Germany Calls for Powerful EU Budget Commissioner
German finance minister Schaeuble Monday has said he wants the EU economics commissioner to be “as powerful” as the competition commissioner with the ability to alone reject EU member states’ budgets, reports Les Echoes. The super commissioner should be able to reject a budget even after a national parliament vote.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Standard & Poor’s agency has cut the credit rating of leading Spanish banks, including BBVA, CaixaBank, Santander and Bankia, from BBB+/A-2 to BBB-/A-3. It said the move follows its recent downgrade on similar lines of Spanish sovereign bonds.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spreads Narrow, Italian Bond Rate Falls and Markets Rally
Italian debt chief calls 4.9% interest rate ‘sustainable’
(ANSA) — Milan, October 16 — European stock markets rallied and bond spreads narrowed on Tuesday, as Wall Street flexed muscle and German representatives expressed openness toward extending a line of credit to Spain through the European Stability Mechanism.
Interest rates on Italian bonds dipped so low, Italy’s public debt chief declared them “sustainable” in a television interview.
Maria Cannata, treasury director-general of public debt, told Sky TG24 the current interest rate of 4.9% was “sustainable” and “historically low”, and added that the Italian spread “could go down to 200 points”. The yield on the secondary market for Italian 10-year bonds dipped to 4.89% during the day — a low last seen in March — but closed at 4.93%, down from 4.98% on Monday. The spread between interest rates on Italian and German bonds slid 11 basis points on Tuesday, to close at 339. The spread is an important gauge of investor faith in Italy’s ability to pay down its debt. Another litmus test for Italy was looking up on Tuesday.
The Italian government’s latest bond placement is going well. Italian bond orders gathered pace on Tuesday, with 44,370 orders placed worth 2.59 billion euros, up from 40,929 orders worth 2.48 billion euros placed Monday, the Italian bourse announced in a note. The bond placements close Thursday. News of political support from Germany for a credit line also helped narrow the spread between Spanish bonds and the German benchmark, which closed at 426 basis points, down eight points on Monday. The yield on Spanish bonds was 5.8%. Madrid’s stock exchange got quite the booster shot, with the Ibex index gaining 3.41% to close at 7940.20 points.
Milan’s FTSE MIB index also rose markedly, climbing 2.53% to close just shy of 16,000 points at 15,985. Italian banks performed particularly well reporting results that outstripped Goldman Sachs’ expectations. Unicredit rose 4.56%. Intesa Sanpaolo rose 4.34%. Bper rallied 7.83%. The Italian media company Mediaset soared for the second day — up 7.25% — on rumors of an alliance with Al Jazeera or another foreign media company. Frankfurt’s DAX index climbed 1.58%; Paris’s CAC 40 index was up 2.36%; and London’s FTSE-100 rose 1.12%.
Even Athens’ Athex index gained 1.78% despite a breakdown in negotiations between the troika — EU, ECB and IMF — and the Greek government — with an EU summit in Brussels looming Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Army Prepares for Euro Unrest
The Swiss army is preparing for possible internal civil unrest as well as waves of refugees from euro-countries as the economic crisis drags on.
Switzerland, a non-EU, non-euro country landlocked between eurozone states, last month launched a military exercise to test its preparedness to deal with refugees and civil unrest.
“It’s not excluded that the consequences of the financial crisis in Switzerland can lead to protests and violence,” a spokesperson of the Swiss defence ministry told CNBC on Monday. “The army must be ready when the police in such cases requests for subsidiary help.”
Some 2,000 officers took part in the “Stabilo Due” military exercise in eight towns around the country, based on a risk map detailing the threat of internal unrest between warring factions and the possibility of refugees from Greece, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, according to Swiss media reports.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Every time I go to get gasoline or to the supermarket, my dollar buys less and less as the price of everything goes up. It is not the fault of banks, speculators, or any of the usual suspects. It is the fault of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve. It isn’t just a U.S. problem, it is a worldwide problem.
We all know this in general terms, but Edmund Contoski, the author of “The Impending Monetary Revolution, the Dollar and Gold”, explains the complete mess the world is in and how we got there. Sneering at the Greeks may be satisfying, but we too are the Greeks. So is the rest of the world.
Uncertainties about the value of money have led to a growing market in derivatives. These are contracts for insuring against loss of value from unreliable currencies and they impose gigantic costs on the world’s economy. “As of June 2008, the notional amounts (face value) of financial derivatives, according to the Bank for International Settlements, totaled $673 trillion— over twelve times the world’s nominal gross domestic product,” says Contoski.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
One man’s tropical paradise is another man’s prison. Imagine being “stuck” on Oahu. I’m sure you could think of worse situations, but really stop and think about the following true and evolving situation. You’re a “normal” 34 year-old guy, live on the U.S. mainland in Gulfport, Mississippi, and recently married a woman who is a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy stationed in Okinawa.
You’re a citizen of the United States and possess a valid U.S. issued passport. You’re not a criminal and have no history of felony or misdemeanor convictions. In fact, you recently passed a background check to own and carry a firearm in Mississippi. You are, however, an outspoken patriot for the United States Constitution.
[…]
Mr. Hicks detailed his plight on Monday’s edition of The Hagmann & Hagmann Report to a shocked and disbelieving audience. How can this happen in America? This is inter-STATE travel!
[Comment: Be sure to read what happened to this chap.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A BBC Pedophilia Scandal Has a New York Times Connection
by David Paulin
Labor unrest and dreadful financial losses aren’t all the New York Times has to worry about. A pedophilia scandal now rocking the BBC — one eerily similar to the Jerry Sandusky scandal — may prove an embarrassment to the New York Times and raise eyebrows yet again over the management capabilities and judgment of Arthur Ochs “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Daniel Greenfield
In 1941, FDR proposed his famous Four Freedoms. Some seventy years later it may be time to add a fifth freedom to that list. Freedom from Islam. Freedom from Islam would have seemed like an unlikely candidate back in 1941 when the worry was over secular ideologies, but as the West and its ideologies have fallen into a soporific state of decline, the fascism that concerns us no longer wears a military uniform or any of the trappings of nationalism, but instead wraps itself in the turban of religion…
There are two kinds of wars: wars of survival and wars of choice. The war of choice is optional; it may be fought or it may not be fought. There may be compelling moral, political or economic reasons why it should be fought, but if it is not fought then life for most people will still go on much as it has before. And then there are wars of survival. Those wars are no more optional than fighting off a shark circling you in the water is optional. A war of survival is a conflict where an external force is determined to conquer the United States and eliminate the rights, freedoms and identities of all Americans. And in a war of survival, freedom is defined by remaining unconquered.
Freedom from Islam is the fundamental freedom of our time. It is the freedom in whose shelter America can still be America. It is the freedom on which all other freedoms depend.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Hearing Before Planning Board Moved to Next Week
CORRECTION: Hearing on proposed mosque in Liberty Corner moved to next Thursday, Oct. 25.
Tuesday’s Planning Board meeting, which had been scheduled to include a continuation on a proposal for a 4,200-square-foot mosque on Church Street in Liberty Corner, not far from the intersection with Somerville Road, has been canceled…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pennsylvania’s Jihad Jane Faces Life in Dec. In Terror Plot
A Pennsylvania woman who called herself Jihad Jane and admitted she plotted to kill a Swedish artist who offended Muslims faces a life sentence in December. Pennsburg resident Colleen LaRose has been in custody since she returned from Ireland to surrender to the FBI in 2009. Her arrest was kept secret until several other people were rounded up months later. A Maryland teenager has been charged. Court papers show the 48-year-old LaRose called herself Jihad Jane in an online video and said she was “desperate” to help Muslims…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Planet With Four Suns Discovered
BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) — A planet in solar system with four suns was discovered by the cooperation of amateur astronomers and professional scientists. The finding was presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Reno, Nevada. The Neptune-sized gas giant, named PH1, was found by volunteers working with professional scientists in the Yale University-led project named Planet Hunters. Supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, researchers find evidence of new worlds in the bountiful data collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. The gas planet, 5,000 light-years away from our earth, orbits its twin parent stars, which is orbited by another pair of stars. And the planet circles them about every 138 days. “Although PH1 is a gas giant planet, even if there is a possibility of rocky moons orbiting the body, their surfaces would be too hot for liquid water to exist,” said researcher Meg Schwamb of Yale University. (Agencies)
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: Crime Drives Detroiters Out; 40% Expect to Leave Within 5 Years
Detroit’s crime crisis is prompting such pessimism that 40 percent of residents plan to move within five years, according to a comprehensive poll of Detroiters’ attitudes about their city and leadership.
