Bernanke Makes Forceful Case for More Fed Action to Spur Growth
The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, delivered on Friday a detailed and forceful argument for the benefits of new steps to stimulate the economy, reinforcing earlier indications that the Fed is on the verge of action.
Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed’s policies over the last several years have provided significant benefits, that a clear need remained for the Fed to do more and that, in his judgment, the likely benefits of such actions outweighed the potential costs.
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China Threatens to Burst Australia’s Iron Ore Bubble
China’s economic slowdown has left commodity-rich Australia and its over-valued currency exposed
Marc Faber, the Swiss investor and ultra bear, says there have been four mega bubbles in the past 40 years. In the 1970s it was gold; in the 1980s it was the Nikkei, and in the 1990s it was the Nasdaq. Bigger than all of them, though, has been the iron ore bubble, a tenfold increase in prices in less than a decade.
Iron ore is the raw material for steel, production of which has rocketed as a result of China’s economic boom. Consider the following facts. In the past 15 years, China has built 90 million new homes — enough to house the populations of the UK, France and Germany combined. A quarter of global steel demand is for Chinese property and Chinese infrastructure.
Commodity-rich countries, like Australia, have never had it so good. China takes 25% of Australia’s exports and iron ore accounts for 60% of all the goods Australia sells to China. One reason Australia avoided recession during the global downturn of 2008-09 was that it had a well-run banking system. A much bigger reason was that the country had become a giant pit from which China could extract the minerals it needed for its industrial expansion. Money flooded into the country from sovereign wealth funds and hedge funds looking for AAA investments. The Australian dollar has soared, as have property prices.
China’s economy is now slowing, and although the economic data is not particularly reliable, it seems to be slowing fast. The country has two million unsold homes, with another 30 million under construction. There is a glut of iron ore and the price is falling. Where does that leave Australia? Horribly exposed, quite obviously. It has an over-valued currency, an over-valued property market, and its major customer is now desperately pulling every available policy lever in the hope of avoiding a hard landing. Whatever happens, the Australian dollar is a sell. Just how big a sell will depend on how successful Beijing is in reflating the Chinese economy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Crisis Threatens Finnish Economy: IMF
(HELSINKI) — Despite its solid foundations, Finland’s economy is threatened by the euro crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report published Friday.
Finland enjoys “strong economic fundamentals and continued sound policy management,” the report noted, but “as a small open economy, with deep trade and financial linkages, the country is sensitive to adverse spillovers from the turmoil in the euro area.”
The IMF highlighted the need to “enhance cross-country supervision and crisis resolution frameworks in response to increased cross-border banking activities and the prominent role of large international groups.”
It said that pending the implementation of a commom EU bank-resolution framework, national or regional plans ought to be introduced in the interim.
In the Nordic country, growth has slowed and forecasts have been revised downwards during the crisis. Finland also faces a rapidly-aging population and a slowdown in productivity.
The IMF hailed Finland’s “prudent policies” aimed at improving internal and external imbalances, maintaining stability in the financial sector, and ensuring long-term fiscal sustainability.
It recommended that bank capital and liquidity buffers gradually be built up, and said fiscal efforts ought to focus on mitigating the expected increase in years to come of health and elderly care costs. It also called for labour market reforms and improved productivity.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone May Collapse, Says Slovak PM
Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico said on Thursday that the eurozone has a 50-50 chance of collapsing, reports Reuters. “It will depend on how we handle the situation in some countries like Greece and Spain,” said Fico. He also said it depends on how member states react to more integration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
More Bad News Imminent: August US Auto Production Set to Plunge by Most in 16 Months
Over the past several months, many pundits were scratching their heads at the peculiar patterns in summer hiring and layoff trends, which threw all NFP, claims, and JOLTs forecasts in a loop making a mockery of even the best forecasters. The reality is that there was a very specific reason for this abnormal seasonal pattern: numerous car plants worked throughout the summer, avoiding traditional temporary shutdowns and furloughs, in an attempt to provide an optical boost to the Union-endorsed administration. And as always happens (see Cash for Clunkers), every attempt to pull demand or supply from the future to the present results in an eventual collapse in either of these two.
Sure enough, with June and July reaping the benefits of advance demand, August is set be an absolutely abysmal month for US auto assemblies and for Industrial Production. Because as Stone McCarthy calculates, based on projections provided by Wards Autos, the U.S. motor vehicle assembly rate for August is projected to decline by 8% to a 10.1 million annualized rate after rising by 4.4% in July. This would be the biggest monthly percentage decline in the assembly rate in about a year and a half, since April 2011’s 9.5% drop.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Neither Romney or the Impostor President Will Create Jobs
A large block of voters are too young to remember when the real destruction of good paying jobs started. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement aka No American Factories Taking Applications), CAFTA and a dozen job killing treaties over the past 17 years has gutted our most important job sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and industrial. Let’s not leave out the big one: GATT/WTO. Full page ad, New York Times, April 15, 1994:
“1944. Bretton Woods: The IMF and the World Bank. 1945. San Francisco: The United Nations. 1994, Marrakech: The World Trade Organization. History knows where it’s going. The final act of the Uruguay Round…to the WTO, the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the UN and the IMF.”
Paul Ryan, as well as Speaker of the House, John Boehner, voted to keep the US in that damnable treaty.
Yet, election after election, all I hear is “create jobs” from voters, but not one word about demanding a candidate or incumbent pledge to get us out of all those treaties and bring the jobs home.
America used to be a producing nation. We produced, we kept the wealth. Since NAFTA and every “free” treaty passed since then, you now pay a foreign worker the fruits of your labor for a job you once had or would like to have from manufacturing to engineering. They keep the gold while you live hand to mouth. America has become a service oriented, entertainment based economy and that is one of the major reasons our economy is on life support.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Single Supervisor for All Eurozone Banks in 2014
EU Commissioner Michel Barnier said Friday that eurozone banks would gradually come under the remit of a new common supervisor with a complete shift over for all 6,000 lenders in January 2014.
Barnier is leading preparations for plans for a common supervisor, which was part of a wider agreement on letting the new eurozone rescue fund directly help lenders instead of forcing countries to seek a full bailout.
There are disagreements between the 17 eurozone members as well as in the wider European Union over how fast and to what extent to centralise the current system which relies on national supervisors loosely monitored by the London-based European Banking Authority (EBA).
“We never envisaged a global switchover from one day to the next to direct and integrated supervision,” Barnier, the EU’s internal markets commissioner, was quoted as saying in the French business daily Les Echos.
He said any banks which receive support from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) rescue fund should immediately come under the purview of the new regulator, which is hoped will begin operations on January 1, 2013.
“From that date, theoretically, the direct recapitalisation of banks by the rescue fund will be possible,” said Barnier.
Then the common supervisor would take over responsibility for the largest so-called systemically important banks, and finally all 6,000 eurozone banks from January 1, 2014.
EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso is to present the proposals on September 12, with the European Central Bank expected to be handed the bank supervisor role.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Biggest Reason Why California is Bankrupt
After crunching some census data, Dan Walters of The Sacramento Bee reports a remarkable figure. In the decade that ended in 2011, California’s state government employed roughly 9.3 percent more people, a number that roughly tracks the increase in population seen in the Golden State.
You’d think that payroll costs would’ve increased by roughly the same amount.
Nope.
Says the newspaper:
California’s state government had 9.3 percent more employees in 2011 than it did 10 years earlier — closely tracking overall population growth — but its payroll costs had jumped by 42.4 percent, according to a new Census Bureau report.
Needless to say, California residents are not earning 42.4 percent more than they were just prior to 9/11.
The details:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Clint Eastwood Makes Sudden Impact at RNC
(USA Today) Hollywood heavyweight Clint Eastwood made a scene-stealing appearance on the GOP convention stage before a welcoming audience Thursday night ahead of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech for his party’s presidential nomination.
“I think it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem,” said Eastwood, 82, who already endorsed Romney this month at a campaign fundraiser in Idaho. “When someone does not do the job, you have got to let them go.”
