De Facto Loss of Sovereignty Cyprus Makes Big Concessions for Bailout
Cyprus wants help from the European Union’s bailout fund. But the price for the billions in emergency aid money is high. The country will effectively lose its sovereignty.
Dimitris Christofias had a serious look on his face as he turned to the cameras and spoke of what a “gut-wrenching” decision it was, but added that it was also a “necessary evil.” The Cypriot president was not giving his people good news.
His staff realized how bad it would be when Christofias, in his televised address last Tuesday, reminded viewers of his country’s darkest hour, the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974.
Although Cyprus is not about to suffer the same fate, it is already clear that in return for billions of euros for the debt-ridden country from the European bailout fund, the “troika,” made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will essentialy take control of the Mediterranean island.
The Cypriot government and representatives of the troika negotiated for almost five months over the terms of a bailout package, worth at least €17.5 billion ($22.8 billion). The negotiations produced the draft version of a 30-page Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), in which the troika dictates to Cyprus what steps it will have to take in the coming years, down to the smallest detail.
Under the deal, civil servants and politicians, including cabinet ministers, will have to fly in economy class when traveling within Europe in the future. Exceptions apply to the president of the country and the president of the parliament. Spending on foreign trips will be trimmed. The privilege senior bureaucrats have to buy cars duty-free will be eliminated. And the salaries of civil servants and lawmakers will be frozen until 2016.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The West is Signing Its Own Death Sentence
Capitalism is, by its nature, dynamic. George Osborne’s attempt to engineer the ‘perfect society’ undermines the logic of the free market
When the Edward Gibbon of the 22nd century comes to write his History of the Decline and Fall of the West, who will feature in his monumental study of the collapse of the most successful economic experiment in human history? In this saga of the mass suicide of the richest nations on earth, there may be particular reference to those national leaders who chose to deny the reality that was, from the vantage point of our future chronicler, so obviously looming. Or maybe the leadership of our day in Washington, London and Brussels will appear to have been swept helplessly along by irresistible forces that originated before their time.
But for us, right here, right now, it matters that Barack Obama and George Osborne are playing small-time strategic games with their toy-town enemies while the unutterable economic truth stares them in the face. (The political leadership of the EU seems to have passed through the looking glass into a world where the rules of economics do not apply, so their statements and actions are beyond analysis.) Mr Obama is locked in an eye-balling contest with a Republican Congress to see who can end up with more ignominy when the United States goes over the fiscal cliff. It is clear now that the president will be quite happy to bring about this apocalypse — which would pull most of the developed world into interminable recession — if he could be sure that it would result in long-term electoral damage to his opponents.
Meanwhile, Mr Osborne takes teeny-tiny steps in the direction which is the only plausible one: little bitty reductions in the welfare programme to “make work pay” which are barely enough to push those who are actually working in the black economy off the unemployment rolls, and fiddly adjustments (almost too small to notice in day-to-day life) to lessen the burden of tax that bears down on people who are scarcely self-sustaining, let alone prosperous. Supposedly from opposite sides of the political divide, the US president and the British Chancellor come to a surprisingly similar conclusion: it is not feasible to speak the truth, let alone act on it. The truth being, as this column has often said, that present levels of public spending and government intervention in the US, Britain and Europe are unsustainable. The proportion of GDP which is now being spent by the governments of what used to be called the “free world” vastly exceeds what it is possible to raise through taxation without destroying any possibility of creating wealth, and therefore requires either an intolerable degree of national debt or the endless printing of progressively more meaningless money — or both.
How on earth did we get here? As every sane political leader knows by now, this is not just a temporary emergency created by a bizarre fit of reckless lending: the crash of 2008 simply blew the lid off the real scandal of western economic governance. Having won the Cold War and succeeded in settling the great ideological argument of the 20th century in favour of free-market economics, the nations of the West managed to bankrupt themselves by insisting that they could fund a lukewarm form of socialism with the proceeds of capitalism.
What the West took from its defeat of the East was that it must accept the model of the state as social engineer in order to avert any future threat to freedom. Capitalism would only be tolerated if government distributed its wealth evenly across society. The original concept of social security and welfare provision — that no one should be allowed to sink into destitution or real want — had to be revisited. The new ideal was that there should not be inequalities of wealth. The roaring success of the free market created such unprecedented levels of mass prosperity that absolute poverty became virtually extinct in western democracies, so it had to be replaced as a social evil by “relative poverty”. It was not enough that no one should be genuinely poor (hungry and without basic necessities): what was demanded now was that no one should be much worse (or better) off than anyone else. The job of government was to create a society in which there were no significant disparities in earnings or standards of living. So it was not just the unemployed who were given assistance: the low paid had their wages supplemented by working tax credits and in-work benefits so that their earnings could be brought up to the arbitrary level which the state had decided constituted not-poverty…
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: A Turkish ‘Trojan Horse’ For Loudoun?
It is a commonplace, but one that most of us ignore: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That applies in spades to a proposal under active consideration by the school board in Virginia’s Loudoun County. It would use taxpayer funds to create a charter school to equip the children of thatWashington exurb with enhanced skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Ostensibly, they will thus be equipped to compete successfully in the fields expected to be at the cutting edge of tomorrow’s workplace.
What makes this initiative, dubbed the Loudoun Math and IT Academy (LMITA), too good to be true? Let’s start with what is acknowledged about the proposed school.
