Cyprus’ Orthodox Church Wants Hand on Gas
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 10 — Archbishop Chrysostomos II announced plans to mortgage church assets in order to have a hand in exploitation of natural gas reserves that were found in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Speaking to the state broadcaster CyBC, he said the church was determined to become involved in all aspects of the matter; from the drilling to the liquefaction. In fact, the Archbishop revealed that the church was in the process of securing a share in one of the companies currently bidding for the EEZ’s blocks. “We are in contact with certain companies so we can participate as well,” said the Archbishop. “The church is ready, I already have a document in front of me, we are examining it and very soon we too will ask for a share in the drilling, the supply of natural gas and even the (liquefaction) terminals.” He said the church wasn’t acting any differently to other Cypriots, who mortgaged their homes or plots to get a loan. “The church will be doing something similar, it will mortgage some land and get a loan, so it can join these efforts,” said Chrysostomos.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Center Left is Pro Euro, PD Secretary Bersani
(AGI) Orvieto — Pd Secretary Pierluigi Bersani addressed the attendees of an Acli, Italian Christian Workers Association, meeting and explained that “when an investor is about to buy Italian bonds, he or she is bound to make a few considerations.” Then he added “the investor will weigh the current situation and understand that Bersani and Casini are in favour of the euro, but Berlusconi often voices his desire to go back to the lira.Grillo, the 5 star movement leader, goes as far as saying Italy should not repay its debt. Pdl and Grillo’s movement may represent half of the Italian voters, then we should ask ourselves why should an investor buy Italian bonds?” concluded Pd Bersani. Italy’s Democratic Party — Pd, is working at presenting a law to regulate political parties. In this respect the party’s Secretary remarked that “those who are against it, do not believe in parties but are convinced that one leader suffice to lead the country.” Continuing along this line, Pierluigi Bersani voiced his commitment to organize “ a progressist area open to Europeists who attach the greatest relevance to the country’s Constitution and are against any form of populism.” In his speech he also gave some hard figures, “ Italy lost 16 points in industrial production since 2005, while Germany gained 10 points in the same period. If production falls, it is Italy’s very social model which is at risk. Employment has increased only in the field of house-help.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenian PM Jansa to Dublin to Talk Banking Crisis
Slovenian gov’t to give banks 1 bln euro bailout
(ANSAmed) — Ljubljana, September 11 — Slovenian Premier Janez Jansa travels to Ireland tomorrow to learn how the Irish government put their banks back on their feet following the 2008 crash, local media cited the premier’s office as saying on Tuesday.
Slovenia will likely face a similar scenario in the coming months, and Jansa wants to be prepared. Yesterday in Luxembourg, Jansa told Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker that while Slovenia’s situation is “serious, Ljubljana has the potential to come out of the crisis” without asking for a bailout.
Slovenia will invest 1 billion euros to bail out the country’s major state-owned banks, according to Economics Minister Janez Sustercic.
But the bailout might have to amount to much more, analysts said. Following a string of state company and consortium failures, Slovenia’s three major lenders own 6-8 billion euros of bad loans between them, and this could amount to a bailout equal to 17% of GDP. At that point, asking for an EU bailout would be inevitable.
The government has aired the possibility of a so-called bad bank, which keep the nation’s credit system solvent by taking on all its bad loans. After a series of ratings agencies downgrades and with its 10-year bond at 6.5%, Slovenia’s immediate problem is how to cover expenses and debt financing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ten Shocking Quotes About What QE3 is Going to Do to America
Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish. The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity.
But that didn’t happen with either QE1 or QE2. Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money. As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending? Of course not. In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs.
[…]
The real debate about QE3 should not be about whether or not it will help the economy a little bit in the short-term. Rather, everyone should be talking about the long-term implications and about how QE3 is going to accelerate the destruction of the dollar.
The following are 10 shocking quotes about what QE3 is going to do to America…
#1 Ron Paul
“It means we are weakening the dollar. We are trying to liquidate our debt through inflation. The consequence of what the Fed is doing is a lot more than just CPI. It has to do with malinvestment and people doing the wrong things at the wrong time. Believe me, there is plenty of that. The one thing that Bernanke has not achieved and it frustrates him, I can tell—is he gets no economic growth. He doesn’t do anything with the unemployment numbers. I think the country should have panicked over what the Fed is saying that we have lost control and the only thing we have left is massively creating new money out of thin air, which has not worked before, and is not going to work this time.”
#2 Peter Schiff, CEO Of Euro Pacific Capital
“This is a disastrous monetary policy; it’s kamikaze monetary policy”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alleged ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Filmmaker Taken in for Interviewing by Deputies
Just after midnight, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Arab world. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies escorted a man believed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to an awaiting car. The man declined to answer questions on his way out and wore a hat and a towel over his face. He kept his hands in the pocket of a winter coat. Sheriff’s officials could not be reached by The Times, but department spokesman Steve Whitmore told NBC4 that deputies assisting the federal probation department took Nakoula to the sheriff’s substation in Cerritos for interviewing.
[Updated at 1:40 a.m. Saturday: Whitmore told the Times that Nakoula was taken in for a voluntary interview with probation officials and has not been arrested or detained.] Authorities waited until most media had left for the day.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Case Closed: If Moderate Voters See This Video, It’s Over for Obama
This is a stunning thirteen minute video that shows Obama in his own words, with commentary from mostly mainstream media sources. If this video goes viral and reaches moderate and independent voters, it would be a big blow to the Obama re-election bid.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chicagoland: Useful Idiocy on Display
Eventually liberalism turns on itself and starts eating its own. Evil always does.
If you want to see liberalism devouring itself, Chicago is a great petri dish to observe. There liberals are always pitted against other liberals as they vie for an ever shrinking piece of the pie. Those insisting on a bigger slice do not realize the fact that the pie keeps getting smaller because of liberalism in the first place.
Look at this past week for an example of why Chicago is a perfect case study in how liberalism consumes itself. You have Rahm Emanuel, Mayor and far leftist who used to be President Obama’s left hand man. You have the Chicago school board, all liberals. Then you have, finally, the teacher’s union whose leadership and membership act like perfect little soldiers of Karl Marx. And all three are in conflict.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Claim: Obama Hid ‘Gay Life’ To Become President
Chicago homosexual community shocked he could keep it secret
A prominent member of Chicago’s homosexual community claims Barack Obama’s participation in the “gay” bar and bathhouse scene was so well known that many who were aware of his lifestyle were shocked when he ran for president and finally won the White House.
“It was preposterous to the people I knew then to think Obama was going to keep his gay life secret,” said Kevin DuJan, who was a gossip columnist in Chicago for various blogs when Obama was living in the city as a community organizer and later a state senator.
“Nobody who knew Obama in the gay bar scene thought he could possibly be president,” said DuJan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Film Maker Behind Anti-Muslim Video ‘Could be Sent Back to Jail’
The man behind the anti-Islamic film that sparked violent unrest in the Middle East could be sent back to jail for violating his probation by distributing the movie.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, has convictions for possessing drugs used to make methamphetamine and bank fraud, a declaration of bankruptcy, demands for unpaid tax bills, and a byzantine network of at least 17 aliases including “Kritbag Difrat” and “PJ Tobacco.”
Nakoula, a balding, married father of three and an Egyptian Coptic Christian, who once owned a petrol station, is believed to have worked on the script for “Innocence of Muslims” in a California jail cell.
Production began weeks after he was released from a halfway house in June last year.
He is currently on probation after serving a year of a 21-month sentence for fraud, which involved obtaining credit cards in the names of other people.
He was also banned from using the internet, computers and email without the approval of a probation officer for five years.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Heresy of the Week: The Elites May be Corrupt, But Then So is Everyone Else
In a guest post for the Zero Hedge blog, Charles Hugh Smith has some home truths for his fellow Americans:
“…America has become a nation of skimmers and scammers. The rot runs deep not just in the upper reaches of the financial and political Elites, but in the bottom 99.5% as well.
“America can now be summarized by this phrase: “don’t call out my scam and I won’t call out yours.” In other words, all the skimmers and scammers have become complicit, not just in protecting their own scam from the light of day, but in protecting everyone else’s scams, too, lest those who lose their swag unmask someone else’s scam in revenge.”
Hugh Smith provides some examples of what he calls the “rot below”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islam is Radical
by Diana West
In this address (click “Read More” if you don’t see it), the excellent Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MI) makes the crucial, overlooked connections between Islamic sharia speech restrictions — as systemically promoted by the Islamic bloc countries of the OIC and the Obama administration — and how the violence across the Middle East this week fits into the OIC-Obama-Clinton strategy to enforce sharia speech restrictions even on Americans, despite our First Amendment rights.
It’s important to realize sharia’s prohibition of criticism of Islam is basic Islam: There is nothing “radical” about it. Indeed, it is this basic Islamic censorship that is at the crux of why Islam itself — not “Islamism,” not “radical Islam,” not “Islamists,” but Islam — is an existential threat to the survival of any free society. It is why free societies, once penetrated by a Muslim demographic over 1 percent, begin to lose their liberties as a means of “accommodating” — appeasing — their new Islamic populations.
The problem is that no one in public life in America, land of the First Amendment, will acknowledge this fundamental, non-radical Islamic threat to this single most important foundation of our liberty — free speech. And that includes even La Belle Michele. Early in her speech she gives what might be considered the obligatory sop to PC. While it won’t provide her a shred of political cover, it does shatter the arc of understanding the threat, which is why I mention it.
Bachmann, from the C-SPAN transcript :
No one here is suggestion that all Muslims are radical, but we should not be ignorant of the objective reality that there is a very radical wing of Islam that is dedicated to the destruction of America, of Israel, and of Israel’s allies.
All Muslims are not radical, she says, which is a logical enough statement, although truly beside the point, which concerns the existential threat posed by Islamic law and ideology to Western liberty. Juxtaposing Bachmann’s non-radical Muslims with that “very radical wing of Islam” she also singles out takes us all right back to the “tiny band of extremists” theme, sounded by everyone from George W. Bush after 9/11/01 to Hillary Clinton after 9/11/12…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Marchionne Sings Chrysler’s Praises
‘We can’t stop now’ says Fiat and Chrysler CEO
(ANSA) New York, September 11; Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne sang Chrysler’s praises on Monday to representatives of over 2,600 Chrysler auto dealers, mainly from North America but also from around the world.
Chrysler has comeback stronger, more dynamic and more creative than ever before, Marchionne told dealers at a trade show in Las Vegas.
Chrysler’s new autos demonstrate ‘our firepower’ Marchionne said.
He added that Chrysler had embraced a culture of rapid response to opportunities and faster decision-making than before.
However, products of great quality and design are not enough to guarantee success, he said.
“We can’t stop now, we can’t take a break. We must stay focused and committed,” Marchionne said. United States auto sales are expected to see their best year since 2007, and to gain 10% for a third straight year, Bloomberg reported.
Chrysler reported total sales in August increased 14%, while the successful introduction of the Dart in June helped extend its streak of US sales gains to 29 months in a row.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
More Sniper Ammunition Being Ordered by DHS. Who Are the Targets?
Surprise! The DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement have requested more ammunition.
However, it is the type of ammunition and not necessarily the quantity that is troubling.
First on the agenda is the .223 rifle ammunition. Just a measly 40 million rounds in the first year, and another 160 million rounds in the following four years. 200,00 million rounds in total. You know, just enough to make you cringe thinking that some government office that is not military has more ammunition than you do.
The .223 caliber round is a decent hunting round, but those are not the rounds to be concerned about.
The .308 rounds should have you a bit concerned. Quite a bit concerned.
Why the .308? Because the same folks at DHS think they need two types of .308 caliber rounds. Blank ammunition and 168 grain hollow point boat tail ammunition.
The blank ammunition will be spread to five different locations in the American south east and in Puerto Rico. The regular ammunition will be spread all over the US in a variety of places.
Blank ammunition? Why blank ammunition?
Well, as it turns out blank ammunition is fantastic for putting on a show. Blank ammunition is used in theatrics (hmmm?) but also is used to help teach new shooters to develop trigger and breathing control.
Nevertheless, have no fear; DHS only needs 25,000 rounds to develop good sniper skills.
Because, they have also ordered 176,000 rounds of the .308 caliber hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds.