Residents overwhelmingly believe the city is on the wrong track and have no faith that city leaders have a plan to turn it around. Crime is by far their biggest worry — even higher than finding a job in a city where some put the true unemployment rate as high as 50 percent.
The survey suggests that, unless city officials can combat violence, efforts to halt decades of decline will fail. The city’s population already has fallen by 1 million over the past 50 years, and residents including Michael LaBlanc said they are ready to leave.
“There’s an aura of fear that just pervades the whole neighborhood,” said LaBlanc, 63, who installed a security system at his northeast side home last week because he’s weary of car thieves and gunfire.
“It’s almost like being in prison. We always like to have at least one person home for security sake.”
The survey is believed to be the most authoritative of its kind in years. Commissioned by The Detroit News and funded by the Thompson Foundation, the survey provided a rare, statistically sound measure of public opinion. Detroiters have been traditionally difficult to accurately poll.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Colorado artist Dave Merrick, DaveMerrick.US, provides the Defining Moment in the State of America 2012, proving with his talented artwork the truth in the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Painted in oil and acrylic, Merrick calls his painting, ‘The Price of CHANGE’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
You know the scam of green has hit rock bottom when the Washington Post is criticizing the government’s alternative energy partnerships, grants, and subsidies and Al Gore’s $100 million fortune gained through investments in the climate change hoax. “Al Gore is 50 times richer than he was when he left the vice presidency in 2001.”
Being the die-hard liberals that they are, the paper cannot help itself in describing Gore’s wealth as “Romneyesque” and Mitt Romney himself as a “private-equity baron.” In the liberal view, it is acceptable to gain wealth, whether honestly or dishonestly if you are a Democrat, however, if you are a Republican, you become a baron, a comparison with negative connotations, harking back to the robber-barons era.
Criticizing modern liberalism and the Democrat Party, the author condemns their green agenda and their dependence on cash from high-tech venture capitalists and lobbyists, questioning their claims that they are supporting “the little guy,” the ordinary Americans who struggle to survive in an almost 16 percent unemployment environment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vikram Pandit Steps Down as Chief Executive of Citigroup
Citigroup’s board said on Tuesday that Vikram S. Pandit had stepped down as chief executive, effective immediately, and will be replaced by the head of the bank’s European and Middle Eastern division, Michael L. Corbat.
John P. Havens, Citi’s president and a longtime associate of Mr. Pandit’s, has also resigned.
| [Return to headlines] |
Close the Borders to Muslims: Salim Mansur’s House of Commons Testimony
When Salim Mansur, a political scientist at the University of Western Ontario, asked me to provide a promotional blurb for his 2011 book Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism, I was only too happy to oblige. Here’s what I wrote:
“In an age of ideological conformity such as ours, it takes courage to speak against the prevailing orthodoxy. This is a courageous book. Professor Mansur exposes how multiculturalism corrodes the values and traditions that sustain Canada as a liberal democratic order. The result is a book to galvanize Canadians against the apostles of extremist progressivism.”
I would like to restate that view. Mansur, a practicing Muslim, is one of the few intellectuals in Canada willing to speak truth to power on this issue even if that truth is unpalatable — and therefore politically incorrect — to the elites hellbent on re-engineering Canadian society in their own ignorantly destructive image.
Indeed, earlier this week, on October 1, Mansur appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and, more or less, warned that unless Canada abandons its current multicultural policies and, accordingly, its immigration policies, we will in the not too distant future “severely undermine our liberal democracy.” In particular, he focused on the need to curtail immigration “from Muslim countries for a period of time given how disruptive the cultural baggage of illiberal values is brought in (to Canada) as a result.”
Not surprisingly, nary a word of Mansur’s testimony made it into the mainstream media, at least as far as I could determine. With a view to correcting that deficiency, let me provide what no one else seems willing to even acknowledge. I shall eschew commentary in order to let Mansur have his full say, although I have Boldfaced those parts of his statement that seem to me most relevant, and most provocative…
| — Hat tip: Ohmyrus | [Return to headlines] |
New Evidence Demolishes Claims of Safety and Effectiveness of HPV Vaccine
Published online on September 24,1 a systematic review of pre- and post-licensure trials of the HPV vaccine by a Canadian team shows that its effectiveness is not only overstated (through the use of selective reporting or “cherry picking” data) but also completely unproven.
The summary states it quite clearly:
For example, “the claim that HPV vaccination will result in approximately 70% reduction of cervical cancers is made despite the fact that the clinical trials data have not demonstrated to date that the vaccines have actually prevented a single case of cervical cancer (let alone cervical cancer death), nor that the current overly optimistic surrogate marker-based extrapolations are justified.
Likewise, the notion that HPV vaccines have an impressive safety profile is only supported by highly flawed design of safety trials and is contrary to accumulating evidence from vaccine safety surveillance databases and case reports which continue to link HPV vaccination to serious adverse outcomes (including death and permanent disabilities). “
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Jewish French Tweets Alarm Police, Anti-Racist Groups
(AGI) — Paris, Oct. 15 — A wave of anti-Semitism has hit Twitter in France with contest of jokes, places and offensive phrases like “a good Jew can inflate a tire with his nose.” It began with the unbonjuif (a good Jew) hashtag and is spreading.
The outbreak has put anti-racist associations on alert, who have asked Twitter to “take adequate measures” to put an end to this “outbreak of online anti-Semitism” and have asked to meet Twitter’s managers. The outbreak has also alarmed French authorities, who arrested seven Islamic terrorists after an attack on a Jewish shop in Sarcelles on Sept. 19.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Benefits Cheats Defraud Sweden of Billions
Hundreds of people may be charged after the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) launched an investigation into care assistance fraud, finding suspected cases of human trafficking and serious crime with international links.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we would find such a mess,” said Svante Borg of the agency to daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).
The investigation was launched in December last year. Overall 26 companies that organize carers for disabled people were to be scrutinized with the help of police and other agencies.
According to the paper, the investigation was prompted after an increasing number of fraud cases were detected within the care assistance sector in Sweden.
It has been estimated that 7 percent of the total cost is eaten up by fraudulent claims, which would mean that some 1.5 billion kronor ($225.8 million) of tax payers’ money is wasted each year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Catalan Leader Promises Referendum on Secession
Catalan leader Artur Mas has told the La Vanguardia newspaper he aims to hold a referendum to ask the question: “Do you want Catalonia to become a new state within the European Union?” The move might come at the same time as a Scottish poll on secession in 2014.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Health Commissioner Dalli Quits Over Fraud Inquiry
(AGI) Brussels, Oct. 16 — EU health commissioner John Dalli resigned following the opening of an investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud office. The European Commission announced the news.
The investigation followed a complaint made in May by “tobacco producer Swedish Match. It alleged that a Maltese entrepreneur had used his contacts with Dalli to try to gain financial advantages from the company in return for seeking to influence a possible future legislative proposal on tobacco products, in particular on the EU export ban on snus” (chewing tobacco, a typical Swedish product).
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Opt-Outs on More Than 130 Criminal Justice Powers Will Cost You Millions, Brussels Tell UK
Brussels officials are threatening to hit Britain with millions of pounds in fines in retaliation for pulling out of pan-European justice and crime policies.
