Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, CzC, Insubria, JD, RRW, TB, Tuan Jim, TV, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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America Warned: You Better Like Che Movie
By Humberto Fontova
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Benicio Del Toro won “best actor” for his role as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s film glorifying the Argentine-born “revolutionary,” also known by acquaintances as a sniveling coward, an insufferable prig, a military doofus, a Stalinist and a psychotic mass-murderer.
“The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind!” raved Che Guevara in 1961. “If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City,” he boasted to the London Daily Worker in November of 1962. “Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims.”
“I’d like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara!” beamed the Oscar-winning Del Toro upon accepting his Cannes award for “The Argentine” to a thunderous ovation. “I wouldn’t be here without Che Guevara, and through all the awards the movie gets you’ll have to pay your respects to the man!”
At Cannes, Variety’s Todd McCarthy had branded Soderbergh’s movie “defiantly nondramatic” and “a commercial impossibility.” New York Magazine called it, “something of a fiasco.” But this month at the Toronto Film festival, Che finally landed a U.S. distributor, (IFC Films) and is due for a U.S. release in December. The film already premiered in Spain just last week and to predictably rave reviews.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lackawanna High Student is Killed in Attack on U.S. Embassy in Yemen
Newlywed, husband die in terrorist attack
A Lackawanna High School student who traveled to Yemen to be married last month was one of the victims of a terrorist bombing Wednesday at the U. S. Embassy in Yemen, the woman’s school principal said.
Attackers armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the compound in the Yemeni capital of Sana.
Officials listed the 16 people killed as six assailants, six guards and four civilians.
Susan Elbaneh, 18, was killed, along with her Yemeni husband, as they stood outside the embassy, family members said Wednesday. They were apparently there to do paperwork for the husband’s move to the U. S. when the attackers struck, said Elbaneh’s brother, Ahmed.
Lackawanna High School Principal Peter A. Hazzan said Susan had traveled to Yemen to be married over the summer.
“It looks like they were two young people in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Hazzan said.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
The Latest News From Grand Island: Calm Before a Storm?
Today’s AP story is here:
Jacinto Guerrero kept in his pocket a list of needs, a scrap of paper containing words scribbled in Spanish. Breaks at normal times, no religious discrimination, same benefits and privileges, it read.
Guerrero said he comes to work to do his job and so should everyone else.
“You and your religion — it’s between you and God,” he said. “You don’t need to show it to everybody.”
More details from the Grand island Independent. This report says there was violence Thursday.
Reports Thursday night from workers at the scene indicated that a fight broke out between about 20 to 30 Somalian and Hispanic workers, but that the scuffle was under control in less than half an hour. A police team was called to Swift about 9 p.m. and entered the building. Shortly after, a group of Somalian workers were seen exiting Swift from north side doors and heading toward the parking lots.
But, the next report says police deny violence- just a verbal altercation.
| — Hat tip: RRW | [Return to headlines] |
Demonstrators Raid Malmö Arms Firm
Around a hundred peace activists demonstrated in Malmö on Friday afternoon against a Swedish arms components manufacturer’s contracts with the US military, with some of the protesters eventually breaking into the office grounds.
The demonstrators, in Malmö to take part in the European Social Forum, unfurled a banner reading “Made in Malmö, Kills in Iraq.” Some of the protesters lay on the ground, playing dead.
The Swedish company Aimpoint, whose headquarters are located a few kilometres from central Malmö, manufactures red dot sights for guns sold to the US army, among others.
The demonstration was organized by a network of activists called European Peace Action.
Some of the activists, including many Swedes and Germans, climbed the fence surrounding the company grounds.
A Swedish police spokesman told AFP six people had managed to enter a factory on the grounds, but Swedish and German police had removed them from the scene after a few minutes.
The protest lasted about an hour without any other incidents.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Fear Over Anti-Islam Rally in Germany
COLOGNE is bracing for violence as far Right supporters from all over Europe gather for an “anti-Islamification congress”.
Those attending the event starting today in the west German city include Filip Dewinter, head of Belgium’s far Right Vlaams Belang party, and Andreas Moelzer, the Euro MP once ejected from Austria’s Freedom Party for being too extreme.
Also adding his support to what organisers call Europe’s “shared, 1000-year history”, identity and “Western values and Christian traditions” will be Mario Borghezio, from Italy’s anti-immigration Northern League.
The rally is being organised by the far Right Pro-Koeln (For Cologne), which says that “half a dozen” coaches have been hired to bring supporters from Belgium.