Boat tail ammunition is incredibly accurate ammunition.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Open Mosque in New Tampa
NEW TAMPA — A gleaming new mosque topped with two soaring minarets and a golden dome is open for daily prayer services on Morris Bridge Road north of Cross Creek Boulevard. Leaders of Dar-us-Salaam, which translates in English to House of Peace, want the center to serve as a place of worship for area Muslims and a gathering spot for people of all faiths to foster a better understanding of the Islamic religion…
[JP note: Bad timing.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Presumed Author of Blasphemous Film Interrogated by FBI
(AGI) Washington — The man thought to be the author of the film on Mohammed that outraged Islam is being interrogated by the FBI. The Federal Bureau is evaluating the possibility of indicting him. The news was reported by the police. According to the Los Angeles Times, shortly after midnight, Nakoula Basseley Nakoulaun was taken from his home by the County of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff who then accompanied him to a car that was waiting outside. The police reported that the man voluntarily left his house and is not in custody.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Rot Runs Deep 2: Don’t Call Out My Scam and I Won’t Call Out Yours
by Charles Hugh Smith
Complicity reigns supreme as everyone benefiting from a scam keeps quiet about everyone else’s skim lest their own share of the spoils fall under the harsh light of inquiry.
The uncomfortable truth is that America has become a nation of skimmers and scammers. The rot runs deep not just in the upper reaches of the financial and political Elites, but in the bottom 99.5% as well.
America can now be summarized by this phrase: “don’t call out my scam and I won’t call out yours.” In other words, all the skimmers and scammers have become complicit, not just in protecting their own scam from the light of day, but in protecting everyone else’s scams, too, lest those who lose their swag unmask someone else’s scam in revenge.
Examples of skimming and scamming abound in finance and government. It’s almost tiresome to even list examples; fortunately for us, tireless truthseeker “George Washington” has amassed a list of bank fraud and malfeasance (reprinted by the equally indefatigable Barry Ritholtz).
It’s easy to skewer the financial and political Elites’ abuses of power, but few look at all the rot below. The fraud and embezzlement-riddled mortgage market of the previous decade included not just investment bankers but non-Elite Americans who lied about their income, debt, and other material facts in order to obtain a fraudulent mortgage.
Another “middle class” scam is practiced by public workers nearing retirement. (Please don’t claim this doesn’t happen, I have first-hand accounts from cousins with 30-year careers in fire and police departments.) Since the pensions are based on the top three years of pay, soon-to-retire workers pile up the overtime to amass much higher pay in their last years. Everyone involved helps make this happen because they expect to pull the same scam when their time comes.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
TV Networks Will be Asked to Boost Obamacare in Plots of Their Top Shows
Abby Goodnough of The New York Times is reporting as the California state government is setting up its ObamaCare exchange, the exchange has hired a PR firm (with federal government money).
“Realizing that much of the battle will be in the public relations realm, the exchange has poured significant resources into a detailed marketing plan — developed not by state health bureaucrats but by the global marketing powerhouse Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, which has an initial $900,000 contract with the exchange,” she wrote. Ogilvy’s plan is to tap major network TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Modern Family” to sell Americans on the health care law:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Teen Held in ‘Jihad’ Terrorist Bomb Attempt at Chicago Bar
Adel Daoud, 18, of Hillside, was arrested Friday night when he tried to blow up what he thought was a car bomb in front of a downtown bar after undercover federal agents supplied him with a Jeep fitted with fake explosives, prosecutors announced today.
Daoud was charged today with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to destroy a building using explosives. Daoud had come to the FBI’s attention this spring after he posted something online, and after an FBI undercover agent contacted him, he “expressed an interest in engaging in violent jihad, either in the United States or overseas,” according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Starting last October, Daoud started using an email account “to obtain and distribute material, some of which he purported to author, relating to violent jihad and the killing of Americans,” according to court documents.
In May, two undercover agents started communicating with Daoud, and in May and June, he sought guidance about carrying out a terror attack. Based on his research on the topic, Daoud “confirmed his belief in the propriety of killing Americans in a terrorist attack,” to one of the undercover agents, according to an affidavit in the case.
During his Web research on the topic of violent jihad, Daoud posted on a Web forum “on or about June 2 … Daoud wrote that he recognized ‘9/11’ was ‘halal,’ but requested advice about other circumstances in which Americans may be killed in accordance with the Quran,” according to the affidavit.
Daoud put together a list of 29 possible targets that he sent to one of the undercover agents. “The targets included military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and other tourist attractions in and around the Chicago area,” according to the affidavit.
Daoud met with one of the undercover agents in a park in Villa Park on Aug. 6, and told the agent he decided a bar would be a good target, because, he told the agent, “if we target a bar, like a populated bar, I think it’s usually at night so that actually makes it easier because of the darkness.”
While he was planning the attack, a religious leader at his mosque confronted Daoud in mid-August, and, along with Daoud’s father, tried to convince him violent jihad was wrong, and he should stop talking about it, according to the affidavit. Another person who had been working with Daoud on the plans backed out of working with him because he had reservations about killing “random Americans,” according to the affidavit.
To plan the attack, Daoud spent time with one of the undercover agents, checking the area around the target, and checked the Jeep that contained a fake explosive device on Thursday.
On Friday, Daoud met up with the undercover agent in Villa Park, and they drove to downtown Chicago, according to court documents.
On the way, Daoud led the agent “in a prayer that Daoud and the [agent] succeed in their attack, kill many people, and cause destruction,” according to the affidavit.
The two went to a parking lot where the Jeep with fake explosives was parked, according to the complaint against him. Daoud and the agent got into the Jeep about 8 p.m. Friday, and after the agent got out and walked toward the bar, Daoud drove it to near the bar.
Daoud parked the Jeep, then walked about a block away, and, with the agent present, tried to blow up the Jeep, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The FBI then arrested him.
| — Hat tip: PM | [Return to headlines] |
US Authorities Question Anti-Islam Film Suspect Nakoula
A man suspected of involvement in the making of an anti-Islamic film that has sparked violent protests across the Middle East and north Africa is being questioned by US probation officers.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was convicted of bank fraud in 2010 and later released on condition that he did not access the internet or use aliases. He has denied involvement in the film, clips of which have been posted online. At least seven people died in protests over the film on Friday. Violence flared in Khartoum, Tunis and Cairo and there are fears of further unrest…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US Communists Defend Iran, Oppose “Islamophobia”
The pro-Iran/Cuba/North Korea/China/Venezuela Workers World Party, through its fronts, the International Action Center and United National Anti-war Coalition, is planning anti-War rallies across America in October.
The relationship between international communism, Iran and Islamic terrorism, can no longer be denied by any serious commentator.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What Are the Milipolice Planning on Doing With These Heavily Armored Vehicles?
[Comments: Check out the pictures of the “rescue” vehicles]
With a massive biometric FBI surveillance system going live across the United States in recent weeks, tens of thousands of drones to be flying over American skies within just a few years, over 1 billion rounds of ammunition being acquired by non-military government agencies, and host of laws and executive orders outlining military and police emergency response plans to lock down the United States, it isn’t much of a stretch to suggest that our government is preparing for something that aims to fundamentally transform America as we know it today.
New evidence for a coming lock-down of America is presented to the public by citizen journalists and alternative media on an almost weekly basis, which suggests that whatever is being planned is on a much more accelerated schedule now than ever before.
The latest, from alternative news hub Rense.com, indicates that Department of Homeland Security is expecting significant push-back in the very near future, which explains why they would need some 2,500 heavily armored [military grade] vehicles with DHS Police/Rescue logos:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Night With the Fanatics
By Michael Coren
On Tuesday evening, I covered a 9/11 vigil in Toronto, and a counter-protest across the street organized by Islamic and leftist groups calling for the return of Omar Khadr.
We didn’t know that as this was taking place, Muslim fascists in Libya and Egypt were murdering people who had in some way offended them.
One of the dead was the U.S. ambassador to Libya, representing a nation that had given so much to free the Libyan people from tyranny.
The ostensible reason for the slaughter was outrage over a fringe movie depicting the prophet Mohammed in a negative light.
So what? We are supposed to be free to speak our minds. The issue here is not the movie but the Islamic reaction to the movie.
Remember, the same week this tiny film was made public, the internationally celebrated Venice Film Festival gave an award to a movie showing a naked woman masturbating with a crucifix.
The Christian response was an e-mail.
I doubt any of this would have moved the crazies protesting Tuesday.
They described their demonstration as a hate-free zone, but told me and the other Sun News team to “f—- off” as soon as we arrived.
Not one of the many protesters could tell me the name of the medic who was killed by Omar Khadr, and some of them said it didn’t matter.
They were also indifferent to the stories I told them of Christians, gays, women and moderate Muslims being slaughtered by militant Islamists.
What was noticeable was how many non-Muslim, white student types were there, including one with a megaphone with OCAP — Ontario Coalition Against Poverty — written on it, as an ownership marker.
In that most of the crowd seemed to have the latest iPhones and iPads, I’m not sure where the poverty was.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Protest Goes to the Dogs
TORONTO — A much anticipated dog walk protest outside an east-Toronto mosque Friday turned out to be a hopelessly neutered event. Around 20 demonstrators turned up outside the Salahuddin Islamic Centre for the Walk Your Dog in Front of a Mosque protest. It was organized in response to a Jewish man who was arrested at a recent Islamic demonstration following an altercation in which his dog was kicked by a demonstrator. Around 20 humans and three dogs — two retrievers and a pomeranian — turned up for the two and a half hour event and converged at the entrance of the mosque, located on Kennedy Rd. south of Eglinton Ave. E. Some devout Muslims consider dogs to be unclean and avoid them…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Barroso: Europe Federation ‘Unavoidable’
The European Commission’s president Jose Manuel Barroso says a federation of Europe is “unavoidable” if Europe’s embattled common currency is to survive the financial crisis.
Barroso’s comments to CNN followed Wednesday’s annual “State of the Union” address, which he delivered in Strasbourg, France, making the case for a unified Europe to stem the euro-area’s debt crisis.
In reference to the euro, shared by 17-member states, Barroso told CNN: “A single currency depends on the solidity, on the credibility of the institutions and the political construct behind it. So, I believe [a federation] is going to happen.
“We are saying that in some areas, like the common currency, like the supervision of the banks, like the common supervision of the budgets, we need this sharing of sovereignty,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Unleash Intelligent Robot Bins: No ID, No Rubbish
The robo-bins have an RFID reader in the lid, and will only open when presented with some ID. The quantity of rubbish is then used to calculate the customer’s bill, but things going into the recycling pile are free — so the scheme drives recycling. The bins also know how much rubbish has been dumped, so they use their embedded phone to call up a truck over Vodafone’s GPRS network when they’re full, reducing the distance trucks have to drive.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Calls on Muslim Governments to Protect Embassies
Chief EU diplomat Catherine Ashton strongly condemned the attacks on Western diplomatic missions in several Muslim countries and urged the local authorities to ensure their security. “I have been following the development with great concern and urge the national authorities of the affected countries to quickly ensure the safety of diplomatic missions and to protect diplomatic personnel,” she said in a statement to RIA Novosti…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Berlusconi Tabloid Publishes Topless Photos of Kate Middleton
Roma, 14 Sept (AKI) — A French weekly owned by Italian media magnate and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi has published photos of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless poolside during a recent holiday.
Prince William and his wife are reported to be furious at the series of photos published in the Closer magazine, taken during a private holiday last week at William’s cousin Viscount Linley’s secluded chateau in Provence, in the south of France.
In a statement the couple said they did not rule out legal action against the tabloidover the pictures, said to show the couple smearing sun cream over their bodies in between taking a dip in plus 30 degree temperatures.
“Their Royal Highnesses have been hugely saddened to learn that a French publication and a photographer have invaded their privacy in such a grotesque and totally unjustifiable manner,’ the couple said in a strongly worded statement today.
“It is unthinkable that anyone should take such photographs, let alone publish them.
“Officials acting on behalf of Their Royal Highnesses are consulting with lawyers to consider what options may be available to The Duke and Duchess.”
Closer, with a readership of close to 3.5 million is run by Italian publisher Mondadori, owned by former Berlusconi’s holding company Fininvest.
It is not the first tabloid to publish risque pictures of members of the royal family.
Photographs taken of Prince Harry partying naked with a girl in his Las Vegas hotel room caused an Internet sensation last month after were sold to a US website last month.
