Cyprus Unemployment Funds Drying Up
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, NOVEMBER 7 — The demand for unemployment benefits across Cyprus has put a strain on state unemployment funds. Following the highest levels of unemployment since the creation of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960, the state will have paid out over 100 million euros in dole benefits by the end of this year. The figure, as daily Famagusta Gazette reports, has shattered all prior records of payouts to those without work and means the state has now has to jiggle funds allocated from various ministries to the Department of Labour. The incredible spike in unemployment comes after figures show that those without work stands at 12.2% of the economically active population in Cyprus. Unemployment in Cyprus is recording the third fastest rise in the EU after Greece and Spain, according to the EU Employment and Social Situation Review. In September the Social Situation Review concluded that the outlook for Cyprus remains bleak as “the consumer confidence indicator continues to deteriorate, unemployment expectations are on the increase and expectations about the general economic situation are again worsening.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Decision Puts America on Trajectory Toward Financial Mega-Disaster
The re-election of Obama was more than the mere selection of one man over another; it was an endorsement of a set of economic policies that are now launching America into a trajectory that can only end in economic disaster.
With the election now etched in the history books, America has endorsed an endless government spending spree that can no longer be held in check. There is only one outcome now for the United States of America: A grand finale blowout of money creation, hyperinflation, collapse and tyranny.
This point is not a debate; it is mathematical fact. Just as 2 + 2 = 4, the economic policies pursued by President Obama and the Federal Reserve can only equal the utter financial demise of the U.S. dollar. This is explained in more detail, below.
Fortunately, the number of U.S. dollars in circulation around the world serves as a kind of “heat sink” that slows the arrival of the final blowout collapse. So this process may take years to unfold, but Obama seems to determined to accelerate its arrival for reasons that may become clear as you continue to read this article.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rome Millionaires Nabbed Living in Subsidized Housing
Police sweep uncovers thousands of welfare cheats
(ANSA) — Rome, November 8 — Police nabbed a Rome family Thursday for falsely claiming poverty in order to live in a subsized home while earning millions annually. In 2009 alone, police said the suspects earned six million euros, invested in property, bought pleasure boats and played the stock market. In a dragnet, police said they uncovered over 12,000 families in Rome whose income did not correspond with what they declared to qualify for state housing. In 24 cases, earnings were 40,000 to 100,000 euros above the threshold, and some families were paying as little as 7.75 euros per month on rent. In one instance, a realtor who purchased a motor boat was caught living in a rent-subsidized home for 281 euros per month.
Others claimed to have zero income while owning things such as stores and real estate.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Real Winner of the Presidential Election
The Federal Reserve Is the Real Winner
US News and World Report notes that Bernanke helped Obama to get re-elected by juicing the economy … at least temporarily:
The Federal Reserve had a key role in the presidential election — possibly even a decisive one.
Exit poll results show that, not surprisingly, a majority of voters said the struggling economy was their top concern … In the end, voters seemed to believe the economy was gradually getting better, and Obama deserved more time to make things right.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
When flying cross-country recently, I stood in line like everyone else for the TSA “security” check and thought about Judge Andrew Napolitano’s recent book, A Nation of Sheep. How did Americans, once known for their independence and fierce devotion to their rights, become people who easily are herded, abused, and subjected to regular state-run humiliations?
Perhaps the larger question I should have asked was this: How did a people in a society once identified by its rule of law become a people who now willingly subject themselves to what essentially is a rule of rules? The answer to me has become increasingly obvious: the USA, once known for its swashbuckling entrepreneurs, now has become a nation of bureaucrats, or, to be specific, a nation of people who think like bureaucrats.
The creation of this situation has come not only about because government officials no longer feel any sense of personal restraint upon their conduct but also because Americans themselves have become accustomed and even comfortable to living within a structure of ever-stifling rules that can trip them up no matter how hard they try to obey them. What people in this country once would have deemed oppressive has become the New Normal.
[…]
Unfortunately, the numbers and scope of productive people are dwindling, and those that either are employed or supported by bureaucracies are growing in number. The growth of the power and reach of American bureaucracies also has another negative effect: it slowly but surely is changing the character of what was once the most entrepreneurial country on the planet into a place where bureaucracy not only rules, but it also pays and pays very well.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Karl Marx was asked once how he could justify advocating a political system of slavery for the individual, which is what socialism is. He replied that, socialism is not slavery; it is a “new kind of freedom.” As all perceptive students of history know, the intellectuals of Europe bought into such Alice in Wonderland sophistry.
But unfortunately so did the American intellectuals about 30 years later when the progressives of Woodrow Wilson’s era established the Creature from Jekyl Island to usher in centralized government banking and the progressive income tax to “spread the wealth around.” The socialists of America never bought into Lenin’s violent revolutionary approach, but they certainly did buy into the democratic evolutionary approach of the English Fabians whose ideas were picked up by the American progressives and liberals of the twentieth century. This redefinition of values has been consuming us now for 100 years — ever since the Creature from Jekyl Island and the tax revenuers took over Washington. The progressives and liberals have even redefined their redefinitions. Fascism, being basically the same as socialism, is now acceptable in the mix.
What is horrifying is that the recent election is tied to this corruption of values? We have elected now for a second time a man who was raised by radical communists in Hawaii. Obama’s mind was forged from the likes of Frank Marshall Davis, a powerful and radical communist apparatchick of the fifties, sixties, and seventies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Blockheads of the Day — Americans Who Voted for Obama
Seduced by vague promises, platitudes, no knowledge of history, economics or the world.
Americans who voted for Obama in the U.S. presidential election yesterday should have asked themselves some basic questions before doing so.
Like…
- What will happen when the United States goes bankrupt? That’s going to happen, soon, thanks to Obama.
- What will happen when the military is no longer able to defend the U.S.? That’s going to happen, soon, thanks to Obama.
- What will happen when the Middle East implodes and violent, sustained Islamic anti-Americanism explodes everywhere? That’s going to happen, soon, thanks to Obama.
- What will happen when reality sets in and the economy doesn’t improve resulting in more and more Americans finding themselves in penury with no hope of getting out of it? That’s going to happen, soon, thanks to Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Drug Legalization in US States Will Beget More Legalization
Mexico now is beginning to think that its efforts to halt the transport of marijuana from Mexico into the US is a waste of time. Today, the President-elect of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto stated that the successful legalization in Washington and Colorado “will force the Mexican government to rethink its efforts at trying to halt marijuana smuggling across the Southwest border.”