A “high-ranking delegation” is also expected from Austria, as are supporters from Italy, Spain and Britain.
Pro-Koeln hopes 1500 people will attend the climax of the two-day congress, a rally in the city centre tomorrow, and police expect several hundred.
But their numbers will be dwarfed by 40,000 to 60,000 people that Cologne’s Mayor hopes will gather for one of the 20 or so planned counter-demos also expected to attract supporters from other European countries.
Mayor Fritz Schramma, whose council recently gave the green light for the construction of Europe’s biggest mosques, has called on Cologne to show the far Right “the cold shoulder”.
“Shut your windows and doors, lower your shutters . . . make it clear to Pro-Koeln and its camarilla: you are not welcome in Cologne,” Mr Schramma said.
“Cologne is a city for Christians and Muslims, for people with and without religion . . . renowned for its variety and its tolerance . . . populist Right-wing rat catchers openly in favour of exclusion and who stir up fear are not welcome.”
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Cologne Braces for Anti-Islam Protesters Amid Fears of Violence
Cologne, 19 Sept. (AKI) — Far-right protesters were gathering in the German city of Cologne this weekend to attend a three-day anti-Islamification congress” amid fears of possible clashes with Muslim minorities as well as German leftist groups.
The anti-immigrant Pro-Cologne group has organised the event in protest at plans to build a grand mosque for the city’s sizeable Muslim community.
Trade unions and Muslim groups have organised a peaceful mass counter-demonstration in support of the building of the mosque.
Over 3,000 police officers have been deployed to maintain peace and security in the otherwise tolerant city.
The Pro-Cologne group has invited other far-right groups from neighbouring Austria, France and Belgium to take part in their protest.
Throughout Cologne, signs calling for resistance to the event are reported to be visible. Barkeepers have also decided not to serve Cologne’s famous beer ‘Koelsch’, to far-right protesters.
The city gave planning permission this month for the mosque, which will have a dome and two minarets.
Pro-Cologne is separate from Germany’s far-right parties, but state police have put it under surveillance.
Cologne’s Mayor has also called on its citizens to shun the far-right protest.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hammaad Munshi, Schoolboy Terrorist, Given Two-Year Sentence
Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist was sentenced to two years in jail today after a blueprint for atrocities was found hidden in the schoolboy’s bedroom. Hammaad Munshi, a GCSE student and grandson of a leading Islamic scholar, was 15 when he was recruited by extremists.
By day, Munshi, now 18, attended school as usual, but in the evenings he was part of a cell of internet groomers working to recruit more potential terrorists.
Munshi, of Dewsbury, West Yorks, was found guilty last month of compiling information likely to be useful in terrorism.
He was sentenced to two years in a young offenders institution at the Old Bailey today. The court heard how he downloaded files about making napalm, detonators and grenades for himself and terrorist comrades Aabid Khan and Sultan Muhammad.
Munshi was desperate to go abroad and fight and had internet discussions with Khan about how to smuggle a sword past airport security. Al-Qaeda propaganda promoting “murder and destruction” was stored on his PC and notes on martyrdom hidden under his bed, the court heard.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Mosques; No Discrimination, ‘Moderate Muslims’
(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 18 — “We have not established any discrimination towards the Muslim religion. We consider, however, that it is right greater control to be exerted over the places of worship and request a register of the imams to be made,” some “moderate Muslim Arabs, members of the observatory of Romés Centro Averroe” wrote in a statement, affirming they did not recognise themselves in the recent declarations of Mario Scialoja, advisor of Romés Great Mosque, and Ahmed Gianpiero Vincenzo, chairman of the Muslim Intellectuals. Yesterday Scialoja and Vincenzo judged as unconstitutional the hypothesis of a referendum among the citizens on the construction of new mosques, contained in a bill of the Lega del Nord. Vincenzo and Scialoja, the signatories write, “spoke of ‘evident discrimination’’ and of “different treatment” towards Muslims”. “I have lived in Italy for 23 years and I have never noticed any type of discrimination towards Islam. It is not just to accuse Italy of discrimination towards the other religions, let alone the Muslim one. Italy is much more hospitable and available than other European countries,” chairman of the observatory, Ahmed Habouss, responded, among others. The group heading the Averroé cultural centre, a structure whose promoter was president of the Moroccan women in Italy, and now PdL MP, Souad Sbai, includes also Abdellah Mechnoune Abu Anas, Turin’s imam and president of the Islamic organisation of the Arab and European world. “The moderate Muslims who have chosen to live in Italy and love this country do not feel discriminated in any way. There is total freedom of worship and religion and no one can declare the opposite. As an imam of an Italian main city, I have been able to establish the presence throughout the territory of moderate Islamic associations,” he pointed out. “I do not see and I am not suffering any type of discrimination,” president of ATM Onlus for the protection of foreign minors in Italy, Saber Mounia, said adding that the referendum is a right choice to avoid that freedom is “exploited by some minorities and entities for personal as well as political goals, on behalf of a million Muslims in Italy”. In line are also Najat Hadi, community of the Muslim women in Italy, Iliana El Moutii, Nadia Khdaidi (“In Rome we have the biggest mosque in Europe, an absolute privilege that other countries do not have”) and Amina Ouadriri, who also calls for “more severe control over the do-it-your-way imams”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Doctor Hands Out Painkillers for Broken Neck
A ROAD crash victim with a broken neck was twice sent home from hospital after wrongly being diagnosed with whiplash, it was revealed yesterday.