In an unusual speech for what is typically a highly scripted affair, Eastwood talked to an empty chair, which he addressed as if President Obama was sitting on the stage.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Diana West: What’s Whiter Than the GOP? The Media
Ah, to be a member of Big Media when the white Republicans gather to nominate their white ticket for the White House. It’s like shooting white elephants in a white convention center, what with their unbearable whiteness of being — so “non-diverse,” as Big Media strenuously signal their audiences.
Gallup tells us Republicans are 87 percent white and Democrats are 63 percent white. But even when Republicans are not white — which occurs despite Big Media efforts to fool viewers (conservative websites observed that NBC failed to post speeches by non-white Republicans at its website, while MSNBC cut to its pundits on such non-white occasions) — they might as well be white. That’s because “white” is the media’s slam on the GOP, their hectoring, subtle-as-a-sledgehammer message: Republicans are too “white” to deserve any decent person’s vote. Perhaps veteran ABC and PBS political editor turned Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief David Chalian blurted out the story line best: “(The Romneys) are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
This, it turned out, was a race-bait too far. Chalian lost his job after his comment went viral. But who will take his place? Someone just like him. Probably someone who looks like him, too — and those dread, white Republicans.
That’s the dirty secret. Big Media are castigating the party of Lincoln and Reagan for displaying, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “a distinctly pale hue” while “the United States has become an increasingly more diverse country,” but the newsrooms of America are just as pale if not actually more so.According to 2012 figures from the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), minorities make up 12.32 percent of newsroom employees. That leaves 87.68 percent of the writing and editing jobs in white hands. That means newsrooms are lily-whiter than the GOP!
Some news organizations take this to the limit. While Time magazine dings the GOP for being “a mostly white, aging party (doing) its best to avoid looking like it,” the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) gave Time its 2012 Thumbs Down Award for, among other grievances, not having a single full-time black correspondent.
The media also hold a slim white edge over the GOP in the racial composition of television newsroom managers. According to a 2011 NABJ study, white people — mainly white men — hold 88 percent of these decision-making jobs, leaving 12 percent to minorities. As for news anchors and presidential debate moderators? To build on a title of a Salon.com piece about the GOP convention, welcome to the “Heart of Whiteness.”
Stunningly, these same Caucasian newsies are blind to their own skins. How else, for instance, could “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams in July have asked Mitt Romney “to confirm or deny” whether he was looking for a running mate who is “an incredibly boring white guy”?
“You told me you were not available,” quipped Romney.
But Williams and the rest of his mainly white media brethren (also sistren) seem to regard their core liberalism as their camouflage. It is the shield and spear they carry in the left’s push to demonize people of one color (white) and a particular sex (male) in order to delegitimize a glorious political philosophy — small-government, low-tax, anti-statist conservatism. This philosophy is what draws together Republicans and their delegates, not their “whiteness.”
What the left and its media acolytes are trying to do is poison the wider appeal of the Republican message by depicting it as race-based and retrograde. This is a dirty operation. It is also the height of hypocrisy, given that it is being led by a bunch of truly “angry white men” against what is purported to be another.
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Calls for Amendment Limiting Free-Speech Rights
(CNS News) President Barack Obama endorsed a constitutional amendment that would restrict the free-speech rights of political activist groups by overturning the Supreme Court decision in the landmark Citizens United v FEC case that granted First Amendment rights to corporations.
“Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United,” Obama wrote during a question and answer session on the website Reddit on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama and Islam is Taking Over America
The headlines are building about the DNC Convention. Islam is all over it. Family Security Matters says that they are expecting over 20,000 Muslims to attend. The Convention has announced there will be “Jumah” prayers for two hours before the Convention. We are told the ‘purpose’ for this event is to address the issues faced by the Muslim-Americans. Poor Muslims…we make it hard sometimes for them to shred our Constitution, blow up buildings and people. Usually we make it easy, however.
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch said as bad as it is to have “Jumah at the DNC’ it is dramatically worse the hosting of radical Islamic supremacists and jihad groups there. While all the radicals are scheduled to be everywhere, praying, speaking and doing their Sharia moments, the Catholics and Christian folks apparently aren’t welcome. Cardinal Dolan, the President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops was denied his request to say a simple blessing prayer at the national convention.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oklahoma Officer Sues Department Over Mosque Assignment
(Tulsa, OK) A Tulsa police officer is suing his department after he was disciplined for refusing to go to a mosque for a mandatory cultural event. Police Capt. Paul Campbell Fields was docked two weeks’ pay, transferred, reduced to the graveyard shift and made ineligible for promotions for at least a year. This all came after the 17 year veteran he told his chief his faith made it impossible for him to attend a “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” at the Islamic Cultural Society of Tulsa, according to the lawsuit…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Two Anti-Sheepshead Bay Mosque Protestors Boycott Schoolbag Giveaway
Two Sheepshead Bay residents still fighting the hopeless battle to stop the construction of a Voorhies Avenue mosque protested a school supply giveaway in front of the still-under-construction house of worship on Saturday — but were easily drowned out by the dozens of parents and children looking for free backpacks, notebooks, and pencils. Two neighbors noticed the Islamic Circle of North America — a group affiliated with the new mosque — handing out the supplies and used the opportunity to launch an impromptu protest, claiming that the building will destroy their block…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Biogas Boom in Germany Leads to Modern-Day Land Grab
Creating energy from corn once seemed like a revolutionary idea in Germany. But subsidies for the biogas industry have led to entire regions of the country being covered by the crop, and investors are eagerly waiting for local farmers’ land to go for sale. Some of those farmers who lease their land say they have been “ruined.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eastern Europe Droughts Contibuting to Food Price Hikes
World food prices spiked by 10% in July according to a report Friday by the World Bank, with corn and wheat prices going up by 25%. The bank cited heatwaves and drought in America and eastern Europe as the reasons, alongside increasing use of corn to make ethanol biofuel.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Marseille Mayor Calls for Army to be Deployed to Tackle Gang Warfare
François Hollande on Thursday faced calls from the Socialist mayor of a tough Marseille neighbourhood to send in the army to tackle the city’s gang warfare.
The appeal highlighted the escalating drug violence in the Mediterranean port city that claimed its 14th victim in eight months earlier this week. Kalashnikov-wielding gangsters shot dead Walid Marzouki, 25, a suspected trafficker, at close range on Wednesday night as he drove his black Twingo in the streets of France’s second biggest city. It was the second gangland killing this month and the latest in a wave of deaths to hit Marseille Nord, one of the city’s toughest drug-infested suburbs, sparking Samia Ghali, the Socialist mayor of two local districts, to call for military intervention. “Faced with the weapons of war being used by these networks, only the army can intervene,” Miss Ghali, also a senator, told local newspaper La Provence. She said that the army should set up roadblocks around neighbourhoods to vet inhabitants for weapons and drugs “like in times of war”. “It no longer makes any difference to send in a police car to stop the dealers. When 10 of them are arrested, 10 others take up the torch. It’s like fighting an anthill.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Deploying Army to Violent Marseille ‘Inconceivable’
Exasperated local Senator Samia Ghali on Thursday called for soldiers to be deployed to the troubled suburbs. “Only the army is capable of dealing with this situation,” she said. “They need first of all to disarm the gangs, and then to prevent (drug addicts) from accessing dealers’ neighbourhoods with roadblocks, as in a war zone. Even if it takes two years to resolve the problem, it must be done.”
Marzouki’s killing is another brutal reminder of France’s security challenge in the country’s second-biggest city. But the French government, the army and local police are adamant that deploying troops on the streets of Marseille would be a step too far.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls, known to be cultivating a “tough on crime” image, said it was “out of the question” to deploy soldiers to Marseille.
“The army has no business policing the suburbs,” added President François Hollande. One senior army officer told right-leaning daily Le Figaro on Friday that “it would be inconceivable to send in the army”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Vows Response to Marseille Shootings
The French government rejected calls on Thursday for the army to be sent in to crack down on drug dealers in Marseille, but promised a tough response to a wave of deadly shootings.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Jews Call on Muslims to Fight Anti-Semitism
The daylight attack of a Berlin rabbi in front of his young daughter sparked fury in Germany, with some Jewish groups saying they feared a rise in anti-Semitic behaviour and calling for the country’s large Muslim community to take action.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italians ‘Suffer More Pain Than Other Europeans’
Only Norway and Poland have higher rates
(ANSA) — Milan, August 28 — Italians suffer more chronic pain on average than most of their European neighbours, according to data presented Tuesday.