Mexico had earlier considered legalizing drugs to a limited degree, but interference from the Bush administration stopped that effort. Some politicians became nearly hysterical over the matter with San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders stating that “I view this as a hostile action by a longtime ally of the U.S.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It Will Take More Than an Obama to Kill America
The same pundits and talking heads who may have kept people from going out to vote because it was a “Romney landslide” are tossing out a plethora of reasons why Romney lost and Obama won.
In the myriad of election loss theories they conveniently skirt what really happened and how it will affect main street Americans in a post-election world.
Think of post November 6 America as Old Glory rent in two. Going into election Americans were roughly split 50/50. Coming out of the election Americans are still split 50/50.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Private Property Rights Defined
“Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal”
As the battle to stop Sustainable Development grows, it is important that activists have clear definitions of their points as they deal with elected officials and planners who are making policy in their community. Below is a start in defining private property rights.
In a “Fifth Amendment” treatise by Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders (12/10/97), he writes: Our state, and most other states, define property in an extremely broad sense.” That definition is as follows:
“Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Anything which destroys any of the elements of property, to that extent, destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property lies in its use. If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated and ownership is rendered a barren right.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
My mail the day after the election was filled with vituperation from the Left. Words like “kike” and “scumbag” were just some that I encountered. I welcome their disdain.
The Left is triumphant, but they do not see that “sequestration” is coming to further erode the power of our military and the consequences that will flow from that. They do not see the skyrocketing taxes that will be imposed on Americans.
The Left has always lived in a utopia of the leveling of all earnings, the nanny state government that will control everything they do. They want a hand-out, not the hard work of lifting oneself out of poverty and dependency. That will be the fate of a complacent middle class.
Norman Thomas, the former U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate in the 1940s said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialist. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” That day has arrived.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
During the past week I spent a good deal of time outside the early voting center in Columbus. I saw the evidence of the complete breakdown of the election process. The cheating was obvious to anyone who took the time to notice.
Obama-buses poured into the center weighted down with indigents from all across Franklin County. As the exited the bus they were handed a Democrat slate card and herded into the building. No ID was accepted…notice I didn’t say required…accepted. The poll workers refused to look at an ID even if you offered one.
Buses full of Somalis were shepherded through. Some were unable to speak English so they were given a “translator” to “assist” them in casting their ballot. The “translator” was, of course, “non-partisan” and was kind enough to help them sign in and fill out the ballot according to the slate card they had been given.
America is dead, my friends. When voting is easier for a non-citizen than buying a beer is for a 16 year old you know our goose is cooked…
Group speak, group thought, a herd-mentality is what the change-agents masquerading as educational experts have as their ultimate goal. Reason is defined as “a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense.” Here are just a few of the “discussions” I had out on the streets. Please notice the inability to apply reason.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Virginia Store Closes for a Day to ‘Mourn the Loss of America’
Virginia’s 13 electoral votes went to President Obama for the second straight election, and the proprietor of a store in the south central city of Bedford is not hiding his dismay.
Lyons Jewelers hung up multiple signs on the windows of the shop indicating the shop would not be open for business Wednesday, including one saying the store was closed to “mourn the loss of the America that our forefathers endowed to us,” WDBJ reported.
“Lyons will reopen tomorrow to continue the fight against a president who seeks my demise” and “Shame on VA & USA” read two other signs.
Another played off a remark Mr. Obama made while campaigning in Roanoke earlier this year about businesses and government assistance that Republicans latched onto as a campaign theme: “I know I didn’t build this — God did.”
One customer did hang up a sign as a response of sorts: “I am sorry you feel this way!!! I do bussiness (sic) I guess I will take it somewhere else!!”
With nearly 100 percent of precincts reporting, Republican Mitt Romney won Bedford City, 54 percent to 44 percent, as well as Bedford County, 71 percent to 27 percent. Mr. Obama carried the state with 50.7 percent of the vote to Mr. Romney’s 47.7 percent, according to unofficial results — a difference of about 110,000 v
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
You Just Witnessed the Idiocracy Election of 2012
(NaturalNews) I don’t normally watch television (the “zombie tube”), but I couldn’t resist on election night. So I tuned in and found myself reacting in total shock at the live news interviews with Americans who had just voted: These people were complete morons!
I don’t mean that in a flippant derogatory way. What I mean is that they were cognitively incapable of intelligent thought. They had no grasp of the issues, no comprehension of political reality, and no clear idea why they even voted for their candidate.
Without exception, the people I saw interviewed on the news appeared to be babbling idiots yanked right out of the movie Idiocracy. Some of them gave “reasons” for voting that had no basis in fact. “He’s good for the economy and created more jobs,” one Obama voter explained, apparently not realizing Obama has gutted the U.S. economy and destroyed tens of millions of jobs over the last four years, causing unemployment to skyrocket and food stamps to more than double.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cheap New York Flights Prompt Swedish Frenzy
Budget carrier Norwegian announced flights between Stockholm and New York City for under 1,000 kronor ($150) on Thursday, prompting a massive spike in demand which proved too much for the airline’s website.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: One Holy Warrior’s Stormy Road to Beer and Bacon
by Lars Hedegaard
The closer one looks at the amazing story of the Danish Islam convert, Morten Storm, who volunteered for holy war in Somalia and later became a police agent and opponent of Islam, the clearer it becomes that an Islamic power-grab in Denmark will be harder than probably imagined by Islamic strategists.
If a novelist had written a manuscript about Morten Storm’s fantastic twists and turns, any publisher worth his salt would have rejected it.
Storm (36) began his career as a petty criminal and became a member of the biker gang Bandidos. In 1997 he gave up his criminal activities and converted to Islam. He grew a red beard, donned a Taleban dress and became active in a number of mosques while appearing in the Danish press as a holy man and determined advocate of the prophet. He also stayed in contact with terrorists in several countries.
Following the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, he became so enthusiastic that he named his son Osama after the uberterrorist Osama bin Laden.