LMITA’s board is made up of a group of male Turkish expatriates. One of them, Fatih Kandil, was formerly the principal of the Chesapeake Science Point (CSP) Public Charter School in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Another is Ali Bicak, the board president of the Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation, which owns CSP and two other charter schools in Maryland. The LMITA applicants expressly claim that Chesapeake Science Point will be the model for their school…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
OREM — The local Islamic community has begun the requirements to build a mosque in Orem. Orem’s planning commission has approved a site plan for the mosque to be built near 1000 S. State St., said Jason Bench, Orem city planner. The mosque will become home to the Utah Valley Islamic Center, which for the past three years has been housed in a rented space on the second floor of University Mall. The congregation has a dozen or so members, but is growing, UVIC president Samah Bassas said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Depardieu Moves to Belgium Over Tax Hikes
French actor Gérard Depardieu has taken up residency in a Belgian town just one kilometre from the French border, according to the town’s mayor. It is thought Depardieu made the move to avoid new tax hikes on the wealthy brought in by the Socialist government.
Daniel Senesael, mayor of the village of Nechin, where the star has bought a house, revealed the purchase to French press on Sunday. He also suggested Depardieu was looking into applying for Belgian residency.
“I think he wanted to enjoy the atmosphere in Belgium, our identity, the rural, bucolic setting,” Senesael said on radio station RTL on Sunday.
Depardieu will be joining the likes of the Mulliez family, owners the national French supermarket chain Auchan, who also live in the same area.
Belgium does not have the same capital gains or wealth taxes, which in France applies to people with assets over €1.3 million.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Sees Faith Bias Problem, But Not Sure of Solution
BRUSSELS (Reuters) — Europe’s growing religious diversity is creating social and legal tensions that cry out for reform, but even a European Union seeking solutions may not have the political will to implement them.
That was the impression given this week when researchers for a three-year EU-funded study of discrimination and other problems faced by minority faiths in member countries presented some of their proposals to European Commission officials.
The findings of the survey were clear: minority religions, especially Islam, face growing job discrimination and many restrictions in the public sphere. This hinders integration and could eventually put a drag on the EU economy, it said.
“If you don’t respect these people’s desire to combine their citizenship and work with their religious identity, you exclude them and lose their potential,” said Marie-Claire Foblets, the Catholic University of Leuven anthropologist who heads the Religare research project.
The study, which will be officially completed in the coming months, suggests the EU expand its directive against discrimination in the workplace to include a right to reasonable accommodations for citizens’ religious needs.
But the economic and political climate has changed since that law was passed in 2000 and the EU called for an extensive academic survey of faith-based problems as part of its current research program running from 2007 to 2013.
“These are already not easy times for defending (what) we currently have in place,” said Andreas Stein, head of the equality law unit in the European Commission, who said the 2000 directive was passed “at a politically very opportune moment.”
“There is a non-negligible political risk in reopening these directives. Trying to improve them may achieve the opposite in the end,” he advised the researchers at the end of a two-day conference held in nearby Leuven and Brussels.
Overlapping Rights
The Commission recognizes it has a problem. In a video address to the conference on Wednesday, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the diversification of Europe’s population was testing many assumptions of life in the EU.
“Basic rights such as solidarity, equality, freedom and non-discrimination are challenged and often overlap in their implementation on the ground,” he said.
“All public players, including European institutions, need models that (give) insight as to how societies can go about when claims and rights overlap.”
In their discussions in Leuven, researchers said faith-based disputes were on the rise because believers, often Muslims, are increasingly seeking exceptions to work rules, dress codes and legal guidelines to accommodate the demands of their faith.
Secularists have responded with laws meant to exclude faith from the public sphere such as the ban on full face veils in France and Belgium. Right-wing nationalist parties have sought to defend local cultures and cut back on immigration.
But Islam is now Europe’s second-largest religion and many of the EU’s estimated 15 million Muslims are citizens born in member states and ready to go to court if they feel aggrieved.
EU anti-discrimination laws were meant to help solve this problem, said University College law lecturer Ronan McCrea, but in practice they “have increased the scope of conflict between religion and the liberal state.”
“Neutral Norm” Not Neutral
Some conflicts arise because the assumption that removing religion from the public sphere creates an equal situation for all actually is not as neutral as it seems.
“The neutral norm tends to favor the Christian majority,” said Lucy Vickers of Oxford Brookes University. Christianity has long recognized a division between church and state, or private and public spheres, that fits other faiths less easily.
Foblets, the study’s director, said far too many cases of faith-based discrimination were decided on an ad hoc basis in the absence of clear guidance on the issue from Brussels.
“We cannot expect all the solutions to come from the courts,” she said. “That is not the future of Europe.”
But Stein, the Commission’s equality law expert, advised the conference that member states should bring strategic cases to the European Court of Justice in the hope a positive decision there would write faith-based exceptions into EU case law.
“That would be a pragmatic way of getting the concept of reasonable accommodation enshrined in the legal landscape of the European Union without actually changing the legislation in force,” he told the researchers.
| — Hat tip: killroy | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Bank of Italy Chief’s Acquittal Quashed
Fazio retrial ordered
(ANSA) — Milan, December 7 — Italy’s highest appeals court on Friday quashed the acquittal of Former Bank of Italy governor Antonio Fazio for his role in a 2005 scandal-hit bank takeover bid.
The Cassation Court ordered a retrial for Fazio and 10 others.