Norway has among the highest rates, with 30% of people reporting chronic pain; followed by Poland at 27% and Italy, between 25% and 27%.
Spain, at 12%, and Great Britain at 13%, are among the lowest, according to data presented at the opening of the World Congress on Pain in Milan, organized by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).
“All over the world, one out of five suffer from pain with an intensity ranging from mild to severe,” said Paolo Marchettini, head of the centers of pain medicine and the Italian Diagnostic Center of Milan.
In Italy, the most common maladies are headaches and back pain.
Researchers also noticed an inverse relationship between pain and education level: those with the least amount of education suffer the most pain while the best-educated suffer less.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Religion Teacher Arrested for ‘Child Sex’
Head of Catholic association ‘had relations with two boys’
(ANSA) — Genoa, August 31 — A religion teacher was arrested in the northern Italian city of Voghera Friday on suspicion of having sex with two under-age boys.
Alberto Giannino, 51, head of a cultural association of Catholic teachers, is said to have committed the crime last week in the Genoese Riviera town of Rapallo where he has a holiday home.
He is accused of sex with minors.
The age of consent is 14 in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Minister Fears Dutch Isolation if Wilders Has His Way
The Netherlands will become isolated if anti-immigration party PVV has any say in government, foreign affairs minister Uri Rosenthal told nu.nl in an interview on Thursday.
‘Wilders wants to cancel our payments to the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,’ Rosenthal said. ‘The only country not participating in these organisations is the Vatican City and if we follow suit we will greatly damage our international position, including economically,’ the minister said.
The PVV manifesto says no more money should go to the United Nations as long as it includes islamic countries. According to the government’s macro-economic forecasting think-tank CPB, the €3.5bn the PVV wants to cut from the development aid budget would also mean there would be no money for membership of the other two international organisations.
Rosenthal says Wilders’ plan is ‘too mad for words’ and that the move would put the Netherlands ‘out of play’.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: The Demand to Ban an Israeli Dance Company From Performing in Edinburgh is Bigotry Dolled Up as Politics
by Brendan O’Neill
These are tough times for bigots. Speaking ill of ethnic minorities is frowned upon and hate speech is increasingly outlawed, which means there are fewer opportunities to be openly bigoted, to express naked intolerance of people who are allegedly inferior. So how are bigots supposed to get their rocks off? Fear not, they have found a way. Forced by the pressures of PC to carve out a form of bigotry that appears right-on rather than rotten, modern-day bigots are coalescing around hatred of Israel, and specifically around campaigns to ban Israeli artists and academics from coming anywhere near this morally pristine country of ours…
[Reader comment by Marplot on 31 August 2012 at about 10 am.]
No wonder the Edinburgh Festival is indulging in this display of mindless liberal fascist nonsense… it is a genuine reflection of Scottish society… A society that, 300 years ago, was a poor, northern backwater and what would, today, be called a Third World under-developed nation and a failed society. It pulled itself out of this social, economic and cultural stagnation by abolishing its national institutions to go into a political union with its more successful and advanced neighbour in order to have access to England’s international markets. It then sought to dominate that Union and managed, very successfully — not least in electoral terms — to punch way above its weight until it reached the conclusion that the English were really not quite supine enough and so now seeks to end that association. I only wish they’d get a move on and do it …
In doing so, of course, the Scots have become liberal fascists to a hootsmon. Scottish Labour Party: a left-of centre, liberal party prone to political correctness and liberal fascism. The Scottish Nationalist Party: a left-of centre, liberal party prone to political correctness and liberal fascism. The Scottish Liberal Democrat Party: a left-of centre, liberal party prone to political correctness and liberal fascism. And The Scottish Conservative Party: a left-of centre, liberal party prone to political correctness and liberal fascism.
Israel has now achieved independence for its people after 2,000 years of political and military occupation. As Palestine — a province of the Roman, Ottoman and later British empires and never a sovereign Arab state — it was a poor, Middle Eastern backwater and a Third World under-developed region and a failed society. In little more than 60 years, the Israelis have created a dynamic, First World, liberal society which is a genuine multi-party democracy — and a damn sight more enjoyable place to live in than Bonny Bloody Scotland, which is more like a wet Greece.
One would have thought that the Scots would, perhaps, be better off regarding Israel as a post-colonial role model — if they genuinely believe that odd, inverted, nonesense that they were “occupied” by the English. In any event, it is somewhat unseemly, I feel, for them to indulge in such adolescent pique and jealousy simply because they sold out. And that’s being generous… because for liberal fascists, the one big problem with Israel, of course, is that it’s full of bloody Jews.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Stakelbeck Sits Down With Wife-Beating German Imam
I recently spent a week in Europe, where I interviewed several radical Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood figures.
My latest on-the-ground report focuses on the growth of the Salafi threat in Germany. It’s a jihadist movement that has spawned countless terrorists in Germany and elsewhere.
While in Munich, I sat down for an exclusive interview with a Salafi imam who bears a striking resemblance to Osama Bin Laden but says he is against violence and terror.
His actions—including an arrest for the brutal beating of one of his three (yes, three) wives while shouting Koranic verses—say otherwise.
You can watch my report from Munich by clicking the link above.
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Magazine Racist Attack on Irish — Claims They Have Bad Teeth Due to Incest
German writer makes outrageous claims, generalizes Irish as incestuous drunken frauds
A Swiss magazine ‘Die Weltwoche’ [‘The World Week’] has published an outrageous article entitled “Ireland? Forget It!” slamming the Irish as incestuous, having bad teeth, and being a fraud.
The Irish Sun reports on German writer Antje Joel’s assertions about the Irish population, including that “70 percent of the adult population [in Ireland] has hardly any teeth in their mouth.”
When reported on Cork 96FM’s radio talk show, listeners slammed Joel’s article as “racist.” Later, the radio show posted a translated version of the article on their Facebook page, which was met with characterizations of the author as “deranged,” “bitter,” and “biased.”
It appears that Joel has been living in Ireland for some time with her children, which left some commenters on the Facebook page begging the question — if she doesn’t like Ireland, its people or culture that much, why doesn’t she just leave?
Nothing was safe from Joel’s criticisms. While some may have fair points — including her report that more Irish spend money on beer than education — some are outrageous, especially her understanding and perception of Irish music as “queer,” calling it “Psycho Diddelidi.”
Joel went on to write about her understanding of Ireland’s general dental health, saying “One owner of one of these dental deformities once told me that it was the result of incest. To prove that, he threw back his head, opened his mouth and showed me his rodent-like, narrow upper jaw.”
“This man was a scientist, he must know. He also said that young couples have been advised by the government over the last few years to have an DNA test done before marriage, in order to prevent a further spread of this dental deformity.”
Joel then went on to state that the Irish characteristic of being warm and welcoming is nothing but a fraud: “In Ireland they will affectionately welcome ambassadors of other cultures in for a cup of tea and biscuits,” wrote Joel, “only for the reason to check them out for possible exploitation.”
In the wake of the backlash to the article, the magazine’s editor David Schnapp said: “The article is the personal view of Mrs Joel and does not reflect the views of the editors.”
Similarly, WorldIrish reports that Swiss Club Ireland, a social group in Ireland, is equally as angered by Joel’s comments. Swiss Club Ireland was formed in 1947 and aims to promote and foster Irish-Swiss relations.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: ‘Healer’ Infected Students With HIV: Prosecutor
A Swiss music teacher has been charged with infecting at least 16 people, mostly his students, with HIV — after telling them he was a healer and the blood injections would “open their third eyes”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Gruyère Cheese Cellar Blast Kills Worker
One man is dead and four others were injured on Thursday following an explosion at a brand new building for curing Gruyère cheeses in the canton of Fribourg.
The blast occurred early in the afternoon in Charmey, a mountain village, at a cellar called the Caves d’Alpage de la Tzintre, cantonal police said.
The explosion was caused by a leak of gas from a fuel tank used for heating, according to an online report from La Liberté newspaper.