At the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007, he contacted the Danish intelligence police (PET) and was hired to inform on his former friends. He has told three journalists from the daily Jyllands-Posten, Orla Borg, Morten Pihl and Carsten Ellegaard, who are writing a book about him, that in 2011 he collaborated with the PET and the CIA to track down the American terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. He went to Yemen, where al-Awlaki was killed in an American drone attack on September 30, 2011 — a few weeks after Morten Storm had left the country.
In the summer of 2012, the PET offered him 1.5 million kroner if he would refrain from telling his story to the press. Nevertheless he decided to tell Jyllands-Posten about his secret life. That happened on October 7, 2012.
Today he lives at a secret address because his former co-combatants will kill him if they can lay their hands on him.
Psychologically it is hard to make heads or tails of this confusing chronicle. Perhaps the forthcoming book will shed more light on what really happened and why.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Netanyahu ‘Hijacked Memorial Service’
French President François Hollande has criticized Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu for transforming a memorial service for Jews slain by an Islamist gunman in southwestern France this year into a campaign meeting.
“Netanyahu came to France to campaign and we knew that,” Hollande told journalists in private remarks at the weekend which were later leaked by satirical weekly Canard Enchainé.
The two leaders last Thursday attended a highly emotional service for a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren shot dead by Al-Qaeda inspired killer Mohamed Merah on March 19 in the city of Toulouse.
Hollande said the Israeli prime minister, who faces legislative polls in January, had hijacked the event.
“Since I was there, he toned down his speech but it wasn’t good to transform this ceremony into an electoral meeting,” he told the journalists, including AFP, in the private conversation. “It wasn’t appropriate.”
Netanyahu had compared the gunman to Nazis and warned that Israel could defend its people from those “who want to erase us from the map,” ending his speech with the slogan “Israel will Live!”
France is home to between 350,000 and 500,000 Jews, according to various estimates. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, more than 90,000 French Jews have settled there.
Netanyahu enjoyed close ties with Hollande’s right-wing predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy until a G20 summit in November last year when he branded the Israeli leader “a liar” in a private conversation with US President Barack Obama.
“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy said, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on.
Obama, according to the French interpreter, replied: “You’re fed up with him but I have to deal with him even more than you.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Human Carbon Emissions Seen by Researchers Holding Back Ice Age
Human emissions of fossil carbon into the atmosphere and the resulting increase in temperatures may be holding off the next ice age, according to research from Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.
“We are probably entering a new ice age right now,” Lars Franzen, a professor of physical geography at the university, was cited as saying in an online statement today. “However, we’re not noticing it due to the effects of carbon dioxide.”
Franzen and three other researchers calculated how much of Sweden might be covered by peat lands during an interglacial, the period between two ice ages. Peat absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, and the study found that the country’s carbon-sink potential could increase six- to 10-fold, which theoretically might cause a drop in temperatures.
Increased felling of woodlands and expansion of agricultural land, combined with early industrialization, probably halted the so-called Little Ice Age from the 16th to the 18th century, slowing down or even reversing a cooling trend, according to the researchers.
“It’s certainly possible that mankind’s various activities contributed towards extending our ice age interval by keeping carbon dioxide levels high enough,” Franzen said. “Without the human impact, the inevitable progression toward an ice age would have continued.”
The earth experienced at least 30 periods of ice age in the past 3 million years, according to the university. There were no emissions of fossil carbon in earlier interglacial periods, and carbon sequestration in peat lands may have been one of the main reasons why ice age conditions occurred, according to Franzen.
“The spread of peat lands is an important factor,” Franzen said. “If we accept that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to an increase in global temperature, the logical conclusion must be that reduced levels lead to a drop in temperature.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Foils Swiss-Based Gold Smugglers
Italian police on Thursday seized €163 million ($207 million) worth of assets from a criminal association headquartered in Switzerland, as well as a luxury villa used as a safehouse for stashing gold.
Officers carried out 259 raids in houses and cash-for-gold shops across Italy as part of an investigation into 118 people suspected of smuggling gold bars to Switzerland and cash back into Italy. The gang is accused of money-laundering, recycling cash and stolen jewels through cash-for-gold shops and churning out ingots in foundries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik Complains About Prison Restrictions
Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, convicted of killing 77 people last year, has complained that prison conditions are violating his human rights, one of his lawyers said on Thursday.
The 33-year-old right-wing extremist has sent a letter to Norway’s correctional services in which he criticizes the high-security regime he has been subjected to for more than a year, and the restrictions placed on his correspondence.
After his prison sentence was handed down on August 24th, Breivik has in practice been denied access to the computer which was provided for him, without internet, before the court ruling, lawyer Tord Jordet said.
Furthermore, all letters he sends and receives are censored as soon as politics is mentioned, he added.
“His freedom of speech is being violated,” Jordet told AFP. “Being deprived of this freedom of expression breaches the constitution and human rights.”
Breivik, who has been separated from other inmates since his arrest, has also complained over daily searches of his cell and of himself, and claims he is deprived of recreational and social activities.
“Such treatment isn’t human,” Jordet said.
The Norwegian Ministry of Justice declined to comment.
Breivik was given Norway’s maximum sentence of 21 years in jail, which can be extended indefinitely. He is expected to spend most of that time at the Ila prison near Oslo.
In addition to his cell, he should also have access to an exercise room and a computer room.
However, access to those facilities is controlled by the prison authorities who, according to Jordet, haven’t replied to his requests in recent weeks to use the computer.
Accusing his victims of fostering multiculturalism, Breivik on July 22nd last year detonated a bomb outside the centre-left government’s headquarters and gunned down participants at a youth camp on the island of Utøya, killing a total of 77 people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One or two per cent of the world’s population has red hair but in Scotland the figure is about 13 per cent
They are often the butt of cruel jibes and perhaps blame it on their parents’ genes.
But now research suggests that redheads can in fact put their colouring down to the weather.
Experts believe that Scotland’s gloomy climate has seen a deliberate genetic adaptation to help exploit rare sunny days and boost Vitamin D production.
Alastair Moffat, managing director of the ScotlandsDNA project, said the country’s dull weather was responsible for a larger number of flame-haired men and women being born.
Only about 1-2 per cent of the world’s population has red hair but in Scotland the figure is much higher, with about 13 per cent, or 650,000 people, with flaming locks.