Earlier this year, an Australian tabloid published pictures of the Duchess wearing a skimpy bikini and the latest photos are likely to reignite debate over the royal family’s privacy.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
French Alps Shooting: Zainab Al-Hilli Told Police She Saw ‘One Bad Man’
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
The British girl left for dead after the French Alps massacre only saw one ‘bad man’, police said yesterday.
Zainab Al-Hilli, seven, returned to the UK yesterday, eight days after she was shot in the shoulder and beaten around the head.
Last night a source close to the investigation said: ‘She told us there was only one killer, who she called a bad man.’
This is likely to mean that he reloaded at least once as he carried out the terrible bloodbath.
Doctors who treated her in Grenoble said she suffered brain injuries and could lose sight in one eye.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 37 ‘Ndrangheta Arrests Around Milan
Operation ‘dismantled remains of clans in Milan and Monza’
(ANSA) — Milan, September 11 — Italian police on Tuesday arrested 37 suspects in a sweep against the Calabrian-based ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Lombardy, the region around Milan. The arrests are believed to have dismantled what remains of ‘Ndrangheta gangs rooted in Milan and its northern neighboring city Monza, anti-mafia investigators said Tuesday, after a massive blitz of arrests truncated the organization two years ago.
Crime boss for the Giusanno district north of Monza, Ulisse Panetta, and members of the Cristello and Corigliano crime families were among those arrested.
Investigators remarked that local businessmen victimized with extortion or loan-sharking by the gangs did not report the crimes to police; just as their counterparts in southern Italy keep their silence or ‘omerta’.
A new ‘pentito’ or collaborator from the Lombardy ‘Ndrangheta; Michael Panaja — offered fundamental leads for the investigation leading to Tuesday’s sweep.
Panaja was arrested with another collaborator, Antonino Belnome, a man considered among those responsible for the 2008 murder of Carmelo Novella.
Novella was the ‘boss of bosses’ among Lombardy’s ‘Ndrangheta gangs, and was executed for wanting to sever ties with the parent crime group in Calabria. Panaja informed the police of what had happened among the ‘Ndrangheta gangs in Lombardy after a massive blitz of 170 arrests in July 2010, which led to accelerated trials for 110.
In Italy, accelerated trials are considered an indicator of guilt, as suspects usually submit to accelerated trials in exchange for leniency in their sentencing. Panaja told police how, after the 2010 sweep, the gangs of Giussano and Seregno continued to intimidate small businessmen; especially those from Calabria; with extortion and usury, in addition to trafficking drugs and keeping weapons.
The operation was coordinated by state police and by one of Milan’s most feared anti-mafia prosecutors, Ilda Boccassini, along with prosecutors Alessandra Dolci and Cecilia Vassena.
‘Ndrangheta has been active in northern Italy for decades.
It also has branches in Germany and other northern European countries as well as Australia and Canada.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims’ U.S. Flag Burning Protests Spread to Britain
The terrifying tide of violent protests sweeping the Islamic world over an anti-Muslim film hit London yesterday.
Elsewhere British diplomats were in fear for their lives, with staff at the embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, locking themselves in as 5,000 angry demonstrators raged and lit fires in an attack on the German embassy next door.
In London, 150 protesters marched on the US embassy chanting ‘burn burn USA’ as the American flag went up in flames, soon joined by the Israeli flag.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Most Dangerous People in Britain Carry Free Bus-Passes
by Thomas Pascoe
The expectation of a recovery still persists. The public has been remarkably forgiving of the Bank of England’s policy of devaluing their savings through quantitative easing (QE). In the short-term, the outlook is still inflationary as the European Central Bank’s (ECB) new and unlimited programme of bond buying sees the world’s central banks united in their determination to beat the markets. Outside of the finance bubble, most accept that there will need to be a couple of very ugly years as the system purges itself of the toxins of financial and political recklessness. The political vision and leadership necessary to endure those days is absent at present, but it will arrive eventually.
In any case, the expectation seems to be that eventually it all will turn out alright. Once the medicine has been administered for the excesses of the boom years, there seems to be a sense that we will return to a comfy 3pc growth rate, low inflation to “oil the wheels” and a low-tax enterprise economy. I think this expectation is wrong. There’s a black swan event taking place in slow motion which we still have not spotted. Or a grey swan, more accurately. We have more pensioners than ever. There are more over 65s in Britain than under-16s. As a group they will require more spending, over a longer period, and funded by fewer people than ever before…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 250 Girls Under 16 Given Bigger Breasts on NHS at Cost of £5,000 a Time
More than 250 girls aged 16 and under have had breast enlargements paid for by the NHS over the past five years, official figures have revealed.
Across all age groups, more than 3,000 women had augmentation surgery last year — up almost a third in five years.
Girls as young as ten have gone under the knife, despite concerns that they are not old enough for the procedure at that age.
The Department of Health said NHS-funded breast augmentation would only take place for recognised clinical reasons, not merely for cosmetic ones.
But Nigel Mercer, a consultant plastic surgeon, said that the procedure could be given the go-ahead if a GP believed the patient was suffering psychological problems because of the size of their breasts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 5,000 Expected at Bradford Protest Over Pakistan Drone Attacks
Organisers claim about 5,000 people could take part in a peaceful protest being held in Centenary Square, Bradford, today over drone attacks in Pakistan.
The demonstration, being held by the Bradford Global Justice Movement, will take place near City Hall from 5.30pm.
The main speakers are expected to be Bradford West Respect MP George Galloway , journalist and peace activist Yvonne Ridley and Imran Khan, of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf. They will highlight civilian killings in the country due to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Organiser Shah Sher, said: “There is growing alarm against US drone attacks in civilian areas and British intelligence assistance with this lethal force. Such transfer of military force is unacceptable considering the moral justification for military intervention — to save civilian lives overseas.”
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “We are aware of the planned demonstration and will be providing a visible policing presence.”
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Azhar Ahmed Convicted of Offensive Facebook Message
A teenager has been found guilty of posting an offensive Facebook message following the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.
Azhar Ahmed, 19, of Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was charged with sending a grossly offensive communication. He told Huddersfield Magistrates Court he accepted the message had been “unacceptable” but had denied it was “grossly offensive”. The judge said his comments were “derogatory” and “inflammatory”. The six soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Lashkar Gah on 6 March in the deadliest single attack on British forces in Afghanistan since 2001. Sgt Nigel Coupe, 33, of 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, was killed alongside Cpl Jake Hartley, 20, Pte Anthony Frampton, 20, Pte Christopher Kershaw, 19, Pte Daniel Wade, 20, and Pte Daniel Wilford, 21, all of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment.
‘So upsetting’
The offensive message, which said “all soldiers should die and go to hell”, was posted by Ahmed just two days later on 8 March.
Ahmed told the court he was only trying to make his point that many other deaths in Afghanistan were being ignored and added he had no idea it would cause so much upset. He said he replied with apologies to many people who commented on his Facebook page and when some told him they had lost relatives in Afghanistan he realised how serious it was. “That’s when I realised it was unacceptable for them to see something so upsetting and distressing, to write something like that,” he added. District Judge Jane Goodwin said Ahmed’s Facebook remarks were “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory”. He will be sentenced later.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: EDL Leader Threatens to Broadcast Anti-Muslim Film
by Nick Lowles
English Defence League leader Stehpen Lennon is threatening to show the disgusting ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film. HOPE not hate believes that if he does he should immediately be prosecuted for incitement. The film has been produced by rabid anti-Muslim haters in the US and is deliberately designed to whip up tensions, hatred and violence. Steve Klein, a right wing Christian evangelical who was one of those behind the film, boasted to the US blogsite Huffington Post: “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen” after the deaths of four Americans in Libya. Only today 20-year-old Azhar Ahmed, from Dewsbury, was found guilty of sending a grossly offensive message when he wrote on facebook: “all soldiers should die and go to hell”. If he got convicted of that then Lennon should be prosecuted for airing the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film. He should also be held accountable for any British citizens who are attacked as a consequence…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Farmer Shot at Thieves’ Van to Save His Mother’s Life. Now He Could Face Attempted Murder Trial
A young farmer who saved his mother from being run over by intruders fears he could be prosecuted for attempted murder.
Bill Edwards, 21, fired his shotgun at a van laden with stolen metal cable after catching thieves red-handed on his family’s property.
The former public schoolboy said he acted in desperation as they sped towards his mother, Louisa Smith, 50, who was dialling 999.
As they called police, the suspects jumped into the van, revved the engine and accelerated towards Mrs Smith at least twice, knocking her over.
In the confusion Mr Edwards fired his legally held shotgun, which was loaded with light-weight rabbit shot. The shots shattered the windscreen and damaged the door but the driver was unharmed and drove through a gate to escape.
But when police finally intercepted two suspects after a high-speed chase Mr Edwards was arrested and told he could be charged with attempted murder.
The dramatic confrontation will reignite the controversy over how far householders can go to protect their families and property from criminals.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: GPs Are Given Cash ‘Bribes’ Not to Send Patients to Hospital
Doctors are to be offered cash ‘bribes’ to slash the number of patients they send to hospital.
GPs have been promised financial incentives of up to £26,000 for their surgery if they take certain measures to reduce referrals.
Every time a doctor sends a patient to hospital for a scan, consultation or operation, the local NHS trust is charged for the cost of their treatment.
The trusts are trying to save money by urging GPs to cut the numbers of so-called ‘inappropriate’ referrals.
But leading doctors, including members of the British Medical Association, say it is ‘unethical’ to pay doctors for effectively withholding treatment.
Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the GP committee at the British Medical Association, said: ‘There is no way that paying doctors for withdrawing treatment is acceptable.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Islam Must be Scrutinised
This is a press release by The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain would like to make public its support for Tom Holland’s Channel 4 documentary ‘Islam: The Untold Story’. We are indignant to learn that due to threats made on Holland, Channel 4 has cancelled a repeat screening of the historical inquiry into the origins of Islam similar to the kind of inquiry that has been applied to other religions and histories in Britain for many years. The threats and concerted attempt to stigmatise the documentary and its producers by attacking its credibility and even legitimacy as a field of inquiry is nothing less than an attempt to impose a blasphemy taboo by stealth and coercion against programming that scrutinises Islam. Caving in to the coercive pressure of Islamists will have catastrophic effects on free inquiry and expression where it pertains to Islam. It would not only further silence academic, historical and theological scrutiny of Islam but would also have the chilling effect of exerting added pressure on Muslims and ex-Muslims who wish to dissent from and question Islam…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Imam Jailed for Sexually Assaulting Children
An Imam from Northamptonshire who sexually assaulted two children he was teaching about the Koran has been jailed for 12 months.
Abdul Matin, 41, of Albert Road, Wellingborough, was previously convicted of abusing two youngsters under the age of 13.
He was put on the sex offenders register and banned from working with children, both for 10 years.
Matin, who was sentenced at Derby Crown Court, was found guilty in July.
Invented allegations
He was convicted of seven sexual assaults over 12 months from January 2007.
During his trial, Northampton Crown Court heard that Matin had touched the children sexually, kissed them, and forced one of them on to his lap.
Police were first alerted to the case after one of the children told a school teacher about the classes.
Matin, who came to Britain from Bangladesh in 2004, had constantly denied the claims and said the children had invented the allegations.
Rebecca Herbert, prosecuting, told Matin: “You thought you would be completely above suspicion, you thought you could get away with it, get away with touching these [children].”
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Protesters Burn Flags Outside US Embassy in London
Some 200 demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in London on Friday to vent their anger over a film that is said to insult the Prophet Mohammed.
Protesters burned an American and an Israeli flag outside the Embassy in Grosvenor Square in central London while others waved banners declaring that Muslims would eventually conquer America. Police with machine guns watched from within the grounds of the embassy, just a few yards from the protest. “We are here to say that the Muslims will always rise up to defend the Prophet and the Koran,” said protest organiser Anjem Choudhary. The protest was prompted by a 13-minute English-language video, which was filmed in California and which portrays the Muslim Prophet Mohammed engaging in crude and offensive behaviour. Many of the Islamic faith regard any depiction of the prophet as blasphemous…
[JP note: Article contains video of protests.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Belgrade ‘Must Choose Between Kosovo and EU Membership’
Belgrade, 14 Sept. (AKI) — Belgrade must choose between Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, and European Union membership, German MP Andreas Shokenhoff said on Thursday, reiterating his country’s position.
Serbia won official EU candidate status in March, but Shokenhoff told a press conference in Belgrade Serbia would have to sign a “binding agreement” on establishing “good neighbourly relations” with Muslim-majority Kosovo before opening accession talks with the EU.