The student was in so much pain he fainted, but the junior doctor treating him failed to order an X-ray that would have shown the fracture. It was only eight weeks later that the problem was finally discovered, and the victim needed surgery.
Yesterday, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman upheld a complaint over the student’s inadequate care, and ordered the health board involved to apologise.
The victim, who has not been named, was a passenger in a car when it swerved off the road while travelling at high speed and rolled down an embankment before coming to rest in a ditch in June last year.
He managed to walk home and, after being interviewed by police, went to the A&E department at Stirling Royal Infirmary with his mother, suffering “excruciating” pain in his neck.
He was examined by a junior doctor who diagnosed whiplash and sent the patient home with painkillers and an exercise leaflet for those suffering from neck strain.
At no point was an X-ray suggested and the student said he assumed the doctor believed he had not suffered a serious injury. He claimed that the whole examination took less than three minutes.
Later the same day, when his mother was putting painkilling gel on his neck, he suffered intense pain and fainted, falling to the ground unconscious.
An ambulance was called and he was advised to return to hospital, where he was sent to a waiting room. After 30 minutes, he could not cope with the pain and his mother found a nurse who gave him two paracetamol.
After another 30 minutes, the student’s father spoke to a nurse to complain at the length of time he had been waiting. The student then saw the same doctor as earlier in the day, who again said he had whiplash.
The fracture was diagnosed only two months later after an osteopath wrote to his GP saying he should have an X-ray.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thousands of Five-Year-Olds Can’t Write Their Own Name After a Year at School…
Despite £12bn Spent on Nursery Education
One in seven children struggles to write his or her name after a year at primary school, official figures showed yesterday.
Fourteen per cent of five-year-olds — almost 80,000 — are unable to scribble ‘mum’, ‘dad’ or their first name from memory.
Some 11 per cent have trouble sounding out the alphabet, and four in ten cannot write a simple shopping list or letter to Father Christmas, according to assessments of pupils’ progress at the end of their reception year at primary school.
One in seven primary school students struggle to write their own name after a year in school, official figures show
Overall, just half of the 556,000 children at this stage were judged to have reached a ‘good level of development’.
The figures, which come from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, apply to pupils in both state and private sectors. While the five-year-olds’ progress was judged to be better than last year, it was still down on 2005 in most areas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Human Rights: Italy Gives 130,000 Euro for Book in Arabic
(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, SEPTEMBER 16 — The Italian Government will collaborate through the allocation of 130,000 euro for spreading the knowledge of human rights in the Arab countries. The sum will be given to UNESCO to make and spread in Arabic the book ‘Human Rights: Questions and Answers’ written by Leah Levin in 1981. The publication was translated in 31 languages and is an important instrument of raising the awareness and spreading of the culture of human rights both for the NGOs and the civil societies of the Arab region. The project will be entrusted to the UNESCO office in Rabat and will last nine months. It envisages the translation, draft, printing and distribution of the work in 11 Arab states. The first part of the book is dedicated to the description of the main instruments of international law and safeguarding of human rights. The second illustrates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and makes an analysis of its articles. The work will be distributed in 10,000 copies (of which 250 in Morocco) and will be used to promote human rights through UNESCO, the universities, municipalities and especially through the ‘Coalition of the Arab cities against racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance’, an organisation launched with UNESCO on June 25, 2008 in Casablanca and the ‘Arab research-policy network on economic, social and cultural rights (ARADESK), launched on March 30, 2006. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Did 15,000 Arabs Just Determine Israel’s New Leader?