Famous Scots with red hair range from Doctor Who actress Karen Gillan to football manager Alex McLeish, while the Disney/Pixar movie Brave features a red-haired Scottish Princess Merida.
Researchers are investigating how many people carry the red-hair gene and their findings will be used to make a ‘ginger’ map of the British Isles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Democrat Calls for ‘Swedish Reserve’
A Sweden Democrat politician has called on Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt to work towards the establishment of a “reserve” for Swedish culture and traditions, suggesting her northerly home county of Jämtland as a suitable location.
“Establish a ‘Swedish reservation’, where we can continue to follow our traditions and our Swedish culture,” Marie Stensby, who represents the Sweden Democrats in Krokom in Jämtland, wrote in an open letter to the prime minister.
Stensby’s letter began with a summary of what, in her view, had gone wrong with Sweden, arguing that the country was disappearing into a “black hole” of “indescribable chaos” due to the government’s immigration policy.
“In my darkest moments I wonder if you (Reinfeldt)…would consider adopting an old American model. For us Swedes who want to carry on being just that, Swedes,” she added.
Stensby suggested her home county of Jämtland as a suitable location for “a reservation for Sweden’s indigenous peoples”.
Jämtland has historically rested uneasily within the kingdom of Sweden and was long part of Norway. The “Jämts” were in fact the last people from an acquired territory to become Swedish citizens (in 1699).
An independence movement has existed since the 1960s and the county’s main cultural event of the summer — the Storsjöyran music festival — is traditionally hosted by the “Republic of Jämtland”.
The festival is opened with a speech by the movement’s president, currently Ewert Ljusberg, in which he typically berates and mocks the “Grand-Swedes” and their government in Stockholm.
The movement is however widely regarded as a humorous marketing ploy and Marie Stensby on Wednesday appeared to tap into this tradition when she explained that her call for a “Swedish reservation” should not be taken too seriously either.
“I have learned that next time when I take a joke to the extremes, I should write (ha,ha,ha) in brackets, alternatively refrain from humour,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Police Crack Down on Lausanne Drug Dealers
Lausanne and Vaud cantonal police are redoubling efforts to combat drug dealers in the centre of the city.
In a joint operation, a contingent of around 150 officers arrived at the Place Chauderon late on Wednesday afternoon, checking about 50 people hanging out in the area. The square is known as a place where drug dealers have been carrying out their illegal activity in an increasingly open manner, sparking general concern about security in the neighborhood.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hate preacher Abu Hamza’s son was jailed for armed robbery yesterday — as his barrister blamed his father’s notoriety for making the 20-year-old turn to a life of crime.
Imran Mostafa was part of a gang that raided a jeweller’s store in a ‘terrifying’ £70,000 smash and grab heist..
Four men — one brandishing a handgun — smashed display cabinets with a sledgehammer during the ‘sophisticated and well-planned’ raid in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
Mostafa had denied robbery and possessing a firearm with intent to commit an offence but was convicted in September following a trial.
As he was jailed for 11 years yesterday at Norwich Crown Court, his barrister, Roderick Price, said his client had been sucked into offending because his father’s reputation had left him isolated from mainstream society.
In mitigation, Mr Price said: ‘He had an unusual childhood and young adulthood.
‘In his early childhood, he had a very good relationship with his father who, at that time, was not in prison.
‘But attempts to socialise outside his home often failed because of who his father was.
‘He became more and more isolated and his social life became centred around his family.
Friendships proved difficult because children would be told by their parents not to play with him.’
Later, in a contradictory statement read on his behalf outside court by his solicitor, Aseem Taj, Mostafa protested his innocence and claimed he was the victim of a ‘plot against my father, myself and my family’.
‘They’ve locked me up for something I did not do, all because of the conspiracy against my father and his beliefs,’ the statement said.
Mostafa, of Slough, Berkshire, took part in the raid at the Francis Wain store just before 10am on January 31.
A ‘smoke-producing device’ was set off in an attempt to disguise those involved, prosecutor Ian James said.
The ‘violent intrusion’ was captured on CCTV and footage showed one of the robbers waving a handgun.
‘For those who had the misfortune to be working in the premises it must have been an absolutely terrifying experience,’ said Mr James.
Mostafa claimed during the trial he was teaching Arabic and the Koran at a community centre in London at the time of the robbery.
He had gained 11 GCSEs and A-levels and began studying civil engineering at university but dropped out because he felt ‘isolated’, the court heard.
While on remand in prison he was placed in segregation because of his father’s identity.
Two of the other men — Ossama Hamed, 19, of Fulham, South-West London, and Ahmed Ahmed, of Enfield, North London — admitted the charges at a previous hearing.
They were jailed for eight years and three months and seven years and four months respectively.
The fourth, Jonathan Abdul from London, had denied the charges but was convicted by the jury. He was sentenced to 11 years in a young offenders’ institute.
‘This was plainly a terrifying robbery,’ Judge Peter Jacobs told them.
‘Staff were praying that they would not be shot and they continue to suffer trauma.’
Judge Jacobs had ordered Mostafa’s parentage should not be reported until the jury reached its verdict.
Hook-handed radical cleric Hamza was extradited from Britain to the US after a last-ditch court appearance in which he claimed he was unfit to face terrorism charges.
He is accused of involvement in a hostage plot in Yemen in 1998 that led to the deaths of three Britons and an Australian. He also faces charges of setting up a terror training camp in Oregon.
Mr Price told the court Mostafa had been hit hard by Hamza’s extradition last month, saying: ‘He knows he will never see his father again. This is very hard for him.’
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
by Peter Mullen
Congratulations to Bishop Justin Welby upon his appointment to be Archbishop of Canterbury. There is a lovely verse in The Psalms: “We wish you good luck in the name of the Lord.” And so I wish the new Archbishop luck, for he will surely need it. His longish career in business and his rather shortish career as a diocesan bishop — less than two years — make him an interesting choice. What manner of man is he?
He is of course an establishment man. I do not mean to suggest by that the old establishment based on the 16th century and the Elizabethan Settlement and supported by luminous divines such as Hooker, Law and Lancelot Andrewes. That wonderful creation was put to death decades ago. No, I mean the new establishment: a hierarchy among the bishops and in the Synod of Left-wing modernisers, devotees of all the secular fads such as diversity, social cohesion, political correctness and, of course, apostles of that sublime superstition, global warming.