Similar messages have been coming from Berlin and other European capitals for the past year, but Serbian leaders had tried to play them down, claiming that Serbia could keep Kosovo and become a member of the EU at the same time.
Shokenhoff, a leading figure of the ruling Christian Democratic Union, said Serbia was deluding itself that it could ignore messages from Germany and other EU states and think it could join the bloc and retain Kosovo.
He spelled out seven conditions Belgrade would have to meet in order to join the EU including abolishing the “parallel institutions” Belgrade still operates in the Serb-populated northern Kosovo and the “normalisation of relations” with Pristina.
Shokenhoff’s message came as a “rude awakening,” according to analysts.
Analyst Predrag Simic said Serbia’s prospects of joining the EU now looked “very remote and extremely uncertain”.
Former prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, a staunch opponent of Kosovo’s independence, told media that Serbia’s former president Boris Tadic’s pro-western policy had been pure deception and the new government elected in May should declare “political neutrality” and give up on the EU membership.
Tomislav Nikolic, an ultranationalist turned pro-European who formed a new governing coalition after the May polls has pledged to continue on the European path without recognising Kosovo, a goal that now seems impossible, analysts said.
“The demand to sign an agreement on good neighbourly relations and seven conditions put forward by the Bundestag (German parliament) push Serbia into a position to choose between Kosovo and the EU,” Ognjen Pribicevic, former Serbian ambassador to Berlin was cited as telling media.
Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti said on Friday the country’s top leaders would would hold meetings in the next few days to try and forge a common position on Kosovo.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
“Innocence of Muslims” Video Allowing Obama Media to Control the Truth
No one in the mainstream American media will be asking the question that matters most: “Why are Obama and Hillary Clinton trying so hard to stuff it down the throats of the public at large, that a poorly made video rather than an act of terrorism well-coordinated to take place on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three members of his staff in Benghazi, Libya?
The answer to that question may mirror Jack Nicholson’s film retort to Tom Cruise:”You you can’t handle the truth!”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi: The Arab Spring Shows Its Face
by Srdja Trifkovic
It is the nature of men to create monsters, says virtual counter-hero Harlan Wade of F.E.A.R., and it is the nature of monsters to destroy their makers. Mary Shelley and the Golem come to mind, but what happened in Benghazi on Tuesday is more reminiscent of Bram Stoker. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens did not create it, but he was directly involved in helping unleash the dormant monster which destroyed him. His death is the paradigm for the U.S. policy vis-à-vis the world of Islam since 9-11.
“In the early days of the Libyan revolution, I asked Chris to be our envoy to the rebel opposition,” Hillary Clinton said in her eulogy. “He arrived on a cargo ship in the port of Benghazi and began building our relationships with Libya’s revolutionaries.” As an American liaison to insurgents who had just started to fight Qadafy’s forces, Stevens was instrumental in turning a local revolt into a fully-fledged rebellion. As ABC News notes, he was “literally on the rebels’ side while the revolution was at its most vulnerable.” Introducing himself as ambassador in a State Department video four months ago, Stevens said that he “was thrilled to watch the Libyan people stand up and demand their rights” during the uprising.
A remarkable aspect of Mrs. Clinton’s statement is that in her scheme of things, it is perfectly normal for U.S. Government agents to sneak into a foreign country that the United States recognizes as a sovereign state and with which it has normal diplomatic relations in order to incite rebellion against that country’s government. Let us imagine for a moment her reaction, and that of the U.S. media, to the news that Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has sent one of his diplomats to help the Sunni rebellion against al-Maliki in Iraq or FARC insurgents in Colombia. That man’s death at the hands of his protége’s would prompt a deluge of Schadenfreude; a smiling Mrs. Clinton could gloat that “he came, he saw, he died.”
More significant is the cowering reaction to the outrage in Libya from the American officialdom. The assault on the U.S. compound in Cairo came first with the frenzied Muslim mob scaling the walls, tearing down and burning the American flag, and raising the inscribed black banner of jihad in its place. The Embassy responded with a statement, which is indicative of the State Department esprit de corps: “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”
Not a word of reproach for the rioting mob inside the gates. Condemnation was reserved solely for the makers of an obscure and poorly produced video allegedly insulting the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. Available on Youtube for months, it merely provided an excuse to perpetuate the attack on the Embassy…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Mursi — Prophet Mohamed Red Line
In his speech broadcast on the Egyptian television from Brussels on Thursday 13/9/2012, President Mohamed Morsi condemned a film defaming Prophet Mohamed, stressing that the Prophet is a red line not to be compromised. The President stressed that the Islamic sanctities and Prophet Mohamed is a red line for all Muslims.
[JP note: No mercy.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Anti-Islam Movie Threatens Arab Relations With Washington
CAIRO, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) — Demonstrations in several Arab capitals over the past few days against a U.S.-made movie deemed insulting Islamic Prophet Mohammed put the Arab countries in an embarrassing situation, portending deterioration of their relations with Washington, said analysts. “These events will badly influence the Arab countries… which have witnessed most furious protests over anti-Islam film,” Fakhry Tahtawi, professor of Political Sciences in Cairo University, told Xinhua. It raises possibilities of the United States’ intervention, added Tahtawi, noting “the interference might be military, such as sending marine forces and battleships to Libyan coasts over the killing of four American employees in the U.S. consulate.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: All About Oil, Or All About Banking?
One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned…. Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny.
One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold, in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?
All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Middle East Analysis: WWIII Fuse Has Been Lit
The attacks against the U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt were planned far in advance by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in the U.S. It would appear that the Egyptian president had, at the very least, foreknowledge of these attack plans. The White House and State Department were warned of impending attacks on or about September 4, 2012, a full week before the attacks were carried out. A logical question to raise is why, then, was nothing done to prevent or at least mitigate the effects of these attacks? The answer is not as simple as the question, and not what everyone appears to be asserting.
[…]
At this point, all investigative evidence suggest that this film is not the motive behind the initial violence, yet it continues to be used by members of the U.S. government and the media to point the masses away from the real motive. It has served its intended purpose well, and will ultimately result in conforming our First Amendment rights to a larger UN body. All criticism of Islam will eventually be illegal on a global scale.
[…]
It is important to understand that the reason for sealing off Obama’s past is to prevent people from seeing the larger agenda of the man and the people who rose in an inexplicable meteoric fashion to the highest levels of public office — and entities and people behind him. Not only have we been denied the most basic access to his records and background, the top levels of our government have been concurrently infiltrated by both members of the Muslim Brotherhood and card-carrying members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) under his watch and with his imprimatur. While this did not begin under his watch, the process was exponentially and even overtly increased to unbelievable levels the minute he assumed office.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Radical Islamists Are Out to Kill Non-Radical Muslims, Along With Anyone Else Who Might Get in Their Way
by David Blair
The protests now taking place outside US embassies across the Middle East have been whipped up by a very modern phenomenon: an inflammatory video on YouTube, plus the incitement provided via Twitter and Facebook. But there is an uncanny precedent for today’s violence. Back in December 1979 — long before the advent of the internet or even satellite news channels — the American embassy in Libya was burned to the ground. Earlier, the US embassy in Pakistan had received the same treatment, costing the lives of two American Marines.
The attacks on both embassies were triggered by an almost forgotten event. In November 1979, a gang of Sunni extremists led by Juhayman al-Uteybi — the Osama bin Laden of his era — managed to take over the Grand Mosque in Mecca and murder hundreds of Muslim pilgrims. When news of the capture of the holiest site in Islam spread across the Muslim world, rumours and conspiracy theories were quick to start. The most poisonous suggested that America had somehow carried out the attack on the Grand Mosque.
This preposterous nonsense was widely believed, stirring such anger that the US embassies as far apart as Tripoli and Islamabad were wrecked. Before Twitter, Facebook, Emails or YouTube, globalised rumour and conspiracy-mongering was already powerful enough to persuade people thousands of miles apart to burn down the nearest US embassy. The only difference with today is that it took much longer for the message to spread. The attacks on the US embassies in Libya and Pakistan were separated by 10 days in 1979, whereas today’s incidents are almost simultaneous.
If you are interested in the attack on the Grand Mosque, let me recommend an excellent book, “The Siege of Mecca” by Yaroslav Trofimov. In the meantime, let me offer one other thought. We are often told that Islamist radicals are roused to fury by US foreign policy. If so, it’s odd how often they choose targets that have nothing to do with America. Instead, they tend to attack places that Muslims are supposed to value very highly. Juhayman al-Uteybi — en early inspiration for bin Laden — chose to defile the holiest of all the holy sites and murder hundreds of pilgrims in Mecca. More recently, al-Qaeda has bombed mosques and pilgrims in Iraq and Pakistan. Rather than being motivated purely by anti-Western sentiment, let me suggest that radical Islamists are out to kill non-radical Muslims, along with anyone else who might get in their way.
[Reader comment by steveruach on 14 September 2012 at 6:17 pm.]
David this is interesting but speculative, if you really want to know what’s going on in the Muslim world and the agenda that goes with it check out this site www.shoebat.com.
This guy knows exactly what’s going on and why. He will tell you in English what Muslim leaders are saying in Arabic to their Arabic audience!
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Mess in Libya — Who Built it?
The impostor president, Barry Soetoro aka Barack Obama, is taking massive heat over the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three staff members.
The actions of savages in Libya should be called a declaration of war against the United States. Instead, Barry has shown his usual inept “leadership” while pretending to be Commander in Chief.
The impostor Secretary of State, Marxist Hillary Clinton, seemed stunned that mobs of Muslims in Libya would bite the hand that feeds it: “ “Many Americans are asking — indeed, I asked myself — how could this happen?… How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?” How? You helped build the mess.
Her Ladyship also feels the need to mouth more politically correct vomit:
Hillary Doubled Down on Egypt ‘Apology’
“Clinton’s statements on the day’s events, released through the State Department’s web site and Twitter feed, condemn “in the strongest possible terms” an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya in Benghazi that left one American dead, but offer no condemnation of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. Instead, Clinton reiterates an apology issued earlier today by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo — now deleted — which said: “We condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”
[…]
“Then there is the attack in Cairo. They were led by Mohammad Zawahiri — Ayman Zawahiri’s brother. According the Thomas Josclyn in the Weekly Standard, the US media has been idiotically presenting him as some sort of moderate despite the fact that in an interview with Al Jazeerah he said said, “We in al Qaeda…” Egypt’s US supported Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi recently released Zawahiri from Egyptian prison. The same Barack Obama who has no time in his schedule to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu next week in New York, is scheduled to meet Morsi. The Egyptian government has not condemned the attack on the US Embassy in Cairo. But Morsi is demanding that the US government prosecute the film’s creator.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The OIC Condemns Violent Acts at American Missions in Cairo and Benghazi
The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu strongly condemned the tragic killing of the US Ambassador to Libya along with three other Consulate officials in Benghazi. In a statement issued in Jeddah today, the OIC Secretary General said that he was shocked by the reprehensible act which could not be condoned on any grounds. He also expressed grave concern attack at the US Embassy in Cairo.
He said the violence that had emanated from emotions aroused by a production of a film had hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims. The two incidents demonstrated serious repercussions of abuse of freedom of expression that OIC had consistently been warning against.
The OIC Secretary General added that while the film was a deplorable act of incitement, resorting to violence resulting in loss of innocent lives could not be condoned. The OIC Secretary General called for restraint and urged the concerned law enforcing officials to take all necessary measures to bring the situation under control.
He added that the international community could not be held hostage to the acts of extremists on either side. The Secretary General believed that the solution could only be found by addressing the issues pertaining to the freedom of religion and freedom of expression through structured international engagement and referred to the OIC initiative embodied in UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 and the Istanbul Process for its consensual implementation which provide with the avenues for such engagement.
| — Hat tip: ESW | [Return to headlines] |
What Can We Do to Stop These Embassy Attacks? The Answer Seems to be Absolutely Nothing
by David Blair
Like a wild brush fire, the protests outside US embassies have spread across the world today. Tunis, Abuja, Cairo, Dhaka — the list goes on. Once the mobs take to the streets, their targets can often be pretty random. The embassy that seems to have suffered more than any other today was, bizarrely, the German mission in Khartoum. This happens to be next to the British embassy, which was also attacked, although only as a secondary target. Why were the Germans singled out for the worst treatment? My theory is that it was probably a mistake. Perhaps the crowd assumed that the building next to the British embassy was bound to be the American mission. Or perhaps they mixed up the eagle on the German national crest with the bald eagle on the American one. Or perhaps they didn’t care and just attacked the building because it had a funny coloured flag outside.