The ruling overturned a May 30 verdict from a lower appeals court which had quashed a three-and-a-half year sentence handed down at Fazio’s first trial on October 31 last year.
Also cleared on appeal at the end of May were 10 other defendants found guilty in October 2011.
Fazio was originally found guilty of market-rigging in connection with insurer Unipol’s failed attempt to gain control of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), which had been set to be sold to Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and was later taken over by the French bank BNP Paribas.
Friday’s Cassation Court ruling also confirmed a guilty verdict for ormer Unipol chief Giovanni Consorte. In May Consorte’s original three year, 10-month sentence was cut to one year and seven months.
Earlier in 2011 the 76-year-old banker was sentenced to a four-year prison term in a similar 2005 case in which he was accused of attempting to thwart another foreign bank takeover.
He has not been jailed because of his age and the ongoing appeals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Paris Hit by Wave of Street Muggings and Grave Robberies
Austerity-struck Paris has been hit by a wave of street muggings and grave robberies with thieves prepared to exhume bodies to steal gold and jewellery.
Last week, police in the French capital arrested three people as part of a widening grave robbery investigation. There was further public outrage after two masked intruders shot dead a 52-year old precious metal worker when he tried to stop them stealing gold from his foundry in the chic central Parisian district of Le Marais. Police said sky-high market prices for precious metals are acting as a magnet for thieves with scant regard for the living or the dead. In Pantin cemetery, in the north of Paris, dozens of bodies have recently been dug up, with gold teeth and jewellery stolen from them. Police sources said the three men seized last week were gravediggers employed by the city’s cemeteries…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
One of the last two survivors of the legendary Second World War ‘Heroes of the Telemark’ raid, which helped thwart Hitler’s plans to build a Nazi nuclear bomb, has died aged 101.
Just 31 at the time, Norwegian Birger Stromsheim was the oldest member of the team who successfully destroyed the hard water production facility at the Norsk Hydoelectric plant in Telemark, southern Norway.
The raid, which is regarded as one of the most successful acts of sabotage in World War II, was also remarkable for the fact all the team managed to escape by cross country skiing 250 miles into Sweden.
The heavy water, or deuterium oxide, which the Norsk plant produced was essential to the German scientists working on an atomic bomb project and the allies were desperate to destroy it.
But it was no soft target. Perched on an icy ravine, surrounded by machine gun-toting guards and floodlights the plant was virtually impregnable.
An earlier attempt to destroy it had ended in bloody failure when some of gliders carrying the team of 30 Royal Engineers crashed in bad weather.
Those who escaped were captured by the Gestapo, tortured and then executed.
For the second attempt the Special Operations Executive gambled on a small six-man squad, all Norwegian, who would parachute in.
More…
After intensive training using a mocked up model of the basement of the plant painstakingly recreated at the explosives base in Brickendonbury, Hertfordshire the team were ready for action.
They were issued thick nordic-style woollen jumpers and brilliant white camouflage smocks to protect themselves from the elements.
The plan was for them to meet up with four members of the previous mission’s advance team who had manged to survive a harsh winter living in an abandoned cabin and eating lichens and moss scraped off rocks.
Mr Stormsheim would play a vital role. An explosives expert, he was known for having a cool head — something that would prove invaluable if things didn’t go to plan.
And of course they didn’t.
Operation Gunnerside began in ernest on February 17 1943 and got off to a disastrous start when bad weather resulted in the team landing some 18 miles form the planned drop zone.
They were forced to spend five days struggling through fierce snow storms before finally linking up with their compatriots.
By February 27th the team had regrouped and was ready to launch their assault.
The Norsk plant was connected by a bridge stretching over the steep ravine so to avoid the German guards the commandos opted to climb down one side of the ravine, wade across the icy river Maan and scramble up the other side.
They would then follow a railway track that led all the way into the plant, get inside through a door which a plantworker was supposed to leave open, set their charges and escape.
Leaving their radio operator at the top of the ravine in case anything went wrong, the rest of the party struggled for hours through thick snow to make it to the river before beginning the arduous task of climbing up the other side.
Exhausted and soaking wet they eventually scrambled to the top and broke into the grounds of the facility using a pair of bolt cutters.
When they arrived at the basement door which was supposed to have been left open they were devastated to find it still locked.
They split up into two parties Stromsheim and Kasper Idland found a window at the back of the basement and took the risk of smashing their way in.
Meanwhile the other party, led by the 23-year-old commander Joachim Ronneberg, managed to crawl through a cable duct before taking a Norweigan plant worker by suprise.
Ronneberg heard Stromsheim smashing the window as he began to lay charges and when Stromsheim and Idland entered the room they were nearly shot by their own colleagues who had mistaken them for guards.
Stromsheim then placed the remaining charges while Ronneberg set the fuses. Fearing the Germans could discover them at any moment they used 30 second fuses instead to the planned two minute ones.
The team dashed outside the plant as the charges went off with a dull thud. Mercifully the guards were not alert.
The mission had been a stunning success and around 1000lbs of heavy water — so vital to Hitler’s dreams of world domination — was washed away.
Now there was just the small matter of escape.
The commandos managed to make it all the down the ravine and back up the other side before the Germans were alerted, but now a chase was on.
Stromsheim and his comrades ploughed on into a snowstorm, using their wooden cross country skis to make the epic 250 mile journey into neutral Sweden.
‘They didnâ€(tm)t reckon that they would get out alive,’ Mr. Stromsheimâ€(tm)s son, also named Birger, recalled. ‘They werenâ€(tm)t sure of that. They were scared in some ways, but there was no panic.’