Accordingly, Bishop Welby takes the Left-wing attitude towards economics in general and the banks in particular. These things, “…must be rebuilt from the ruins of the financial crisis to become something that helps people rather than being there for people to help it.” The banks must discover “a social purpose.” That “must” implies that if they fail so to discover it, then it will be discovered for them by higher authority. So it’s banker-bashing as usual. There is no mention of the clear truth that in this country the crisis was produced by the excessive borrowing and spending of the Blair-Brown years, their employment of an additional million civil servants and their vast extension of the client state by increasing and proliferating an already excessive spending on welfare.
The bishop does speak from the highest moral ground: “One principle that seems to me to be clear. We cannot replace what was destroyed in 2008; we can only replace it with something that is dedicated to the support of human society, the common good and solidarity.” Who are this “We” who will do the replacing, we might ask? But the point to notice about what the bishop is saying here, is his supreme confidence in the objective infallibility of his own thoughts: he begins by mentioning a “principle” but proceeds only to offer his opinion. Clearly the implication must be that he regards his own private opinions as matters of principle. This is dangerous. It has been known to lead to demagoguery.
The same note of certainty attaches to his — eminently predictable — views on the consecration of women bishops: “I am committed to and believe in…” Well, this is prolix, but I suppose we should be comforted at least in the knowledge that what he is “committed to” he also “believes in.” What would it be like to be committed to something one did not believe in? …the ordination of women as bishops. I hold these views as a result of careful study of the scriptures and examination of the tradition.” Well, that’s nice to know. But where does it leave those of us who examine scriptures and inhabit a tradition but come to conclusions at odds with those of Bishop Justin? For example, my examination of scripture reveals that it does not contain even so much as one solitary example of a woman bishop or, if it comes to that, a single woman priest. And there had — until the day before yesterday — never been such in the 2000 years’ Christian tradition to which I belong.
Also, it seems that the new Archbishop is on the excitable wing of the contemporary church. He writes of “…a youth group on a week away who dared a short time of prayer…and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon the youth. The response was utterly dramatic. They fell to the ground, spoke in tongues — you name it.” But I cannot name it, Bishop. In such company I find myself lost for words. He agrees with observers of this outbreak that it was “raw God”. Others might wish to suggest a different interpretation of such a phenomenon.
No change at Canterbury, then. Not really. The Archbishop Designate is clearly the latest and most suitable incarnation of the perfectly modernised hierarch to preside over our much-modulated Church of England.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The quest to discover life on other planets knows no boundaries. Apart from BBC health and safety guidelines, that is.
Professor Brian Cox has told how corporation bosses blocked his plans to try to make contact with a newly discovered planet — just in case some aliens happened to answer back.
The physicist and TV host claimed they were worried the experiment, to be staged live on air during his hit BBC2 show Stargazing Live, might pick up a signal from ‘an alien civilisation’ — which is apparently a breach of corporation guidelines.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A former karate champion who battered a crying toddler around the face and body before fleeing to New York has been jailed for two years.
Jonathan Thornton, 23, also attacked three-year-old Rylan Swindells’ mother — his ex-partner — in a drink and drug-fuelled rage.
Rylan suffered a cut on his nose, leaving him with a scar, as well as injuries to his shoulder, back and body, a court heard.
Thornton, of no fixed address, fled to America after the attack on Hannah Ward and her son, at her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, on August 31 last year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lincoln Mosque Approved for Dairy Site
Lincoln’s first purpose-built mosque has been given planning approval.
Plans were approved by the city council for a two-storey building with a 12m (40 feet) tower on the site of a former dairy on Boultham Park Road. The Islamic Association of Lincoln said it had worked hard to overcome concerns from local residents, who had highlighted traffic issues. The scheme also includes a small supermarket, housing and improvements to nearby pedestrian crossings. Tanweer Ahmed, of the Islamic Society of Lincoln, said: “For me it has been very encouraging. “We wanted to resolve the issues raised by local residents, which we have done, and what we hope is that we can continue to work with the local residents association to ensure if there are ongoing issues, we can manage these also.” Mr Ahmed said they still had to raise the estimated £1m cost of the mosque…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Letter Revealing How Charles Dickens Branded His Father for Squandering Money
Charles Dickens branded his own father a ‘jackass’ for his recklessness with money, a newly-discovered document reveals.
The great novelist fell out with John Dickens after his father racked up huge debts so he could lead an extravagant lifestyle beyond his means.
Mr Dickens senior regularly used his son’s fame as an excuse to borrow money from his publishers and solicitors, with the author often having to pick up the bill.
By 1840, the problem got so bad that Dickens sent his father and mother Elizabeth to live in Devon to keep him out of trouble.
At the time the writer even took out adverts in newspapers to say he would no longer be paying off his father’s debts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Moore’s ‘Draped Seated Lady’ Up for Auction, Tower Hamlets Mayor Vows
Henry Moore’s famous ‘Draped Seated Woman’ bronze sculpture given as a gift to the people of London’s East End 50 years ago is being sold off at Christie’s, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman decided last night.
Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman defied a public outcry and calls by MPs and figures from the world of art and film not to auction the 8ft artwork—known as ‘Old Flo’, currently housed in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park—to the highest bidder. He made the pronouncement at his cabinet meeting last night, in the face of a public petition signed by 1,500 people and an open letter by leading figures including film director Danny Boyle, Henry Moore’s daughter and Bethnal Green & Bow MP Rushanara Ali. “We have huge savings to make—the government has forced us into lean times,” he told the cabinet. “The position is still the difficulty of placing the statue in a safe place. I act with a heavy heart—but this is the position we’ve been put in. The money will go into ‘art, housing and heritage projects.’“
[…]
[JP note: Liar. The money will go to support Islam and all its works. But, indeed, why would an avowedly extremist Muslim pay good money to keep an idolatrous artefact in the soon-to-be pristine Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets? As soon as Muslims gain a majority they jettison any reminders of the jahiliyyah (period of ignorance), ditto the Danish Christmas tree story.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: News From Murad Qureshi AM: Calls for English Defence League to be Branded “Extremist”
Labour’s Black and Asian Assembly Members have written to the head of the Metropolitan Police to urge him to revise the Met’Bs view about the English Defence League (EDL) not being viewed as an extremist group. Last week the Government banned the EDL from marching in Waltham Forest, Islington, Newham and Tower Hamlets for 30 days. Assembly Members Murad Qureshi, Jennette Arnold OBE, Dr Onkar Sahota and Navin Shah signed a joint letter to Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe asking his to reconsider the EDL’s status.