In these situations, logic, facts and reality all go out of the window. So what can be done? Aside from forcing diplomats to live behind more and more coils of barbed wire, the answer is absolutely nothing. This incident goes to show the absurdity of the argument that suggests if only America and her allies wouldn’t invade Afghanistan, occupy Iraq, support Israel, give knighthoods to Salman Rushdie etc, then they could rebuild their relations with the Muslim world. In fact, all it takes is for a bunch of nutters to make a terrible film in California, and the German embassy in Khartoum gets attacked. There is nothing that we can do to prevent this kind of atavistic rage.
[Reader comment by steveleeoflondon on 15 September 2012 at about 1015 am.]
Do we expect anything else from the “religion of peace”? Why are people persecuted as bigots for pointing out the demonstrable truth about Islam and its followers?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Children Raised to Hate America: Shocking Picture of Boy Holding a Gun During Anti-US Riot in Lebanon
His face full of childish innocence yet with his tiny hands grasping a gun, this young boy in Lebanon paints a haunting picture of the extremes of violence underway after an American-made anti-Islam film inflicted chaos across the world.
Symbols of America and U.S. embassies have been targeted around the globe in a fourth day of protest after Tuesday’s deadly raid on the American consulate in Libya.
Three people were killed on Friday — two in Tunisia and one in Egypt — as protesters battled with police armed with tear gas and rubber bullets and who sometimes fired into the air to try ward off the demonstrators from American embassies.
A black Islamic flag was raised over the U.S. embassy in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, after it was stormed by protesters who scaled the walls and set fire to cars. They tore down the Stars and Stripes and replaced it with the symbol of Islam; it remained there for hours before security forces pulled it down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hezbollah Will ‘Easily’ Defend Iran Against Israel
Army adviser to Tehran’s supreme leader Khamenei says Lebanese group would hit back against any Israeli strike on Iran. An aide to Iran’s supreme leader said Israel’s military threats had “put Israeli citizens one step away from the cemetery” and that Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah was ready to hit back. Yahya Rahim-Safavi, military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the increasing threats from Israel to strike Iranian nuclear facilities were “foolish”, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported on Friday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Reacts to Ayatollahs Dictatorship Through Music
Across the country underground music stores proliferate. Among the artists Um Katlhoum, Bee Gees, The Beatles, but also current chart toppers. For Iranians listening to banned songs is a way of feeling alive and moving on.
Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies)-Um Katlhoum, Gogoosh, Amt Diab, Zaz, Abba, are some of the bands and singers that are all the rage in Tehran’s illegal music stores. Despite strict controls that tolerate discussions even on formerly banned hot topics such as politics, the West’s sanctions and the nuclear program, the buying and listening to of music banned by the Ayatollah regime remains strictly forbidden. “Listening to music keeps you alive, even when you think you’re dead,” says Amir a thirty-five year old merchant specializing in the sale of “illegal music”. “Listening to the lyrics of songs and artists active before the Islamic revolution — he explains — is for many Iranians the only way to look forward and hope.”
The singers and groups favored by customers range from Amir to Um Kalthoum, the most popular female singer in the Arab world, to Edith Piaff and Haydeh, the most famous Iranian singer of the twentieth century, who died in 1990 in exile in Los Angeles (USA). “Not only is it forbidden to listen to female singers — he says — but also contemporary pop artists that speak of love, passion or topics deemed unlawful. Most of the western musicians and bands are banned from store shelves and so are many artists of the Arab world”. The highly popular film ““No One Knows About Persian Cats” “ (pictured), which tells the story of the underground Iranian groups rose to prominence in 2009 with the green wave protests.
However, there are also great artists among those approved by the regime. The most popular are Fear Zoland, an Iranian singer of Afghan origin, or Varoujou, an Armenian artist. “In front of foreign people — he says — to avoid explanations my clients veer towards these names that are still of good quality.” Amir offers a music on CD, flash drive, or via direct download on mobile phones, but also live performances of some of his friend. In this way he tries to keep the link between traditional music in vogue before the revolution and the new art forms of the younger generation in Iran, alive.
According to Amir, it is sad that because of widespread anti-Iranian sentiment many artists have fallen into oblivion abroad. After the Islamic revolution of 1979, many emigrated to the United States, where they continued to write and sing, maintaining a reputation for a few years, mainly thanks to wealthy Iranian community in exile, only to be forgotten at home too.
The thirty-five year old Iranian explains, however, that it is an over-simplification to claim that the suffocating restrictions imposed by the government with regard to social and cultural choices, freedom of press and thought are the root Iran’s problems. The country will start again as soon as the West removes the sanctions because of the nuclear program, releasing the Iranians isolation, giving way to a mutual cultural exchange with the world.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Is it Just to Offend Muslims?
by Hale Yavuz, JTW
On the anniversary of September 11, after the release of an anti-Islamic movie on YouTube, ‘another Muslim assault’ took place in Libya resulting the death of US ambassador to Libya and three other embassy officials. The timing of the movie, the geographical importance of the attack, the uncertainty of the movie director and makers with the confusing remarks coming from actors and actresses who played in the movie raise suspicions. All these question marks have been interpreted as signs of a bigger picture. It is not yet clear whether the aim was to remind the World of so-said ‘Islamic Terror’ or set Middle Eastern Muslims and Christians and Jews against one another by increasing the feeling of hatred and anger. The attack got different comments from Turkish media. Although many scholars and columnists agree on the provocative goal of the movie, and curse the attack, for others the anti-Muslim movie was the last straw to break the camel’s back and the anti-Islamic movements need to be stopped…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Scholars React to “Dark Game”
Renowned Islamic scholars reacted to a movie that insulted Holy Prophet Muhammad and the ensuing attacks on embassies by issuing a joint statement. In a statement released on Friday, the An Nusra Al Alamiya organization led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi made a call for prudence. With its headquarters in Kuwait, An Nusra Al Alamiya pointed out that the movie targeting Holy Prophet Muhammad was provocative and all ensuing attacks on U.S. embassies should end.
“Reactions against the insult directed at Holy Prophet Muhammad were legal and were things desired. This is a necessity of our faith. Defending the Holy Prophet Muhammad is a desirable Islamic behaviour. However, a Muslim must act based on the Islamic law and directives issued by the Holy Prophet Muhammad. We should not be acting in opposition to our Prophet Muhammad while thinking that we are defending him,” the statement underlined…
“Killing ambassadors forbidden”
“The violent attacks on U.S. embassies are not within the boundaries of Islam. According to Islamic rules and moral values, we need to be loyal to agreements. Ambassadors, tradesmen or other contracted individuals entering a country can not be harmed. Holy Prophet Muhammad has forbidden the killing of ambassadors,” the statement also said.
[JP note: Gibberish.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Crowd in Lebanon Torches KFC in Anger Over Pope Visit, Film
Hundreds of protesters set alight a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday, witnesses said, chanting against the pope’s visit to Lebanon and shouting anti-American slogans.
Locals watching the attack said some people were shouting, “We don’t want the pope” and “No more insults (to Islam)”. The incident came as Pope Benedict began a three-day visit to Lebanon and as anger over a film which Muslims have said is blasphemous to Islam spread across the region.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Multi-Faith Lebanon Should be Model for Middle East — Pope
Pope urges Lebanon to show how religions can coexist
- Meets political, religious and cultural leaders
- Says Middle East a turbulent region, endless birth pangs
By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan
BEIRUT, Sept 15 (Reuters) — Pope Benedict urged multi-faith Lebanon on Saturday to be a model of peace and religious coexistence for the Middle East, which he called a turbulent region that “seems to endure interminable birth pangs”. The pope, on the second day of a visit clouded by war in neighbouring Syria and protests across the Muslim world, told a gathering of Lebanese political, religious and cultural leaders that religious freedom was a basic right for all people…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Middle East Protests Against US Embassies — September 14 as it Happened
Protests continue against western embassies across the Middle East as the Pope visits Lebanon and calls for an end to weapons exports to Syria.
Latest
23.45 (18.45) We’ll close down again for this evening. But to recap — two US marines have been killed in an attack on Camp Bastion. They come hours after today’s chaos in the Middle East.
Thanks for reading.
22.49 (17.49) US officials have told the Reuters news agency that at least two American marines have been killed in a “complex” Taliban attack.
22.43 (17.43) More from Isaf, Army Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command told Fox News the attack may still be ongoing.
He said the base took indirect and small arms fire, causing major damage to buildings, an aircraft hangar and military jets.
22.31 (17.31) Sky News is now reporting that there are at least two deaths and a number wounded…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Middle East Protests: Mobs Attack Six Western Embassies as Protesters Fill Streets
Furious mobs attacked at least six Western embassies across the Muslim world, with protesters filling the streets in another eight countries, as crowds vented their rage over a video defaming the Prophet Mohammed.
Stoned, burned, and pillaged, the West’s diplomatic missions became the new front line in a war on the values for which their governments and societies stand. From Nigeria in Africa’s west, to Bangladesh in Asia’s east, the freedoms which the United States and Europe thought were a beacon to the world were assaulted with stone and fire. Plumes of black smoke rose above western embassies in allies and “pariah” states alike. On Friday, the British embassy in Sudan, once a place where the Empire pursued its romantic, if quixotic vision of development, was stormed. Chanting crowds took to the streets of cities as disparate as Jerusalem and Madras, Tripoli in Lebanon — where they burned down a Kentucky Fried Chicken — and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, shouting messages of hate…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Meets Muslim Leaders in Lebanon
BEIRUT — Pope Benedict XVI is to meet leaders of Lebanon’s Muslim communities on Saturday, a key moment in a visit aimed in part at bridging the gap between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East. The encounter will be particularly poignant coming after several days of deadly violence as Muslims have protested against a US-made film that mocks Islam…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar: Hundreds March in Peaceful Doha Rally
Hundreds of people marched in a peaceful rally from the Omar bin Khattab mosque to the American embassy in Doha yesterday afternoon soon after the Friday prayer to protest against a film denigrating the Prophet of Islam. Expressing their resentment over the attempt to malign Islam by tarnishing the image of the Prophet, the protesters called for revenge against those who made the movie. “No Muslim will tolerate such a cowardly and lewd form of depicting the Prophet’s personal life. It is unfortunate that America and Europe have become the breeding ground for hatred against Islam and Islamic values and Islamic way of life” said one of the protesters, Abdullah al-Mutawwa…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sentenced to Death, Iraqi Vice President Flees to Turkey
Ankara said it would not extradite Iraq’s vice president Tareq al-Hashemi. A court on Sunday convicted him in absentia of murder and sentenced to death. For the accused, the sentence was fabricated by the Shia-controlled government of Prime Minister Maliki.
Ankara (AsiaNews/ Agencies) — Turkey on Tuesday said it would not extradite Iraq’s fugitive vice president Tareq al-Hashemi, after he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in absentia by an Iraqi court. “We will host Hashemi in our country as long as he wants to remain in Turkey. We will not hand him over,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara.
Hashemi, who is sheltering in Iraq’s northern neighbour, was sentenced to death on Sunday for the murders of a lawyer and a brigadier general, after he was accused of running a death squad responsible for 150 killings.
Clamouring for his innocence, he said the trial was “politically motivated,” the work of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shia government.
On 19 December 2011, the day after the last US troops left the country, the Iraqi government in fact issued a warrant for Hashemi’s arrest.
Hashemi fled first to the largely autonomous Kurdish north of the country, which declined to hand him over to Iraq’s federal government. From there, he travelled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and then on to Turkey, all predominantly Sunni countries.
In a thinly veiled reference to Iran and its ties to the Maliki government, Hashemi also complained about the “growing influence of neighbouring countries in our internal affairs”.
Hashemi is one of Iraq’s most influential Sunni leaders. His case has destabilised the country’s institutions. Sources told AsiaNews that the ensuing instability and sectarian strife is political in nature.
In one of the bloodiest days this year, a series of attacks coinciding with Hashemi’s sentence on Sunday hit Baghdad’s Shia neighbourhoods and other parts of the country. More than 100 were killed and at least 250 were wounded.