The victims were workers at the cellar, where 6,000 cheeses were being stored, the newspaper said.
Three of the injured men were transported by helicopter, each to different hospitals in Lausanne, Bern and Zurich.
Two seriously injured workers were inside the building along with the man who died, while the others were outside, police said.
The identities of the victims were not initially released.
Fire-fighters called to the scene quickly brought under control a fire that broke out after the explosion.
Cantonal justice authorities launched an investigation into possible negligence in the case.
The cellar, part of a 10-million-franc investment by the Charmey dairy and a local cheese cooperative, was set to be inaugurated on Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Abu Hamza’s Son Imran Mostafa Found Guilty of £70,000 Jewellery Robbery
A son of controversial Muslim cleric Abu Hamza has been found guilty of taking part in a £70,000 smash-and-grab jewellery robbery.
Imran Mostafa, 20, of Deverills Way, Slough, denied robbery and possessing a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence. The jury at Norwich Crown Court today convicted him of both offences after more than five hours of deliberation. Mostafa is the son of radical preacher Abu Hamza, 54, who was jailed for seven years in 2006 for soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred, and is currently facing extradition to the US to face terrorism charges. The jury heard that members of the shop staff at Francis Wain jewellers in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, cowered behind counters in the morning raid on January 31 as three men, wearing hooded tops to disguise their faces, burst into the store. One man brandished a firearm and another a hammer which was used to break the display cabinets. A third stayed in a van…
[JP notes: Mostafa diamonds.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Channel 4 Should be Condemned — “Islam: The Untold Story”
Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation comments:
“I strongly condemn Channel 4’s documentary tonight titled “Islam, untold story” which makes a mockery of impartial and objective broadcasting. This distorted, biased programme did not have the decency to check its facts and has broadcast lies. I am disappointed that an international broadcaster like Channel 4 has behaved in unbelievable way. There are thousands of Muslims scholars across the globe including many in locations where Tom Holland visited during the programme but he did not see fit to speak to them and therefore I draw the conclusion he did not want the real truth but wanted to promote his utter rubbish.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Father-of-Three Arrested After Praising Anders Breivik for Trying to Stop ‘Invasion by the Muslim Population’ On Facebook
A British dad has been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after praising mass murderer Anders Breivik on Facebook, it emerged today.
Philip Horn, 44, allegedly said on the social networking site that he ‘takes his hat off’ to the infamous gunman.
The Norwegian slaughtered 77 adults and teenagers when he bombed government buildings in Oslo and carried out a mass shooting on the island of Utoya in July last year.
Horn, a father-of-three, from Gillingham, was arrested by Kent Police on Thursday afternoon and is currently being held in custody.
Horn, who is reported to have links with the English Defence League, is also alleged to have publicly supported Breivik’s crusade to ‘protect his country from Muslims’.
The unemployed builder from Gillingham, Kent, is said to have posted a message saying: ‘Well done Anders Breivik. I take my hat off to you sir.
‘You proved you were not insane and that you are just one of many like myself who wish their country to return to the way it was before it was invaded by the Muslim population. Respect to you.’
He was also filmed by a national newspaper saying: ‘If someone came to my door in a uniform and said they were going to bang me up for six months then fine. I’m not going to retract any remarks I made.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man Jailed After Leaving Pig’s Head at Cheltenham Mosque
A man has been jailed after a pig’s head was left at the Mosque in Cheltenham. On November 13, 2010 a pig’s head was left tied to the gates of the Mosque in Cheltenham along with racist graffiti.
Simon Parkes, 45, of Crown Close, Bishop’s Cleeve, was charged with racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage and a public order offence on July 14, 2012. On August 9 he pleaded guilty at Cheltenham Magistrates and today he has been sentenced to four months at Gloucester Crown Court. A spokesman from Cheltenham Mosque said: “This was a very shocking incident for the whole community Muslim and Non-Muslim alike. “We would like to re-iterate our thanks to the police, the council and the local neighbours for their tremendous support”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Responses to Islam: The Untold Story
by Sarah AB
Although I have not seen Islam: the untold story, I have read the book on which it is based. So it has been interesting to follow responses to the programme. Here’s a particularly unwelcome example: “The Ramadhan Foundation calls on Channel 4 to apologise for this programme, withdraw it from online viewing and also order an immediate inquiry into why this was allowed to be broadcast.”
But it’s important to distinguish between this ridiculous demand, and reactions which are merely irritated or offended but which do not call for a ban or censorship. I have read a reference to all these complainers being ‘Islamists’ — but this seems an unhelpful use of the term. Tom Holland has every right to make his programme, examining Islam from an academic perspective — and Muslims have every right to say he’s got it all wrong. I was reminded of the discussion following my post on The Death of Klinghoffer — although many found the opera offensive I don’t think anyone said it should be banned.
Some Muslims have expressed unease at the way Tom Holland has now, apparently, been adopted as a ‘poster boy’ by the EDL. If the programme is anything like the book this says more about the (lack of) intelligence of those supporters than it does about Tom Holland. Far right types are pouncing delightedly on the abuse Holland has been getting — and yes, it’s been awful — but their own supporters routinely post foul and threatening comments about Muslims on the internet.
I have some sympathy with Muslims who, perhaps just going on internet chit chat, genuinely fear this programme may act as a vector for anti-Muslim bigotry — even though I think their fears are misplaced. I have also read plenty of responses from Muslims who seem to have reasoned academic/historical objections to the programme. Although it’s possible that their beliefs are sending them along particular lines of argument, ones in line with a more conventional view of Islam’s roots than that put forward by Holland, they are still turning to rational argument, not abuse or completely unsupported assertions, to back up their own point of view.
I hope Tom Holland is able to ignore the haters on both sides.
[Reader comment by DCook on 30 August 2012 at 1:33 pm.]
I haven’t seen it yet but it can be watched at 4 On Demand www.channel4.com/programmes/islam-the-untold-story/4od
I think that Muslims must realise that while they aren’t allowed to question the Koran and its roots — we are! If we choose to understand Islam in historical contexts then if we want to highlight the barbaric, conquesting nature of Islam lead by its Warlord Mohammed, slaughtering Jews and question his morality to seduce a six year old girl then we will because that is our free speech right. And if other people want to question what Jesus said and did or Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc then go ahead. Its your freedom to do so. I don’t know what their problem actually is with the programme so I will watch it.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Squatters to Face Six Months in Prison as Laws Giving Them Rights Are Scrapped From Tomorrow
Squatters’ rights will be scrapped from tomorrow, and a new law will mean those who invade private homes face six months in jail.
Until now, police could not evict squatters as soon as they moved in, so a homeowner’s main option to get them out was through a civil court order — which could be time consuming, expensive and stressful.
The introduction of the criminal offence of squatting, which carries a prison sentence, a £5,000 fine or both, follows a Government consultation last summer and means police can arrest squatters immediately.
Housing minister Grant Shapps said: ‘No longer will there be so-called “squatters’ rights”.
‘We’re tipping the scales of justice back in favour of the homeowner and making the law crystal clear: entering a property with the intention of squatting will be a criminal offence.
Justice minister Crispin Blunt said: ‘For too long, squatters have had the justice system on the run and have caused homeowners untold misery in eviction, repair and clean-up costs. Not anymore.
| [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why ‘Citizen Khan’ Is the Tebbit Cricket Test for Muslims
by Cristina Odone
After the Olympics proved that many Muslims would pass the Norman Tebbit cricket test — Mo Farah may have been Somali-born but was proud to win his gold medals as a Brit — here is a new challenge for the two million-strong minority: can you laugh at “Citizen Khan”? The BBC sitcom has only aired one episode so far, but its lampooning of a self-important Muslim patriarch was almost as funny, and true to life, as the lampooning of self-important officialdom in TwentyTwelve. Writers Adil Ray and Richard Pinto have an eye for the small hypocrisies that go on in a religious household: the father who talks charity but thinks only of money, the made-up daughter who wears symbols of religious identity like a Gucci scarf, the obsession with keeping up with the Joneses rather than being witnesses of the one true faith… yes, as someone brought up as a Catholic, I recognise it all.