The Met applied to the Secretary of State Theresa May amid fears of public disorder as the EDL prepared to march in Walthamstow for the second time in one month. Members of the EDL have targeted London boroughs where there are a number of different faith groups and non-white communities.
Labour London-wide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi said:
“We call on Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to brand the EDL as an extremist group. Members of the EDL are disrupting our communities and promoting violence and racist ideology. They are obviously a far-right group, bent on causing as much trouble in our diverse communities as possible. It is disgraceful that people such as the EDL who don’t even live in London and have to travel from outside the city are allowed to come to our neighbourhood to promote their evil racist ideology. We must stand together and recognise the EDL for what they are, an extremist far-right group.”
Ends
Notes
Murad Qureshi is a London-wide Assembly Member. Jennette Arnold OBE is a London Assembly Member for North East, including Islignton, Hackney and Waltham Forest. Dr Onkar Sahota is a London Assembly Member for Ealing and Hillingdon. Navin Shah is a London Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow.
The letter is attached and reads:
“We welcomed the Government’s decision last week to ban the planned EDL march through Waltham Forest and other nearby boroughs. Waltham Forest has become a target for these marches as it is home to a rich tapestry of communities and faiths which these events are designed to attack. In the past, these marches have been organised and attended by EDL members who have no connection with the local community and they have led to disorder and tension on the streets within a community which otherwise live and work together without trouble or contempt for each other.
In light of past experiences of EDL marches and this recent ban, we urge you to revise the Met’s view about the status of the EDL. We ask this because, back in September 2009, the then Met Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson told the MPA that the EDL “are not viewed as an extreme right wing group in the accepted sense”. Last year, it was reported that Adrian Tudway, head of the national domestic extremism unit at Scotland Yard, stated in an email to a Muslim organisation that “in terms of the position with EDL, the original stance stands, they are not extreme right wing as a group” adding “I really think you need to open a direct line of dialogue with them, that might be the best way to engage them and re-direct their activity”. These sentiments are not only patronising to London’s Muslim community, they are wholly inconsistent with the EDL’s recent actions and the reaction by the local community to their presence.
The recent arrests by the Met Police and the request to ban the march last week were both based upon intelligence led investigation; it is clear, therefore, that the perception of the EDL as a non right wing organisation is misconceived. This misconception should be put right, and we hope that recent actions by the Met police and the Home Secretary should pave a way forward to restating the Met’s views on the EDL. We believe this is the time to draw a line in the sand from past statements made by or on behalf of the Met on this subject and we seek your reassurance that such statements will not be made under your watch in the future.”
[JP note: Rich tapestry indeed and one the UK could well do without.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why Lutfur Wants to Sell Old Flo
A lot has been written about the forthcoming sale of the Henry Moore sculpture, the Draped Seated Woman, or Old Flo as it is better known, but a crucial element has also been missed. At tonight’s Tower Hamlets council cabinet, Mayor Lutfur Rahman overruled the concerns of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and confirmed his decision to sell the bronze…
You see, away from most prying eyes, Lutfur has recently embarked on a massive vote-buying programme with hundreds of small community groups and mosques as his targets. At October’s cabinet some £6million was set aside for the mainstream grants programme, which he almost alone controls, until 2015. I warned about his takeover of this grants programme last June, here. At the October meeting, the cabinet tried to discuss the final grant allocations. However, because so many of the councillors were personally linked to the winning groups, half of the cabinet was ordered to leave the room. I and a few others are going through the allocations and quite frankly it stinks. More will be published on this in due course (feel free to email or leave comments on the blog if you have further information by the way). And one other important issue was discussed at that October meeting: Lutfur proposed to set aside another £2million for a three-year “Community Faith Building Support Scheme”. What this, you may ask? Well, it’s a lot of money that he wants to spend refurbishing the borough’s “faith buildings”.
Every faith building will be eligible to apply, but the big heritage churches needn’t bother; they have access to funds from elsewhere. No, the bulk of it is for the small mosques and community centres that occupy former shops all over the borough. [JP emphasis.]
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: War Hero Who Risked His Life on WWII Supply Route Told He Can’t Accept Medal for Valour
A war hero who risked his life to help transport crucial supplies to Russia in the Second World War has been told by the Foreign Office that he cannot accept a medal for valour.
Frank Wilson, now 88, was one of the gallant seamen who braved German submarines and sub zero temperatures as part of the British Arctic convoys.
The perilous sea campaign, nicknamed the ‘Russian Run’, claimed 3,000 lives, but Mr Wilson, who joined the Royal Navy when he was 18, and was a gunner on the escort carrier HMS Activity, survived despite being shot.
He was delighted and honoured when the Russian Embassy wrote to him to tell him they intended to honour him and other veterans with the Medal of Ushakov, as a symbol of the country’s gratitude.
But the Foreign Office has blocked the Russian government’s plans because it said it would break rules surrounding the acceptance of medals.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: EU Gives 58 Mln Euros in Crucial Sectors, Ashton
Deals signed on youth jobs, culture, transportation
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 7 — EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton on her recent mission to Algeria signed off on a 58-billion-euro packet of aid for cultural conservancy, transportation reform and youth employment programs.
“Relations with Algeria are extremely important for the EU,” Ashton said. “The three agreements we just signed are also a demonstration of how important these ties are: it is crucial to help young people get jobs, we cannot underestimate the importance of preserving cultural heritage, and a transportation strategy is fundamental to developing the economy with the infrastructure it needs.” Of the aid packet, 21.5 million euros are slated for pilot cultural conservancy projects in 12 Algerian provinces. Another 13 million euros will go to improve transportation security and professional training, and to support the national transportation plan. The lion’s share, or 23.5 million euros, goes to fighting youth unemployment, reinforcing central and local institutions and financing NGO projects.