JERUSALEM — Did fewer than 15,000 Arabs just determine who will serve as Israel’s next prime minister?
That may be the case following Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s slim win here by just 431 votes in yesterday’s primary for the leadership of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party. The primary elections had a high Arab turnout.
Now, if Livni can form a stable governing coalition — meaning if she can recruit enough parties to maintain a plurality of the Knesset’s 120 seats — she would finish out Olmert’s term in office, becoming prime minister in his place until new elections are held as scheduled late next year.
But if she does lead the country, Livni will hardly have a mandate, as she was elected not by the majority of the Israeli public, but in internal party elections in which less than 0.5 percent of Israelis took part. More than 10 times that number vote in Israel’s version of “American Idol.”
According to the final tally, Livni won the Kadima primary election with 43.1 percent of the vote, or 16,936 registered Kadima members. Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz came in a very close second with 42 percent, or 16,505 votes.
The question becomes who voted in yesterday’s Kadima primary, in which registered party members who are regular citizens took part.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Talks With Israel, Disagreements Among PNA Leaders
(By Aldo Baquis) (ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV/GAZA, SEPTEMBER 17 — While Israel is seeking today new leadership to replace Ehud Olmert, forced from office over a series of scandals, the leaders in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) are now indecisive whether to keep their contacts with the outgoing prime minister, or to wait for the political frame in Jerusalem to get clear. According to today’s press, disagreements emerged yesterday with regard to this between the President of PNA Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and the chief negotiator and former prime minister Abu Ala (Ahmed Qurei). Meanwhile the gap between the leaders in the West Bank and in Gaza remains wide. After a day of bloody clashes in Gaza yesterday when 12 people were killed, al-Fatah accused Hamas of having committed “a massacre, much heavier because it was committed during Ramadan”, the Islamic fasting month. Yesterday Abbas had a two-hour talk with Olmert in Jerusalem during which it emerged that he is determined to continue the hard talks in the spirit of the conference in Annapolis (USA, December 2007) with the hope to reach an agreement by the end of the year. Olmert is expected to submit his resignation tomorrow, but he will remain in office until the formation of a new government. It could take months, time which the prime minister certainly does not want to waste. Abu Ala was absent from yesterday’s meeting. According to the Palestinian press the contacts with the Israeli are considered sterile at this stage. There is also a fear that they are harmful for the public image of al-Fatah. However, the issue which mostly disturbs the Palestinian public opinion is the battle which stormed yesterday the Sabra district in Gaza between the forces of order of Hamas and members of the Dugmush armed group. Mortars and rocket guns were used in densely populated areas. Ten members of the Dugmush family, including an 18-month-old baby, and two agents were killed. Palestinian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Pchr-Gaza denounced both the violent behaviour of the police of Hamas and that of the Dugmush who “transformed a residential area into arms storage”. In this climate of polarisation the Egyptians are once again trying to bring closer the positions of the Palestinian factions. Former minister of foreign affairs Nabil Shaath, a representative of al-Fatah, will be in Cairo on Monday with a delegation of Hamas. The intention is to give life to a united government “finally free of Zionist-American pressures”, Salah Bardawil (Hamas), explained. However, the assumption of Hamas is that Abbas will step aside: “His mandate expires in January 2009,” Bardawil said. “And our basic legislation should be respected.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PNA: EU Provides 1 Mln Euro to Central Bureau of Statistics
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 17 — The President of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Luay Shabaneh, and the European Commission Representative in Jerusalem, John Kjaer, signed a one million euro agreement in support of the work of the PCBS over a period of 18 months. The funds from the EU financed PEGASE mechanism, will mostly be used to help finalise and disseminate the final results of the Census 2007.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Shiites are ‘Invading’ Sunni societies: Qaradawi
Prominent Sunni Muslim religious commentator Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi charged on Thursday that Shiite Muslims are “invading” Sunni societies.
“I stick to what I have said about an attempted Shiite invasion of Sunni societies,” the Egyptian-born cleric, who is based in Qatar, said in a statement.
“We must face up to it otherwise we will have betrayed our mission,” Qaradawi added. He also described Shiites as “heretics”
Qaradawi said he was responding to recent criticism by two prominent Shiite clerics, Lebanon’s Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah and Iran’s Ayatollah Mohamad Ali Tashkiri, of earlier remarks he had made about a Shiite “invasion.”
Sunnis represent the majority of Muslims in the Middle East, but Shiites form the majority in Iran and Iraq and have a substantial presence in Lebanon.