And, as a member of a religious minority, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to show that I could laugh at myself. Catholics are mocked non-stop about frivolous matters such as the image of convent school girls — and more serious issues, such as paedophile priests. At least I’m not Irish Catholic: they have long been the butt of countless jokes in this country, not to mention the ugly prejudice that once banned them from applying for jobs or renting a room in a bedsit.
After September 11, British Muslims developed a thin skin that has inhibited our dealings with them. It has certainly inhibited the BBC, which for years has tiptoed around Muslim sensibilities (the corporation initially refused to call the murder of Shafilea Ahmed by her parents “an honour killing”, lest it foment ugly racist reactions). In fact, some would argue that long before Islamic terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers, the Salman Rushdie affair had raised the alarm: here was one religion that could not take fictional criticism. When the Indian-born British author dared mock the Prophet in his “Satanic Verses”, Muslim clerics and their followers turned into latter-day Savonarolas. Even here in Britain, extremists (or ignoramuses) burned copies of the novel. A community that issues a fatwah over a caricature of its spiritual leader is not a community to trifle with. That was an own goal for British Muslims. They had drawn a line between “us” and “them”.
Citizen Khan gives Muslims a chance to fight this image of self-righteous fundamentalists who are forever on the margins. It doesn’t bode well that already, the BBC has received hundreds of complaints from outraged viewers (presumably Muslims, as no one else could be offended by this mild-mannered comedy). Muslims need a couple of imams to speak up in support of this comedy. But don’t hold your breath.
[Reader comment by timwookey on 30 August 2012 at 10:52 pm.]
On Facebook there is a Citizen Khan site.There are many posters, mainly Islam whose views I will share with you:
Mohammed Kay Udin has issued a death threat to the people of the BBC and exclaimed that he will be”going down to the BBC and will burn it down.” Another, Amer Khatab has exclaimed that the woman in the show is not a muslim and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to touch the Koran. Another, Qamar Rizwan “hopes the whole cast burns and Allah will punish them.” He attracted a lot of likes from so-called moderate muslims for that one. Another, Midzz Sheff is less worried because “Islam will rule the world.”
MOHAMMED KAY UDIN has explicity said that he will go and burn the BBC down. Now I don’t know about you chaps, but I vaguely remember white Christians having gone to prison lately for insulting people. What do you think will happen to Muslims who threaten to burn down the BBC? Is that just another form of their culture for us to celebrate? Gutless spinless government, so crippled by fear and loathing for its own people. I have had enough…….
(Edited by author 11 hours ago)
[Reader comment by redwall on 30 August 2012 at 4:17 pm.]
Pass the cricket test are you blind???? Even at at the marathon which was a free event in a city with large “ethnic” majority areas there was not a non-white face in the crowd for the whole 26 odd miles and as for every other event!!!. the olympics, all of it, looked like Midsummer so mo(mummed) while waiting for his green card wins a medal or two and the test is passed? I challenge you to find me an event where I can look back and bask in britains diversity (ps same went for the jubilee)
[Reader comment by nytor on 30 August 2012 at 3:50 pm.]
I see enough Muslim “community leaders” on the news. I don’t need to see them in “comedy” as well. In fact, I far prefer to just pretend they don’t exist at all. The BBC’s agenda here is clearly a multiculturalist one and as such I don’t like it.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Warns Serbia Over Central Bank
EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele warned Serbia on Thursday to not curtail the independence of its central bank if it wants to progress towards full EU membership, reports AFP. Serbia passed legislation increasing parliamentary oversight over the bank. The country obtained EU candidate status in March 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists Demand Placing Coptic Church Funds Under Egyptian State Control
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — Demands raised this week by Islamists in the Constituent Assembly, which is drafting the new Egyptian constitution, for placing the Church’s funds under state financial control were categorically rejected by church leaders and Copts at large. Anba Pakhomious, Acting Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, condemned the action of Salafist groups. “The mere submission of such a proposal is totally unacceptable, and if it is approved, this proposal has only one meaning, that Copts are clearly persecuted.” He added that the church will not accept the monitoring of its money or donations by any entity, and should not pay taxes to the state because all its activities fall within the provision of the needs of orphans and needy Copts, and therefore the state cannot claim taxes because they are not investment projects.
Counselor Edward Ghaleb, one of the three Coptic Orthodox Church representatives in the Constituent Assembly, said that if the government does not fund the church in any way, how can it demand monitoring its resources. He said that it was illogical to take permission from Central Auditing Authority to budget for the food for the monks in monasteries, and in the ordination of priests, as well as the numerous services provided by the Coptic Church, which are completely funded by collections from Copts.
Father Matthias Nasr, priest of the Church of the Virgin Ezbet el Nakhl, said the state has never funded churches, unlike mosques, which get funding from the taxpayer money paid by Muslims and Christians. He said this new Salafist proposal is aimed at allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to dominate all institutions and exercised control on churches and Christians.
Khaled Saeed, spokesman for the Salafist Front, said the proposal of state monitoring of church funds came after the “insistence by some people” to monitor funds of the Muslim Brotherhood, stressing that the Salafist front does not interfere in the religious beliefs. “There should be control over church funds,” he said during a debate over the issue with Ramses El-Naggar, legal adviser to the Coptic Church, which was aired on the Egyptian independent TV Channel Al Hayat on August 28.
Saeed said the smallest monastery in Egypt is larger than the Vatican or Al-Azhar Mosque, which leads to concerns over the presence of a “church state within the Egyptian civil state.”
Although assuring all Copts not to fear state control over the church, as the Copts are “part of the Egyptian people,” he said that “still it is necessary to know where does its money go and if it is on the right track or not,” pointing out that the new constitution will put rules governing all state institutions.
For his part, Ramses Naggar said that comparing the Church with the Muslim Brotherhood is an error, because the MB has a political aim while the church is a spiritual institution. He added that church charities like orphanages or senior citizen homes are subjected to state control and sees no harm in having limited control over churches, but church donations cannot be monitored, pointing out that mosques and churches are not monitored unless they transgress public order and morality.
Coptic intellectual Kamal Zakher, founder of the Secular Front, said that church funds are already controlled by the Coptic Endowment organization and the Milli Council, explaining that the Islamist proposal is a political message to the church to force it to take certain positions or “to seize its funds to control the imbalance in the state budget,” reported El-Watan newspaper.
“They are trying to divert our attention from the public demands which went out demonstrating on 24/25 August to legalize the status of the MB and expose the sources of its funding,” said the Free Copts statement.. “If you want to control me then fund me from the tax payer as the mosques, then you have the right to monitor me,” the statement continued..
The Copts Without Chains organization described calls made by political Islam as attempts of “ cheap political blackmail and political thuggery.” The movement demanded from them to look instead for ways to investigate suspicious sources of funding of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist groups and the Sharia societies as well as the civil mosques that receive billions of dollars from third parties, which are used in supporting extremism, terrorism and Islamization of Christian minors.
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Migron and the Threat to Israeli Democracy
By Tuesday, 50 Israeli families will have been tossed out of their homes in their village of Migron, which is set for destruction.
They will not be dispossessed because they unlawfully squatted on someone else’s property.
The residents of Migron will be tossed from their homes — on the order of the Supreme Court — because Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein and his associates believe they are above the law. And due to this opinion, Weinstein and his associates refuse to recognize the sovereign authority of Israel’s government or to act in accordance with its lawful decisions.
The media have alternatively presented the story of Migron’s imminent destruction as a story about a power struggle between so-called settlers and the IDF, whose forces will be called upon to eject them from their homes; or as a struggle between the Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu; or as a struggle between the radical leftists from Peace Now and its fellow foreign government-financed NGOs, and the residents of Judea and Samaria.
These portrayals are reasonable on the narrow level of day to day developments in the story of Migron’s struggle. But on a more fundamental level, the story of Migron and its pending destruction is the story of the power struggle between Israel’s unelected, radical legal fraternity represented by the attorney-general, the State Prosecution he directs and the Supreme Court on the one hand, and Israel’s elected governments — from the Right and from the Left — on the other…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: SAS Kills Hundreds of Terrorists in ‘Secret War’ Against Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Hundreds of terrorists have been killed by the SAS waging a “secret war” against al-Qaeda in Iraq, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
More than 3,500 insurgents have been “taken off the streets of Baghdad” by the elite British force in a series of audacious “Black Ops” over the past two years.