The European Commission has warned of ‘direct financial consequences’ if the UK withdraws from controversial measures such as the European Arrest Warrant.
The warning was met with dismay last night by Tory backbenchers who accused Brussels of trying to ‘blackmail’ the UK.
Details of the threat emerged yesterday after Theresa May confirmed in the House of Commons that the Government is set to take back around 130 powers over British crime and justice which have been handed to Europe, including the controversial European Arrest Warrant.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Europhiles Have Only Themselves to Blame
by Philip Johnston
Michael Gove speaks for many on the EU — Britain is tired of being pushed around
For more than 50 years, membership of a European political and trading organisation has been at the heart of Conservative foreign policy. Harold Macmillan wanted the UK to join the Common Market in 1962, but was snubbed by Charles de Gaulle. The man who conducted those first abortive negotiations, Edward Heath, eventually took us into the European Economic Community in 1973. While there were many Tory critics, notably Enoch Powell, opposition to entry came most vocally from the Left. Even Margaret Thatcher, while making her antipathy to Europe’s federalist tendencies abundantly clear during her time as prime minister, never contemplated leaving…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
French Twitter Users Posting Anti-Jewish Messages
Antisemitic messages and offensive remarks are being posted on social networking site Twitter in France as part of a “concerning” new trend. The president of the Union of French Jewish Students urged Twitter to improve its moderation system after French users of the site began competing with each other to post messages under the hashtag #unbonjuif.
The term is translated as a “a good Jew,” but in the last few days it has been employed next to comments such as “a good Jew is a dead Jew” or alongside photographs of concentration camp victims. Another read: “A good Jew can pump up your tyre with his nose”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gang Busted Stealing Solar Panels for Export
Thieves stole over 1.4 million euros worth in one operation
(ANSA) — Rieti, October 15 — Police arrested nine people for aggravated theft near the Lazio city of Rieti on Monday for allegedly stealing and exporting solar panels.
Police said that the gang, all Moroccan nationals, were specialized in dismantling the panels that were then packaged and transported to Morocco from the Italian port cities of Livorno and Genoa.
Each panel was then sold on the Moroccan market for about 200 euros.
Investigators said that the gang, which operated in the provinces near Rieti, Isernia, Teramo, Potenza and Foggia, was able to take over 3,500 solar panels worth approximately 1.4 million euros in one single operation in May 2011.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nobel Prize is for Idiots, Terrorists and the EU
It is hard to imagine anything more wrongheaded than last week’s decision by the Nobel Committee to award its Peace Prize to the European Union. Until, that is, one is reminded of the frauds, terrorists, totalitarians and world- class idiots who have won the award over the past 20 years.
The fabulous ignorance necessary to pass over the organization that in reality brought peace to the European continent for the past six decades — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — and to reward instead a soulless, corrupt, bullying, glorified customs union with pretensions to superpower, beggars belief.
The Nobel Prize was once a towering honor, worthy of the highest respect. Just over half a century ago, in 1953, Albert Schweitzer and General George C. Marshall both received it on the same day, while Winston Churchill picked up the prize for literature. But a rot set in with the political correctness of the 1990s. The (usually Labor Party-dominated) Norwegian parliament, the Storting, chooses the Nobel Committee, and in that decade the Peace Prize was won by Rigoberta Menchu Tum, the Guatemalan activist who fabricated her autobiography and supported murderous Communist guerrillas, and by Yasser Arafat.
In the 2000s it went to Jimmy Carter, Mohammed ElBaradei (the International Atomic Energy Agency chairman who consistently underplayed Iranian nuclear ambitions), Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Barack Obama, in the very first year of his presidency. Recognition of genuine achievement has been replaced by the worst kind of genuflection toward liberal icons.
Nothing better represents this degradation of the Nobel Peace Prize than the ludicrous decision to award it to the EU, an organization that has done nothing whatever to bring peace, and is currently spawning riots and mayhem in many of its vassal states.
Moreover, the EU probably funds terrorism. Every year the EU gives more than 500 million euros ($647 million) to the Palestinian Authority, with little oversight over how this money is spent. It is very likely that part of the EU funds are siphoned off to terrorists, or that it frees up other money, with which the Palestinian Authority buys arms and ammunition for attacks on Israel.
Recent recipients of the Peace Prize have failed utterly to meet the criteria that were set out at its inception, in 1901, and this year’s choice of the EU is a classic example. Alfred Nobel said in his will that the committee should find “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Elena Bonner, widow of the 1975 Prizewinner Andrei Sakharov, once lamented that, “At one time, the Nobel Peace Prize was the highest moral award of our civilization. But after December 1994, when Arafat became one of the three new laureates, its ethical value was undermined.” …
The winner of the Nobel gets a check for more than $1 million. One wonders what the EU will do with this windfall. They might use it to pay for an independent audit of their accounts (it has been well over a decade since the EU’s own auditors signed off on the bloc’s budget). Or maybe they’ll add another room or two to the enormous, luxury, high-rise buildings that their bureaucrats build for themselves in Brussels —vanity projects for whose construction EU taxpayers’ money is no object. Or maybe they should do what they like doing best: simply wasting money to no effect.
One question bothers me about all this, though: If the Norwegians really admire the EU so much, why haven’t they joined it?
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Baby-Faced Thugs Who Kicked Labourer to Death
THESE are the two thugs who kicked and stamped an innocent man to death as the victim’s partner watched.
A jury yesterday took two hours and 50 minutes to find fresh-faced Asif Rehman, 20, and Adel Ishaq, 19, guilty of murdering Irish-born labourer William McKeeney, 57.
A charge that the attack was racially motivated was dropped.
William was coming home with a fish supper after a night out when Rehman, known as “Noddy”, and Ishaq, nicknamed “Fetchy”, attacked him outside his home in Pollokshields, Glasgow, on January 15.
His partner, Anne Newlands, 48, told how she saw “two Asian men stamping on something”.
She went outside and found William on the ground. His last words — “what’s the problem lads?” — were recorded on Ishaq’s phone.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Mother Indecently Assaulted in Park
A young mother has been indecently assaulted in a “very frightening” incident as she sat on a park bench with her five-month-old baby.
The suspect approached the woman in Kilmarnock’s Dean Park and asked her the time, then grabbed her and began to take off his clothes, Strathclyde Police said.
Detective Inspector Scott McClelland said: “This was a very frightening experience indeed for this young mum who was enjoying a morning visit to the park with her young baby.”
The suspect is described as Asian, and had a “dirty appearance”.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Three Men Held After Attack on Refugee Centre
Three men have been arrested in central Sweden, suspected of smashing windows in an attack on a refugee housing facility on Tuesday. One resident of the centre was reportedly injured.
“All three are previously known to the police,” said Johanna von Wowern of the Västmanland County to news agency TT.
One person was reportedly injured in the attack, according to a local journalist from the local Bärgslagsbladet Arboga Tidning newspaper who was on the scene; however this information is yet to be confirmed by police.
According to local news website magazin24, witnesses saw the three men drinking alcohol, throwing bottles at the centre and even assaulting people inside.
Local police officers were at the centre for two hours following the incident, which occurred around 12.30pm on Tuesday.
“We have received information that some people have left the scene and that there was a lot of broken glass after an incident in the area. We are searching for them with dogs,” said Åsa Hedin of the local police to the paper shortly after the incident.
“We’re in the process of investigating what has happened, in detail. I don’t know at this point if someone has been injured,” she said.
The police subsequently arrested three suspects, born in 1981, 1983 and 1985. Officers are as of yet unaware of any motive for the attack.
This is not the first time a refugee centre in the area has been targeted. In January this year, large parts of the Migration Board’s housing facility in Arboga were damaged in a fire. At the time, 66 people were evacuated and three brought to hospital after breathing in smoke.
Officers investigating the incident could not find any natural causes for the fire and didn’t rule out that it could be arson.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Makes Muslims Cross Over Billboard Ads
Swiss International Air Lines is raising hackles among Muslims over a slogan used in a recent German-language publicity campaign.