Sunni leaders in the region have voiced concern about a Shiite resurgence following sectarian strife between the two communities in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime in the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 and its replacement by a Shiite-led government.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Foreign Interests Believe Economic Stability Worsenig
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 17 — A majority of foreign interests in Turkey believes the economy will worsen, with little hope of rallying in the short run, a recent survey by the International Investors Association (YASED) has shown. The Barometer Survey, conducted semi-annually to take the pulse of foreign investors in Turkey, indicated that 55% of these investors believe Turkey will continue to lose ground in terms of economic stability. The report was released yesterday at a press conference in Ankara by YASED Chairman Tahir Uysal, as daily Today’s Zaman reports. A total of 55.1% of YASED members who responded to a questionnaire that formed the basis of the report said they were able to achieve their revenue targets in the first six months of the year. Of those that replied to the questionnaire, 52.7% said they reached their production goals, while 60.4% of them were happy to say that their profit targets had been met. A full 43.3% said they had reached their export targets. These numbers indicate that the performance of foreign companies in the first six months was not negative despite the fact that the period was turbulent and disrupted by a closure case against the ruling party. But they are not equally hopeful for the next six-month period. To illustrate, 46% of these companies noted that the number of employees increased in the given period. However, only 37% believe they will hire new workers. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: More Girls to Attend School in Eastern Regions
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 16 — Many girls are not enrolled in school by their families in Turkey’s poverty-stricken Eastern provinces due to both the patriarchal family structure and lower living standards but recent campaigns to encourage families to send their daughters to school started to pay off. “The first serious and extensive campaign to increase the number of girls in school, ‘Hey Girls, Let’s Go to School’, was initiated in 2004 in Van and was expected to last one year but the campaign is still continuing because of the positive results it has produced”, Yayha Yildiz, Van Provincial Director of Education, said to Anatolia News Agency. “Families are still being visited in an effort to persuade them to allow their daughters to attend the school”, Yildiz noted, adding that “29,000 girls and 43,000 children in total have been introduced to school so far as a result of the project”. In addition to the ‘Hey Girls, Let’s Go to School’ campaign, Yildiz also drew attention to the increasing number of minibuses facilitating the transportation of children often living far away from the school stressing that winter conditions in the region are rough. “We now have 48 transportation centers in Van and families feel comfortable sending their children to school because they know the boys are in safe hands”, Yildiz declared.” The school fees the families have to pay every year is 39 Turkish Liras (22 euros) but although the amount is not very high it represents a big economic effort to families living in village conditions”, the Director said.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan Urges Boycott on Dogan Newspapers
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 19 — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged yesterday members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to boycott the newspapers owned by Dogan Media Group. Oppostion parties and media organizations slammed Erdogan today, as daily Hurriyet website reports. “Turkish media has lost its reliability and destroyed itself,” Erdogan told the AKP members in a meeting in Ankara. “For this reason, I say you, as the party members, should start your own campaign against the media that published false stories, and not let them enter your homes. Do not buy them,” he said. Erdogan has accused Dogan, owner of Turkey’s largest media group, of using his print and broadcast empire to defame the government and the ruling AKP with reports of alleged corruption. The government denies any corruption links. Tensions have flared over the past week between the government and the country’s largest independent media group, Dogan Holding, over its coverage of corruption allegations. The issue has prompted debate about press freedom in the European Union candidate country. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India: Police ‘Kill Two Islamic Militants in Raid’
Delhi, 19 Sept. (AKI) — Two suspected Islamic militants were killed on Friday and two police officers were injured in a fierce exchange of gunfire during a raid on a house in south Delhi, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Police stormed the house in Delhi’s predominantly Muslim Jamia Nagar district, where they believed the suspected militants were hiding, the Joint Commissioner of Police, Karnail Singh told reporters, quoted by the PTI.
One of the militants killed by police — named by the PTI as Atiq — and an unnamed associate who also died, were wanted in connection with a series of deadly blasts in Delhi last week.
Police arrested another suspected militant during the raid on a four-storey building next to a mosque, but two others managed to escape, Singh said.
Delhi police on Wednesday issued sketches of three men who they believe were involved in the bomb attacks that hit the city last Saturday.
An e-mail from a group purportedly calling itself ‘The Indian Mujahadeen’ claimed it had carried out the lethal attacks.
Five bombs exploded in a busy Delhi shopping area within minutes of each other, killing 24 people and injured 90.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India School Head Kills Boy Who Answered Back
An 11-year-old boy has been beaten to death by his headmaster in the Indian state of Bihar — the third child to be beaten to death by a teacher in India this year.