It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as “al-Qa’eda in Iraq” have been killed by the SAS. The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called “Task Force Black” which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS. The prime targets have been those intent on joining the wave of suicide car bombers that claimed around 3,000 lives a month in Baghdad at the height of the terrorist campaign in 2006…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Oman: Taimour Mosque Undergoes Renovation
MUSCAT Al Mabelah area recently carried out a renovation work on one of the architectural masterpieces, the Sultan Taimour Bin Faisal Mosque, which has been built under the Royal Directive of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said. The mosque, which was built on an area of 37,000sqm, is part of a group of mosques which will be constructed under the Royal Directives of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said. The total building area of the mosque is 4,300sqm and the rest includes greeneries and planted trees. The mosque has been built in a remarkable location in Al Mabelah South. The building has become one of the most attractive sites with its huge size. The new mosque has a capacity of seating more than 1,550 believers at a time. It contains three main parts, which include the majlis in the eastern section of the mosque, the main praying area in the western section, and the corridor which contains the concrete pillars complete with wonderful designs. The Sultan Taimour Bin Faisal Mosque has three domes, as it is constructed in the style of monuments of the 16th century, which is the Mongolian era. The mosque contains a prayer room for women which has a capacity of 286, as well as three classrooms. The area of the majlis is 1,195sqm. There is parking space for 304 cars at the mosque.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Shocking Video Evidence of Islamic Crucifixion
[Warning: Disturbing content.]
There’s shocking new evidence from the Middle East of crucifixion by Muslims, this time of a “spy” in Yemen who allegedly was accused of U.S. sympathies.
WND recently confirmed a Sky News Arabia report of the crucifixion of dissidents in Egypt.
According to a report by Lebanon Today translated into English, the Yemeni jihadist group Ansar al-Shariah took control of the Azzan area of Yemen and imposed Islamic law, or Shariah.
In the process, the group crucified three men, accusing them of being agents for the U.S. The executions reportedly took place several months ago.
Former PLO operative turned terrorism analyst Walid Shoebat says the inscription in the photo of one of the victims reads, “He was crucified for three days in accordance to Shariah.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Urges Libya to Protect Ottoman-Era Tombs and Mosques
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 29 — Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday held separate phone conversations with Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, and his Libyan counterpart Ashour bin Khayal, as Turkish dailies report.
Turkish diplomatic sources said Davutoglu had conveyed Turkey’s concerns over attacks by certain Salafi groups in Libya on a number of historical tombs and mosques, urging the Libyan government to protect and preserve Ottoman-era tombs and mosques. Libyan president and foreign minister have said Libya shared Turkey’s sensitivities, vowing to protect the historical places from the Ottoman-era.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Civil War’ Among Muslims Shakes Russia’s South
MOSCOW — Three recent attacks that left 30 people dead and 15 wounded have cast a spotlight on the growing religious warfare in Dagestan, Russia’s southernmost republic.
First, a border guard serving near Azerbaijan killed seven colleagues before he was shot dead himself. Superior officers said they had tried twice but failed to have him discharged because he was constantly reading about Wahhabism, a conservative form of Islamic fundamentalism. Then Georgian special forces said they intercepted a heavily armed unit of Islamic insurgents crossing over from Dagestan. A firefight near the border killed three Georgian soldiers and 12 militants. In the most politically significant case, a female suicide bomber attacked Sheikh Said Atsayev, a leading moderate Muslim cleric in Dagestan who had been leading peace talks with militant adherents of Wahhabism, the form of Sunni Islam that is widely practiced in Saudi Arabia. The suicide bomber, the widow of another militant, killed Atsayev and six other people, as well as herself…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Australia Renews Commitment to Afghanistan
Julia Gillard has renewed Australia’s commitment to staying in Afghanistan despite calls for an early pullout after the death of five soldiers in one day — the country’s worst day of combat losses since the Vietnam War.
As the hunt continued for the rogue Afghan soldier who shot three Australians, Ms Gillard said Australia was in “a state of shock” but an early withdrawal would create a security vacuum across Afghanistan. “I really feel that Australians were yesterday and today not only in a state of shock and sadness and grief … but they are wanting to clearly understand why we are still there and what we are doing that matters so much for our nation,” Ms Gillard said. “After all that we have lost and all that we have been through in Afghanistan, I cannot countenance leaving before the mission is completed. I cannot and will not countenance giving a strategic victory to people who have made it their work to kill Australian soldiers.”
Australia’s military suffered its worst day yesterday since the Vietnam War, with two soldiers dying in a helicopter crash just hours after three soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan soldier at a patrol base. The killer, Sergeant Hekmatullah, was stationed at the patrol base in Oruzgan province last month after a five-month induction course in Kandahar. “We are not yet aware of any relationship he has with the Taliban,” said Australia’s Chief of the Defence Force, David Hurley…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India’s Polio Eradication Campaign in 2011 Caused 47,500 Cases of Vaccine-Induced Polio Paralysis
he media is reporting that polio has been eradicated in India, thanks to a massive oral polio vaccination drive encompassing nearly 170 million children; however, the vaccine uses a live virus that is linked to vaccine-induced polio paralysis
A paper published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics found 47,500 cases of so-called non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP), a polio-like condition that is clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, linked to the oral polio vaccine.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Global Condemnation Makes it More Difficult to Free Pakistani Girl Accused of Blasphemy
by Rob Crilly
The Vatican has had its say. Online petitions are filling with virtual signatures. Pakistan’s president is being lobbied. And even Muslim groups are coming to her aid. Rimsha Masih has a lot of supporters. But ironically it could be the waves of support that mean the young Christian girl is eventually convicted of blasphemy — or even bludgeoned to death by another prisoner. For although the law is rarely best carried out in secret, Pakistan’s archaic blasphemy laws fall apart entirely when conducted amid the blaze of publicity…
[Reader comment by dunroamin on 31 August 2012 at about 10 am.]
We should globally condemn them as loudly as possible. Appeasement will not help. Muslims are so over-sensitive that they wake up every morning looking for things to be offended by. The only cure for this condition is aversion therapy.
[Reader comment by bobsymth in response to dunroamin.]
The Muslim “exaggerated sense of entitlement” that THEIR “Islamic “norms” must ALWAYS prevail is being pandered to far too often. Since the Muslim”community” found that claims of “being offended” often lead to concessions and appeasement, it appears to have become a “learned response”.
[Reader comment by embolden in response to bobsymth.]
bobsmyth has hit the nail on the head here. It is not “tolerance” that is being demanded it is supremacy, and the appeasers go on appeasing in the hope that one more concession will be enough. It won’t.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Christian Girl Accused of Burning Koran Remanded in Prison
A Christian girl with Down’s Syndrome arrested in Pakistan for allegedly burning the Koran appeared in court on Friday to be remanded in prison for a further two weeks, angering human rights activists.
Rimsha Misah, whose parents say she is 11 and was born with Down’s syndrome, has already been held for a fortnight in a case that has exposed the country’s harsh blasphemy laws to international condemnation. She appeared before a district court in Islamabad on Friday morning, her tiny frame hidden beneath a white sheet to protect her identity amid growing fears for safety. Her lawyer, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, said he hoped she would be freed on bail on Saturday. The judge is due to decide whether to free her and is considering a medical report that concluded Rimsha was 14, but had a mental age considerably lower and should be treated as a minor. She was arrested after allegedly being spotted carrying burned remnants of the Koran, although other witnesses have disputed the evidence…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China Plays Down Rivalry With US in South Pacific
China denied it was competing with Washington in the Pacific islands Thursday, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived at a regional summit aiming to reassert US influence.
In a press conference that coincided with Clinton’s arrival at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in the Cook Islands, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said Beijing simply wanted to help developing island states.
While the appearance of the top US diplomat at the summit has been widely seen as a move to contain China’s growing influence among small island nations, Cui said diplomatic manoeuvering was not Beijing’s priority.