Back in Britain the the SOE chiefs were delighted at their success — and heralded the mission as the most successful act of sabotage of the Second World War.
The Nazis were forced to relocate their heavy water project and move their remaining supplies of the essential ingredient Potassium Oxide. But the ferry they used to move it was subsequently sunk by a Norweigan resistance.
In his report the mission’s commander Joachim Ronneberg described Stromsheim as ‘beyond doubt the best member of the party’.
For his part in the mission, Stromsheim was awarded the British Military Medal and the Norweigan St Olav medal, the US medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre.
His escapades were later given the Hollywood treatment in the 1965 film Heroes of the Telemark starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.
Mr Stromsheim and his wife were among the many Norwegians who fled to England when the Nazis occupied their country in 1940.
Although he had never been a soldier he became part of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, which had been set up to coordinate resistance in occupied Europe.
Following the assault on Norsk Hydro, Mr. Stromsheim would join Mr.. Ronneberg on a series of other missions.
He is survived by a son, a daughter, four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His wife, Aase Liv, died in 1997.
Joachim Ronneberg is now the mission’s only living survivor aged 93.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Slumps in World Corruption Rankings
Global economic crisis blamed as factor
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — Italy has slid three notches to 72nd place in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perception Index released Wednesday. On a 100-point scale, the country scored 42, well behind countries such as Namibia and Rwanda, according to the Berlin-based NGO, which measured perceived levels of public-sector corruption in 176 countries and territories around the world.
Greece, which fell to 94th place, and Italy were seen has having suffered from increased corruption amid the global economic crisis. Denmark, Finland and New Zealand were perceived as the most virtuous with 90 points each, while Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia shared last place with 8 points each.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Local Administrators Received 270 Mafia Threats in 2011
2012 record for mafia infiltration, 25 town councils dissolved
(ANSA) — Rome, December 7 — Italian local administrators received 270 threats by mafia organisations in 2011, up 27% over the previous year according to a new report released on Friday.
The figure translates into one act of intimidation every 34 hours. Of the 270 recorded incidents, 233 were aimed directly at a person and 37 were indirect, targeting public property, the report by Avviso Pubblico, an association of local and regional governments, showed. The largest number of mafia threats (31%) were recorded in the southern region of Calabria, followed by the islands of Sicily (25%) and Sardinia (13%).
Administrators in the northern region of Lombardy were also targeted for the first time, with 9 cases reported.
Seven cases were registered in Lazio, particularly in Rome province. This year 25 local administrations have been dissolved due to mafia infiltration, the highest number on record, according to the same report.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Twitter Sees Ironic Response to Berlusconi Come-Back Bid
(AGI) Rome, Dec.8 — There were comments from Italians on the “ nonlovoto” (I won’t vote for him) hashtag that appeared on Twitter following Silvio Berlusconi’s announcement that he was “coming back to win.” Dario Franceschini said it stemmed from the “irony and creativity of Italians who choose to laugh rather than cry.” Debora Serracchini also tweeted with regard to “ nonlovoto” — saying “in 20 years he took us into the abyss and he’s not even ashamed of it.” Centrist Roberto Rao tweeted “Berlusconi and the PDL will try to shift left-wards, but they’re the ones who got themselves thrown out of the EPP.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bersani Says Better if Monti Does Not Run for Election
Leader of Italian centre left sees Monti as helping the State
(ANSA) — Piacenza, December 10 — The leader of Italy’s centre left, Pier Luigi Bersani, said on Monday that outgoing Italian Premier Mario Monti should not run in the upcoming general election.
“I have always said that Mario Monti must be useful for the country, and for this reason it would be better if he remained out of the contest,” Bersani declared. Bersani was re-elected eight days ago as secretary of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and is running for premier himself. Mario Monti announced his imminent resignation as head of Italy’s technical government after the centre-right People of Freedom Party (PdL) withdrew its support in a parliamentary vote last week and the PdL’s founder, ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, confirmed over the weekend he would run again for top office.
“We have loyally supported this transitional operation which the (political) right has scarred in the last weeks. In the future I believe that there will be the possibility to have a rapport with Monti in the name of Italy. It would be easier if Monti remained outside the electoral contest. (However) each person can make their own assessment with serenity. I have no intention of inhibiting their choices,” Bersani said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Monti Says Europe Must Guard Against Resurgent Nationalism
(AGI) — Cannes, Dec. 8 — Prime Minister Mario Monti said: “Europe finds its strength from within, but we must not forget that tensions and conflicts can always be resurrected. For this reason we need to be very vigilant against every form of nationalism and populism that are now very visible in Europe.” The prime minister was speaking on the sidelines of the World Policy Conference in Cannes. Monti reiterated that the award of the Nobel Prize to Europe is a recognition of what Europe is and what Europe has done. If we have received a Nobel Prize obviously Europe cannot be that bad.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Monti Gov’t ‘Has Done What Parties Alone Could Not Have’
(AGI) — Cannes, Dec. 8 — In speaking at the Cannes World Policy Conference, Italian prime minister Mario Monti said that in one year in office his government had “got the country to make progress that other countries haven’t”. He went on to say that it had got political parties to agree, parties which alone “would not have managed to achieve those reforms.” Monti said that the government’s situation was “manageable”, and that his administration had “got three parties to work together that before refused to even speak to each other. Or, to be frank, two of them spent most of their energy trying to delegitimise the other.” Now, he added, “as we are slowly getting closer to the elections, one of the parties has withdrawn its support. This is very important to keep in mind.