Gyan Ranjan, who had been a pupil at Holy Mission Children’s Academy in Rajepur for just over a month, died last Friday after he was punished for answering back to one of his teachers.
The school initially tried to cover up the murder and claimed Gyan had committed suicide. However, local villagers became suspicious and alerted the boy’s family.
Police begun a murder investigation following a complaint from the boy’s father, and the headteacher, Uday Kumar Sharan, along with two other teachers, has since gone into hiding.
Many children’s rights campaigners believe reported deaths are merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’ and that severe physical abuse is endemic in Indian schools.
In January, a 15-year-old Delhi girl, Rinki Kaushik, was beaten with a stick by a teacher for refusing to take extra tuition. She sustained serious head injuries and never regained consciousness. She died in hospital three months later.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Porn Bill’s Passage Deferred Amid Protests From Balinese
Jakarta, 19 Sept. (AKI/Jakarta Post) — The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and other hard-line Islamic groups may not be able to present the much-criticised pornography bill as a “Ramadan gift” as the Parliament has delayed passing it amid increasing public resistance.
On Friday, Balinese legislators, artists and tourism operators came to Jakarta to lobby MPs for the bill to be dropped. The bikini-clad tourist centre of Bali (photo) may have to cover up if the bill is passed.
The attempt to define pornography and set a moral tone across the vast, mainly Muslim archipelago of Indonesia has won the support of Golkar, the country’s largest party, but is opposed by the Democratic Party of Struggle, backed by the former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
The bill was initially scheduled to be brought to a plenary session of the Parliament next Tuesday for endorsement, but this has been indefinitely postponed following protests from several provinces nationwide.
Democratic spokesman Made Arjaya said the Bill could hurt Bali’s tourism industry, which is still recovering from the terrorist bombings of 2002-2005.
A member of the Parliament’s special committee deliberating the bill, Yoyoh Yusroh, said on Thursday it needed to extend the deliberation period.
The schedule for a plenary session to pass the bill into law remains tentative as the deliberation process is subject to change, said Yoyoh, a legislator with the Islamic-based PKS.
PKS faction chairman Mahfudz Siddiq said last week the bill, which was presented to the Parliament three years ago, would be passed within a few weeks as a “gift” for Muslims during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Yoyoh said the next hearings, scheduled for after the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, would include meetings with the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, the Communications and Information Ministry and the State Ministry for Women’s Empowerment.
The bill continues to spark controversies, with some critics saying it threatens the right to privacy as well as pluralism in the country. Many of its articles are “contentious and vague”, they added.
Opponents also say the bill may spark national disintegration, and that it is not urgent as it overlaps with the Criminal Code and existing laws, including on child protection, broadcasting and the press.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mindanao, Fate of Kidnapped Volunteers Wrapped in Mystery
Fr Angel Calvo asks for “contact with the kidnappers”, and proof that the women “are still alive”. No news from the kidnappers, whose identity remains uncertain. Clashes continue between the MILF and the army, while the situation worsens for the refugees, who face famine.
Manila (AsiaNews) — “We are asking for contact with the kidnappers, we want certain proof of the fact that the two volunteers are still alive and are doing well”. This is the appeal issued to AsiaNews by Fr Angel Calvo, head of the Interreligious Movement for Solidarity and Peace, who expresses his hopes for “certain proof” of the health of Esperancita Hupita, 42, activities director for the Nagdilaab Foundation — an association that runs humanitarian programs on behalf of the war-torn local people — and Millet Mendoza, who works with the NGO Tabang Mindanaw.
“At the moment, we have received no sign from the kidnappers”, continues Fr Calvo, president of the Nagdilaab Foundation, “in spite of the fact that we have many friends in the area where the kidnapping took place”. The priest confirms that “there is no sure information” about the hiding place chosen by the kidnappers and by any possible movements of the group. He nonetheless expresses “optimism” that the affair could be resolved “soon, and in a positive manner”. “We have heard news from the police that initial contacts have taken place, but we have seen no sign of these here in the area”. “In spite of everything”, Fr Calvo says, “we continue to keep the channels of communication open, and above all we hope that the kidnapping will end positively”.
The women, who are Spanish, were kidnapped on Monday, September 15, by an armed group on the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines, a hotspot for the fundamentalist group Abu Sayyaf, connected to al Qaeda and responsible for kidnappings and killings in the past. The first rumors attributed the kidnapping to local fringe groups of the fundamentalist organization, but these could instead be gangs of criminals that kidnap for money. “We have received no request for ransom”, Fr Calvo concludes, “but we hope that the kidnappers will contact us soon, provide proof that the women are alive, and open negotiations”.