In June alone, 237 people died in suicide attacks.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Some 5,000 Filipino Migrant Workers Caught Up in the Syrian Inferno
Most of the migrants are women, employed as domestic and care workers by rich Syrian and foreign families. About 300 have been repatriated after fighting between rebels and the army put their lives in harm’s way.
Manila (AsiaNews/ Agencies) — A group of 263 Filipino women migrants have fled Syria, where many had worked for years as domestic or home care workers. Many saw their employers killed before their very eyes.
The group arrived in Manila on Tuesday after weeks of negotiations between the Filipino Embassy, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Syrian government.
According to the IMO, there were at least 5,000 Filipinos in Syria, mostly women. Only a thousand have asked to be repatriated. The others have decided to remain.
Ruth Pana, 29, worked as a baby-sitter for a middle class family in Damascus. The older sons of his employers were active in the opposition and were killed in recent anti-regime demonstration.
Recently, soldiers attacked their home to weed out some rebels hiding in the building’s yard. To avoid the crossfire between rebel fighters and soldiers, Pana and the Syrian family fled to a neighbour’s basement.
“When soldiers attacked, there were bodies all over the place,” she said. After that, her employer and his family moved to a rented house in a safer area of the capital.
Pana chose then to contact the Filipino embassy in Damascus, who sent a diplomatic car to pick her up.
“Until the last moment, my employers tried to convince me to stay with them, saying that I had a contract that I had to respect, but in the end they relented.”
Had it not been for the war, Glemer Cabidog, 34, would not have returned home. She worked as the caretaker of a villa in Damascus owned by a wealthy Kuwaiti businessman who rarely visited it.
Cabidog, who was paid US$ 200 a month, said she and another Filipino worker at the villa asked for their employer’s permission to leave “but after three months . . . he said he won’t allow us to leave. That’s why we escaped.”
They decided to leave after a clash between Syrian troops and demonstrators took place two weeks ago in their neighbourhood. “We didn’t want to die there,” she said. Consequently, they made arrangements with the Filipino embassy to pick them up a week later.
According to Filipino Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, another 600 Filipino workers have contacted the embassy and the IOM indicating a desire to go home.
Since March 2011, more than 2,000 Filipinos in Syria have returned home.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Islamist Rioters Should Learn to See the Funny Side
by Jake Wallis Simons
[…]
[Reader comment by 22pp22 ion 15 September 2012 at about 10 am.]
I’ve been cenored and all I did was ask why the best rated comment got censored. I didn’t even get to read it.
[JP note: That’ll be the day.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US Sends Marines to Yemen Embassy as Turmoil Spreads Across Muslim World
American Marines were deployed to protect the country’s embassy in Yemen on Friday as US diplomatic missions across the Middle East prepared for more protests.
Hundreds of youths fought police outside the US embassy in Cairo overnight and another demonstration gathered in Tahrir Square in the morning. The Muslim Brotherhood has called for a “million man march” in Egypt’s capital after prayers on Friday. So far, however, there is no sign of large numbers gathering. Still reeling from the killing of Chris Stevens, the ambassador to Libya, and three of his colleagues, Washington is trying to protect its diplomats from protests that have now taken place in six countries in the Muslim world. They were sparked by a YouTube film made in California that defames the Prophet Mohammed.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Camp Bastion Assault: Two US Marines Die in ‘Taliban Revenge’
Insurgents have attacked Nato’s heavily fortified Camp Bastion base in southern Afghanistan.
At least two US marines died when militants breached the perimeter of the sprawling base in Helmand province. The Taliban told the BBC that they carried out the attack in revenge for a film mocking Islam which has triggered protests around the Muslim world…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Harry ‘May Have Been Attack Target’
Prince Harry may have been the primary target of an attack on the Camp Bastion military compound in Afghanistan, it has been claimed. A Taliban commander told Sky News that Harry was the main focus of the attack, but other media organisations reported it was in revenge for an anti-Islamic film. The prince was unharmed, but two US Marines were killed and several more wounded in Friday night’s attack…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Policeman Guns Down Two NATO Soldiers
Deaths follow killing of two US Marines and a British soldier plus Taliban attack at Camp Bastion where Prince Harry is stationed
A man believed to be a member of the Afghan police force has shot dead two Nato soldiers, officials have said. The shootings took place in southern Afghanistan. the gunman was killed in the gun battle.The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) gave no more details.
The deaths on Saturday follow the killing of two US Marines and a British soldier in separate incidents in southern Afghanistan on Friday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Prince Harry ‘Was Primary Target of Taliban’s Camp Bastion Attack’
The Taliban have announced that Prince Harry was the main target of an attack last night on his base in Afghanistan, which left two U.S. Marines dead and others injured.
Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles stormed heavily-fortified Camp Bastion, the British HQ in Helmand, in a deadly assault on the ‘aviation area’.
A commander for the radical Islamic movement told Sky News the Prince was their primary target and secondly as revenge for an amateur anti-Muslim video recently posted on YouTube.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Troops Help Fight Off Taliban Attack on Afghan Military Base Housing Prince Harry
British troops were involved in the firefight to repel the deadly Taliban attack on the military base in Afghanistan where Prince Harry is currently based, it was revealed this morning.
At least two US Marines were killed in the strike on the base in Helmand province, which houses American and British troops among others. Major Adam Wojack, a spokesman for International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, confirmed British forces had been involved in repelling the attack, alongside American troops. He said 18 attackers were killed and another one was wounded and being given medical treatment. The sprawling base was now secure, he said, but it was unclear if operations were still ongoing outside the wire.
Maj Wojack said: “The base is secure and we are assessing damage.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Soldier From Grenadier Guards Dies in Afghanistan
A British soldier has been killed in southern Afghanistan after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the Ministry of Defence says.
The soldier — from 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards — was hit while travelling in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province on Friday.
His next of kin have been informed. The incident was not connected with an attack later that evening on Camp Bastion, the UK’s main base in the country, an MoD spokesman said. Two US marines were killed in the assault by the Taliban on the American side of the camp. There are no reports of any British fatalities. A Taliban spokesman told the BBC the attack on the base in Helmand was in revenge for a film mocking Islam…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Protesters Storm Japanese Embassy in Beijing
Anti-Japan protests have broken out across China, with thousands of people mobbing the Japanese embassy in Beijing. Tensions between the two countries have risen over a disputed chain of islands in the East China Sea.
Thousands of protesters hurled rocks and bottles at the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Saturday, as tensions between Asia’s two largest economies escalated over a row involving a disputed chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.
Riot police sought to stop the angry mob from breaching the embassy, as chanting protesters burned Japanese flags.
“Return our islands! Japanese devils get out,” some of the protesters shouted. Reuters news agency reported that one protester held a sign reading: “For the respect of the motherland, we must go to war with China.”
Protests were being held in at least a dozen other Chinese cities, with only a few reports of clashes, according to the Associated Press. The Japanese foreign minister, Koichiro Gemba, cut short a trip to Australia and returned to Tokyo early Saturday to address the situation.
“I’d like to underscore that we should never let the situation escalate,” Gemba told reporters on Friday. “We have strong hopes the Chinese government will respond to the situation in an appropriate and also a calm manner.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Meanwhile in Beijing: “For the Respect of the Motherland, We Must Go to War With Japan”
Anti-US protests sweeping across the entire Muslim world (which are continuing today), besieging, attacking and burning down US embassies, are not the only thing that the central banker policy vehicle known as “the markets” have to ignore in the coming days and weeks. Cause here comes China: “Thousands besiege Japan’s embassy in Beijing over Tokyo’s assertion of control over disputed islands in East China Sea.”
And China is not happy: “For The Respect Of The Motherland, We Must Go To War With Japan.” Sure enough, where would the US be if the focal point of this escalation in militant anger — the Senkaku Islands — was not merely the latest expression of Pax Americana, and America’s national interests abroad.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Arrests Made After Police Officers Injured at Anti-Islamic Film Protest in Sydney CBD
POLICE used capsicum spray during a running battle with angry rioters in the Sydney CBD yesterday as an anti-America rally erupted into a series of violent clashes.
Triggered by a YouTube video mocking Islam and the prophet Mohammed, the city was rocked by a wild melee involving more than a 1000 protesters, with police being struck by water bottles, rocks and pieces of timber.
Six policemen were among a dozen people injured, with two officers requiring hospital treatment as the inner-city streets and Hyde Park turned into bloody battlegrounds.
Frontline police, including a dozen dog handlers, resorted to using capsicum spray as a wall of protesters tried to storm past them.
The Sydney riot follows a deadly wave of Islamic protests around the world which have left at least six people dead — including the horrific killings of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three US nationals in Libya on Tuesday.
The Sydney riot caused traffic chaos, forcing diversions as the placard-waving protesters — many of them women and children — gathered at Sydney’s Town Hall around noon before moving to the US consulate in Martin Place.
Most disturbing was a shocking image of a young boy in Hyde Park holding a sign declaring: “Behead all those who insult the prophet”. It went viral on social media.
Other sign slogans included: “Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell”.
The crowd then headed to Hyde Park chanting “Down, down USA”.
It’s there where the violence exploded. As police tried to disperse the crowd officers were attacked. They used capsicum spray to defend themselves. Police said cars were damaged and eight people were arrested.
At least one man was arrested in the late afternoon for attacking a police dog.
At least seven people were taken to hospital. Violence again broke out at 4.30pm when riot police clashed with the surging crowd as it attempted to move from Hyde Park towards Martin Place.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Protest Sparks Violence in Central Sydney
EIGHT people are expected to be charged after violent clashes between hundreds of police and protesters erupted in Sydney’s CBD.
Six police were injured and 17 others were treated for the effects of capsicum spray today when a demonstration against an anti-Islamic film got out of hand.
Eight of the protesters were expected to be charged with a range of offences, including affray, assaulting police, resisting arrest and throwing a missile.
Police said they would also begin poring through “a significant amount of evidence” that had been gathered through the media and officers, and that anyone caught committing offences would be “vigorously pursued”.
Saturday’s angry scenes began after about 1pm (AEST), when an “unannounced and unapproved” group of people gathered at Town Hall as part of a global protest against an anti-Islamic film.
Police said the group began walking along George Street towards Martin Place, where they attempted to enter the US consulate, which is located in the MLC Centre.
It was here, according to police, that violence between officers and the growing group first broke out.
Tempers flared again when the demonstrators — then about 300-strong — took their rallying cry to Hyde Park.
Capsicum spray was fired, leaving faces red and inflamed, while one man was seen being dragged along the ground with blood dripping down his face.
Superintendent Mark Walton later said he believed some people went to the protest “armed”, with a view to cause damage and assault police.
“The group was unorganised and clearly split into factions, being some there to express their concerns from their community perspective,” he said.
“However, there were other elements … who were clearly here with another intent.
“They were aggressive and violent at times and came into contact with police.”
Waving banners with slogans such as “Behead all those who insult the Prophet”, protesters listened as one protester told the crowd: “We will never accept the assault on our prophet.”
The rally was the latest in a spate of demonstrations at US embassies and consulates in the Middle East, Africa, Britain and elsewhere against the film, Innocence of Muslims.
Protester Abdullah Sary, who said he wanted a peaceful protest, said although he had not seen the film, he was offended because it ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed.
“The prophet is more beloved then my family, my wife, my mother and myself. So if someone says this, you can see how upsetting it is.”
After some time the protest seemed to die down.
The men — with more than 100 police standing in a ring around them — formed lines, fell to their knees and began to pray.
The prayers were followed by more yelling, with the male-dominated group punching their fists in the air and chanting “Down, down USA.”
Eventually, however, the protesters decided to move on.
But when they began leaving the park, tensions flared as riot police with batons and shields stood at one of the exits.
Sticks and bottles were hurled, before police surged up the stairs, restraining some protesters and chasing others.
The splintered crowd broke up further, travelling down William Street and throughout Darlinghurst’s back streets with riot police, mounted police and uniformed officers in pursuit.
Finally, smaller groups of protesters were cornered and then directed to split up and disperse.
Tallying up the damage, Supt Walton said eight people had been arrested, two had been taken to hospital for dog bites and 17 others were treated for the effects of the capsicum spray.
Meanwhile two officers were taken to hospital, another four were injured and at least two police vehicles were damaged.
| — Hat tip: HT | [Return to headlines] |
Gambia: Eccentric African Despot Sets Deadline for Execution of Every Death Row Prisoner
An eccentric African despot, who claims to have discovered a cure for Aids, has fixed a deadline of Saturday for the execution of every last prisoner on death row.