“We are here in this region not to seek any particular influence, still less dominance, we are here to work with other countries to achieve sustainable development,” he said.
“We’re here to be a good partner for the island countries, we’re not here to compete with anyone.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Toddler’s Karaoke Tantrum Ends in Bloodbath
A Chinese toddler’s refusal to give up the microphone during a family karaoke evening started a quarrel that left two men hacked to death with a meat cleaver.
The evening began jovially enough when Mr Yun, the owner of a noodle shop in the central Chinese city of Xi’an, invited his family to celebrate Qixi, China’s Valentine’s Day, with a singing session at a local karaoke parlour.
But by 11pm, there was discord in the room. Mr Yun’s four-year-old son was hogging the microphone and his parents were indulging him.
Two of the boy’s uncles began chastising Mr Yun and his wife for having raised a spoilt child; a “Little Emperor”, as the Chinese say.
According to the Xi’an police, the argument became heated to the point where the two uncles began pushing, and then punching, Mr Yun.
Finally, Mr Yun’s nephew, who also worked in the noodle shop, ran back to the restaurant and fetched a meat cleaver.
The man, named as Mr Hui, hacked the two uncles to death, inflicting at least ten wounds on each uncle. He has since been arrested.
There is no shortage of criticism inside China for the bad behaviour of the Little Emperors, the children raised under the one-child policy and doted on by their parents.
Karaoke, meanwhile, is taken very seriously not just in China, but throughout Asia, where singing rivals alcohol as a social lubricant.
Other karaoke massacres have taken place in the Philippines, where the Frank Sinatra song “My Way” has had to be removed from many songbooks after sub-standard renditions provoked a string of killings.
In Thailand, meanwhile, a man shot eight of his neighbours, including his brother-in-law, after tiring of their tuneless reprisals of John Denver’s “Country Roads”.
In the United States, a woman punched a man for continuing to sing Coldplay’s “Yellow” after she had told him he was not up to the task.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Enoggera Barracks Devastated by Afghanistan Loss
Soldiers at Brisbane’s Enoggera Barracks have been devastated by news three of their comrades had been killed in Afghanistan. Brigadier Greg Bilton, CSC, ADC, Commander 7th Brigade, has told of the anguish at the base after yesterday’s news a 40-year-old Lance Corporal, a 23-year-old Private and a 21-year-old Sapper had been shot dead by an Afghani soldier during their rest time. The three were all from Enogerra’s 7th Brigade and their deaths brought the number of fatalities from the unit in the course of the Afghanistan war to 11…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Gina Rinehart Attacks ‘Jealous’ Poor
The world’s richest woman has rebuked her poorer Australian countrymen, telling them to work harder and cut down their drinking, smoking and socialising.
Gina Rinehart, a mining magnate worth an estimated £19 billion, has advised those jealous of the wealthy to “spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working” in order to be successful. Miss Rinehart, 56, also rounded on Australia’s “class warfare”, insisting it was billionaires such as herself who were doing more than anyone to help the poor. She warns that Australia risks following European economies ruined by “socialist” policies, high taxes, and excessive regulation. Miss Reinhart stated there was “no monopoly” on becoming a millionaire. In May Miss Rinehart was declared the richest woman in the world, after building upon an estimated £13 billion mining empire inherited from her late father, Lang Hancock, in 1992…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
New Zealand: Open Day at Hamilton Mosque
If you found yourself walking past the Hamilton Mosque and Islamic Centre four years ago it was a case of avoiding the smashed beer bottles that had been thrown against its windows and fence. “Oh, they would walk past on a Friday night and throw bottles of alcohol, tip it out everywhere, it was terrible,” said President of the Waikato Muslim Association, Ismail Gamadid. ‘So we decided to open the mosque to the public, to let them meet us and see our mosque, and the broken bottles, they stopped.”
This Saturday the mosque will hold its open day for 2012, and it would seem from the lack of vandalism these days its attempts to try and reach out to promote wider understanding have worked. “I think eight years ago when we started Islam Awareness Week people would come in an say ‘Oh, we were expecting something else! (But) this is very simple and very nice’,” Gamadid said. “There are many people who think the mosque…that is where they make the bomb. But when they come and see for themselves they see something that is very simple, and that is the whole idea of Islam Awareness Week and the mosque open day. ‘The public can come here, share with us, eat with us, experience things with us, and that can be very helpful for us all.”
The Islamic Women’s Council’s Anjum Rahman said woman were “absolutely welcome” at the mosque at all times, including this Saturday. “We will have some scarves here, in case women choose to cover their hair, but honestly it is no bother what they are wearing. This day is about including everyone.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Customs Boss Donates Hospital Wards, Mosque
The Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Inde Dikko Abdullahi, has donated female and paediatric wards at the General Hospital, Musawa, Katsina State.
Abdullahi who will be marking his third year anniversary of his tenure in office this month, is a native of Musawa, Katsina State. While formally inaugurating the 40-bed facility and a mosque, he said the initiative was conceived to support the healthcare service of the state government. The Majority Leader, Katsina State House of Assembly, Dr. Lawal Aliyu-Musawa, who represented Abdullahi at the occasion, noted that improving the health of the people would facilitate economic and social activities in the area. He explained that the increase in population necessitated the provision of such facilities to cater for the needs of the people. He said it was a family culture to provide succour for the less privileged in the society…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds of Bones From the Ice Age Discovered in Mexico
Workers have discovered hundreds of bones belonging to Ice Age animals, including mammoths, mastodons and glyptodons, while digging to build a wastewater treatment plant north of Mexico City.
The bones could be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old and may include a human tooth from the late Pleistocene period, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said on Thursday. Tusks, skulls, jawbones, horns, ribs, vertebrae and shells were discovered 65 feet deep in Atotonilco de Tula, a town in the state of Hidalgo, as workers built a drain, the institute said. These remains belong to a range of species including mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, deer and glyptodons, the armadillo’s ancestor. Some bones may belong to bison, while others have not been identified. Archeologists have worked for the past five months to recover the bones. “It is the largest and most varied discovery of extinct megafauna found together in the Mexico basin,” archeologist Alicia Bonfil Olivera said in a statement.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Immigration is Not Just a Numbers Game
The system is rejecting many immigrants who would benefit the country
By Telegraph View
In pledging to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands, the Coalition was always constructing a rod for its own back. Labour left the system in such a sorry state that the task of letting in those Britain wants and keeping out those it doesn’t is one of almost nightmarish complexity. Ministers have produced a series of worthwhile measures to reform the system, which are slowly taking effect. But yesterday’s figures from the Office for National Statistics, which showed the number of arrivals broadly unchanged, suggest that reaching that goal will be a gruelling process…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: More Universities Could Lose Foreign Students After London Met
More universities where students have a poor grasp of English could lose the valuable right to admit foreigners after the Government took the unprecedented step of stripping such powers from London Metropolitan.
At least 2,000 students face being removed from Britain or being transferred to another campus after the university in North London was stripped of its Highly Trusted Status, preventing it from authorising visas. Ministers said there had been a “serious systemic failure” at London Met with more than a quarter of non-EU students surveyed lacking the correct papers and little evidence that they had good language skills or were attending courses. Three other universities have also had their right to admit overseas students suspended temporarily and more could face sanctions as part of the Government’s attempts to weed out bogus students and also cut immigration. Recent figures show that almost 66 per cent of universities are awarding places to undergraduates whose English skills are no better than “competent”. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, a pressure group, said: “It’s been clear for some time that some of the lesser universities and colleges have been more interested in selling immigration than education.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sir Andrew Green: There is Little Sign of Progress Towards the Government’s Migration Pledge
Sir Andrew Green is Chairman of Migrationwatch UK
I would expect Conservatives to be very concerned about today’s immigration figures while the immigration industry rejoices. Net migration fell last year from 252,000 to 216,000 but the drop is not statistically significant. There is thus very little progress to show nearly half way through the government’s term. The public are bound to ask whether the government’s pledge to reduce net migration to tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament is achievable and, if so, what more needs to be done. The reasons for the slow progress are clear. The immigration rules are so complex that they have taken two years to review and many of the changes have not yet taken effect — partly because the courts do not allow the government to change the rules on those already here. The numbers will come down in future years but nobody can be sure that they will be below 100,000 by the end of this Parliament…
[Reader comment by Edward Huxley on 30 August 2012 at about 2045 hrs.]