In Mindanao, the area where the Spanish volunteers were kidnapped, tension remains high between the government army and the troops of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), while the situation worsens for the refugees — more than 100,000 of them in the province of North Cotabato alone — who have had to leave their homes on account of the conflict. The sacred month of Ramadan has contributed to bringing a bit of calm back to the region, but it is feared that at the end of the month — with the end of the fasting — there will be a resumption of the fighting and an escalation of the violence. Many of the refugees bear the marks — physical and psychological — of the violence they have undergone, the results of the horrifying scenes they have witnessed during the raids carried out by MILF troops in their villages.
(Santosh Digal contributed to this report)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Philippines: Army Says it Has Seized Southern Muslim Rebel Camp
Manila, 18 Sept. (AKI) — Philippine troops have seized a major Muslim rebel training camp on restive southern Mindanao island and killed seven guerrillas in a separate clash, the military said on Thursday.
The Philippines army says over 100 rebels have been killed in a month-long operation in the south to hunt down three commanders from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
At least 22 soldiers have died and over 100 have been wounded in the bloody clashes, which have left Malaysian-brokered peace talks in shreds.
At least 68 civilians have been killed and more than half a million people have been displaced or lost their homes and livelihoods on Mindanao since the military offensive began last month, according to the Philippines army.
Besides the camp used by fugitive Moro rebel commander Abdulrahman Macapaar captured late on Wednesday, government troops have taken three other major rebel camps and 15 smaller ones over the past month, the army said.
Macapaar and two other wanted MILF commanders attacked several predominantly Christian communities after negotiations on an expanded Muslim homeland stalled last month due to legal challenges raised by mainly Catholic politicians.
In an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, MILF chief Haji al-Murad Ebrahim warned of war if the rebels are forced to defend themselves against an expanding government offensive.
He said he did not want to have “another Iraq” in South-East Asia but if his forces were “pushed to the wall” they would have no option but to retaliate, Ebrahim said.
Ebrahim rejected accusations from some intelligence agencies that the MILF has ties to Al-Qaeda, but admitted that anyone can infiltrate war-torn Mindanao “because there is no control of the area.”
The rebels have been waging a rebellion for nearly 40 years that has stunted growth in the poor region. It is believed to possess hydrocarbon and mineral deposits.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Islamism in Sudan
by Harvey Glickman and Emma Rodman
Islamism in Sudan reflects both modern and older cultural-historical movements in Sudanese life. Similar to Islamist movements in the Middle East, it is distinguished by the sophisticated leadership of its ideological and strategic engineer—Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, by a period of official empowerment, and by violent campaigns of implementation during the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the character of historical Islam in Sudan, as well as the demographics of the Sudanese population, remain pluralistic, not isomorphic. The revolutionary project of Sudanese Islamism remains stalled, incomplete and divided today, but unexpired as an attempt to fabricate and impose a a national identity…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Greens Protest Against “Failed Asylum Policy”
The Flemish and Francophone Greens staged a protest outside the office of the Migration Minister Annemie Turtelboom (Flemish liberal) on Wednesday morning. The aim of the demonstration was to protest against what was described as Ms Turtelboom’s “failed asylum policy”
The protesters carried large photos of four of the illegal immigrants that have been staging a hunger strike in a building on the campus of Brussels’ Francophone Free University. Many of the hunger strikers have started to become ill as a result of their protest.
The Greens accuse the Minister of nonchalance and say that current migration policy has failed. They also accuse ministers of having failed to deliver on promises made in the past.
The protesters demanded that the Minister start work on a policy circular that clearly sets out procedures for dealing with asylum seekers. The Greens added that the situation is desperate for the seventy hunger strikers in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Admiring a Flawed Gandhi
I am glad many Indians whose pride trumps their sense of humour don’t read advertisements for Danish newspapers. Otherwise they’d be out protesting an ad of the daily Morgenavisen Jyllands Posten. That newspaper became famous for publishing controversial cartoons of Mohammed in September 2005. Its recent campaign reminds us of what makes it unique.
(See the ads here.
The ad says: Life is easier, if you don’t speak up. The ads show the Dalai Lama admiring the Himalayas while preparing to ski down a slope; Nelson Mandela relaxing on a beach, carrying a surf board; and Mohandas Gandhi, smiling with a beer bottle in one hand, with the other, he is barbecuing sausages, empty beer bottles at his feet.