But I would like to point out that, in one year, we have achieved much in terms of getting the country back on its feet and bringing in structural reforms that neither of the two largest parties would have been able to do alone.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Monti Says Risk of Populism, But Italians Are No Fools
Berlusconi set to stand after pulling support for government
(ANSA) — Rome, December 10 — Premier Mario Monti said Monday that there was a risk of populism taking grip in Italy’s upcoming national election campaign, while stressing that he did not think voters would be enticed by it because “they aren’t fools”.
Monti announced Saturday he would resign from office once the 2013 budget law is approved after ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party withdrew its support from the former European commissioner emergency technocrat government.
“There is a risk of populist trends against EU economic policies in every country,” Monti said.
“This should be kept in mind in order to avoid it as much as possible in the imminent election campaign in Italy,” he said, adding that “Italian people are mature, they aren’t fools”. Berlusconi, who has frequently been accused of adopting populist stances in the past, confirmed at the weekend that he was dropping plans to retire from front-line politics and would stand for a fourth term as Italian premier in the elections.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Court Overturns Mullah Krekar Terror Conviction
A Norway appeals court on Thursday overturned a terrorism conviction against Mullah Krekar, the Iraqi founder of a radical Iraqi Kurdish Islamist group, but jailed him on other charges.
The Oslo appeals court found the mullah, who founded the Ansar al-Islam group and has lived in Norway since 1991, not guilty of “inciting terrorism” but sentenced him to two years and 10 months in prison for issuing threats and intimidating witnesses.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Privacy vs. Security: EU Eyes Massive Collection of Air Passenger Data
A proposal to require European Union members to store huge amounts of data on flight passengers entering or leaving the EU will soon be up for debate, and the discussion is likely be fierce. Critics say the measure violates travelers’ right to privacy.
European parliamentarians next week are to debate a controversial draft law that would create massive national police databases of flight passengers entering or leaving the 27-nation European Union, including everything from addresses to meal preferences.
The proposal for a “passenger name record” (PNR) would require airlines and booking agencies to hand over passenger data to national authorities, which would then routinely search for anything conspicuous. The data would be saved for five years and would include names, seat assignments, travel destinations, phone numbers, hired travel agencies and potential re-bookings, among other details.
In order to process the enormous amount of information, each individual member state would be required to delegate a national police unit to gather, save, evaluate and, when appropriate, forward the information onto other relevant authorities. The bill states that its purpose is to root out not just known terrorists, but also people “previously unsuspected of involvement in serious crime and terrorism” whose data suggests they “may be involved in such crime,” like human trafficking or the drug trade.
The law would apply exclusively to flights entering and leaving the EU, not within its borders. However the European Commission said an inclusion of intra-EU flights remains a possibility.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Surge in Antisemitic Episodes in Italy 2012
Increased insults, threats; ‘public figures also responsible’
(ANSAmed) — ROME, DECEMBER 6 — >From the street insult to the swastika graffiti, from the online publication of proscription lists to physical aggression, antisemitic episodes almost doubled this year in Italy against 2011, according to the Milan-based Center for Jewish Documentation’s Observatory on Anti-Jewish Prejudice.
“We observed approximately 70 cases so far this year, most of them graffiti and online attacks: over 40% more than last year,” Observatory researcher Stefano Gatti wrote in a web meeting Thursday on Italian antisemitism.
This is a worrisome surge in a country like Italy, “where essentially antisemitism is not violent, but rather ideological.
The data shows the situation is changing, evolving negatively,” Gatti said. “The boom might be due to more efficient data-gathering, but the episodes have undeniably increased.
Also, certain attitudes are no longer perceived as antisemitic and no longer rate a social reaction. The joke that used to be whispered after one glass too many, is now shamelessly told out loud.” Worse, Gatti pointed out, is the fact that Italian pundits and politicians “such as Silvio Berlusconi, Beppe Grillo or Piergiorgio Odifreddi” are now writing those discriminatory posts, telling those racist jokes. “Making certain issues seem normal, even funny, is one of the root causes of the rise in antisemitic episodes in Italy,” Gatti concluded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Threatens ‘All Out War’ If EU Attacks Snus
Sweden’s Trade Minister Ewa Björling said the EU faces “all out war” with Sweden if a new health directive on tobacco being hammered out at the European Commission threatens Swedish moist snuff “snus”.
“This has been a low intensity conflict for years,” Björling told the TT news agency after leaving a one-hour meeting with Tonio Borg, the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy.
“Depending on what the directive actually says… we’re facing all out war.”
Björling also took up the free market aspect of snus — reportedly telling Borg that snus faces trade limitations on the common market.
Last week, Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet reported that the Commission wants all tobacco products to contain at least 85 percent tobacco. Swedish snus, however, only contains about 50 percent.
Björling said that Borg denied that the directive will demand more tobacco in tobacco products.
Sweden famously got a “snus exception” when it joined the Union in 1994. Some medical experts say the use of snus, which is placed under the top lip, explains the relatively low lung cancer rate of Swedish men who might otherwise be smoking cigarettes.
“I told him very specifically that the position they take on this must be based on science,” Björling said.
“I do not think they’ve done that before, which is clear for example when they say that all snus causes cancer.”
Björling handed a letter from several Swedish researchers to Borg during their meeting, according to TT.