There will be initiatives in four pilot Algerian provinces, with local employment agency branches aimed at youth.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Salafites March Friday for Laws Based on Sharia
Islamic law at the centre of debate in constituent assembly
(ANSAmed) — Cairo — A dispute is ongoing between Egyptian fundamentalists and moderate and secular movements over the introduction of the Islamic sharia law as the only source of legislation in the new, post-revolutionary Constitution. While the Constituent assembly is slowly moving ahead, a number of Salafite movements have scheduled a demonstration on Friday in Tahir square ‘for the return of sharia’. The march is organized by the Salafite front which groups Egypt’s main fundamentalist groups. The organization is demanding for ‘the new Constitution not to include any article contradicting sharia’. The former Constitution dating back to the regime of Hosni Mubarak included ‘principles of sharia’ and is opposed by the front.
The dispute over sharia, which is strictly connected to civil rights and women’s rights, is central in the work of the assembly which, one of its members said, should complete its work in the second half of November. The text should subsequently be handed to President Mohamed Morsi by the first week of December and then approved by popular referendum. This passage is connected to legislative elections to renew parliament which was dissolved after magistrates ruled that it was unconstitutional.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Abdeljalil to be Questioned on Death of Gen. Younes
(ANSAmed) — Tunis, November 8 — A court in Benghazi has authorized the questioning of the National Transitional Council (CNT) President Mustapha Adeljalil over the circumstances of the death of general Abdel Fatah Younes, the military leader of Libyan anti-Gaddafi insurgents, who was killed in a mysterious attack last July, the online edition of Tunisie Numerique reports.
Younes, who was fighting at the front, had been recalled in Banghazi to be questioned on unspecified issues concerning the conduction of military operations.
The general, a personal friend of Gaddafi until he became the actual number two of the regime, defected in the spring of last year and became a leading member of the insurgency, quickly rising to become one of its military leaders.
However, many members of the rebel movement mistrusted him, suspecting that Gaddafi’s efforts to defeat rebels was part of his unexpected defection. Younes was soon at odds with another important military leader of rebels, Khalifa Hifter.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Brotherhood Tells Obama “Accept Arab Will”
Officials with the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists are demanding that Obama live up to his rhetoric by dropping Israel and allowing Sharia law to flourish in the Middle East, the Times of Israel reports.
“Accepting the will of the Arab people is the most important change,” wrote Muslim Brotherhood official Issam al-Aryan on his Facebook page, suggesting that the Brotherhood be allowed to set the tone in the region. “In the absence of direct American influence, Egypt can affect and lead the process of building a democratic and constitutional regime that will become a dream for African and the southern hemisphere.”
A Hamas official expressed hope that a second Obama term might include policy changes more to the group’s liking. “He now has an opportunity to implement those promises to the nations of the region, far from pressures by the Israel lobby and politicized money,” said Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu. He also suggested that Obama adopt “a moral policy, devoid of double standards” toward regional issues.
Although Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received Obama’s victory warmly, the Palestinian Authority was not without its own demands on the American leader.
“We have decided to take the Palestinian issue to the UN and we hope that Obama will stand by this Palestinian right,” said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “What Obama needs to do is stop the Israeli settlement policy and not act to stop the Palestinian activity at the UN,” he said, referring to America’s defunding of a United Nations agency after it admitted Palestine as an official member.
Iran, a sponsor of Hamas, also chided the president by comparing his peace rhetoric to crippling sanctions his government imposed on the Islamic Republic. Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani attacked “US crimes against the Iranian people” and added that “the Americans should not think they can gain concessions from the Iranian people by coming to the negotiating table.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Government Coalition Facing Possible Crisis
Cpr secretary general; Ennahdha decides without us
(ANSAmed) — Tunis, November 8 — Relations between Ennahdha and the other two parties in the government coalition — Ettakatol and Congress for the Republic — have become tense after the secretary general of Cpr openly accused the religious party of taking decisions without consulting allies.
In an interview with ‘Radio nationale’, Mohamed Abbou, secretary general of the Congress for the Republic, said his party did not want to take responsibility for the mistakes of others at a time when a cabinet reshuffle is being considered.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Barak: Joint US-Israeli Interest Against PA at UN
Palestinian bid for non-member state must be delayed
(ANSAmed) — Tel Aviv, November 8 — Israel and the US must delay the ‘unilateral’ Palestinian UN bid for non-member state until after Israeli political elections on January 22, Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a state television programme right after the re-election of President Barack Obama.
‘We have a joint interest, ours and theirs, in postponing the Palestinian UN bid for non-member state’, he said. ‘This has to be done now, immediately’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Fighters Fail to Down Unarmed US Drone Over Persian Gulf
Two aging Iranian Sukhoi (SU) -25s failed to down an unarmed US MQ-1 ‘military’ drone over the Persian during an episode on November 1st . Iran’s Air Force acquired seven of the SU-25’s as a ‘gift’ from the Iraqis when they were flown across the border to Iran during the First Gulf war. Iran subsequently acquired several more. It has approximately 13 of the Soviet-designed close air support aircraft developed and produced starting in the mid-1970. The Pentagon conveniently released the report of this unsuccessful engagement today amid speculation that the White House didn’t want the publicity during the run to Tuesday’s Presidential election. It indicated that the Unarmed Predator drone was on a ‘routine surveillance mission”.
| [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Assad to Russian TV, Last Bulwark of Secularism
In region rwhere evolts have brought Islamists to power
(ANSAmed) — Beirut, November 8 — The Syrian regime is ‘the last bulwark of secularism’ in a region shaken by revolts which have brought to power Islamist movements, Syrian President Bashar al Assad told the Russia Today TV channel.
‘If there are problems in Syria — especially considering that we are the last bulwark of secularism, stability and coexistence in the region — then the domino effect of that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific’, said the president in comments published on the website of the television channel.
The Syrian regime is a close ally of Iran, a Shiite Islamic regime, and claims that Sunni fundamentalist groups including al Qaida have a key role in the revolt against Assad. Syrian President Bashar al Assad told the Russia Today TV channel he will not leave Syria as suggested by British Premier David Cameron. ‘I am not a puppet made by the West to go to the West or to another country’, said Assad. ‘I am Syrian, I was created in Syria and I must live and die in Syria’.