Alluding to its logo, taken from Switzerland’s national flag, the slogan says in German, “Kreuz ist Trumpf”, literally, the “cross is trumps”, or the “cross is a plus”.
The words are used in a billboard campaign, launched within the country last month, that highlights the white cross on the back of one of its planes.
Muslims in Switzerland have responded negatively to the advertising, which they believe promotes Christianity over other religions.
In Swiss internet forums, Islamists complain that Swiss makes reference to the “cross” and not the “Swiss cross”, Der Sonntag newspaper reported.
The issue has been picked up by newspapers in several Muslim countries.
Turkish journalist Cemil Baysal said he is not surprised by the angry response to the campaign which comes on the heels of the emotional reaction by Muslims globally to the American film “Innocence of Muslims”.
The anti-Islamic film touched off violent protests across North Africa and the Middle East.
“Many Muslims feel this Christian slogan (of Swiss) is a provocation and an assault against Islam,” Baysal told Der Sonntag.
Swiss maintains that its ad campaign does not carry any religious or political message.
The slogan is, in fact, a play on words, referring to “trumps” in Jass, the popular card game that is strongly rooted in Switzerland, airline spokeswoman Myriam Ziesack told Sonntag.
She said it was unfortunate that the billboard advertising appeared at the same time as the anti-Muhammad American film surfaced on the Internet.
“We didn’t intend to make any religious or political statement with this advertising message,” Ziesack said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Care Runaway ‘Lived in Cave’
A TEENAGER spent three weeks living in a cave rather than go back into care, an official study into how children feel failed by the system has disclosed.
Another travelled across the country, switching from train to train only stopping when they reached the sea before ending up living on a beach. The stories emerged from a report by the Government’s tsar for children’s right’s into why young people run away from care homes and foster placements, carried out in the wake of the Rochdale sexual grooming scandal…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Communities in Nottingham — Reports
BFTF [Building for the Future Blog] recently became aware of two fascinating reports on the Muslim Communities in Nottingham. Firstly there is as report on the “Muslim Diversity in the City of Nottingham”, commissioned by Nottingham Council and published in 2009. And secondly there is a report entitled “Understanding and Appreciating Muslim Diversity in the City of Nottingham”, again commissioned by Nottingham City Council and published in 2009. It is perhaps worth looking at these reports in a little more detail…
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Melton Man Jailed After Knife Incident Outside London Mosque
A judge has slammed prosecutors for failing to charge a knifeman with racism after he screamed vile abuse at worshippers outside a mosque. Jonathan Russell (32) waved a blade at two men on their way to prayers before snarling: “Where’s Allah to protect you now?” Crown Prosecution Service lawyers decided not to class the crime as racially-motivated because they said he was “commenting generally”. Russell, of Swan Close, Melton, admitted theft, possessing an offensive weapon and threatening behaviour, and was sentenced for the offences at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday. Passing sentence, District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe demanded an explanation from the CPS, saying: “It’s remarkable that it wasn’t racially-aggravated. This was just outside a mosque.” Russell targeted the men outside the Regent’s Park Mosque, in central London, on August 14…
Jailing him for 50 weeks, Judge Roscoe told Russell he had caused a “very nasty and frightening incident”.
[JP note: Jailed for 50 weeks, but Muslims responsible for “very nasty and frightening incidents” are let off with a pat on the back.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Make a Distasteful Remark on Twitter and Expect to be Hauled Before the Courts
by Rod Liddle
A palpable halfwit called Matthew Woods, from Lancashire, has been arrested for having posted some sort of offensive joke about April Jones, the little girl who went missing from Machynlleth, and also a joke about another missing girl, Madeleine McCann. Having read one or two of the things he posted I can confirm that they were deeply distasteful, and not funny, although mild by the standards of the internet. I don’t suppose we should worry too much about Mr Woods, who is now in prison, although my own view is that the comments of such trolls are better simply ignored rather than subjected to criminal proceedings.
What worries me more about the Malicious Communications Act in its amended form is that it is increasingly used to prosecute those whose response to some national event or incident differs from the officially approved view of a supposedly righteous majority. In a certain loose sense, Matthew Woods’s inane comments fit this criterion. But it is also being used to stifle political dissent.
The crucial part of the law — Section 127 — states that it is a criminal offence to send by any ‘public electronic communications network a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.’ Later in the Act this is expanded to involve anyone who sends a message which may cause ‘needless anxiety’. We are skating on thin ice here, surely? Needless anxiety is, to mangle the metaphor, in the eye of the beholder: it is not a matter of solid, provable, fact.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Norwich Churches Speak Out Against EDL March
Leaders of all the main Christian denominations in Norwich have spoken out against a march by the English Defence League in Norwich organized because a city church has been barred by Norwich City Council for anti-Islam material. Church leaders from the Church of England, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Baptist churches, Salvation Army, United Reformed Church and the Quakers have united to issue a joint statement against the march.
The statement reads: “The intention of the English Defence League to mount a demonstration in Norwich is entirely unwelcome. Norwich has a long history of welcoming strangers, often in considerable numbers. The integration of so many different groups into the life of this fine city is what gives Norwich such richness in its life today. This is a cause for celebration, and we must not allow this honourable tradition to be broken.”
Leaders signing the statement were: Fr David Bagstaff, Diocesan Administrator, Diocese of East Anglia (Roman Catholic); Major David Jackson, Divisional Commander of the Eastern Region, Salvation Army; The Rt Revd Graham James, Bishop of Norwich (Church of England); The Revd Richard Lewis, Regional Minister of the Eastern Baptist Association; John Myhill, on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); The Very Revd Graham Smith, Dean of Norwich (Church of England); The Revd Graham Thompson, Chair of the East Anglian District of the Methodist Church; Fr James Walsh, Dean of the Cathedral Church of John the Baptist (Roman Catholic) and The Revd Paul Whittle, Moderator of the Eastern Synod of the United Reformed Church…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sheikh, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll: Muslim Anxieties With Student Life
by Hasnet Lais
As much as I tried to repress from memory a recent post by Laura Bates on Independent Voices titled “Slut dropping’ and ‘Pimps and Hoes’ — the sexual politics of freshers’ week”, it rings true for some common Muslim anxieties with student life. Having tutored Muslims of a wide age group throughout their secondary and sixth form years, a familiar pattern begins to emerge from their personal experiences with student life. Simply, being a devout Muslim student in Britain can be rife with complication. And it doesn’t take a stint at university to know this. As early as pre- and post-16 education, there’s plenty to ruffle the feathers of the faithful…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Three Men Accused of Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl Are Due to Go on Trial in January.
The trio are said to be among four men who allegedly brought the teenager from Chingford in east London to Ipswich in a van on the night of July 6.
At a plea hearing at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday Abdul Hammed, 46, of Wellington Street, Ipswich and Surin Uddin, 28, of Bethnal Green, London, each denied two offences of raping a girl under the age of 16, conspiracy to traffic in the United Kingdom for sexual exploitation and conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity.
Hamza Ali, 38, of Chingford Road, London, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to traffic in the United Kingdom for sexual exploitation, conspiracy to cause a child to engage in sexual activity, one offence of rape and one of sexual assault.
The alleged sex assaults are said to have occurred at a house in Chevallier Street, Ipswich.
A fourth man, Mohamed Sheikh, a 31-year-old of Seaton Point, London, did not enter any pleas yesterday
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
As you might expect from the content of this blog, BFTF occasionally finds himself asking organisations to take part in activities or to change their practices. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes not so well. This post is a home to those instances where things didn’t go to plan, with the aim of learming some lessons and perhaps showing how things shouldn’t be done.