President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia chose to mark the Muslim celebration of Eid by announcing that 47 inmates with capital sentences would all be shot. The festival following the holy month of Ramadan is supposed to be marked by gestures of mercy, but Mr Jammeh, who insists on the title “His Excellency Sheikh Professor Doctor President”, has chosen to invert the tradition…
[JP note: Who said Islamists have no sense of humour?]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Street Demonstrations in Katsina, Sokoto
Katsina — There were street protests yesterday in Katsina and Sokoto states as Muslims expressed anger over the blasphemous movie. In Katsina, the protesters commenced their procession in the early hours of yesterday marching through major streets within the state capital, chanting various slogans of condemnation against the United Sate of America and other western countries. They went through Sabon-Layi to Kwanar Gwan-Gwan; matched through Usman Na-Gwaggo road to Juma’at Mosque’s roundabout among other roads. The procession ended at Kangiwa square, Kofar Soro.
Leader of the protest, Usman Muhammad, told Weekly Trust that “we have organized the protest to express our anger over the recent movie produced just to tarnish the image of our Holy Prophet Muhammad.” Muhammad said “the personality of the holy Prophet Muhammad is above everything to us, hence, we are ready to protect his integrity even if it means dying in the process.” Contacted on phone, the Deputy Police Public Relation Office, ASP Shehu Koko Muhammad said police is aware of the demonstration and that it was peaceful.
Also, the Associated Press reported yesterday that protesters also entered the streets in Sokoto, a city in Nigeria’s northwest that is nation’s the spiritual home for Islam. Several demonstrations saw hundreds on the street, as protesters burned a U.S. flag.
“Time has come when the world should respect Islam as religion, because Muslims respect other people’s religion,” protester Abubakar Ahmed Rijia said. Another protester, Nai’u Muhammed, said he believed people were deliberately trying to instigate Muslims into violence through criticizing the Prophet Muhammad. “Islam is a religion of peace, but we cannot tolerate somebody abusing it,” Muhammed said. The protests in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world focused on a movie, called “Innocence of Muslims,” which ridicules the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any fashion, much less in an insulting way.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Troops Fire Shots Near Mosque to Disperse Protest
JOS, Nigeria — Nigerian soldiers fired live rounds in the air outside a mosque in the flashpoint city of Jos on Friday to disperse a crowd planning protests over a US-made anti-Islam film, a spokesman said. The soldiers “had to fire some warning shots in the air, but there were no casualties,” Captain Salihu Mustapha, military spokesman in Plateau state, told AFP, putting the crowd of mostly young people at several hundred…
[JP note: Mustapha riot.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
40,000 More Tunisians Since January 2011
Inquiry commission into Lampedusa shipwreck requested
(ANSAmed) TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 13; Since January 14 last year, the day former Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali left the country ending the revolution, over 40,000 have left the Tunisia’s coasts and illegally immigrated to Italy, according to data provided by the Tunisian forum of social and economic rights.
The Forum’s President Abderrahmane Hedhili has officially requested a commission to investigate the recent, deadly shipwreck off Lampedusa which has lead to violent protests in Tunisia. The commission should include authorities, civil society activists and family members of the would-be immigrants who died or were reported missing in the shipwreck .
Though progress has been made against illegal immigration, Hedhili said many young Tunisians still perceive it as the only way to find a better future.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Fraud Suspects Linked to Mississauga Address to Lose Citizenship
The Canadian government is revoking the citizenship of as many as 300 people who claimed to reside at the Mississauga address where Palestine House is located. Meanwhile, the head of the Erindale Station Rd. language and cultural centre says that, while Palestine House aids newcomers,they’re not helping people obtain Canadian citizenship illegally. Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced Monday that the immigration ministry has begun the process of revoking the citizenship of as many as 3,100 citizens who obtained their status as Canadians fraudulently. Kenney first announced the investigations last year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian ‘Media Uses Animal References for Immigrant Crime’
University study says perception distorted by press and TV
(ANSA) — Padua, September 11 — A study released by the University of Padua on racial profiling in Italian media said that 66.7% of the metaphors linked to immigrant criminality use dehumanizing, animal references.
According to the report, if the attacker is non-Italian, in 65% of the cases definitions like “wild” or “beastly” are used. Instead, if the perpetrator is Italian, 66.7% of the metaphors are linked to volatile actions and use words such as “lite up, burst or exploded,” said the survey. A conference presenting the report called ‘Immigration, Fear of Crime and the Media: Roles and Responsibilities’ will be held September 14 in Padua at the Palazzo del Bo.
The research, supported by the Cariparo Foundation and directed by Jeroen Vaes from the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization at the university, looks at the ways in which media shapes the perceptions of immigrants and citizen safety in Italy. The survey also says that up to 20% of the Italian public overestimates the number of foreigners in the country and automatically associates their presence as a threat to public safety and to criminal and terrorist activities.
According to the researchers, this alarm is related to the way the Italian media portray immigration by using “misleading representations that create prejudices and stereotypes against those who arrive in our country,” says the report.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Window to Legalize Foreign Workers Opens September 15
380,000 potential applicants for regular permits
(ANSA) — Rome, September 14 — Employers of illegal workers in Italy will have the opportunity come clean starting Saturday by taking advantage of a decree allowing them to legalize immigrants.
The decree lets employers legally hire foreigners working continuously since at least December 31, 2011 by filing an application and paying 1,000 euros each plus six months worth of salaries, welfare and taxes.
The window of time for legalizing workers will end on October 15. According to the Leone Moressa Foundation an estimated 380,000 foreign workers need to be regularized, but employers may opt not to do so due to the prohibitive fee.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UCLA Shuts Down Controversial Illegal Immigrant College Program
University of California is shutting down a controversial college program for illegal immigrants, the National Dream University.
NDU earlier this summer began actively recruiting those seeking a college degree and a career in activism focused on immigration issues. Its website, which has since been taken down, promoted “an educational opportunity to those who have demonstrated leadership and commitment to the immigrant and/or labor rights movements [with admission] open to everyone, regardless of their immigration status.”
Operated by the UCLA Labor Center and the National Labor College, NDU would have offered credit for online courses in immigrant rights and political advocacy. At about $2,500, tuition was thousands less than what legal residents pay to attend UCLA, one of California’s premier public universities.
Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, hung up on Fox News several times. He does, however, speak frequently in support of so-called DREAMers. At one rally, he told an audience of cheering young activists “you will go onto become lawyers and teachers and doctors and members of the U.S. Senate to replace those old white men.”
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
France: Adoptions: Same Conditions for Gay Couples
Under a bill to introduce gay marriage
(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Homosexual couples in France will be able to adopt children “under the same conditions as heterosexual couples”; under a bill to introduce gay marriage, French justice minister Christiane Taubira said in an interview with the Catholic daily La Croix. The bill does not contemplate giving homosexual couples access to medically assisted conception, she added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Terrorism is Beginning to Demolish Political Correctness
by The Rev Dr Peter Mullen
It was refreshing to read such a plain and unequivocal line in today’s editorial column: “The simple fact is that Islamic fundamentalists are irreconcilable. To them the US will remain the Great Satan.” This was, of course, a comment on the murder of the US ambassador to Libya.
I wonder if, in the midst of all this horror, we might begin to see signs of hope? I mean, might we at last be beginning to escape the mealy-mouthed world of all that has for long remained unsayable. Perhaps there are, after all, limits to political correctness. I dare to breathe the hope that maybe western societies will not die the death of a thousand euphemisms. I thought I detected signs of this dawning sanity just after 9/11. We were shocked into reality then. And we were geared for war. People expected it. There was a creepy silence in the streets of the City of London. Weekday attendances at our lunchtime Eucharists doubled and tripled. There were reassuring signs of seriousness. Then, within a few weeks, under a barrage of media propaganda telling us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, euphemistic orthodoxy and the fatal disease of appeasement returned.
It has been with us ever since. The Ministry of Truth operated by the Guardianistas and the BBC have delighted in what they call “The Arab Spring,” as if this heralded the advent of “democracy” all across North Africa and the Middle East. As we now learn from events in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, the Sinai — and most recently in Libya — this was always a delusion, a perversion of reality flying in the face of the facts.
The fact is that a resurgent, militant anti-western Islamic fundamentalism is the gravest threat to civilisation. This is bad news of course. But the good news — as evinced in today’s editorial column — is that finally we are being allowed to name this peril for what it is. Militant fanaticism wherever and whenever it arises has to be resisted and put down. It was defeated at the Battle of Tours in AD 732. At the siege of Malta in 1565. At Lepanto in 1571. It is not so many centuries since the barbarians were at the gates of Vienna. And without our resistance they will soon be there again.
Don’t take my word for all this. As long ago as the 1820s, Samuel Taylor Coleridge described the scene as: “That erection of a temporal monarch under the pretence of a spiritual authority, which was not possible in Christendom but by the extinction or entrancement of the spirit of Christianity: this was effected in full by Mahomet, to the establishment of the most extensive and complete despotism that ever warred against civilisation and the interests of humanity.”
Do I learn from this morning’s editorial that we are at last being allowed to recognise and state this truth? If so, then however dark the hour, there are grounds for hope.
[Reader comment by danoconnor on 14 September 2012 at 1:45 am.]
Peter Mullen
The perils of “diversity and cultural enrichment”.
I doubt that the Globalist “invade-invite-the-world” cheap labour ponzi-scheme financiers, the jobs worth cretin EUConDemLab class, or the Left, media, academia, local goverment, civil sector will ever admit they were wrong, because they are so petrified of losing their grip on goverment, the media and the universities that they’d rather sit by and watch Europe being overrun than for once admit that their one and only hated common enemy, the “Western nationalist right” has been correct about Islam all along.
For all the Western “Conservative” parties, the only real and true enemy is not Islam or anywhere on the Left of the Western political spectrum even all the way over to the far Left. The common enemy for them is the nativist nationalist anti-immigration, and Islamization movements and parties in the West. It may take a little longer for their fictional reality to collapse like a house of cards, just like it did in the Soviet Union, and it is not a question of IF it will happen, it is just a question of when, and with the passing of each day gets closer.
I think there are only a certain number of “sudden jihad” events that Western society can take. The straw will come that breaks the camel’s back.
Damn good article Mr Mullen
Thanks .
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Liberals Created the Culture of Evil and Death
By far the biggest obstacle the Church faces is the infiltration of ubiquitous, aggressive liberals, many of whom are renowned pastors, authors, conference speakers, missionaries, televangelists, radio hosts, and CEOs of Christian organizations. As of late, even some of our most beloved evangelical leaders appear to be morphing into theological liberals. The extent of movement to liberal ideology varies with each individual, but in certain cases they have gone completely off the rails. False doctrine abounds in books, Bible studies and Bibles authored by notable Christians and promoted by so-called Christian publishers and book sellers. We have been duly warned about this sort of thing happening:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1).
That, brothers and sisters, is a pretty severe warning!
Marxist Christianity
To give readers a sense of what kind of person to be on the lookout for let me introduce one of the most dangerous wolves in Christendom, the Rev. Jim Wallis. This man wears many hats. He is the founder of Sojourner’s Magazine, speaker, author and activist. He’s also President Obama’s “spiritual advisor.” This alone speaks volumes. Rev. Wallis insists that he’s an evangelical Christian even though he has abandoned the biblical gospel for the “social gospel.” He believes he’s on a mission from God to assist the poor and oppressed to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth.
David Noebel sheds light on some of the good reverend’s activities:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Portland: Oregon School Principal Claims Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches Could Hold Racist Connotations
Are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches racist? A bizarre question, to say the least, but one that at least one school administrator is asking out in Portland, Oregon. Verenice Gutierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, seems to believe that there are racial connotations associated with the common lunch-time meal.
According to Gutierrez, using the example of a peanut butter sandwich in classroom lessons is technically a problematic and discriminatory move — one that was made by a teacher in her building last school year. While such a notion may bring out laughs among those who find it absurd, the principal explains her logic.
“What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?,” she said. “Another way would be to say: ‘Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?’ Let them tell you. Maybe they eat torta. Or pita.”
Somehow, by mentioning a food that the majority culture regularly eats without also discussing other meal options, the teacher was purportedly violating discrimination standards. So, to combat any additional PB&J-related offenses, the principal is treading carefully. And she’s not alone.