Cameron said two days ago that a safe passage enabling Assad to leave Syria ‘could be arranged’ as a way of ending the crisis in the violence-torn country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
China’s Elite Has a Finger in Every Pie
Nothing much is known about China’s political elite, except that those in power and their relatives are extremely rich. They have shared out the economic pie between themselves and are unwilling to give it up.
It’s an open secret in China that those in power live in luxury. A taxi driver tells me as he drives past a big coalmine in Shijiazhuang outside of Beijing that it belongs to the relatives of Li Peng, who was prime minister until 1998.
“Who are the rich in China?” asks Li Weisen, a Shanghai-based economist. “Not the small private companies in the country but those in power and those close to them. Power provides the path to money. And that’s because the power structures are not balanced.”
Nobody has profited more from three decades of economic boom in China than the power elite and its clans. In the 1990s, many public assets were transferred to private hands.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Ososa Muslims: Brothers at War
A seemingly simple disagreement over appointment of the Imam of a street mosque has degenerated into a crisis that has ripped Ososa Muslims apart. Taiwo Olanrewaju reports.
JUST as there cannot be two kings in a palace though there can be many chiefs, a mosque cannot also be headed by two Imams. But Muslims in Ososa are turning that fact on its head as two people are laying claim to the office of Chief Imam of the town’s central mosque. Ososa is a big community in Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State comprising seven quarters thus: Oke-Ala, Osalakoye, Oke-Esin, Odo-Owa, Ijoku, Odo-Alere and Idomowo…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Boat Carrying 300 Migrants Issues SOS in Sicily Channel
Other ship with 81 lands in Lampedusa
(ANSA) — Palermo, November 8 — The Italian coast guard on Thursday received a distress call from a boat carrying around 300 migrants in the Strait of Sicily as 81 others arrived on Lampedusa after being rescued the night before. The SOS was made by satellite phone to an Eritrean journalist living in Sweden, who forwarded the information to the Italy-based Habeshia refugee agency which in turn passed it to the Italian coast guard authorities.
The boat, which departed from Libya, has reportedly been drifting for four days and is said to be taking in water.
For the purposes of rescue operations it is believed to be in Maltese territorial waters.
Meanwhile 81 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa arrived on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa Thursday after being rescued by the Italian coast guard off the coast of Libya in response to a similar distress call. The group includes seven women, one of whom is pregnant.
All are said to be in good health.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Needs New Citizenship Law, Says Report
Office against discrimination says foreigners need equal rights
(ANSA) — Rome, November 7 — A new citizenship law is need to help foreigners trying to integrate in Italy, the Association of Italian Christian Workers (ACLI) said in a report released Wednesday.
“Only by giving foreigners equal rights will Italians learn to respect them as equals,” said Andrea Olivero, president of ACLI.
The publication, ‘Integration, legality, citizenship — A challenge for all’ was presented with the support of the European Commission and European Center for Workers (EZA) in Palermo and will be followed by a four-day workshop.
“We need to work on integration. Italians will lose their prejudices only by opening their eyes to the facts. Immigration is offering a great contribution in terms of economic and social welfare,” Olivero said. Marco De Giorgi from Italy’s National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) said that more than 1,000 cases of discrimination were reported since the beginning of the year.
“There is a growth in a new kind of racism in which the perpetrators believe that discrimination it is acceptable, condoning violence indirectly”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France Introduces Bill Giving Same-Sex Marriage Equal Status
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, NOVEMBER 7 — French President Francois Hollande’s government introduced a bill giving same-sex marriage equal status to heterosexual unions.
The bill would also enable gay couples to adopt children if it is approved.
The law enacting the change will be debated early in 2013, officials said after the bill was approved by the French cabinet.
It follows an election-campaign promise by Hollande and comes in defiance of French religious leaders and the country’s main opposition party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Globalists Pull Out All Stops to Grab Guns After Obama Victory
Prior to the election, Infowars.com warned that Obama, his Democrat allies and the internationalist gun-grabbers would move their agenda to disarm America forward if Obama was reappointed on November 6.
“Less than 24 hours after winning re-election, President Barack Obama’s administration joined with China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and more than 150 other governments, in supporting renewed debate on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, confirming the worst fears of the American gun rights community,” the Second Amendment Foundation reported on Wednesday.
“U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies,” the New York Times reported the same day…
Obama’s record as an aggressive gun-grabber is clear and during his second term he will have little to fear from defenders of the Second Amendment.
“Don’t forget that an Illinois senator named Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars,” writes Larry Bell for Forbes. “That was after he served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago which contributed large grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Celebrates Obama Re-Election by Pushing Global Gun Control, Says Second Amendment Foundation
Less than 24 hours after winning re-election, President Barack Obama’s administration joined with China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and more than 150 other governments, in supporting renewed debate on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, confirming the worst fears of the American gun rights community.
The vote came at the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of the First Committee on Disarmament at the world organization’s headquarters in New York City.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crocodile Jaws More Sensitive Than Human Fingertips
Teeny-tiny bumps on the jawlines of alligators and crocodiles are more sensitive than human fingertips, new research finds.
The reptiles’ sensitive “gently smiling jaws” (to quote Lewis Carroll) may enable them to both carry their offspring in the mouths with great gentleness and to snap at prey in a split second, researchers report today in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
“As soon as they feel something touch, they snap at it,” study researcher Ken Catania, a biologist at Vanderbilt University, said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Preservation in a Petri Dish: Scientists Hope Cloning Will Save Endangered Animals
Biotechnicians want to use cloning to save endangered species, but they are having only limited success. Critics say that the push toward a new era of wildlife conservation trivializes extinction and funding would be better spent on preserving animal habitats.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Plotting Takeover of Internet
‘Several nations are set on asserting intergovernmental control’
The United Nations is about to discuss whether it should have the power to regulate the Internet.
Next month, the 12th World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT-12, will be held in Dubai. At the meeting, the 193 member countries of the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union, or ITU, will consider renegotiating a fairly obscure treaty known as the International Telecommunication Regulations, or ITRs.
The 24-year-old agreement delineates much of the ITU’s rule-making authority over telecommunications.
The hope of several countries is that they can expand the ITU’s jurisdiction to the Internet, replacing the current governing system with one that is controlled by a U.N. bureaucracy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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