14 Oct 12 : Bring a Tin at a local Mosque.
BFTF had talked to the chair of the mosque committee a couple of times about the possibility of holding a “Bring a Tin” event there and had been told that it needed to be raised at a committee meeting and that BFTF should come back in a couple of weeks. So BFTF did exactly that and the chair said that this was not something the mosque was interested in because their congregation was struggling economically and could not afford to donate anything. BFTF pointed out that, firstly, whether people gave or not was a different issue to whether the event should be held at all; and secondly it didn’t seem to be stopping the mosque from asking the congregation to donate to the mosque every Friday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican: Cardinal Causes Uproar With ‘Muslim Scare’ Video at Vatican
A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe. The seven-minute clip, called “Muslim Demographics,” was the talk of an international gathering of bishops on Monday, two days after Cardinal Peter Turkson screened it during a free discussion period.
Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops over the clip. “As we were arriving this morning I was asked several times ‘Who planned it? Whose was it? Who is behind it?” Father Thomas Rosica said at a briefing for journalists, who are not allowed to attend the synod sessions, the first since the screening. He said the clip had sparked “the most animated” discussion so far at the three-week conference, and one bishop said he would rebut Turkson by presenting a report with contrary data. The clip has brought Islam to the top of the agenda at the synod, attended by 262 bishops. “Islam is the buzzword,” Rosica said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Radio Attempts, Unconvincingly, To Downplay the Demographic Threat
From Vatican Radio:
Inside the Synod: Dialogue with Islam
(Vatican Radio) The XIII Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation began its second week of deliberations on the Transmission of the Christian Faith in today’s world Monday with over 250 participants gathering in the 11th General Congregation. Pope Benedict XVI was present for proceedings, which were moderated by President delegate Cardinal John Tong Hon, bishop of Hong Kong. Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen is a special Synod correspondent and was inside the Synod Hall to gauge the atmosphere as the working sessions gather pace.
Up in the Vatican synod hall it’s not all about listening to endless speeches on the problems of the Church in different parts of the world. Sometimes participants get free gifts — Pope Benedict on Monday gave them a book about the 2001 synod on the role of bishops as servants of the Gospel. Sometimes they get to see films — this evening they’re invited to stay late for a film about Bell Ringing in Europe, featuring interviews with the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Holy Father himself. Ecumenism, is seems, is alive and well after all.
On Saturday, the synod fathers were treated to another short film from YouTube, a four year old, fear-mongering presentation of statistics attempting to show how Islam is conquering Europe and the rest of the world. Scary music, stark white words on a black background and the warning that dropping fertility rates in Europe, plus high birth rates among immigrant Muslim families, means our children face a threatening world of Islamic domination in the very near future.
Why one of the Curial cardinal chose to show this piece of anti-Islamic propaganda [why is it described as “anti-Islamic propaganda”? It’s a discussion of demographic change in Europe, and what it necessarily will mean for all non-Muslims. Why is that propaganda?] is quite unclear — no one seems to know who made the video and the BBC produced an article shortly after showing many of the facts were at best exaggerated and at worst, completely made up.[which facts were “exaggerated”? Which facts were “completely made up”? Why are we not told?]Was it to provoke more animated debate than is normally heard in the august synod hall? It certainly seemed to do that, with other cardinals questioning the facts and suggesting bishops would do better to consult the work of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, which discusses relations with Islam regularly and produced an important message on interfaith relations in 2008.
There’s no doubt that many church leaders here do feel threatened by Islam, by the fervour of its followers, by the lack of freedom to convert to Christianity and by the fundamentalist minorities who can make life hard for Christians[persecution, by the state and by individual Muslims, and attacks and murder, are not adquately conveyed in the phrase ‘make life hard”] in many African, Asian or Middle Eastern nations. But as plenty of participants are pointing out, an open, honest dialogue, in love and respect for the others, is the only effective way to avoid conflict and promote a greater understanding between peoples of different religious beliefs.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican: Video on Islam’s Growth Sparks Debate at Synod
A controversy arose at the Synod of Bishops on October 13 when the participating bishops were shown a video that Vatican Radio described as a “fear-mongering presentation of statistics attempting to show how Islam is conquering Europe and the rest of the world.” The video — which was apparently screened by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace — emphasized the high birth rates among Muslims in Europe, in contrast with the falling fertility of native Europeans, and concluded that the continent would soon be predominantly Islamic…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Egypt Heading Towards Sharia Enforcement’
As Egypt’s liberal and secular activists erupted with anger accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to take over the country, former US Senate foreign policy analyst James Jatras tells RT that Egypt is on its way to becoming a caliphate. “Morsi and the Brotherhood had triumphed much quicker than anybody expected, and no one should doubt what their intentions are: strict enforcement of Sharia and the recreation of the caliphate,” Jatras says…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: 120 Escape From Tripoli Jail
About 120 prisoners have escaped from a jail in Tripoli, according to the National Guard chief, with Libyan security services on high alert to catch them.
Khaled al-Sharif said: “About 120 common criminals escaped from Al-Jadaida prison today. Security services are on high alert to catch them,” Sharif said. “We are trying to hunt them down and some have already been arrested.” The justice ministry controls Al-Jadaida prison which is reserved for common criminals. In August there was a mutiny at the facility in which two inmates were hurt…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Salafism: Why Ultra-Conservative Islam is Finding Support in Post-Revolution Egypt
by Jenny Cuffe
The ultra-conservative Salafist movement has spearheaded many of the recent violent protests over the controversial anti-Muslim film which appeared on the internet. The most significant sign of support for Salafism has been in Egypt where adherents made major gains in the recent election.
To feed her family of 15, Rabiah Rahim has to bake 120 loaves every week — but with rising prices she cannot afford to pay the 20 Egyptian pounds ($3) she needs for a new bottle of gas. As her daughter tosses the rounds of dough in flour and puts them in the blazing stove, Rabiah says no-one in government listens to the needs of the poor…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Leaked Ghannouchi Tape Raises Salafism Concerns
Tunis — Some Tunisians are accusing Ennahda’s leader of pursuing a hidden agenda with salafists.
A leaked video featuring Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi strategising with young salafist leaders is causing controversy in Tunisia. In the video, which was first broadcast last April and re-broadcast October 9th, Ghannouchi said, “The secularists are still controlling the media, economy and administration. Therefore, controlling them would require more time.” He added that “the police and army’s support for Islamists is not guaranteed, and controlling them would also require more time.”
[…]
[JP note: More time and Islam will dominate the world.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Lawmakers Vote to Dissolve Parliament
JERUSALEM, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — Israeli lawmakers passed a bill in an early Tuesday morning vote approving a bid for the Knesset’s (parliament) dissolution and holding an early election on Jan. 22, 2013. Out of 120 Knesset members, 100 voted in favor of the bill without any objectors. The bill required a majority of at least 61 yes votes. The final vote took place overnight after nearly 12 hours of deliberations, as the Knesset returned earlier on Monday to convene for its winter session after a 3-month hiatus…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
NAM Urges UN to Stop Israel From Violating International Law
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has called on the United Nations Security Council to stop Israel from violating international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaei, read out the NAM statement on the latest developments in the occupied territories during a UN Security Council meeting on Monday. Khazaei said NAM is deeply concerned about the situation in the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Suddeutsche Reports on Fake Dollars to Prop Up Rial
(AGI) — Berlin, Oct. 16 — Iran allegedly printed billions of counterfeit dollar bills to halt the tumbling rates of exchange of its national currency. German daily, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, makes the front-page claim, telling of how it has learned from sources in a western secret service that Teheran allegedly distributed counterfeit dollars throughout the country. The bills are said to be of excellent quality and from China. The newspaper reports that one dollar currently costs an Iranian 37,500 rials, one third more than two weeks ago, and two thirds more than 15 months ago. Sueddeutsche believes that Iran has already received some 8 billion dollars, although it is not clear how much has already been distributed. On Sunday, the first working day of this week, the rate of exchange for the dollar dropped to 34,000 rials.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: West’s Free Speech Ban Bars Blasphemy Ban
Istanbul: Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world’s top diplomat said. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam. “We could not convince them,” said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy. “The European countries don’t vote with us, the United States doesn’t vote with us.” Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Wants EU to Take in Syrian Refugees
Turkish EU affairs minister Egemen Bagis told Germany’s Die Welt newspaper on Monday the EU should start taking in some of the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have crossed over into Turkey. “The time has come for Europe to finally help,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mayor of Moscow Against New Places of Worship for Muslims
For Sobyanin, the city does not need new mosques, because “they are frequented by illegal residents”. Opposition and human rights activists warn: this is likely to foster interfaith tension.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — Controversy abounds in Moscow after Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s statement that he is opposed to the construction of new mosques in the capital, raising fears of the opposition and human rights activists that this could spark fresh religious tensions.