Portland Public Schools is in the process of integrating “Courageous Conversations,” an equity training that has been coming in phases over the past few years. The Portland Tribune newspaper explains the district’s intentions, in detail:
Through intensive staff trainings, frequent staff meetings, classroom observations and other initiatives, the premise is that if educators can understand their own “white privilege,” then they can change their teaching practices to boost minority students’ performance.
Last Wednesday, the first day of the school year for staff, for example, the first item of business for teachers at Scott School was to have a Courageous Conversation — to examine a news article and discuss the “white privilege” it conveys.
The demographics that are present in the district have apparently led leaders to tackle this purported “white privilege” issue head-on. Currently, 50 percent of students at Scott K-8 are Hispanic, 15 percent are black and nine percent are Asian.
Naturally, there’s some controversy, especially considering the subject at hand. One parent, in particular, as the Tribune notes, has railed against a lunch-time drum class for black and Hispanic boys at the school (the parent believes it discriminates against women, girls, Asians, whites and Native Americans).
Gutierrez, though, claims children weren’t turned away and denies that offering a minority-specific class amounts to discrimination.
“When white people do it, it is not a problem, but if it’s for kids of color, then it’s a problem?,” she said. “Break it down for me. That’s your white privilege, and your whiteness.”
The Tribune has more about the principal and the district’s program that she’s seeking to utilize in the school:
Like many if not all of PPS’ leaders, Gutierrez has gone through California-based consultant Glenn Singleton’s “Coaching for Educational Equity,” a weeklong seminar on race and how it affects life; she’s also become an “affiliate,” certified to teach the equity curriculum; and she serves on the district’s administrative committee to address systematic racism, a group that meets every other week.
“Our focus school and our Superintendent’s mandate that we improve education for students of color, particularly Black and Brown boys, will provide us with many opportunities to use the protocols of Courageous Conversations in data teams, team meetings, staff meetings, and conversations amongst one another,” Guitierrez’ letter to staff reads.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Portland Schools Beat the Drum for Equity
[Verenice] Guitierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, along with all of Portland Public Schools’ principals, will start the new school year off this week by drilling in on the language of “Courageous Conversations,” the district-wide equity training being implemented in every building in phases during the past few years. Through intensive staff trainings, frequent staff meetings, classroom observations and other initiatives, the premise is that if educators can understand their own “white privilege,” then they can change their teaching practices to boost minority students’ performance. Like many if not all of PPS’ leaders, Gutierrez has gone through California-based consultant Glenn Singleton’s “Coaching for Educational Equity,” a weeklong seminar on race and how it affects life; she’s also become an “affiliate,” certified to teach the equity curriculum; and she serves on the district’s administrative committee to address systematic racism, a group that meets every other week.
[329 comments. Of the 1st 50 I checked, the majority highly negative. But these are the serfs speaking; they have no influence on what the landed gentry on the public payroll does. — TS]
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
The Ugly Truth About Islam and Homosexuality
by Ruth Dudley Edwards
I know Nick Clegg is worked up about the domestic “bigots” who oppose gay marriage. Though I am happy to dance at gay weddings, in our complex and turbulent world it doesn’t seem a major priority. Rather than arguing about something that since the introduction of civil partnerships should not be at the top of the “urgent” pile, Clegg and the rest of us might be better occupied wondering what’s to be done about the foreign “bigots” who want to maim, kill or generally intimidate anyone with homosexual inclinations. Not to speak of their British-based supporters. The World Service tells us that law enforcement agencies in Iraq are systematically persecuting and murdering gay men and women. It’s thought that numbers run into the hundreds over the past few years. Even the UN has gone so far as to say that state inaction means the Iraqi government is a perpetrator…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Dawkins to Speak at Conference on Secularism
Professor Richard Dawkins has been confirmed as the keynote speaker at The National Secular Society’s “Secularism 2012” conference, which will take place in central London on Saturday 22 September. The one-day conference will bring together secularists from all over the country to debate one of the most crucial issues of the age: what is the place of religion in a modern, democratic and secularised society?
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How to Make New Friends
by Bagehot
There are useful lessons for the Tories in their partial success at improving relations with gays
IT IS a measure of how much public discourse has changed that the argument this week on gay rights was about how rude politicians can be not to homosexuals, but to their opponents. Nick Clegg’s office caused the row by releasing to journalists an excerpt from a forthcoming speech by the deputy prime minister which described those who want the legalisation of gay marriage postponed as “bigots”. Amid squawks from the right, Mr Clegg said he would never use such a word, but he did not repudiate the sentiment; nor was there any comfort for the (mostly) Christian objectors to this considerable step towards equal rights for gays from the Conservative senior partner in the coalition government. Which, given that only 24 years ago Section 28 of the Tories’ Local Government Act banned councils from allowing schools to promote “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”, is quite a step.
Close analysis of the Tories’ loss of the 2005 election by Lord Ashcroft, former deputy chairman of the party, is in part responsible for this change. The party, his polling showed, was regarded as “old-fashioned”. “Voters sensed,” says a strategist, “that it had an obsession with old taboos, and a contempt for new ones.” It regarded homosexuality, in other words, as reprehensible, and homophobia as fine; it viewed ethnic minorities as alien, and racism as natural. Such attitudes turned off not just those particular groups, but also better-off and better-educated voters…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Multiculturalism ‘Past Its Sell-by Date’ Warns Race Expert
Using taxpayers’ money to fund projects run by religious or ethnic community groups is turning Britain into a divided society, the author of the report on the Oldham riots has warned.
Prof Ted Cantle said that the idea of multiculturalism in Britain is now “well past its sell-by date” and is often doing more harm than good.
He accused the Government of fuelling separation in communities rather than bringing people together by allowing small groups to claim “special status” — and with it funding — amounting to a form of state-sponsored segregation. Councils and police are also giving undue legitimacy to “self-appointed leaders” in some areas by inviting them to endless meetings and consulting them on their views and allowing them to become “gatekeepers to their communities”, he warned. Meanwhile grants from government funding pots, councils and charities have allowed thousands of separate community groups to grow up representing their own interests and reinforcing separation, he said. He accused David Cameron of failing to live up to a pledge to tackle “state multiculturalism”.
Prof Cantle, the founder of the Institute of Community Cohesion at Coventry University, wrote a high profile review into he causes of the 2001 Oldham riots warning that some ethnic groups were leading “parallel lives”. But in a highly critical paper to be presented to a conference organised by the National Secular Society next week, he calls for a halt to all state funding for projects and services aimed at or run by religious groups or individual ethnic communities. He said that should apply equally to a Bangladeshi women’s group in one city or a church-run soup kitchen in another.
In his address to the “Secularism 2012” conference, he will argue that the idea of multiculturalism — in which different communities are encouraged to retain their separate identities — grew up out of well-intentioned policies in the 1950s and 60s but is no longer sustainable as Britain has become increasingly diverse. “Part of the problem with this approach was that we began to see each cultural identity with very clear boundaries,” he writes. “Each was given a special status, often called to meetings to discuss their points of view, generally through a series of self-appointed and government supported leaders who became the gatekeepers of their communities.”
Communities also received the benefit of targeted funding and action programmes to assist their (often separate) development. We have — as a result of this state intervention -hardened and homogenised group identities and created the notion that they are fixed and ascribed, rather than chosen and developmental. Ironically, many of these identities now appear more immutable, than the now discredited racial boundaries that they have come to replace.”
Figures produced to Parliament show that grants to faith-based groups from two Government funding pots alone in 2010 amounted to £13 million. But the figure does not include support from councils and other overnment bosies or funding for education.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Religious Faith Cannot be Allowed to Make US Unequal Before the Law
by Graeme Archer
You can’t run a business if employees’ religious duty has to be taken into account
I’ve just re-read one of my favourite Iris Murdoch novels, A Fairly Honourable Defeat. To describe the plot does this astonishing book an injustice, but it mainly concerns the machinations of a scientist, Julius King, who sets out to destroy the marriage of his friend Rupert, because Rupert’s faith in the power of love — his belief that there exists a Platonic thing, love itself — irritates him in its imprecision. One of the most powerful passages in the book is when Rupert, referring to evil’s “unfathomable depths”, suggests that “good” has “heights” which we should strive to attain. Julius turns on him: “Let’s keep your up and down picture, it’s convenient and traditional. My point is that the top of the structure is completely empty. The thing is truncated. Human beings have often dreamed of the extension of goodness beyond the pitiful level at which they muck along, but it is precisely a dream, and a totally vague one at that.”
My teenage self found this passage almost unbearable, because reading it coincided with the inability to maintain my childhood belief in God, one that I’ve never recovered. I had tried to imagine God into existence as some sort of “extended sense of goodness” but, as Julius predicted, I couldn’t sustain the image, let alone make it real. The top of the structure did, indeed, feel totally empty. And so I lost my faith: my search for goodness became more local. Which isn’t to say I don’t admire those who do sustain their belief, and of all the religions on offer, the one that most appeals is the tolerant, self-questioning Church of England…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Demoting Islam’s Religion Status
The severity of the moderate Islam invasion is thoroughly understood by Islamic experts like Amil Amani. In his article, “A Bridge to ‘Moderate’ Islam Is In Fact a Road to Hell.” He emphatically warns there is no such thing as moderate Islam and to call it so is an oxymoron, a contradiction. Specifically he states:
“Since moderate Islam is oxymoronic, any moderacy in Islam is in fact incompatible and in conflict with essential Islam, its power structure and its controlling proponents…Islam is not personally or spiritually relevant. It is political, which is why it may never separate itself from government. Adherence is not a matter of voluntary devotion, but of the law, and violators are severely punished, including capital punishment…”
Another enlightened expert who has personally witnessed that moderate Islam is a road to hell is Brigitte Gabriel. In her book, “Because They Hate” she gives a clarion call describing how the ruse of moderate Islam turned her home country of Lebanon into a “living nightmare.” She states:
“We were renowned for our hospitality, good heartedness, and generosity, just as America is known for the same qualities today. Sadly, those same qualities were the cause of our destruction…We did not realize that the intolerant Islamic side of our culture was gaining strength on the back of our western openness and pride in diversity.”
Most likely, Brigitte Gabriel would agree that providing religion status to Islam, believing main stream Islam to be moderate, was a major contributor to the destruction of Lebanon. The key point is that so-called moderate Muslims are as fiercely intolerant as militant Muslims, but are more skillful at concealing their agenda and deceiving their host nation until the time is right for them to strike. Brigitte Gabriel tells how usually peaceful Muslim neighbors who had befriended them for decades all of a sudden rose up to kill non-Muslims.
Murderous Intolerance
Such murderous intolerance is fully entrenched within Islam. The so-called moderates fully support these murderous attacks in their “hidden hearts”, rarely paying even lip service to the contrary. Their silence has been “deafening.” Why? Because they dare not challenge the inviolate precedents set by their prophet which would be a capital offense. For example, in 623 A.D. Mohammed was infuriated with the female poet Asma Bint Marwan for criticizing him, and sent his henchman to kill her and her five children. They ripped the infant from her breast and hacked it to pieces before her very eyes. They then made her watch the murder of her other four children, before raping and stabbing her repeatedly to death. After the butchery Mohammed told his henchman, “You have done a service to Allah and his Messenger.”
The killing of persons who criticize Islam has never abated and perhaps is even more alive today than in the 7th century. A few years ago in the U.S. an Egyptian Christian, his wife and two children had their throats cut for challenging Islam, mistakenly believing our free speech laws would protect them. Nearly every day one hears of some gruesome murder, decapitation, or other violent crime committed by contemporary Muslims who are emulating the example of their prophet.
| [Return to headlines] |
Violent Islamic Acts: No Apologies But the Toll Keeps Mounting
For those who would like a scorecard from 1948 to the present of violent Arab/Islamic heinous acts of barbarism for which the entire world (including innocent Muslims) are still waiting for an apology…
1.Massive violence between Muslims and Hindus in India on an unprecedented scale following partition (at Muslim insistence) in 1947 and three India-Pakistan wars, terrorism in Kashmir and India resulting in several million killed and at least fifteen million people displaced. As a result, Hindu minority in Pakistan has practically disappeared while Muslim minority has dramatically increased and thrived.
2.Pakistan-Bangladesh conflict, 1971 (following civil war and secession). This war saw the highest number of casualties in any of the India-Pakistan conflicts. It is believed that from one to three million Bangladeshis were killed as a result of this war. Very little media coverage.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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