“I can’t expose my combat strategy yet. We have to get the MEPs to work for snus, we have to exert influence on other members of the Council, and basically target every level we can,” Björling said.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is scheduled to visit Brussels on Thursday for an EU summit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Open Europe’s Highest Suspension Bridge
Europe’s highest suspension bridge has been opened in Switzerland at an altitude of over 3,000 meters. It’s not for the faint-hearted. The narrow 100-meter bridge leads across an abyss 500 meters deep.
A Swiss cable car company has built what it says is Europe’s highest suspension bridge in the Swiss Alps to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Engelberg-Gerschnialp cableway in January 1913.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Get Gripen Jets for Bargain: Report
Switzerland will pay far less for the 22 fighter jets it is planning to buy from the Swedish company Saab than Sweden itself would pay for the aircraft, the Swiss public broadcaster SF reported.
Switzerland is to buy the JAS-39 Gripen combat jets for 100 million francs (82.9 million euros, $107 million) each, SF reported late Sunday, citing unnamed sources in both Switzerland and Sweden.
That price is between 15 to 30 percent below the level Sweden itself has agreed to pay for the planes, according to the broadcaster’s sources.
Stockholm has said it plans to buy between 40 to 60 Gripen jets, but has not said revealed how much it will pay for each.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Haringey Labour Councillor Expelled
Cllr Alan Stanton, who represents the Tottenham Hale Ward on Haringey Council, has had the Labour whip withdrawn from him. Some will regard Cllr Stanton’s concern that Haringey Council isn’t left wing enough as idiosyncratic. His particular quarrel has been over the appointment of Nick Walkley as the chief executive. Mr Walkley was previously at Barnet and the objection seemed to be that there were objections to the policies in Barnet. This misses the point that policies is decided by the elected councillors not the bureaucrats.
However clearly Haringey is a council particularly in need of transparency and accountability. It is a council in need of independent minded councillors who relish holding the administration to account. Cllr Stanton may not always get it right with his criticisms but he shows a brave and rigorous spirit which is welcome. Last month I noted that the Council employs more union officials than gardeners. The social work scandals are all to well known. It’s schools are the worst in London. There is, of course, an ideological aspect to this. But also mismanagement and a culture of secrecy, arrogance and complacency…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Last month I gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee as they continue their nationwide investigations into child sexual exploitation (CSE). I welcomed the opportunity and the committee said they were aware a lot of positive work is being done in Rochdale, and I will be keeping them updated. We know all agencies did not work together adequately to tackle this abuse from the outset and council services missed opportunities to offer assistance. Let me be absolutely clear, as I have been since I came to Rochdale in May, whilst we can’t change the past, where the council has fallen short I am determined to put things right. That is why I immediately launched a review into the council’s processes and procedures…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Met Wants Public to Report Crimes at Counters in Mosques and Coffee Shops
The Metropolitan Police is considering asking the public to report crimes at new “contact points” in public places such as mosques and coffee shops as it looks to abandon traditional police station front counters.
The service wants to set up more than 200 of the new desks as it looks to cut back on 65 “underused” front counters. The force plans to save £500 million by 2015 and has already looked to sell its Scotland Yard headquarters. The plans, which are currently in consultation, could see the public reporting crimes in churches and mosques as well as supermarkets, community centres and libraries. The force says it is considering sharing the counters with “partners” and placing them in “other public places”, as well as on its existing estate.
[….]
[JP note: Slouching towards dhimmocracy and a Sharia police state.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Youth Group Launches Tree Planting Scheme
A youth organisation representing young Muslims from across the United Kingdom has boosted efforts to improve the country’s environment by planting close to 4,000 trees.
Hundreds of volunteers from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association UK (AMYA) have been out in force to plant trees across Yorkshire and Wales…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Popular Mosque Looks to Expand
ONE of Oxford’s three mosques is seeking to expand to cater for the hundreds of Muslims who attend each day. Currently, the Madina Mosque in Stanley Road has to divide worshippers into two sittings for Friday prayers — the busiest service of the week — to make room for the 700 to 800 people who attend. And at prayers for special holidays such as Eid, that number can double. Imam Muhammad Attaullah Khan, senior imam at the mosque, said: “The plan is to extend the worshipping area for women and for men and also to have space for our children.” The mosque provides classes for up to 150 Muslim children on weekday evenings, and is hoping to be able to provide better segregation for the girls and boys who are taught there if the extension is approved…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Mosque Combating Domestic Abuse
by Zoe Williams
How a SureStart campaign by a women’s centre translated into a quaint but convincing sermon to east London Muslims
East London Mosque does not look as though it could fit 5,000 simultaneous worshippers, but it’s true that I am viewing it from the first-floor antechamber reserved for women, where you can hear what’s going on but you can’t see down into the central hall…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Morsy to Pass Law Granting Military Power of Arrest
Decision will be protected by constitutional declaration
President Mohamed Morsy is expected to ratify a law giving the military many of the police’s powers, according to state-run media outlet Al Ahram. According to Al Ahram, the cabinet approved the draft law at its last meeting and it is now awaiting Morsy’s approval. The law contains four articles that give the military similar powers to the police, including the power to arrest civilians…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Libya’s Islamic Militants Get Arms Meant for Rebels: Report
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — The Obama administration secretly approved arms transfer to Libyan rebels by Qatar last year, but Americans were later alarmed by growing evidence that Qatar was giving some of the weapons to Libya’s Islamic militants, the New York Times reported on Thursday. However, the report said no evidence has shown connections between the weapons provided by the Qataris back then and the attack that killed an American ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya in September…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Terror Cell Suspects Appear in Court
A Sale court on Thursday (December 6th) arraigned 27 alleged members of a terror recruitment cell, MAP reported. The suspects seized in Casablanca, Laayoune, Nador, Guercif and Kelaat Sraghna are accused of sending more than 20 young Moroccans to join al-Qaeda and the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad (MUJAO) in northern Mali. One of the suspects is a Malian national.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Oldest Pharaoh Carvings Discovered in Egypt
The oldest-known representations of a pharaoh are carved on rocks near the Nile River in southern Egypt, researchers report.