Citing a recent study, Sobyanin said that “two-thirds” of Muslims attending the main mosque of the city are not from Moscow, but “come from the surrounding areas and have no residence permit.” “If only Muscovites who permanently live here go to the mosque — said the mayor — there would probably be no over crowding”.
In August, to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan, about 90 thousand people gathered in the streets surrounding the mosque near the Olimpiisky stadium, including traffic jams and complaints from the local population.
For some time, the Muslim leaders complained that the city’s four mosques are no longer enough for a community that has reached 2 million faithful. The Council of muftis has asked that a place of worship be made available in each of the 12 administrative districts of the capital, but the authorities soon abandoned any project due to protests of the population. As was the case in September, when the council announced its withdrawal of the plan for the construction of a large mosque in Mitino, outside the village, after 2 thousand people took to the streets to express their dissent.
Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the opposition party Yabloko and former deputy of the Duma in Moscow, called Sobyanin’s affirmation “strange”, because “even the Christian churches in Moscow are not only used by the local residents.” “Instead of studying integration policies in a multi-ethnic city like this — the politician denounced to the Moscow Times — the mayor is allowed to make statements that could lead to further tensions.”
Even Olga Sibiryova, of Sova think tank, finds that the words of Sobyanin “discriminatory” : the city council “is not helping those, however, who are protesting against the construction of new orthodox churches and certainly will not control the origins of the Christian faithful. “ “The lack of mosques — she concludes- could stir up tensions much more than their construction would.” (N.A.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Spy Kills Two Americans, Four Afghans in ‘Insider Attack’
An Afghan intelligence agent carried out the Saturday bomb attack in southern Kandahar province, leaving two Americans and four Afghans dead, Afghan officials say.
The sources made the announcement on Tuesday, saying the weekend attack was the latest in a series of “insider” attacks…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: 17 Taliban Rebels Killed in Ghazni Province
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — Afghan security forces backed by the NATO-led troops eliminated 17 Taliban militants in Andar district of Ghazni province on Tuesday, an army spokesman in the province said. “Units of Afghan national army in coordination with the NATO- led coalition forces raided Taliban hideouts in Sangi and Nazarwal villages of Andar district late Monday night and during the cleanup operation which concluded at around 1:00 a.m. local time Tuesday, 17 rebels had been killed,” Mohammad Hakim Stanikzai who speaks for 203 Thunder Corps of Afghan national army in Ghazni, told Xinhua. Two of those militants killed in the operations are Afghans and the remaining 15 are foreigners from Pakistan, Chechen and Arab countries, according to Stanikzai…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan Now Denies Killer of 2 U.S. Troops Was Intel Agent
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s security service is denying claims that the suicide bomber who killed two American troops and four Afghans in a weekend attack was a member of the country’s intelligence agency. The service’s spokesman, Shafiqullah Tahiri, said today the attacker wore an Afghan uniform to gain access to the intelligence headquarters in Kandahar’s Maruf district. Tahiri says the attacker blew himself up as a group of NATO troops and Afghans were arriving to deliver new office furniture to the facility on Saturday.
NATO and Afghan officials had said the bomber was a member of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security. The growing number of insider attacks has raised doubts whether Afghan forces will be able to effectively control security after foreign troops depart in 2014.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Pakistanis Love Conspiracy Theories’
Although most Pakistanis have condemned the Taliban’s shooting of 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, a small section of society believes the incident was part of a ‘US-Israeli conspiracy’ against Islam and Pakistan.
“The CIA is behind the attack on Malala!” “Malala was a US agent!” “It is a conspiracy to defame the Taliban and Islam” — the social media websites Facebook and Twitter have been full of such posts and tweets this week. Most of the writers hail from a middle-class, educated background.
Many of Pakistan’s liberal analysts have explained the phenomenon by saying that people love “conspiracy theories.” They point out that in a country whose economy is in a shambles, where inflation and unemployment is higher than ever, which has a corrupt civilian government, where power shortages and suicide bombings are frequent, and which a lot of young people are desperate to leave in search of jobs and a better future, it is convenient for the people to blame the West for all their woes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Gunmen Kill 4 Shia Muslims in Southwestern Pakistan
Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead at least four Shia Muslims in the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan, Press TV reports.
The incident took place in a local market in the provincial capital city of Quetta early on Tuesday when the armed men opened fire on Shia shopkeepers and killed four of them…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide ‘Insider’ Attack Kills Six in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — A member of the Afghan intelligence service detonated a suicide vest Saturday, killing two Americans and four Afghan intelligence agency colleagues, Afghan and international officials said Monday.
[….]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China’s Coming Dominance Will Transform the West
By Ed West
Chinese world domination is not far off, a theme I normally come around to when I’ve had too much to drink (if you see me in a bar raising the issue, please call me a cab before I bore someone to death).
The United States of America has overshadowed all our lives. It is not just its financial and military muscle — in almost every sphere of human activity America’s dominance has dwarfed that of any other country in a way that even Victorian Britain was unable to achieve, especially in its hold on popular culture. Had a US city hosting the Olympics presented its national story in its opening ceremony it would have been instantly intelligible to much of the rest of the world; the opening to London’s Olympics was baffling to foreigners.
And yet over the next few decades America’s global domination will be challenged in a way that it has not been since it came to pre-eminence a century ago.
The BBC’s man in China has a piece on what Chinese domination will mean to the world. He cites pollution, the growth of Mandarin (and other elements of soft power), a new space race, and fewer elephants and tigers. There will also be a lot more Chinese tourists, especially to France, which the Chinese have an obsession with (they better keep their hands off the Dordogne, is all I’m saying).
But there are two trends that make China’s growing power somewhat disturbing. Firstly, sex. In the 1980s cheap ultrasound technology spread across rural India and China, allowing people to identify the sex of an unborn child for the first time, at a time when China was instigating a one-child policy. As a result both countries have enormous shortfalls of women, and the cohort that first experienced gendercide have reached the age when men start taking an interest in the opposite sex and, if they aren’t available, bad poetry or violence. In China political turbulence has historically been caused by “bare branches”, men unable to find available women. How will the country deal with this problem?
Secondly, as Gary Sheffield observed in Forgotten Victory, major conflicts have usually arisen during a period of transition from one power to the next. The 18th century wars took place when Britain overtook France as Europe’s leading power, and the First World War as both were giving way to Germany. In both these cases the rival powers had different economic and political systems. Will America’s wane and China’s rise be peaceful, especially as the former owes the latter about 100 gazillion dollars?
And this is not just a shift in state power but in civilisational dominance. European civilisation has not faced any serious political or military rivals for several hundred years, and this has helped create the illusion that Western values, which have come to shape the world and which found concrete form in the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, are necessarily universal.
But our politics derives from specifically Western ideas about the individual with its emphasis on guilt, ideas which are not so central to Chinese culture. Perhaps their politics will become Westernised, perhaps not. (One assumes that as a middle class reaches a critical mass some form of democracy will emerge).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Ground Under Fukushima Unit 4 Sinking, Structure on Verge of Complete Collapse
(NaturalNews) Though the mainstream media has long since abandoned the issue, the precarious situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan is only continuing to worsen, according to a prominent Japanese official. During a recent interview, Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to both Switzerland and Senegal, explained that the ground beneath the plant’s Unit 4 is gradually sinking, and that the entire structure is very likely on the verge of complete collapse.