This is admirable chutzpah, for these ads are meant to make us think. They challenge the self-righteous among us — South Africans (and others who opposed apartheid), Tibetans (and their global supporters), and Indians (and Gandhi fans worldwide), telling them not to rush to judgement, but to reflect on the message. Far from ridiculing these exceptional men, the ads show how Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Gandhi could have led cushy, comfortable lives if they had not stood up for what they believed in.
The ads also challenge the world’s Muslims — and those who believe that one must treat Muslims, and Islam, as distinct from other faiths or cultures, needing special protection (because their reaction can turn violent). If Indians, Tibetans and South Africans don’t go berserk and demand apologies, bans, or attack Danish embassies, what lesson should the Muslims draw? That the others are cowards? Or that their visceral response is wrong?
We will learn soon, but I am not sanguine. The ads are already on the Internet — on Amit Varma’s blog, India Uncut, he has observed: “I suspect that if the Gandhi ad was seen in India, there would certainly be so-called Gandhians getting upset by such a portrayal and demanding an apology from Jyllands-Posten — thereby missing the point entirely.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Support for Bin Laden and Suicide Bombers Falls, But Remains High
A survey shows that agreement with the reasons for terrorism has diminished everywhere.The lowest level of agreement is in Turkey (3%), but there are countries like Lebanon, Nigeria, and Jordan where suicide bombers have the support of one third or one fourth of Muslims.
Washington (AsiaNews) — There has been a significant drop in support from the Muslim world for suicide attacks “in defense of Islam”, but there nevertheless remains a disquieting percentage of people who continue to express their support for terrorism. This is the result of a study carried out by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, which surveyed the opinions of 24,000 people, 8,000 of them in eight Muslim countries.
The percentages say that the lowest level of support for suicide attackers and Bin Laden is in Turkey: only 3% of Turks agree with these, a 10-point drop compared to 2002, when a similar survey was last carried out.
In Lebanon, those who maintain that suicide attacks are “always” or “sometimes” justifiable in defense of Islam were 74%; now they are 42% fewer, but still over 30%. This means that one third of Lebanese Muslims are still in favor of suicide bombers. The percentage is similar in Nigeria, the most populous African country, where solidarity with the terrorists is found among one third of the population, although it has dropped by 15%. It’s a little better in Jordan, where support for suicide attacks is favored by 25% of the people, a drop of 18 points.
But there has also been a serious loss of support for terrorists in Pakistan, where just 5% of Muslims share the motivations of the suicide bombers, compared to 28% before. In Egypt, which was not included in the survey in 2002, 5% express sympathy toward suicide attacks. That’s about half of the percentage in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world, where about 10% of Muslims express solidarity with suicide bombers. But here as well, in 2002 the number was 15 percentage points higher.
Support for Bin Laden has also fallen, although it remains high in some countries. In Nigeria, 60% say they support the head of Al Qaeda, and in Indonesia and Pakistan about one third of Muslims say they do. But previously, these were respectively 60% and almost 50%.
Turkey and Lebanon show the lowest levels of support for the sheikh of terror, 2% of Lebanese and 3% of Turks. Here, too, it is a significant reduction: previously, these were 5% and 20% respectively. It is in Jordan, instead, where Bin Laden has lost most support: from 60% to 19%. So significantly fewer, but still about one fifth of the population.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Tale of the Arab Flight Crew
[see linked article for photos]
The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The date was November 15, 2007.
The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is.
The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc.) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm.
This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.
The computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can’t land with the brakes on.
Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $80 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.
The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to leak out.
| — Hat tip: CzC | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican: Message to Muslims to Cooperate for Family Dignity
(ANSAmed) — VATICAN CITY, SEPTEMBER 19 — Intensifying the collaboration “both on local and international levels”, to support the family and defend it in the “difficult and dramatic” situations it has to face at times, such as “drugs”, “violence”, “hard childhood”, and working together to “favour the stability of the family institution and of parental responsibility”. This is the proposal that Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran made in the traditional message to Muslims on the occasion of the end of Ramadan, titled “Christians and Muslims: Together for the Dignity of the Family”. The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, defining the message of Catholics at the end of Ramadan as an “already well-established tradition”, explains he chose the family as a subject “of topicality, capable of enriching our exchanges and helping us get to know better each other, with our common values and our differences”. It is therefore necessary to collaborate to “favour the family, this community of love and in the respect of life”. The message did not hint at the difference of the family model for Christians and Muslims. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
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