The carvings were first observed and recorded in the 1890s, but only rediscovered in 2008. In them, a white-crowned figure travels in ceremonial processions and on sickle-shaped boats, perhaps representing an early tax-collecting tour of Egypt.
The scenes place the age of the carvings between 3200 B.C. and 3100 B.C., researchers report in the December issue of the journal Antiquity. During that time, Egypt was transitioning into the dynastic rule of the pharaohs.
“It’s really the end of prehistory and the beginning of history,” in Egypt, study researcher Maria Gatto told LiveScience.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Salafi Crusades Build Their Caliphate of Blood and Bone
One of the men pardoned by Morsi, the new Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, was Mostafa Hamza, the head of The Islamic Group, an organization that was responsible for the Luxor Massacre of foreign tourists. The Luxor Massacre consisted of an hour of torture, mutilation and murder that would have sickened even Breivik. But what is an incomprehensible atrocity to the Western mind is an act of courage and bravery to the Muslim mind. And it is on such atrocities that the Salafi crusades build their caliphate of blood and bone.
| [Return to headlines] |
School for ‘Prophets’ Set to Open in Tel Aviv
Certificate after selection and tough studies
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 3 — As of tomorrow, Tel Aviv will boast a school for those wanting to become a “prophet”, certified for a “mission” beyond the reach of all but a chosen few. Israel’s more secular and open-minded financial capital Tel Aviv will be the location for “School for the Prophets of Cain and Abel” — and not Jerusalem, that “Thrice-Holy City”. Those wanting to attend the school will undergo a tough selection process, to then make their way to the super-trendy Florentin area, the place-to-be for young rebels and eternal sceptics. The school aims to prepare “a generation of prophets” who, in these times of relativism, can give the population a moral direction. According to Jewish tradition, “prophecy” ended among the Jews after the Second Temple (destroyed by Titus in 70 A.D.) and will only return during the redemption generation, which will see the arrival of the Messiah. An important development, clearly. However, the school’s founder, Rabbi Shmuel Portman Hapartzi — who claims that he is affiliated with the school of Chabad messianism (which does not seem to be pleased with the initiative) — disagrees. The daily paper Yediot Ahoronot quoted him as saying that “the prophecy generation has already come and the prophecies are once again allowed.” In order to become a “prophet” one must study hard. Among the core subjects are “the science of faces”, the “science of dreams, “the introduction to the Divine Spirit and prophecy”, and, obviously, the “introduction to the knowledge of the angels”. It is a difficult course load leading to a certificate for the new prophets. So far only about ten have signed up (the cost is 200 shekels, about 40 euros), but only the best will be able to achieve the much-coveted certificate.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Under the Boxthorn Tree With David Solway
by Daniel Greenfield
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:56:791
For Muslims the boxthorn tree is their botanical metaphor for the Jews, but for Israelis their own self-chosen botanical metaphor is the prickly pear. Both are thorny plants at home in the desert and more than capable of protecting themselves in that harsh environment. For Muslims the Jew is a tree that must be torn out of the soil, but the Jew in Israel sees his people becoming trees whose roots hold fast to the soil of a revived land.
The Boxthorn Tree by David Solway is a collection of essays, literary in intent, practical in expression, that touch on the topics of Jewish identity and Jewish life under the shadow of constant genocide. As Solway notes, Jews live always under the threat of the fate of the boxthorn tree and of every tree in a desert land. There is always someone seeking to tear them out of their small piece of good earth…
The Boxthorn Tree is the product of those observations, culled, collected, collated and presented for those who have an affinity for subjects complex, for sharp thorns and for sweet tastes. For Front Page Magazine readers who have long enjoyed reading David Solway’s essays, The Boxthorn Tree is a chance to own a collection of them on the shelf. And for those who have not, The Boxthorn Tree captures the wit and wisdom of David Solway in a form that is as intricately woven and as sharp as the boxthorn tree.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
12 Killed, 4 Injured in Suicide Attack on Police Station in NW Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) — At least 12 people were killed and four others injured in a suicide attack on a police station in Pakistan’s northwest Bannu district on Monday morning, according to police and local authorities. The killed include three policemen, five local residents and four suicide attackers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: US Commando Killed in Mission to Rescue Doctor From Taliban
A US special forces commando has been killed during a mission in Afghanistan that succeeded in rescuing a kidnapped American doctor.