This is highly concerning, as Unit 4 currently holds more than 1,500 spent nuclear fuel rods, and a collective 37 million curies of deadly radiation that, if released, could make much of the world completely uninhabitable. As some Natural News readers will recall, Unit 4 contains the infamous elevated cooling pool that was severely damaged following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lenin and Marx Portraits Removed From Pyongyang’s Central Square
North Korea has removed the portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin from the main square of Pyongyang. The portraits of the communist leaders along with the image of the leader of the North Korean revolution Kim Il Sung had been decorating the building of North Korea’s Ministry for Foreign Trade for decades. The faces were hanging there even after the Korean Workers’ Party replaced references to Marxism-Leninism with the idea of ??Juche during the 1980s, said Kommersant-online.
South Korean agency Yonhap was the first to have reported the disappearance of the portraits. The agency referred to fresh photos of the Kim Il Sung Square. According to experts, the disappearance of the portraits of Marx and Lenin may be another indirect sign of the changes, which 29-year-old Kim Jong Un started in the country after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
Experts say the young Kim often appears in public in a relatively informal atmosphere, such as visiting a local theme park. He became the first North Korean leader, who raised the curtain above his personal life, announced his marriage and started to appear in public with his wife.
Kim Jong Un even replaced the portrait of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung with another one, where the leader is seen smiling. According to political analysts, these steps could indicate an attempt to reduce the isolation of the country and weaken the influence of the military. However, not that long ago, the North Korean authorities declared the readiness to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States.
In the meantime, another monument to Lenin was demolished in the center of Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. The authorities have approached the question creatively. They put the dismantled monument up for auction, offering anyone to buy it for just $290. Instead of the Lenin monument, there will be a monument to the victims of 2008, when several people were killed in a mass protest action on the square of Ulan Bator.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mongolia Capital Ulan-Bator Removes Lenin Statue
Ulan-Bator, the capital of Mongolia, has removed its last bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin, denouncing the communist leader as a “murderer”.
The monument was hoisted from its plinth in a park and dropped on to the back of a flat-bed lorry at a ceremony attended by city mayor Bat-Uul Erdene.
During the Cold War, Mongolia was effectively a Soviet satellite state.
Mr Bat-Uul said the statue would be auctioned off with a starting price of about $280 (£174; 216 euros).
In a 10-minute speech, he denounced Lenin and his fellow communists as “murderers”.
Mongolia had suffered at the hands of the communists but had moved on to create an open society, he added.
For decades Vladimir Lenin was worshipped by Mongolian schoolchildren as Teacher Lenin, the BBC’s Michael Kohn reports from Ulan-Bator.
In 1990 the country abandoned its one-party state system and embraced political and economic reforms.
A crowd of around 300 people gathered to watch the statue being taken down. A few threw old shoes at it to display their distaste at the former Soviet leader.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Father Faces Court Over Daughter’s Murder
A man accused of murdering his two-year-old daughter and attempting to kill his wife in a Sydney unit block has been traumatised by his life in Afghanistan, a court has heard.
The 33-year-old man was charged with murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder, following an alleged knife attack on his then 24-year-old wife and two-year-old daughter in Canley Vale on New Year’s Day last year.
The wife survived, but the daughter died a short time later.
None of the family members can be named for legal reasons.
In a hearing to determine whether the father is mentally fit to stand trial, the NSW Supreme Court heard on Monday that he had repeatedly told police he didn’t remember anything about the New Year’s Eve incident.
Defence barrister Paul Winch said the father received counselling from the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) after coming to Australia from Afghanistan in 2004.
STARTTs noted he was suffering “severe” mental stress as a result of his past experiences in Afghanistan, and there were reports he had been captured and tortured by the Taliban.
When the father was discharged from the program in 2007, STARTTS noted he had a “number of” mental health issues because of trauma, Mr Winch said.
He told the court the father would be wrong if he believed that pleading loss of memory would give him a “better outcome” in the court system.
But psychiatrist Dr Rosalie Wilcox said she believed he was “exaggerating and fabricating symptoms of memory impairment and mental illness”.
Until the day of the alleged attack, Dr Wilcox said the father had held down a job as a security guard job and colleagues said he was “coherent”.
“There is no evidence that he has had any biological reasons to cause loss of memory and sudden loss of intelligence,” Dr Wilcox said.
She believed he “should be” fit to enter a plea and stand trial.
The hearing before Justice Robert Hulme continues.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Man Jailed for Cutting Girlfriend’s Tongue
[Note from Salome: The news here isn’t what he did—that’s old news and you’ve covered it. It’s that ‘attends Muslim prayer sessions 5 times a day’ may or may not have caused the judge to reject the Crown’s application to have the brute declared a violent serious offender.]
A SOUTH Australian man who brutally cut off of his ex-girlfriend’s tongue in a jealous rage on the Gold Coast has been jailed for 8-and-a-half years.
Mohammed Tasleem Tahir, 23, pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court to causing grievous bodily harm to his 20-year-old former partner.
Judge Katherine McGinness condemned his attack as “persistent and devastating”.
But due to his youth and lack of violent criminal history she set him parole eligibility from September next year.
Tahir admitted he followed his ex-partner from Adelaide to the Gold Coast in 2010 and confronted her in her apartment on November 13 claiming he wanted to ‘repair’ the relationship.
When she resisted he bashed her with an large, empty Bundaberg Rum bottle and used a knife to cut slits in the corners of her lips and to sever part of her tongue.
He then strangled her in the bedroom and only stopped when she played dead.
Concerned neighbours heard a”bloodcurdling scream” and called police who kicked down the apartment door and found the bloodied pair in the unit.
The woman required intensive care for her mouth, tongue, facial gashes and a fractured eye socket.
Today the court was told the woman had suffered permanent facial scarring and despite surgery to repair her tongue she had lost sensation and still had trouble speaking.
She did not attend court today.
Barrister Michael Byrne QC said Tahir regretted his actions and had begun attending Muslim prayer sessions five times a day in jail.
Judge McGinness rejected an application by the Crown to declare Tahir a serious violent offender.
| — Hat tip: Salome | [Return to headlines] |
Man Jailed for Cutting Off Girlfriend’s Tongue
A man has been sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ jail for severing a woman’s tongue.
Mohammed Tasleem Tahir was in a relationship with Catherine Skinner in Adelaide, and when she moved to the Gold Coast, he followed her.
The Southport District Court heard in November 2010, the then 21-year-old attacked Ms Skinner in her apartment.
The Crown prosecutor told the court Tahir smashed an empty bottle over the 20-year-old’s head several times, fracturing her eye socket.
Tahir then dragged a knife across her face, cutting her mouth and severing her tongue, the court heard.
Judge Katherine McGinness sentenced Tahir to eight-and-a-half years’ jail.
She ordered he be eligible for parole after serving a third of his sentence.
A woman in the public gallery gasped when the judge explained that, due to time already served, Tahir could be released in September next year.
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South Australian Man Mohammed Tasleem Tahir Jailed for Cutting Off Girlfriend’s Tongue
A SOUTH Australian man who cut off of his ex-girlfriend’s tongue in a jealous rage on the Gold Coast has been jailed for 8-and-a-half years.
Mohammed Tasleem Tahir, 23, pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court to causing grievous bodily harm to his 20-year-old former partner.
Judge Katherine McGinness condemned his attack as “persistent and devastating”.
But due to his youth and lack of violent criminal history she set him parole eligibility from September next year.
Tahir admitted he followed his ex-partner from Adelaide to the Gold Coast in 2010 and confronted her in her apartment on November 13 claiming he wanted to ‘repair’ the relationship.
When she resisted he bashed her with an large, empty Bundaberg Rum bottle and used a knife to cut slits in the corners of her lips and to sever part of her tongue.
He then strangled her in the bedroom and only stopped when she played dead.
