory for all those families who have lost someone to a tobacco-related illness”. “This is a watershed moment for tobacco control around the world,” she said in a statement. “Australia’s actions are being closely watched by governments around the world. Other countries might now consider their next steps.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Tobacco Giants Fail to Overturn Landmark Australian Laws

Australia’s highest court has ruled that new plain packaging laws for cigarettes are legal, following a challenge from global tobacco companies. The ground-breaking laws are expected to have global implications.

The High court of Australia ruled on Wednesday that the latest anti-smoking legislation did not breach the country’s constitution after a legal challenge from four tobacco companies.

Laws passed last year will require cigarettes and tobacco products to be sold in almost identical olive green packs with large health warnings from December 1.

Tobacco giants British American Tobacco (BAT), Britain’s Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco banded together to contest the legislation. They argued it represented “an acquisition of (their) property otherwise than on just terms,” but this was dismissed by the court. A full judgment will be released at a later date.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon described the ruling as “a victory for all those families who have lost someone to a tobacco related illness.”

“This is a watershed moment for tobacco control around the world,” she said in a statement. “Australia’s actions are being closely watched by governments around the world. Other countries might now consider their next steps.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]

Immigration

Mississippi: Mexican Inmates Start Riot Over Prison Treatment

Undocumented immigrants started a riot over poor food, medical care and what they say are disrespectful guards at a Mississippi prison.

One guard was killed and 20 people were injured in the May 20 riot at the privately-run Adams County Correctional Facility in Natchez, which holds undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States.

The leaders of the Mexican inmates, known as the Paisas, demanded to take a list of grievances to the warden that day and told others in the group to disobey orders from prison staff, according to the FBI affidavit. The affidavit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Jackson, is part of a complaint charging one of the inmates with rioting.

Correction officer Catlin Carithers was beaten to death during the riot, which officials have said involved as many as 300 inmates and left the prison badly damaged. The affidavit does not say who killed Carithers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman[Return to headlines]


Violence Threat on Asylum Seeker Rescue Ship

A merchant ship captain has taken 67 asylum-seekers to Christmas Island after they became “very aggressive” when told he was headed to Singapore.

A GROUP of asylum seekers rescued from a leaky boat has allegedly used aggression to force a merchant vessel them to take them to Australia instead of Singapore.

The merchant vessel, the MV Parsifal, rescued a group of 67 asylum seekers off Java on Tuesday morning following a distress call from the group to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare told Sky News the group was “very aggressive” towards the master of the giant car-carrier when it picked them up early Tuesday.

As a result of the aggression, the MV Parsifal’s captain decided not to go to Singapore — the ship’s planned destination — but to take the group to Christmas Island instead.

The same group of asylum seekers is claiming one person on the boat fell overboard.

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said he was “outraged” by the claims of aggression, accusing the group of “potential piracy”.

           — Hat tip: The Observer[Return to headlines]

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

So Britain's muslim population is due to double in the next 20 years. There isn't much hope then is there. That would certainly mean the creation of an islamic state from Bradford to Manchester and the indigenous population packing their bags and leaving. By the way, I could be wrong because there are a lot of very stupid Britons around these days who give their children stupid non-traditional names but I don't think that Mohammed will catch on as a first name, you can't say Christian name any more, with the indigenous British, even though Lord Coe has told them that Mo Farah is our greatest ever olympian. Part of his reasoning was undoubtedly to extinguish some of the middle class guilt he feels about the fact that his ancestors were slave traders. Were Mo a Christian which will never happen before hell freezes over then I would have thought Seb Coe would have had him down for canonisation.