President Barack Obama said that in carrying out the raid in eastern Afghanistan the commando team had shown “the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe and free.” The US soldiers killed seven Taliban insurgents in the pre-dawn raid Sunday, launched when intelligence showed that the hostage, Dr Dilip Joseph, was in “imminent danger of injury or death”, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. Dr Joseph had been abducted on December 5 by Taliban insurgents in the Surobi district of Kabul province…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Attacks in Afghanistan Kill Provincial Police Chief, Official in Charge of Women’ Affairs
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An Afghan provincial police chief and an official in charge of women’s affairs were killed in separate attacks on Monday — the latest victims of a campaign of targeted killings against government officials. The police chief for Nimroz province was travelling home from neighboring Herat province when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the morning hours, said the chief’s secretary Obaidullah, who only goes by one name…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Top Women’s Official Assassinated in Afghanistan — Police
A prominent female official responsible for women’s affairs in Afghanistan has been shot dead by unknown attackers. The killing came only months after her predecessor was killed in a bomb attack. Nadia Sidiqi, the current head of the women’s affairs department in the eastern province of Laghman, was killed on her way to work while in a motorized rickshaw.
Afghan security forces are investigating the killing and have sealed off the area, local police chief Ahmad Sherzad told AFP…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
On November 25, 2012, China’s Xinhua state news agency reported that China successfully landed a J-15 fighter jet on its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning CV-16. Earlier this year, while addressing the National People’s Congress, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of enhancing its military in order to win “local wars.”
The news of China’s first successful carrier landing is alarming considering the communist country’s aggressive tone in recent years and its ongoing territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
Communist Chinese Aggression
On July 14, 2005, Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu warned that in a war between the United States and China over Taiwan that China would retaliate with a nuclear assault on American cities. “If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” Maj. Zhu said. He continued, “We are ready to sacrifice all cities east of Xi’an, of course[;] the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of their cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”
Despite calls from the U.S. House of Representatives that he be dismissed from his post, Zhu remains a Major General in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the dean of the Defense Affairs Institute for China’s National Defense University. Neither has China backed down from its discussion of nuclear war.
| [Return to headlines] |
Ghana: National Chief Imam Commends Muslims for Peaceful Elections
Dr Osman Nuhu Sharubutu, the National Chief Imam has expressed gratitude and appreciation to the entire Muslim community and the nation for ensuring a violence-free elections.
The Chief Imam said the exercise had proved to the international community that the country was indeed a pacesetter and a beacon of democracy in Africa…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds of Students Clash With Police in the Sudanese Capital
Khartoum — The Sudanese capital on Sunday witnessed intense and at times violent student demonstrations that roamed major streets of Khartoum to protest the mysterious killings of four students from Darfur at the University of El-Gezira on Friday. The protestors chanted slogans calling for toppling the regime and avenging their fallen colleagues. Some were holding signs that supported the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) rebel coalition while others shouted in support of Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) leader Abdel-Wahid Mohamed Nur. “Killing students is the killing of the nation… Peace, justice, freedom “ the demonstrators chanted…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Miss France Slammed for Being ‘White as Snow’
A black rights group on Monday slammed the latest Miss France competition for producing a “white as snow” winner from a field it claimed was unrepresentative of the country’s ethnic make-up.
Marine Lorphelin, 19, a brunette medical student from Burgundy, was on Saturday crowned Miss France 2013, having edged out Miss Tahiti, Hinarini de Longeaux, in the final round of judging.
Louis-Georges Tin, the president of the CRAN (Representative Council of Black Associations), on Monday lamented the lack of contestants from France’s African and north African communities.
“The failure to represent the contemporary French population in an event such as this is obviously serious,” Tin said in a statement issued jointly with Fred Royer, the creator of Miss Black France.
“It amounts to denying the very existence of French people of African origin.”
Of the 33 finalists in Saturday’s contest, eight were from ethnic minorities with six of those coming from France’s Pacific or Caribbean territories.
“In the antiquated world of Miss France, blacks apparently can only come from overseas departments,” the CRAN statement said.
“As for Frenchwomen of north African heritage, they were ‘represented’ by only one candidate who was quickly eliminated (too Muslim perhaps?).”
France is home to around five million Muslims, most of them of north African origin.
The statement went on to express regret that “Miss France is as white as the end of year snow on the steeples of an eternal France.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Dark Ages — An Age of Light
Series 1 — 3. The Wonder of Islam
“Sometimes I should just shut up and let you see the proof for yourself because it’s just so obvious,” declaims Waldemar Januszczak. No, Waldemar, don’t go, we need you as our learned, affable guide! Luckily he’s sticking around for a breathtaking look at the early art and science of Islam, which is some of the most sophisticated ever. Describing the shimmering mosaics and “whispering calligraphy” at Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, his rapturous enthusiasm reaches a zenith in the art’s sensuous quality, and Islamic science’s delight in the cosmos. It’s a traditional aspect of Islamic art, which Waldemar claims has been forgotten by modern Islam. Gazing in wonderment at the great works here, you can’t help but feel that’s a crying shame.
About this programme
3/4. Waldemar Januszczak follows the journey of Islam, from its emergence in the near East, across north Africa and into Europe, and investigates the unique artistic style the religion left behind as it travelled. The presenter also looks at the development of the Mosque, early examples of creativity by the first Muslims and their scientific achievements.
[JP note: Unlearned, fraudulent history for Common Purpose types.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are subject to pre-approval by blog admins.
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. For more information, click here.
Users are asked to limit each comment to about 500 words. If you need to say more, leave a link to your own blog.
Also: long or off-topic comments may be posted on news feed threads.
To add a link in a comment, use this format:
<a href="http://mywebsite.com">My Title</a>
Please do not paste long URLs!
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.