Concerned neighbours heard a”bloodcurdling scream” and called police who kicked down the apartment door and found the bloodied pair in the unit.
The woman required intensive care for her mouth, tongue, facial gashes and a fractured eye socket.
Today the court was told the woman had suffered permanent facial scarring and despite surgery to repair her tongue she had lost sensation and still had trouble speaking.
She did not attend court today.
Barrister Michael Byrne QC said Tahir regretted his actions and had begun attending Muslim prayer sessions five times a day in jail.
Judge McGinness rejected an application by the Crown to declare Tahir a serious violent offender.
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For France, African Intervention in Mali “Matter of Weeks”
(AGI) Paris, Oct. 16 — An African military intervention in Mali to outcast extremists is now only “a matter of weeks”. The comment was made by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
“It’s a matter of weeks, not months, weeks”, explained the Minister in an interview to France 2, defining the region conquered last spring by Islamists “a sanctuary of terrorism”.
In relation to this, the Minister explained that France “will not send troops on the ground” but will provide “logistical aid” and “help in planning” the operation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Kaduna Mosque Attack: Defence HQ Denies Complicity, Blames Robbers
Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters in a statement denied claims by some foreign media organizations that military men had a hand in Sunday’s attack on a mosque in Kaduna State which left 20 people dead. The worshipers were gunned down as they were leaving the mosque. The Defence Headquarters issued a statement to that effect late on Sunday and it reads inter alia: “The attention of the Defence Headquarters has been drawn to the unsubstantiated claims by CNN and Aljazeera alleging that the Nigerian Military carried out an early morning attack on Muslim worshipers in a mosque at Dogo Dawa, a village near Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State, where twenty people were allegedly killed by unknown gunmen. This is contrary to reports by other local and international media organizations, who reported that the attack was carried out by unknown gunmen.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: 15 Blasts Heard in Maiduguri
Maiduguri — At least 15 explosions were reported yesterday in Gwange and London Ciki areas of Maiduguri. Residents said the first blast was heard around 5.40pm, shortly before the sunset (Maghrib) prayers. “The sound was thunderous and rattled many of us…the first bomb exploded not far from Bama Road in Gwange area,” a resident said. “Before we entered our houses, we heard deafening and simultaneous blasts from many directions,” he said. Another resident, who does not want his name in print, said he escaped being killed while on his way home. “I was told that trouble started when some insurgents, armed with guns and explosives attempted to burn a primary school and some communication masts along Custain but the move was repelled by soldiers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Al Shabaab Clash With Government Forces in Two Mogadishu Districts
Mogadishu — At least five people were killed after clashes sparked in the city of Mogadishu between Al Shabaab and government forces, Garowe Online reports. The clashes sparked in two districts in Mogadishu Yaqshid and Dharkenley on Sunday night. Somali government forces confirmed that the clashes did occur in Mogadishu adding that the government forces repelled the Al Shabaab insurgents Sunday night…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: IFP Member Killed at Durban Court
Durban — An Inkatha Freedom Party member was shot dead outside the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court on Monday, in full view of the police and television cameras. IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the shots were fired while he was giving an interview following the appearance of four men in connection with the shooting of an IFP supporter a little more than a week ago at Durban’s KwaMashu hostels. Nkosi identified the IFP supporter who was killed as Siya Dlamini. “I was giving an interview when the e.tv journalist warned me and then I heard two shots,” said Nkosi. According to Nkosi, a National Freedom Party councillor in the eThekwini Municipality was arrested and bundled into a police van…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Castro Recruited Nazi SS Officers to Train Cuban Soldiers
By Daniel Greenfield
Papers released this week by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) — the German foreign intelligence agency — show information gathered by German operatives 50 years ago during the tense days of the Cuban missile crisis.
They reveal that Castro personally approved a plan to hire former Nazi officers to instruct the Cuban revolutionary army, offering them wages that were four times the average salary in Germany at the time and the chance to start a new life in Havana.
They papers, dating from October 1962, show that four former officers from the elite Nazi death squads had been invited to the Cuban capital, although subsequent reports could only confirm that two had arrived.
“Evidently, the Cuban revolutionary army did not fear contagion from personal links to Nazism, so long as it served its their own objectives,” said Bodo Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at the BND, in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany and France Demand Reintroduction of Balkan Visas
Germany, France and four other EU countries want to reintroduce visa requirements for people from the Western Balkans, saying that the measure is needed to combat a spike in asylum claims from the region.
Ahead of next week’s meeting of EU home affairs ministers, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands sent a letter to the European Commission asserting that thousands of people from the former Yugoslavia were delaying the system by claiming asylum with fake passports.
Speaking to reporters on Monday (15 October), Michele Cercone, spokesperson for EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, said that the “worrying situation” was creating “serious problems for the functioning of the asylum system.
He added that while only a “small minority are abusing the system” this was “crippling” it.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A well-organised sham marriage gang staged fake weddings with eastern European brides so Pakistani men could illegally enter the UK, a court heard.
Czech and Slovak women living in the UK were paid by Rotherham-based Asian organisers to fly out to Pakistan where ‘marriages’ were arranged with Pakistani nationals.
Supported by false documents, applications for settlement and family permit visas were submitted to the British High Commission in Islamabad by Pakistanis seeking leave to join their ‘wives’ in the UK, Sheffield Crown Court was told.
As overseas nationals they would have been allowed to stay in the UK as ‘husbands’ of their spouses who were legitimately resident here as EU citizens.
But suspicions over the growing number of applications in Islamabad led to the ring being smashed and none of the 62 fraudulent visa applications were ever granted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Being Straight No Longer Normal, Students Taught
STUDENTS at 12 NSW high schools are being taught it is wrong and “heterosexist” to regard heterosexuality as the norm for human relationships.
The “Proud Schools” pilot program, implemented in 12 government schools in Sydney and the Hunter, is designed to stamp out “homophobia, transphobia (fear of transsexuals) and heterosexism”.
Teachers are given professional development to learn to identify and stamp out any instances of “heterosexist” language in the playground, such as “that’s so gay”.
But at least 10 Liberal MPs are “extremely concerned” about the program, and will complain to Education Minister Adrian Piccoli this week.
The program defines “heterosexism” as the practice of “positioning heterosexuality as the norm for human relationship,” according to the Proud Schools Consultation Report.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
In 1950, there were 16 working Americans for every retiree. Today, there are fewer than three. By 2030, it’s projected there will be fewer than two.
It doesn’t take a supercomputer to realize that if we don’t reduce the retirement and health care resources available to our elderly, the burden on each working American to provide those resources increases substantially.
Yet the discussion about this crisis is 100 percent focused on how to cut the spending and zero attention is spent on restoration of values that could rebuild families, produce more children and stop destroying the unborn.
[…]
According to demographers, a fertility rate of 2.1 — in which each adult woman produces 2.1 children on average over her lifetime — is necessary to keep the overall population steady.
Which means the overall U.S. population is shrinking.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Solar wind sparked creation of lunar water, study says.
Long thought to be bone dry, the moon has recently been confirmed as relatively water rich. But a big question remains: Where did the wet-or more accurately, icy-stuff come from?
A new study might have the answer: The moon’s water may have, in a sense, sailed in on the solar wind. The discovery hints at a previously unknown method of delivering water to the inner solar system-and a new way to produce water and rocket fuel for future space missions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Most Alien Solar Systems Are ‘Flatter Than Pancakes’
Our solar system is shaped like a thin-crust pizza, with most of the planets traveling around the sun close to the same plane, and it’s apparently not alone. A new study suggests the majority of alien planetary systems are much like ours, “flatter than pancakes,” scientists say.
UCLA astronomers looked at data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope and found that more than 85 percent of alien planets have inclinations of less than 3 degrees. This means they orbit around a star near the same axis as other planets in their system.
“The best mental image for the geometry of planetary systems is somewhere between a crepe and a pancake,” UCLA professor Jean-Luc Margot explained in a statement today (Oct. 15).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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