Immigration in small numbers of people willing to integrate and accept our language, laws, and way of life are welcome here, they always have been. One problem is the sheer weight of numbers of immigrants, many of them wanting to live here because we are a soft touch for the many benefits avaliable, paid for by the taxpayers. Another is the large number and their offspring who want to stick to their own language, laws, and way of dress. My County Council, Surrey, offers a “free” translation service in seven languages and coffee mornings for Muslim elders. . It could only happen here. […]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at Their Peril
by Chris Stedman
When I first heard that a white supremacist opened fire on a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a few weeks ago, I froze. My stomach lurched and my thoughts turned to the friends I’d made in the Sikh community through my work as an atheist and interfaith activist. In the wake of the horror I reached out to friends directly and logged on to Twitter to express my shock, outrage, disgust, and sadness-as a Millennial, I suppose you could say this is one way I engage in the collective processing of such traumas. Within minutes of my first tweet, I began to get responses from other atheists saying that interfaith work is bad, that I should be more concerned about atheists than Sikhs, and that “religion poisons everything.” The next day, I was called “a traitor” when I tweeted about efforts to raise funds to rebuild a mosque in Joplin, Missouri that was burned to the ground. When I tweeted about reaching out to the Sikh community and expressing solidarity, I was accused of trying to make atheism a religion…
[Reader comment by Roxy7 on 30 August 2012 at about 5:30 pm.]
Muslims seek to “kill our way of life” or don’t you get that. That is what Sharia law is about, with its death penalty for speaking against Islam.There are also ex-Muslims facing the death penalty for leaving Islam for another religion or no religion. How does that fit in with Western ideals of free speech and freedom of religion or from religion. Are you aware that a Christian girl of 14 who is mentally disabled faces death in Pakistan for supposedly burning pages of the Koran? Are you aware that the Organization of the Islamic Conference seeks to criminalize criticism of Islam worldwide? That could lead to children facing death sentences for crticizing Islam not just in Pakistan but all over the world. That’s because Muslims force their religious law on non-Muslims. Envangelical Christians who you fear so much are not seeking the death penalty for anyone for burning the Bible or criticizing Christianity.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Do These 10 Songs Represent Modern Britain?
BBC Radio 2 has chosen these 10 songs as ‘the soundtrack to British culture’ — from Dame Vera Lynn to Amy Winehouse and The Shamen.
One is a wartime classic sung by a Forces Sweetheart. The other is an anthem to addiction and wasted talent. According to BBC Radio 2, We’ll Meet Again by Dame Vera Lynn and Rehab by Amy Winehouse are two of the songs that best represent modern Britain. They are among a list of tracks chosen by the station as “the soundtrack to British culture”, charting our journey from the Second World War to the present day. They form part of a new landmark series, The People’s Songs, which will be broadcast next year and aims to tell the story of Britain in 50 records. The series will not be a “dry, academic rock history”, according to the presenter, Stuart Maconie, nor will it be chronological. Instead, it will focus on the cultural importance of the songs, chosen by a panel of BBC experts…
[JP note: Parlour games for the terminally bored.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Strasbourg Court Ends Part of Italy’s Reproductive Law
Opponents of restrictive norms applaud
(ANSA) — Rome, August 28 — Parts of Italy’s restrictive reproductive law were struck down Tuesday by the European Court of Human Rights.
The court, based in Strasbourg, said parts of Law 40 that forbid families from screening embryos for ailments were too restrictive and violated the rights of an Italian couple that wanted to screen for cystic fibrosis.
Opponents of the law cheered. “It is time for Parliament to delete the law”, said a spokesman for the organization Luca Coscioni, which works to support scientific research.
The remaining elements of the law still ban the use of embryos for scientific research. “It’s a very important victory that gives a hard blow to the prohibitionist system of Italian law on IVF (in-vitro fertilization)”, said Filomena Gallo, Secretary of the Luca Coscioni.
Lawyer and bioethicist Amedeo Santosuosso called the judgement “important.” “It recognizes the correctness and reinforces what has already been said by Italian magistrates.” But it will still take time for the Strasbourg judgement to take effect, said Eleonora Porcu, head of the Centre for Infertility and Assisted Reproduction at the University of Bologna.
“We will now see how to translate the judgement into Italian law. In the past, similar decisions were accepted after a long time, and always after a confrontation between the different positions”.
Italy has three months to appeal the decision of the court, which also ordered 17,500 euros in compensation for the couple.
The four-year-old law has led to many infertile couples going to fertility clinics abroad.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Universities Warn Sex Recruiters May Prowl Campuses
(Canadian Press) The B.C. government is warning of a new kind of head hunter targeting Canadian campuses, but the job description requires skills not on offer at the institutions.
British Columbia’s advanced education minister has sent a letter warning post-secondary schools to keep an eye out for adult entertainment businesses that may try to recruit strippers in exchange for tuition.
Naomi Yamamoto wrote this week she’s concerned recruiters may attempt to set up booths at post-secondary job fairs across Canada this fall.
“Students, who often feel new stresses due to new living environments and managing their own affairs for the first time, may be tempted by these monetary inducements,” Yamamoto wrote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Several reports appearing in July indicate that Christian minorities all around the Muslim world-especially women and children-are being abducted, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and/or enslaved. In Egypt, at least 550 such cases have been documented in the last five years, and have only increased since the revolution. Christians who manage to escape back to their families often find the government siding with the Muslim abductors. One young mother who recently testified before the Helsinki Commission explained how she was snatched in broad daylight, as her abductor shouted to bystanders while dragging her to a waiting taxi, “No one interfere! She is an enemy of Islam.”
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| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
The arrest of the gentleman for posting the comment about Anders Breivik on Facebook shows how rapidly now Marxist Multicultural Britain is turning into a police state. In fact it is developing all the hallmarks of previous totalitarian left-wing revolutions, from the French Revolution, to Communism, to Nazism, incorrectly labelled as right-wing. I was interested to learn of the hatred of the Nazis for Christianity the other day, because Christians show mercy and Nazis viewed this as a weakness. This must be why the Left sees Islam as such a godsend.
I will not be watching Citizen Khan. These days I choose to head for the hills, which have looked down on the rise of England and will look down still when England is no more, long before the end of the current century. Among the hills I can briefly pretend that this nightmare is not happening. Marxism is encouraging wholesale intermarriage with non-Europeans to ensure that the English disappear even quicker.
England today is like Legoland or the foyer of the United Nations. It is now so rapidly losing its national identity. Well done the Marxists, just as you planned. All the world's peoples,cultures and religions are spread across large areas of England like a patchwork. This was demonstrated by the passage of the paralympic torch from Stoke Mandeville to London. It passed through India, that's north and west London, Pakistan and Bangladesh are in the east. Africa and the Caribbean constitute most of the rest. Whilst passing through India it was blessed at a hindu temple. It did not stop at Westminster Abbey or St Paul's so we assume that hinduism is now destined to take over there, anything but Christianity.
Channel Four News the other evening was presented by an Indian, an African, an Arab and the weather by a West Indian. Just one token Englishman at some stage.
It was as if Afro-Asians were already in the majority, which they are destined to be in a few decades. My American friends, England is disappearing before your very eyes. It brings to mind Churchills's quote,"And if Britain and her empire last for a thousand years, this was our finest hour". Well it looks as if it was for the Marxists were already planning her post-War obliteration. And I believe Churchill knew and tried to stop it.
I meant to add - by the way my anonymity is further evidence of our police state here in Britain - that normally the thought of a multi-millionaire venture capitalist for American president would not appeal to me.
But I pray that he wins to save Christianity from extinction by the closet Muslim Obama who is hell-bent on the islamification of the USA. I came across his book Dreams of my father the other day which seemed to prove that he seems himself as a black muslim whose task is to obliterate Europeans and Christianity. I believe that he has said that America will be a better place when whites are in the minority and that he did not like his white mother. Presumably he thinks the same of Britain and most of the rest of Europe.
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